We had a whirlwind of sightseeing the last couple of days...27,500 steps yesterday and 20,000 today. T is keeping track with her Fitbit. If my feets ever get worn down to bloody stumps, she'll be able to prove why. Oddly, though, my feet don't even hurt...(for reals). My mom made me email my dad back home (who has of late been diligently tracking his steps) to tell him how many steps *we* did yesterday...she may or may not have wanted me to relay that he could "put that in your pipe and smoke it". We got a hop-on, hop-off pass, but still (obviously) did a lot of walking. The Danube splits the city into the Buda and Pest sides. The Pest side is super walkable and if I had it to do over I may pass ... read more

We had only one full day in Denver before flying home and with an abundance of options, how do you narrow them down? We immediately eliminated anything that would require a lot of driving since we were officially drived out. We also wanted something we hadn't done already along the way, so after some interweb searching we settled on the Denver Botanic Gardens. Smack in the middle of the city, this place was a shockingly beautiful surprise. It was huge - you could literally spend hours quietly wandering through. Without a doubt the most spectacular urban botanical garden I've seen. We also lucked in and showed up on a free admission day. Sweet! It also gave me an opportunity to put to work a photo lesson my uncle gave me before the trip. Sweet x 2! ... read more

Following the resplendent magnificence that was Yellowstone National Park, our next stop was Cody, Wyoming - famed home of Buffalo Bill Cody - about 1 hour outside the east entrance of YNP. It's a small place, but you have your choice of a number of things to see/do dependin' on which way your travel inclinations lean. We opted for the very compact and excellent Old Trail Town. OTT has collected a number of small buildings from the town's environs and lovingly restored them. The stories about those interred in the small cemetery were fascinating and their (teeny, tiny) museum was equally interesting. Lots of old photos which we poured over. The long, sweeping moustache sure was popular back then. In Cody along the main drag, just outside Buffalo Bill's historic Irma Hotel, there is an old ... read more

We've enjoyed many an American National Park/monument in previous trips (the most we saw I n one stretch was an impressive 17 when we did our American Southwest road trip awhile back (Zion was my favourite) and this time we're hoping to tackle 8, starting with Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah. From Colorado Springs we had a gorgeous drive along the I-70W. Most of this leg was through Colorado and let me say this to you, CO - you are a shockingly gorgeous state. Pictures don't do it justice but it's going on my fav drives playlist. We arrived at DNM late in the afternoon and the fossil site isn't open late (only until 5pm) so we hurried on over. The area is known for having an enormous amount of dinosaur fossils, and a number ... read more

Before bestie T et moi take on the road trip proper, we decided to fly into Chicago for a spell. Our occasional third travel musketeer, Auntie A, joined us for the Chicago bit. (And is it still "musketeer" when we is all refined ladies? Should it not be Musketrixes? Musketrettes? Or are we just going gender neutral with this? I digress.) We arrived on September 10 and left obscenely early on the 13th. Here's what we did: 1) Architectural river tour (everyone's favourite, even though it rained the whole time) 2) Hop-on, hop-off (Big Bus) a few times - we got the 48hr pass with the intention of using it often to get around to the main sites, but in the end it was more efficient to walk so that's what we did. Still worth it ... read more