Wisconsin for a week

My trip to northern Wisconsin was great.  It was a nice distraction from the fact that I had just left Dave in NYC.  We had no internet, no phone service, just a phone card.  I was luckily able to call Dave from the phone in the pool area every night during his first week by himself.  The weather took a turn for the worst and after a record-breaking summer that was hotter than the depths of hell, the moment I got a chance to be on the water, temperatures dropped and it rained.  We got in a few days of boating and I tubed.  For some reason, I lack pictures from this trip, but here we go.

Aunties, Grandma, and my mom playing cards in the pool area.

 We did a lot of puzzle-making when it was raining.  This is our second puzzle.  The first one, of the Tetons, proved impossible and we quit.  This one was much more fun.  This is my brother.  He lives in Massachusetts where he's working on a PhD. 

Tyler and puzzle

Drinks + hot tub=happy women:  Cousin Jennifer and I

We played Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan about a million times.  From left to right:  brother, cousin Jennifer, me, cousins Michael and Ryan

Because I have no outdoor pictures of me the place, I had to grab this oldy but goody from 2009:

Huge fish with Afton

Nice work if you can get Some

It was our last day together in New York City, August 2, and Dave had to work.  I met up with my old college roommate and high school friend, Jessica.  We grabbed some lunch near Time Square.  I needed a dress for that night.  I had packed for three weeks of activities:  a week of moving/camping, a week of NYC, and a week on vacation in Wisconsin at the beach.  All of this fit in a carry-on bag. The thing that didn't make the list was a cute outfit for dressing up.  We went into Forever 21 and I found two cute dresses, both less than $25.  Score!

We then realized that the TKTS booth was hours from opening, so she took me on the subway to Brooklyn where she lives and the other TKTS booth was.  The view from the above-ground-bridge subway was awesome!  I had never seen the financial district before!  The 9/11 memorial building was so huge, but still under construction.  The part of Brooklyn that I saw was really nice.  I grabbed two tickets to a Broadway show, then took the subway back to Dave's place.  I bought a few hair pins and met Dave at the bus stop.  We made tacos for dinner, I got all dressed up, and we headed for the subway.

We had second row, center seats at "Nice work if you can get it" with Matthew Broderick!  It was a really funny show.  I thoroughly enjoyed it!  After the show, we walked around Time Square, taking in the scene.  We found THE place to get ice cream and got a shake to share. 

Me trying to take it all in.

Me at Time Square after the Broadway show.

WOW!

You can see the entrance to our show in the background. 

The next morning I had a flight to Wisconsin.  Dave walked me to the bus that took me to LaGuardia.  There were tears.  I got on the bus and waved to him as we drove by his bus to school.  I don't want to relive that, not even a little bit.  The bus through Harlem sobered me up a bit and I arrived at the airport totally lost and running late.  I managed to find a place to print my boarding pass, get through security, grab a salad for lunch (but no fork, doh!) and get on the plane with no time to spare.  I arrived in Wisconsin where my dad picked me up from the airport.  We were on our way to our annual family vacation "up north" the next day and I was just in time to greet my mom and brother and head to Joe's Foxhut for pizza, a family tradition for all pre-holiday activities.

Enjoying New York City

Backtracking to the end of July, where we left off... Dave was all moved in and we had a few days to enjoy New York City before he started work.

His neighborhood

A park along the Hudson River.

The hat reads:  Westy Life.

Cathedral just a few blocks down the street from his place.

My first time in northern central park. 

Park right by Dave's place.  He lives up on the cliff.

Stopped in Harlem to get some iced tea. 

 

 

After exploring things on our own, we got a call from Brent, one of our closest friends from Boulder.  He was in NJ for a work trip and wanted to visit the city for his weekend day off!  We showed him Dave's place, then went downtown to the time square area and had some Irish Bar dinner before sending him back home on the train.  Dave and I later discovered a K-mart next to Penn Station and picked up a few things. 

Brent and Dave at Rockefeller Center

South Central Park. 

