#43: Go on 5 vacations

Vacation #2: 07.01.10-07.14.10, To the Rockies w/ Mom.

My mom and I took off on the road in her RV van for two weeks, hitting up all sorts of places along I-90, on our way to the final destination of....the Rocky Mountains and visiting my brother. Here's the places we went:

Rockford, IL.





We stopped here on a whim to go to Rockford for a museum we read about in a tour book. Outside of the museum was a beautiful nature walk through the prairie, complete with weeping willows. The museum had exhibits about the Rockford Peaches (A League of their Own was my favorite movie when I was younger), sock monkeys (Rockford is the home of the seamless sock machine, and thus, the sock monkey), and a small airplane, my favorite kind.




Madison, WI.



We stopped in Madison for an evening and a morning, biked around the Monona Terrace Convention center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, ate at the Great Dane Pub, and walked along State Street. In the morning we biked all along the lakeshore bike path to downtown and went to the farmer's market--it was totally bonkers and packed. The above photo is from a booth selling every type of jelly you could ever think of--and then some! Like sour apple and jalapeno jelly--who'd of thought to put those together?! The opening in the line of jars is from the one that I bought--Queen Anne's Lace jelly. Yep, they made a jelly out of a flower/weed. It's super yummy.



Mitchell, SD.

The home of the World's Only Corn Palace! A building covered/decorated in corn. Since it's still early in the year, it's not totally done yet--but they were working away at it! We ate corn on the cob, aaaaand got ice cream.




Mt. Rushmore, SD.



Yeah, the novelty of Mt. Rushmore wore off on me pretty quickly, but it felt like one of those things I was obligated to see, y'know? It bothers me that Roosevelt is up there, but that's a rant I won't subject my lovely blog readers to.




Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer, SD.

More on this in another entry!


Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.

We camped inside the park, with my brother and his girlfriend joining us on and off, and went for long hikes within the park. The mountains are beautiful and peaceful, majestic and awe-inspiring. We saw moose and elk and bighorn sheep. It was a beautiful few days. We also spent some time outside of Denver at Chris and Tracy's house, which was nice. It was my first time meeting Tracy, and I really like her and was happy to have some time to get to know her.



It was a great vacation, but it was a long vacation. We both got homesick, and ended up coming home a few days early. We drove home in a day and half (15 hours straight on the last day!) and got home on Wednesday, instead of Sunday. Then I got to spend a few great days in the Detroit area with my friends and family before returning to the U.P.