For the last three months, Nick and I have been roadtripping around the US, visiting friends, family and generally exploring the country. For those of you who were keeping up with the roadtrip on my blog, you’ll know that I did a terrible job posting regularly.  I jotted down detailed notes and reflections on each of our stops, but I was just so tired most evenings that I didn’t quite get around to writing them up!

The map above shows the route we took – heading West from MN in early June and circling around (with a few detours), ending up back in MN in August. The question we were asked most often was where our favorite places were.  I generally loved the Pacific Northwest, especially the drive on Highway 101 down the coast from Washington to Northern California.  Seattle is always one of my favorite cities to explore, and we spent a few days doing just that.  But my favorite place we visited was Lafayette, Louisiana.  I had always wanted to visit cajun country, and Lafayette is its heart.  We stayed in a great B&B, which also happens to double as one of the best live music venues in town, so we stayed up late listening to zydeco and watching people of all ages dance. There was even a guest appearance by Marc Broussard!

Nick didn’t have a favorite place necessarily, but he did think that Portland was probably the most his kind of place. He also really liked New York, mainly for its novelty – really, is there anywhere else like it in the world?! Though I think he was probably also swayed by the fact that he was introduced to beer pong here for the first time 🙂 His favorite part of the trip was the camping in general – we stayed in national parks, private campsites, and of course Kampgrounds of America. He was amazed at how  each one is so different – some having organized movie and ice cream nights, some with central campfire areas, some with pools and even hot tubs – seriously posh.

Looking back at the trip, it was pretty darn amazing.  What a diverse set of experiences.  We seriously could have spent a few more months driving around – I still only felt like we were doing a sampler tour, since there were a million places we didn’t get to go or things we didn’t see.  But still, it was pretty great. I guess that means we’ll just have to plan more US trips in the future.

So now we’re back in MN, and starting to think about getting back to the ‘real world’ – sprucing up CVs, starting the job search, getting ready for the move to SA.  We head out August 24^th – let the next adventure begin!