Home for the Holidays

Alright - so far so good with the camper!  We slept in it for two nights and it has been awesome.  Can't wait to get to work on it and keep on traveling!  Also, I had my very first trailer-pulling experience with it.  While I did remain very tense for the entire shift, it wasn't as bad or scary as I imagined.  In fact, for the most part I didn't even notice it.

In the last two days of travel, we also finished up all of our bingo... it was sad for it to end, but really fun that it lasted the whole trip.  Here were the final wins: Ben won a yo-yo (which is really perfect for him, if you didn't know); I won these noisy magnet things... not sure how to better explain them, haha; and finally, Ben won a small wind-up flipping monkey.  Pretty freakin' awesome, and really such an amazing gift from Zach and Blaire - thanks you guys!

Well, folks, this chapter of our adventure is officially over...  Ben and I got back to our families in the Charlotte area early this afternoon.  We have spent the day with our respective families, which is pretty much the perfect end to the trip.  I still can't believe it's over, but we'll be up and moving again before too long (probably about a week from now, actually).

Since this post will be wrapping up Chapter 1, I think I'll go ahead and comment on my initial goals -
1. Have lots of fun.  This was without a doubt fulfilled.  I will always be grateful to have seen all the places we did, and to have spent good time with family and friends - I can't imagine having a better and more fun trip.  It was straight-up awesome.
2. Don't get too worked up about the details - remain flexible.  While this is traditionally something I need to work on, it wasn't too big of a deal for me during this trip.  There were definitely moments when I would worry about money or how long we had in a certain place or if we would get home in time... but really, they just ended up being fleeting thoughts - easy to get past so I could just enjoy what we were up to.
3. Stay Healthy.  While I was no health nut on this trip, I think I did pretty well.  I haven't weighed myself, but all of my clothes still fit.  I am not injured or anything like that.  I would say, goal accomplished.
4. For Ben and I to keep liking each other.  This one was so easy!  Seriously, I started to get worried when we were planning the trip and people kept advising that we spend time apart whenever we stop somewhere.  Well, we didn't spend much time apart at all, and it was totally awesome!  We had so much fun together... I honestly think we laughed every single day, multiple times.  I am a lucky girl.

Also, I thought it might be fun to quantify the trip... here are some numbers for you :)
40 days on the road
41 tanks of gas
4 chips in the windshield
11 loads of laundry
1 new derailleur
6 days mountain biking
3 days skiing/snowboarding
3 meals from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives restaurants
11 bingo prizes won
8 days with family
10,000-ish miles driven
27 blog posts... and over 2,000 blog views.

Thanks to everybody who has been keeping up with our adventures.  We have had so much fun and can't wait to continue the journey, whether it's on the road, in a new city, or with new jobs.  It's a happy and sad feeling for this trip to be over, but it'll be exciting to see what is in store for us next.  I'm not planning on this being my last blog post - let's hope for some fun and excitement in our lives so that I have some good stuff to write about!

We hope everybody has wonderful and heart-warming holidays... and, I'll keep you posted!

Switching directions... Starting back.

We had so much fun in Whistler!  We spent three days out on the slopes, and our last full day there it snowed all day - couldn't have been better, really.  I also apologize for not having any pictures of us out on the mountain - we didn't carry packs and my camera is too big to put in my pocket, so you'll just have to imagine us out there.  It's quite impressive there as far as the acreage goes and everything... It's huge!  You should check out this page (click the “compare acreage” link) to get an idea of its scale.

We also took advantage of having a full kitchen for four nights and days.  We had chicken thighs with onions, mushrooms, and pasta for dinner the first night.  For one lunch we had a baguette with cheese and smoked salmon we bought in a Seattle market, and pâté... Yum.  We had marinated pork loin with black beans, mustard greens, and broccoli one night.  We even had eggs, bacon, and cinnamon roles for our breakfasts.  Ben really took the cake our last night though... A lot of you probably know that one of his favorite meals of all time is chicken with cheesy rice.  Well, he made a beer-can chicken in the oven and delicious cheesy jasmine rice on the stove, and it was sooooo good.

Also, this is for Woody: we had some really awesome beer (seriously, best winter ale ever) from a local brewery called Granville Island.  In fact, we each had a bottle in hand when we opened up a message from Woody where he suggested we give the brew a try.  Awesome!

