Home again, home again, jiggity jig. All went smoothly in our travels. Michigan was decently fun. And, as promised, some stats: 3700 miles 64 hours 11 states 17 days Best places: Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Minneapolis Honorable Mentions: Denver Not worth your time (sorry to anybody from there): Albuquerque, Mt. Rushmore, Cheyenne Dishonorable mention: Mojave Desert. I'm sorry, but 117o is just not cool (pun intended) Coolest things to do: Swim in random reservoirs and lakes we happened across, drive the Trail Ridge Road, win money in Vegas Best food: Buffalo. South Dakota wins one Until my next trip, thanks for reading!... read more

After a slow morning, we got up and moving on a mission: to see some artsy stuff, and check out the biggest mall in the country. We started at Mall of America. It's about a 20 minute drive outside the city, but good lord is it immense. You walk in, and the central courtyard has a full amusement park. It's not just one roller coaster, it's three. And two dozen other rides. Of course, there's a couple hundred stores and cafes, an arcade, a kids area, and about 11 parking lots. And a hotel. I literally can't even explain it. We just wandered around, played some in the arcade, window shopped, did a little actual shopping, and then just laughed about there being an actual amusement park in a mall. When we got back to the ... read more

Don't bother going to Mt. Rushmore. Really. Some national parks or monuments are worth it. The grandeur puts you in awe. Grand Canyon is one: you cannot imagine its immensity, even in front of it, but less so through a picture. Mount Rushmore? What you see is what you get. Your imagination is all you need. We were in and out of the park in less than 2 hours. There is little to do there, and not a lot to see besides the mountain. Sure, it's cool. But really not worth a trip. We also went in to see Rapid City, the city nearby, and get lunch. We found a dinosaur park that was just a bunch of giant dinosaurs on a hill. To a bunch of nerdy 20-somethings, it was AWESOME. What was also cool ... read more

After a wonderful night catching up with my family, we took advantage of the chance to sleep in late in comfortable beds. I got up around, I would guess, 9:00, and went for a nice run around the golf course near their house. Bad idea. The air at that level, combined with not having run for about a week and a half (but given how much we've been doing, it feels like a month and a half), made the run extremely difficult and tiring. I did enjoy the water waiting for me when I got back, though! After breakfast and packing up, we headed into downtown Denver for a couple hours, because we did, of course, need to see the major city we were staying near. It's actually very much a city I could see myself ... read more

Although I'm glad we got to visit Albuquerque, I don't think I see myself coming back anytime soon. It was cool, and our Airbnb host was amazing, but it's just not really my style (read: too hot. Among other issues). Regardless, we did do some pretty cool stuff. We started by visiting Old Town, which did have some neat shops. A soap shop, an olive oil store, and some cafes and art stores were among the group we walked by. We found a really cool fro-yo place that was self-serve, but priced by size rather than weight, which was wonderful for our wallets, if not our waistlines. From there, we drove to the Rio Grande State Park, where we walked along the Rio Grande for a bit, and sat in a nice little pond-overlook-room and watched ... read more