Library on campus

Central Park

 Dave's parents visited us again to do some touristy stuff before I left.  We walked from Dave's place to a deli, through the cathedral, to central park, to the Guggenheim, to the top of the Guggenheim, to the MoMa, then all the way back on foot!  It was just beautiful!

We went to the Guggenheim to see Picasso and some other cool art with Dave's parents. 

We stopped by the MoMA(?) to sit before walking back to Dave's place (a few miles). 

Central Park.  We're maybe on mile 5 for the day at this point.

 We made it all the way back to campus and had dinner at a fabulous French restaurant.  We definitely made the most of Dave's last days off before his new job started that Wednesday!

The bus to his work picks up just down the street and around the corner from where he lives.  I walked him to the bus, then went to find some internet access at Starbucks before running home as it rained.  After Dave's first day, we got some schwag at the bookstore, grabbed some dinner (AMAZING gluten free asian chicken wraps), and I gave Dave a quick haircut.  Only one day left together!!!

Moving to the city

Thursday we went shopping for groceries and Target items and essentially regained our sanity.

Friday was move-in day.  

We had all of our stuff in Dave’s Subaru and his parents much newer, nicer Subaru.  We had already returned the Uhaul.  This was it, we were going to see, for the first time, where Dave would be living on his own.  We drove about an hour, over the George Washington bridge, and arrived at his new apartment building.  His appointment was to sign his lease for 11:00, but guess what happens at 11:00-12:30?  Street cleaning!  You can only park on one side of the street.  Everyone on one side of the street double parks on the other side.  (This happens four days a week!)  Having rarely ever even had to parallel park in my life, I have most certainly never dealt with double parking.  We ran out of time, there were no legal spots, so we did it.  Dave double parked in front of his building and across the street from some construction dumpster, leaving me in the car while he did paperwork upstairs for an indefinite amount of time.  I can’t believe no one ran into us.  Very stressful and loud.  Not a good first impression.   

Dave returned about 30 minutes later and we decided to just leave the car, like everyone else, and go see his new place.  The door man (He has a doorman!!!)  took his passport photo so he’d know who Dave was to let him into the building and mailroom and then we went upstairs.  Third floor, super cute, much larger than expected, sunny apartment.  The bedroom is huge with two big windows!  One big one in the living room.  The kitchen is dark, but bigger than we expected and possibly more cupboard space than I have in Boulder.  We were super happy!  We emptied our car’s stuff into the freight elevator and moved it all in.  A memory-foam mattress he had mail-ordered was waiting for us in the lobby, so we took it up and let it air out the rest of the day.   

Bedroom windows.  If I looked far enough right out the window, I could see beautiful, old trees in the huge park at the end of the building. 

 We walked around the neighborhood and it is just adorable because he is right on the campus and across the street from a park.  His parents came later and we took up the rest of his stuff, then returned to their house for the night and watched the DVRed opening ceremonies for the Olympics.  Thank goodness for Mr. Bean.  Those English are odd.  

Saturday we watched the disappointing road bike race, ate some lunch, picked up Dave’s 1-year younger brother, and headed to IKEA.  Usually when shopping, the more people the more confusing, but honestly, everyone was really useful because IKEA is a confusing place and sometimes it took all of us to form a good opinion or figure out the pricing scheme on a chair.  I would have liked a map, but gave in and just followed the arrows through the whole store.  We picked up a cute birch 2X2 cube bookshelf that fits the record player and records just perfectly, a $49 black TV stand with drawers, a large birch coffee table that is perfect for playing games on, a cheap bed frame, and a comfortable, but sleek chair with footstool.  We went away with no couch and no dresser.  The couches were awful for the price range we were looking in.  We’re hoping to find something on craigslist that doesn’t have bed bugs.  (I had bed bugs in 2002 thanks to a furnished apartment bed.  I will be the first to say that they will ruin your life.  Being cheap and reusing is all fine and good, until your life is ruined, and then you wish you’d have forked over money for a new couch.)

