Catching Up

It's June 1st, 2018, and I realize that it has been nearly two years since my last Amber Waves blog post.  As I sit down to play catch up and prepare for our 2018 summer vacation, which begins tomorrow, I find draft titles (as the blog posts themselves were never written) for two previous trips.

From this time last summer... From Broadway to Bermuda awaits completion.

From just a few months ago...  Minnesota for spring break? You betcha

What happened?  For some silly reason, I had largely limited my travel blogs to our summer trips, despite the fact that our exploration of these United States has occurred during many a winter or spring break from school.  With Maddie in college these past three and a half years, our breaks would sometimes coincide with hers, sometimes not, which led to some unconventional but surprisingly wonderful vacations that provided us ample opportunities to continue our quest to not just visit but truly get to know each state.

Tomorrow we head off on a trip to family favorite Manhattan before renting a car and heading off to explore New Jersey (which we've never visited as a family, and Daniel has never visited at all), Delaware, a first for us all, and Philadelphia, a city Dana and I visited nearly three decades ago.  While our family has "checked off" Pennsylvania, after a wonderful visit to Pittsburgh five or six years ago, it's certainly a state that warrants a bit more family exploration, so our summer of 2018 early summer vacation will conclude in the City of Brotherly Love.

Since I started this blog in 2008 as way to both catalog our experiences, and, with each passing year, to provide a virtual scrapbook we could visit to reminisce about the places we've been and the memories made in each of them, it seems a pity to have left out so many significant trips simply because they didn't take place during the summer.

That said, I certainly can't recreate them with a blow by blow account of all that occurred (and, to be fair, Facebook posts during each trip have also sort of taken the urgency out of my desire to further memorialize our travels here.)  Still... I do want Amber Waves to be an account of our explorations, especially of the fifty states, and so this blog will serve to play catch up.  I'll only provide a few thoughts about each place we visited, but I'll also share some of my favorite photos.

It's certainly not fair to the midwest to be once again treated as nothing more than fly over states, when our travels there rank among our favorite, so I will try to give each its due even while attempting to be concise (and, let's be honest, Adrienne stopped reading after Broadway to Bermuda, and those of you who want to stick around to see what we thought of these states are likely doing so in anticipation of your own magnet collecting trip!)   Without further ado, let the catch up begin!

Winter Break 2016/17 - Florida, Georgia and South Carolina

After our epic summer journey through Europe, we were happy to make the familiar and financially responsible decision to take a driving trip through Florida, visiting St. Augustine on the way up and Jacksonville on the way back, Georgia and ending up in South Carolina, which comprised the bulk of our vacation.

A few of the highlights:

• Going on a walking tour and taking in all the history and architecture.

• Making smores and battling the cold to see Christmas lights in James Island County Park.

• Participating in the flag ceremony at Fort Sumter National Monument at the end of the day on New Year's Eve

• In order to keep our New Year's Eve tradition alive, I hastily discovered a "Flip Flop Drop" in nearby Folly Island, and off we went chilled sparkling cider in tow.

• We knew Charleston would be beautiful all dressed up for the holidays, but it was particularly profound to see the memorials outside Mother Emmanuel church the year after the horrific shootings took place there.

• Exploring Beaufort and finding the home that served as filming locations for both The Big Chill and The Great Santini, which apparently finally sold after several years on the market.

 February, 2017 - Napa Valley and San Francisco, CA

This was a bonus trip when I had a conference in San Francisco, but it gave us a chance to visit Napa Valley and add yet another magnificent stop in a state we just grow to love more and more with each new exploration.

Spring Break 2017  - 
Boston, Berkshires, Massachusetts, Saratoga, NY, White Mountain, NH, Connecticut

Since Maddie's spring break did not coincide with ours, we opted to spend several days with her in Boston, then to sweep her off to Connecticut and New Hampshire in order to check those two states off our family bucket list.  Finally, we spent a few days in Saratoga, New York and the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts, giving us the chance to experience more of those two states than their  frequently visited cities.

A few highlights:

• Lazing in the Public Garden and watching the swan boats being assembled for the start of the season.

• Walking through Yale Herald in New Haven as if we had a reason to be there. ;P

• Exploring the Norman Rockwell museum in the Berkshires and the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, CT 

• Taking in the White Mountains in NH

• the Berkshires, the Berkshires, the Berkshires... singing James Taylor for days!

 Summer 2017
New York and Bermuda
For our collective 50th birthday celebrations and our 25th wedding anniversary, we wanted to do something special.  Still, since I had a new job starting on July 1st, we needed to do something quick.  We opted for Billy Joel in Madison Square Garden (who bailed on us due to sudden sickness), several days in our favorite city, and then a cruise to Bermuda and its famed pink sands.