And now, we’re on the road again.  Geez!  Haha, I was taking a look at the map and had this moment where I was like, “holy crap, we got ourselves way the hell out here.”  I mean, it’s like 50 hours of driving to get back to North Carolina from Whistler, and that doesn’t even count any odd places we may want to visit on our way back.  The good thing is, amazingly, we are still having so much fun.  I mean, 10 hours of driving in one day can make us pretty tired, but we’re still laughing all the time and excited to be out here.  While I may be shocked at the distance to cover with just 10 days before Christmas (that’s when we left Canada), I am so glad we made it to all of the places we did.  And now we can bust out the rest of the bingo... we've been saving it!

So now we’re down to 8 days (counting today and Christmas Eve) and by tomorrow we’ll have covered half of the 50 hours.  We’ll be back in Colorado and spending a day in Breckenridge and hanging out with good friends from camp, Chris and Ashley, who are working there.  The past few days have been pretty busy, but it’ll be nice for the last 5 days to be a little more relaxed. 

I have to admit, I am having some mixed emotions.  Because, now, even though we have places to stop yet, we’re really on our way home.  Part of me is ready to be there and spend time with family and be still for a bit, but part of me is sad that our trip is ending.  The good thing is, we can really just consider this to be the end of the first chapter – we’re going to go up to New England around the New Year and spend a good chunk of time in D.C. in the middle of January.  Then after that everything is totally up in the air, and that is another adventure in and of itself. 

The Holiday Spirit

I love the holidays… straight up.  I love the colder weather and snuggly clothes, Christmas music, shopping for everybody’s presents… it is all so fantastic.  It’s funny because the holidays themselves, like the actual days, have been really stressful for me the last several years – you know, driving from house to house to house and trying to balance time with all of the family without offending anybody.  Because of that, it’s really been all about the season to me, rather than the day itself.  I’m really interested in how this year will go.  As awful as this sounds, my dad was a big part of the holiday complication.  I mean, he estranged himself from everybody but me, and I think even though he genuinely missed the family time, he was kind of a bah humbug about it all.  This year I think I might have a less complicated day, but I’ll also have to balance it with the sadness that comes with my dad’s death.  I just don’t know how it’s going to be…

This year I have been finding it hard to get into the Holiday mood… Not that I don’t want to be… that isn’t it.  I think being in the car and going from place to place has kind of kept me away from it.  Ben and I don’t have our house to decorate, so there isn’t any of that.  Ben doesn’t really like Christmas music, so I don’t get much of a chance to listen to it… I don’t know, it just hasn’t been the same.

Well, lately I have been pestering Ben a little bit about getting the Glee Christmas album, and as you can imagine, he never really got into the idea.  The other day however, we saw a She & Him Christmas album, and that’s when he caved.  That’s right folks, Ben indulged me and bought a Christmas album… woohoo!

This year, Ben and I have decided to do a mini vacation at Whistler, BC for each other’s Christmas gift.  We booked a deal for 2 nights in a hotel and 2-day ski passes for each of us.  We drove up here from Vancouver yesterday, and something is finally falling into place for me holiday-wise.  We listened to the She & Him Christmas album as we drove by these gorgeous mountains just melting into the water… the scenery was absolutely beautiful, and there was some little bit of perfection between that and the tunes.  I also bought myself some eggnog, which I always crave this time of year, and I have been enjoying it (and the Holiday feeling) in the evenings. :)

We realized as soon as we got here that two days would not be long enough.  Our hotel room is wonderful (see picture) – black out curtains on the windows, full kitchen, huge comfy bed, and a huge tub.  Not only that, but we are staying in a lodge that is right in the middle of the village and just a couple minutes worth of walking from the two closest gondolas.  After a great day of the biggest skiing of our lives today (a couple runs were 6.5 miles long!), we decided to go ahead and extend our stay.  We won’t be checking out of the hotel until Thursday morning, so don’t expect us to be in contact by phone until after that (we’re trying to avoid expensive foreign fees). 

And finally, Liz asked me a couple posts ago about our mileage and driving time.  Well, we’ve driven about 5,500 miles, and we have split the time really evenly.  For the most part, we switch off every tank of gas, so it works out really well.  Enjoy another map!