The boys put together the furniture and I helped a little bit with the bed.  We had a nice pizza for dinner from down the street.  

Overall we were missing 3 screw-type pieces and our new chair and footstool are not usable and the coffee table is sort of together. Thanks a lot, IKEA.  Dave went back several weeks later to get the parts and bought a futon.  

Bed building, despite my inability to read the IKEA no-word directions.

Dave's Mom and Dad helping to build the Entertainment Center.  The chair in the background they had just finished. 

Brother Matt trying to figure out the most ridiculous directions ever written.

I made a "couch" for Dave out of our camping pads.  Here he's showing me just how much this is in no way like a couch. 

A bed!  This is a bed spread I made for Dave's birthday several years ago.  My first big quilting project.  Note the bike handle on the LH side.  Oops. 

Lawn chair will work for a little while. 

At least we had some good tunes to listen to!

Kitchen complete with monkini ingredients, plunger coffee maker, and bread.  What more could a boy need?

We slept in the new place for the first time Saturday night.  The street light outside is a bit bright, there’s lots of sirens, one night there was a fire somewhere and it smelled awful and we thought about going out to check it out, the cigarette smoke of people walking by is kind of gross, it’s humid, and on week days, workers show up at 7:00 to honk their horns at each other over parking.  Oh yeah, and street cleaning happens four times a week, so you have to move your car four times.  Welcome to New York, Dave! 

From CO to NJ and Mammouth Caves

Project Move-Dave-to-NYC  started just a week after returning from our Teton/Yellowstone trip.  The series of travel-log I will post involves a one-week drive to NJ, a one-week vacation in NY, and a one-week vacation in WI.  

We had just kind of ruined the VW van engine and needed to figure out how we were going to get Dave and his stuff to from Colorado to NYC.  After a quick Excel spreadsheet to compare Uhaul rentals with flights combined with shipping stuff, the obvious solution was for Dave to buy a cheap car that he could move out in, tow a Uhaul trailer behind, and park on the street or at his parents’ house in New Jersey.  It’s not that he had a lot of stuff to move, it’s that the stuff he had to move was fragile and oddly shaped, like bikes, instruments, records and record player.

The original car search was for vehicles that were similar to the VW van—unreliable, no air conditioning, and really, really old.  Eventually we stopped messing around and narrowed it down to an old Subaru:  reliable, cheap, room for moving items, could sleep in the back in a pinch, good gas mileage, a hitch, and working air conditioning.  Sure, it’s 15 years old and has well over 200,000 miles on it, but it is a truly great car!  The only thing wrong with it is that I can’t drive it.  I have yet to learn how to drive a manual.  

We picked the car out on Wednesday, but the gal needed it until Friday at 3:30.  That left little wiggle room, but it worked.  We picked up the car, Dave registered it before the office closed and even had time to pick up a piece for the hitch and change the oil before having a beer with friends.  

Saturday, July 21 we rented a Uhaul trailer.  Of course we couldn’t find the wiring that went with the hitch and the Uhaul man told us he couldn’t rent us the trailer unless we installed some, oh, and we had 30 minutes to do that because they closed at noon.  He had a change of heart and did it for us.  We slipped him a nice tip for not ruining our plans and were on our way.  Saturday was supposed to be our packing day, but it ended up being over 100 degrees and we couldn’t think of a single box that would be safe in a trailer in the sun in that kind of temperature.  We went out instead and had a few beers and goodbyes.

Sunday we woke up early and Dave packed the trailer while I packed the car.  We had enough room for both bikes in our 4X8 trailer along with everything else, which saved us the annoyance of having to carry a bike rack.  Goodbye to Boulder for Dave!  

We witnessed several dust devils in Kansas, which shows just how hot and dry it was.  Oh how I would miss the dryness!  We made it just past Kansas City, Missouri and Dave’s mom reserved a hotel for us.  It was so nice to just check in and crash for the night.  We didn’t make it to St. Louis as planned, so we had more driving in store for the next day, Dave’s 28^th birthday.  

