A Ridiculous Road Trip, Part 1: MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, MA, NY, ON

I am coming to you now from a town in South Dakota called De Smet. Specifically, the De Smet Super Deluxe Inn and Suites. I'm so happy about that name. If you're a true Laura Ingalls Wilder geek, you might remember that as the town where the Ingalls family finally settled. If you don't, that's okay. But that's why I'm here. I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let me start at the beginning.

For about 6 or 7 months, I've been planning a road trip. A trip so ambitious and (to my crazy mind) self-indulgent, I titled it A Ridiculous Road Trip in all my planning documents and lists. And the name stuck. And the hashtag was available, which is a thing, so there you go. Eventually the time for planning was past and the spreadsheet and custom google map came to life. I packed my little red Mini Cooper (mostly with stuff I'm taking to people in Utah) and left my house for 2 months. My husband is with me for this first phase. And now to the travel narrative...

Last Friday morning, Eric and I headed to New York City for the wedding of a darling friend named Kait and her equally darling fiance named Ray. I met Kait around 5(?) years ago when she was a missionary for our church and was assigned to our congregation in Maryland. When she and Ray got engaged, I just really wanted to be there, and then it became the jumping off point for my trip around the USA. It worked out so well and was so much fun. That first night we stayed in a hotel in New Jersey and I was able to fit in a photo shoot with a favorite family on Saturday morning. Saturday evening was the reception in Connecticut, so we drove over to a KOA in Niantic, CT for the second night. The weather was beautiful, with cool breezes and a hint of fall in the air. Here are some photos of days 1 and 2.

The Delaware Memorial Bridge is the first big landmark out of Maryland, so it feels like the real beginning of the adventures. 

Here they are, just outside the Manhattan Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm so glad we went. 

I love Central Park, and playing with apps that make my photos look like paintings or vintage photos. This one is done with an app called Formulas. Eric and I walked through Central Park after some wedding photos on our way to get some dinner.

I love the energy of New York City. 

We watched the fountain at Lincoln Center before our yummy dinner at Fiorellos. At which there may have been an actual bucket of chocolate mousse. And lemon pie.  

The temple at night with that bright spot being the angel Moroni shining in the dark. It's very well-camouflaged and fits in perfectly with the city, but still has the quiet elegance of a Temple. 

Our campsite in Connecticut. It worked out great to camp, and the only real problem we had was with the 5 mph speed limit (it's actually hard to keep from stalling going that slow in a manual) and that part on our brand new tent that broke the very first time we put it up. Fortunately, Bob, the awesome host of our campground, found us some zip ties. I had some duct tape and voila, a fix. So far, so good. The weather was perfect, with that lovely crispness one likes to feel when one is camping. 

Here's the fun party tent. There was a felafel truck providing dinner, a candy bar for treats, and s'mores for dessert. It was beautiful, simple and really festive. 

Me and my lovely pal.

Sunday morning we headed to my friend's house in Michigan, right in the palm of The Mitten. This was a true slog of a day--12 hours of driving, border crossings into Canada and back out again, nothing too exciting (except finding out that Eric's passport was expired and that the Canadian border guard was saltier than the American one). We did do a drive-by of Niagara Falls, but even on a random Sunday in the third week of September, it was mind-crushingly crowded so we elected not to pay the $20 for parking for a 5-minute glimpse of the falls. We drove through and enjoyed the mist and the rainbows and the Disneyesque landscaping all along the main thoroughfare.

Before that, we did stop in Albany, NY and try to go to church. We got to the parking lot just 15 minutes before the meeting was to start and it was totally empty. In our experience, that means one thing: Stake Conference, which is a regional gathering of congregations for a big meeting...at a different building. There would have been no way for us to know that was happening.

The best part of the day was the spectacular weather, plus we saw or at least caught glimpses of Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron. Mostly, it was just fun to have all that time with Eric. Our lives are pretty busy right now and I'm grateful he's with me.

An authentic Niagara Falls Mist Rainbow. It was just too crazy and crowded to get out and go see. If I'd never been before we might have considered it, but both of us have been multiple times.

So there you have it. The beginning of my adventures in road-tripping. Next time, I'll be reporting on Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. 

For my own record, completed audiobooks:

• The Crown's Game 
• Little House in the Big Woods
• Little House on the Prairie.