We've made it through a jam-packed two weeks, spending time in several states and driving well over 1,000 miles.Unfortunately our camera was getting repaired (thanks United Camera!), so there aren't really any photos. If we get some from some friends (hint, hint), we'll add them. Fortunately, however, we have our camera back now, and will be going to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona tomorrow, which we are quite sure will be very photogenic. Currently we are at a hotel, with Anderson's parents, in Grants, New Mexico, after the first day of our road-trip to California. We're headed there for a Muth family reunion, and we'll then be departing from LAX late Monday night.
Now for the rewind: after Luke's legendary birthday party :-), we headed back up to Wisconsin for about another week. For July 4th we spent the entire weekend camped next to the Chippewa River, on Liz's aunt and uncle's property. We sold stuff (literally, all sorts of stuff) at the nearby flea market with Liz's grandma, floated the river for several hours (with coolers of beer tethered to our inner tubes), and even got to eat deep-fat-fried turkey for the first time ever. And of course we spent time with all of our nieces and nephews, including the new baby, including a few crazy hours in a hotel pool.
From Wisconsin we headed back to Iowa, for a whirlwind extended weekend. Thursday night we dined in style at our friend Dustin's new place of work, The Chef's Table. It's French cuisine, made funky. Or "deconstructed" as our waitress was fond of saying. Regardless, it was stylish cuisine, delicately prepared, that tasted absolutely delicious. Afterward we went to our friend Collin's final (really?) show in Iowa City, which was a somewhat crazy jam session at Quentin's Bar.
Friday involved a lot of running around, shopping for some needed bicycling accessories, a brief relaxing bike ride, and then we split up for our respective bachelor and bachelorette parties. Anderson headed to northern Iowa, outside Cresco, for a full day of camping and canoeing to celebrate with our friend Joe; Liz headed to Des Moines, for a full night of an 80s theme, sushi dinner, and dancing with our friend Hannah. They are getting married in September, which means we obviously won't be able to attend the actual wedding, so at least we got to join them for an awesome weekend!
Anderson then caught a ride to Des Moines, part of an epic Sunday in the car, ending up with us in Colorado in the wee hours of the morning. We were lucky enough to stop by Blake & Sarah's house again in Omaha, NE, where we once again ate amazing food. Nothing like garden-fresh vegetables and garden-vegetable-patties to rejuvenate some weary road warriors.
After an anxious day of packing, including a trip to REI, and the much-better-priced Wilderness Exchange, we had a fun get-together with most of our Denver friends. Thanks to everyone that came over on such short notice, good to know that our bribe of pizza was effective enough!
We spent about 8 hours in the car (well, van) today, ate a delicious Mexican lunch in Trinidad, CO, at Mission At The Bell Restaurant - which apparently doesn't have a website, and an only average Chinese buffet for dinner... guess that's what we get for getting Asian food in New Mexico.
Tomorrow's going to be a long day, but so long as our next hotel has wi-fi we'll post photos at night...

Peace
A&E

PS - Special thanks to Steph for the stolen photo above, it was from our meal at The Chef's Table.