ROAD TRIP!!!!

Jake was heading home from DC so I met him in Chicago to drive back with him..... and this is how much fun we had in the process.......

We stopped to see the ginormous bean!

Wow, Jake you look funny and kinda short!

Of course we had to have a little Chicago style deep dish pizza from the famous Giordano's :)

We walked all around the beautiful city; where, by the way, I got tendonitis in my feet! :) It still hasn't gone away!

we walked down by the river

went to the Navy Pier, then back to Aunt Kathy's house.

Then we were off to Des Moines, Iowa. We stopped to visit Lu and LuMae. She made us some amazing Chinese food and Tofu!!

We stayed with Bruce and Kathy in Ida Grove, IA. This small town is pretty cool! There are castles everywhere! There was a wealthy guy, back in the day, that had taken a trip to Europe and saw lots of cool castles. Well when he came back to the states, he decided he wanted castles built in his town. So he gave money to anyone who said they would build their building like a castle! :) Hence it was like castle town! Pretty cool, huh!?!

So... I got this "Road Trip Book" that had all these cool little places that we could stop at along the way.... so we took the opportunity to do just that! :)

I know what you're thinking, of all the places that you could have stopped at, you stopped at an ice cream factory???? Really??? I mean, it's not like I have an abnormally and unhealthy obsession with ice cream or anything :)

Okay, maybe I do!

So we couldn't resist! Shakes, straight from the Blue Bunny factory! :) YAY!!!!

This place is the Corn Palace! They redecorate it each year with murals of corn, both inside and out!

Aren't the murals pretty amazing, especially cause their made out of little cobs of corn!
(Above) This was pretty much what the scenery looked like for most of the trip! :)

Here are the BAD LANDS!!! After driving through so much of the above, this was a pretty cool sight to see!

I love bunny rabbits!
Now for the drum roll please.... Mount Rushmore!

Jake got to kiss 2 presidents and I got to kiss one too! Sweet ol George Washington!

This is the Crazy Horse monument that they are working on now in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When it's done it will be way bigger than Mt. Rushmore!

Before we got too close to home we realized we didn't have any pics of us and the car, which is a definite must for a road trip! So we pulled right over and set up the camera with the timer. Jake ran so fast to try to make the picture that I think he dented his car in the process! :)

Home again.... safe and sound! Jake and I had a great time.
Some things that were definitely awesome about the trip:

• Hearing all about Jake's time in DC and having the long, deep conversations about life, the earth, religion, society, relationships and all that good stuff that we usually talk about on a regular basis :)
• Trying the new crisp potato taco at Taco Bell, several times! Mmm... and perfect for vegetarians!
  
• The fact that Jake has the "worst music ever made CD." I only made it through 2 songs before I couldn't take it anymore! Then I turned on my "best music ever" from my ipod!
• Also... Jake's got this substantial obsession with the word substantial and he definitely used the word a substantial amount during our substantial trip! I thought it was substantially hilarious!

The End