St. Louis

Kentucky!  Happy Birthday, Dave! 

We drove through Missouri, Illinois, and some of Kentucky when we stopped just outside the National Park for Dave’s birthday dinner, an upside-down banana split and French fries from a very tiny ice cream shop.  We drove until about 7:30pm on Monday, when we finally reached our hot-as-hell destination, Mammouth Caves of Kentucky.    

We quickly set up our tent and went off to find the visitors center.  Closed.  Grocery store?  Closed.  Great!  We wandered around the paths for a bit until we found the most glorious thing in the world, the historic entrance to Mammouth Caves.  Aside from the bats, it was simply amazing, as the temperature was a good 40 degrees cooler in front of the cave than it was just 50 feet away in the hot, humid hell that is Kentucky.  We hung out until we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces, then went back to sleep in the tent where it was 95 degrees, and so humid, I felt like I was swimming.  We have a full mesh tent, had no fly on it, and sweated all night long.  I bet the low was 85.  The whole area was under an extreme heat warning from the NWS.  We were NOT sleeping there another night.  We packed up in the morning and headed to the visitors center to get a tour in addition to our 11:15 Grand Avenue tour.  We arrived at 8:15 and everything was booked.  I grumpily pouted in the warm car, in the sun until going for a short hike seemed like a better use of my time. 

Some river at Mammouth Caves.

Dave trying to dive into a small, cold cave.  I'm going to venture to estimate the heat index at 100 at this moment.

Finally, our tour started.  We’d go down into the caves for 4.5 hours, about 4 miles with 76 people and a tour guide.  It was gloriously cold in the caves and I even put on a long sleeved shirt for a bit.  Before the tour started, we were lectured on how strenuous of a tour we had picked and how the infirm should stay behind, so as not to hold up the group or require medical attention in the cave.  We were told to expect steep hiking and narrow passageways no bigger than our hips.  This made me nervous, but I decided not to explore these ideas in my head, and it worked.  I didn’t have claustrophobia problems the entire tour. 

The 76 people who accompanied us on the tour were annoying.  There’s no nice way to say it.  Kids with flashlights and adults with no control over them were difficult to avoid, but there were a few enjoyable minutes of silence when we managed to fall far enough behind that the annoying people in front of us were too far ahead, and the flashlight kids were too far behind.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the fact that there were two bathroom stops, a literal cafeteria, and nothing actually strenuous on the trip.  What’s a person got to do to feel hard-core around here?  

Inside the cave.

The caves were neat.  

Frozen Niagra.

This may be upside-down.

This too. 

We raced to our car and got on the road by 4:30.  We made it to Huntington, West Virginia, where another hotel reservation was waiting for us thanks to Dave's mom.  This drive was foggy and much of it in the dark.

The next day we drove the rest of the way to Dave’s parents’ house in northern New Jersey by dinner time.  I’ve never been so happy to see A.  someone else to talk to, B.  a home cooked meal, and C.  a comfortable bed that felt like home. Thank you, Dave's parents!!!

The long road home

Friday we gassed up in Jackson, then headed to Pinedale where we took a road up to a hiking spot.  When we got there, the visitors center was closed and there were no maps or signs, so we couldn't hike safely without having a clue where we were going.  We enjoyed an overlook of the Wind River Range, a bunch of 13,000 foot mountains in Wyoming and chatted it up with some nice Australians.  This area had such intense beetle kill, I can't imagine there being a single tree left in another year or so.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole place burned to the ground next week.  It was DRY.

A little friend of Dave's.

The Westy is a tiny bit smaller than a camper.  Hah!

While we were planning on sleeping at this hiking spot, we now had nothing to do there (thanks a lot, state park service of Wyoming!), so we headed south through the most awful, boring part of Wyoming.  We filled up at Rock Springs, then hit I80.  This is where things got bad.  On I80 we had a headwind from a dry thunderstorm and were only able to go about 40mph.  This felt unsafe.  The road was also very hilly and sometimes we barely could get over the hill while flooring it.  Not cool.

