Category Archives: USA

Planning our Final Stop: South America

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After a whirlwind three months in Europe, we headed back to the United States to visit family and celebrate Sara’s brother’s wedding. The first week back was full of projects preparing for the wedding at our family home in western Pennsylvania. Everything came together perfectly with a stunning wedding celebrating a beautiful couple.

Pennsylvania Fall Lakeside Wedding Tent

The Farm

Once the wedding excitement ended, we headed to eastern Pennsylvania to visit my family before getting back on the road. Our days were already packed to ensure we saw everyone in the surrounding area. Because we had not yet booked anything for our final leg in South America, it was becoming very easy to think about staying home surrounded by family instead of getting back on the road. But we both knew Continue reading →

California!

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I wrote this on the plane to Shanghai last Thursday, but due to internet limitations I’m am just now able to post.


We finished out our United States tour with a great visit to Las Angeles. We were able to spend time with our niece and took her to a 90 year old carousel. She didn’t enjoy the ride too much, but she really liked dancing to the old timey music. We then took a trip out into the desert to surprise our uncle for his birthday. Walking into his house we were surrounded with hundreds of hummingbirds! I couldn’t believe how many there were and how they were not timid – If you stood still you could be within inches of the feeding hummingbirds.


The next day we took a road trip up to Mammoth Lakes to visit family friends – what a wonderful town! On previous visits we only skied, but neither Sara or I wanted to risk getting hurt since the snow conditions were poor. Instead, we explored the area including “Mono Lake”. It’s one of the few lakes that doesn’t drain to the ocean. Because of this unique topography it is very salty and has large petrified springs rising out of the lake bed. Mono Lake and the surrounding Mammoth Lakes scenery was breathtaking!

The next day our mission was to find one of the local hot springs. After getting vague directions such as “turn down a dirt road and it is near a sandy hill” we set off on the hunt. After 45 minutes of trying different dirt roads near sandy hills (there were a lot!) we finally a suitable spring where we could soak and relax.

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Slowly getting there

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Officially on the road! Everything went into storage last Saturday after an exhausting week of packing. The process was extra grueling because it seemed necessary to have all items organized into single boxes and well labeled to simplify things upon our return. Thankfully we had help from the parents to move it all to storage. As we began towering everything into the 10×10 unit, we worried that not everything would fit and priced an adjacent unit. But mom came to the rescue with some amazing Tetris skills saving us the extra expense.

We are actually writing this during our first train trip (of many) to our second Christmas destination (can’t have too many presents!) We are on the scenic route across Pennsylvania, but could only enjoy the view for a little while before the sun set behind the mountains. Although the view was limited, we are enjoying the journey with the on-board happy hour and some relaxation after the stress of packing. It seems like organizing for the trip is never ending and we still have too much in tow – we even had to enlist dad’s help to sneak a few extra bags onto the train! Good thing we have a few more days to reorganize and better prepare for the trip.

We had a wonderful Christmas with everyone and hopefully they enjoyed our antics as well!