A few highlights:

• those aforementioned sands, to be sure.  I was expecting to immediately see pink sand when I arrived at each beach.  Instead, as the day passes, and the sun shifts, the sand's hue subtly turns from off white to beige to, yes, a true and lovely, soft pink.  
• the water 
• seeing some amazing Broadway shows just before the Tony awards, where Laurie Metcalf won Best Actress for a performance we adored, just before she made a potentially poor decision to rejoin the Roseanne reboot.

September 2017
Early March 2018
Visiting Maddie in LA in the fall, then San Juan Capistrano, Oxnard, Santa Monica, CA in March

These were two relatively short trips, on to visit Maddie in her digs in LA and the next for me to meet the students I would take on Birthright America, but they did add another dimension to our appreciation for what early on emerged, and still remains, our favorite of the states.

Winter Break 2017/18 - 
Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee

Funky Bones discovered at last

The intrepid travelers were excited to walk on a frozen lake

Spring Break 2018 - 
Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin

Many people thought we were nuts when we shared our post Christmas plans for a trip to Indiana, Missouri and Illinois, followed by a March spring break in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.  While Daniel is always game for snow, which makes any holiday all the better for him, I am of the mindset that to truly experience a state is to experience it in condition for which it is known.  While the Wisconsin Dells are hopping in the summer, and each of these states has four distinct and rewarding seasons, there is no doubt that handling a winter there would be key to understanding what it means to be an Indianan, Wisconsinite, or a Minnesotan, so we didn't hesitate to explore these six states often derided during election years as flyover states during this year's early months.

A few highlights:

• Watching Daniel investigate and get excited by the notion of several different colleges, especially Washington University in St. Louis, MO and University of Minnesota, situated on a lake, with campuses in the twin cities.
• Exploring Hannibal, MO and learning more about Twain.
• Finding the famed "Funky Bones" made famous in John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, then having to truly find it, by uncovering all of the snow that was covering it and the other sculptures in the sculpture garden in Indianapolis.
• Exploring Nashville through new eyes with a scavenger hunt.
• Eating delicious ice cream in Fitz's on "the loop" in St. Louis.
• The sculpture garden in Minneapolis, where we wandered for nearly two hours despite the cold.  Beautiful, whimsical, absolutely delightful in every way.
• Touring the Mill City Museum on our first day in Minneapolis, which provided a comprehensive overview of the history of the areas we'd be exploring over the following days.
• Finding Peanuts characters in downtown St. Paul, MN.
• Learning about the lives of Fitzgerald and Bob Dylan during their years in Minnesota.
• Delving into the National Blues Museum and some amazing BBQ in 
• The capitalist mecca of the Mall of the Americas and the very cool Soaringesque "Fly Over America"
• Taking a self-directed tour of covered bridges in Indiana.
• Driving on the Indy 500 at night, slowly, blasting the Cars soundtrack, and looking at the Christmas light display during the Lights at the Brickyard and then returning the next day to tour the museum in earnest.
• Following Maddie's lead and traveling to Columbus, Indiana to learn about the modern architecture for which the city is well-known around the world.
• Checking out all the MTM hot spots in downtown Minneapolis.
• Dubuque, Iowa and its great restaurants in the old mill buildings.
• Hanging out and running around the bases in the Field of Dreams, and then seeing Kevin Costner's etching in the small set of bleachers there.
• Taking in the view of Lake Michigan from Milwaukee, a city that took us all by surprise with its grandeur (though we were thrilled to find the expected statue of the "Bronze Fonz")
• Exploring the "Domes" and all their lovely foliage (though a cactus did attack Daniel!)
• Visiting the Basilica in Milwaukee just before Easter, when the Polish residents brought offerings in baskets.
• Following the Great River Road around the Mississippi, finding small and charming towns along the way.
• The various photo shoots along the way, where Daniel anticipates what might be his next great album cover and then critically views the pics Maddie and I took to determine whose are worthy. ;P

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No shortage of photo spots along the Mississippi River

Kevin Costner's handiwork, carved between scenes

Right behind the bleachers, next to the house, just next to the field of dreams.

Dana is near home base.  In the summer, the cornfields surround the baseball diamond.

The Mississippi River was endlessly magical, offering history lessons, beauty and serenity from every direction.

Hanging outside with Twain near the Mississippi River museum is Dubuque, Iowa

Daniel trying to pull cactus quill from his head...

There are obviously far more detailed accounts of each of these adventures, but I'm hopeful that these highlights and photos will serve as a reminder to us of the times we spent there.  And I'm vowing to remain diligent about blogging, regardless of the season, to complete our Amber Waves accounts here.

Coming up... the first state of Delaware, the City of Brotherly Love, and some Jersey shore.