Evidence of the intense winds coming out of this dry thunderstorm... a dust cloud along the gust front.

We got to the divide and the Westy was dying, big time.  We stopped 3 miles before our exit that would take us south to Craig, Colorado.  We stopped, the van smoked, it was overheated.  It wouldn't start back up.  We were literally in the middle of nowhere.  This exit didn't even have a building, just a gravel parking lot for work vehicles that was empty.  Dave made a few adjustments and eventually started the van.  We got back on the highway and turned off for Craig.  We couldn't do anymore flooring it on the highway.  (Looking back, this is when we ruined the Westy's engine.)

We slowly made our way to Craig and got there probably around midnight (GPS had us arriving at 8pm when we first decided our destination, so that's how slow we were going).  We narrowly missed hitting a cow and a pronghorn.  It was lovely.  We found a cute little campground just outside of Craig and went to bed without dinner.

Friday it was apparent that the van was not running properly.  It had issues in first gear and wouldn't get up to speed.  We drove to Steamboat, promising to stop on the way to fish, but we forgot due to our car troubles.  Steamboat welcomed us with a NAPA, but we had no idea what was wrong, so no part in the world would help us.  We tried Rabbit Ears Pass, a 6%+ grade for 7 miles.  We got up to the first curve and could only go 15 mph, so we pulled over and turned around.  This was not fun.  I don't like heights or traffic, so pulling over on the edge of the road, up high was not my thing.

I called every mechanic in town and only one was willing to give us a five minute look.  Thank you Westside Auto!  We parked downtown for a bit and Dave replaced the part that was suggested to change.  We tried the pass again.  No luck.  The Westy had oil all over one side of the engine, the under part, and the back door.  Something was wrong that might not be fixable without a major engine overhaul.  We could drive around town, but were kind of stuck in this bowl of Steamboat Springs, not able to get out from hills on almost all sides.

I called for towing information and Park at Westside Auto (and towing, and Uhaul) suggested we tow it home with a Uhaul.  A real tow would be about $700 and Dave and I would have to find our own ride back.  Dave's cousin offered to come get us and the van in their porsche trailer, but they were out of state at the moment and we'd have to wait until Tuesday.  That would be fine if we weren't trying to move Dave to New York later this week!  The Uhaul was the cheapest and easiest choice.  We camped at the town KOA with about 2000 other people and one bathroom and fished for trout in the Yampa.

 

Saturday morning Dave talked to two more people about the mechanics of the situation, tried one last attempt at finding the problem, and then we gave in and rented the Uhaul before it closed at noon.  Unfortunately, all they did was help us hook up the dolly, but not put the car on the dolly.  While we were loading the van, a tow truck driver stopped by and told us we had to have the van backwards or we'd ruin the transmission.  (I'd like to think we would have figured that out, but I really appreciate the tow truck driver stopping to suggest!)  We put the van on the dolly, rigged up some rope to hold the steering wheel in place, and hoped for the best.

We made it over Rabbit ears pass.  It then started getting windy and rainy.  Two light, high profile vehicles in the wind were not fun.  We stopped at Green Reservoir and I thought we were going to blow right into it, so we kept going.  We made it through Eisenhower tunnel, down the other side, and made it home safely.  Thanks to some rain, my tomato plants are at least a foot taller than when I left them!

I have to say, the first issue with the van was totally not a big deal.  Being "stranded" in a campground in a national park was totally fun.  The second time was not as fun.  Dave is still trying to figure out what the problem is, but has narrowed it down to two pistons not having proper pressure (or something like that, I'm not so good with mechanics).  I think this means we can't fix it ourselves and this leaves us without a plan for moving to New York this weekend.  I'm sure we'll work something out!

All in all, it was a great trip.  I really love the camper-van lifestyle and loved Grand Teton National Park!.  Having a stove and a sink and two beds in one place made for easy camping in black and grizzly bear country.  I hate seeing it broken down!