Hitting the Open Road

Early in our relationship, on roughly our 7th date, DG asked me to take a road trip with him to Omaha, NE to attend a wedding. I was skeptical at first because 1) Omaha, NE had once stolen 2 weeks of my life that I am still bitter about, 2) there was going to be a sleepover involved *gulp*, and 3) 9 hours in a car with a guy I barely knew was either going to be really good or really bad.

Well, we all know the ending to this story, but let's just say that I love a good road trip (remember Dollywood?) and 9 hours in a car alone with DG and his Ipod is enough to make any girl weak in her bees knees.

A month later, we hit the open road again to travel to Burt Lake in upstate Michigan to vacation with Cynthia and her family. Along the way we stopped at Devil's Tower in WY, Mount Rushmore, Corn Palace, the Badlands...etc. My travel journal is here, and pics of the trip are here. On the way home, we stopped in DGs hometown of Yankton, SD.

Now prior to this trip, South Dakota was one of the 11 states that I had never visited. If you had told me, as a young girl growing up in CT that I would be marrying a man from South Dakota, I would have stared at you incredulously, tilted my head, fluttered my blue tinted eyelashes and said "You mean the state with the capital of Pierre?" Because that was in sum all I knew about that state. This probably would have followed by a princess like tirade on how I was never going to date a corn fed midwesterner, but that's another story.

So Yankton is located in the far South East corner of the state, and I have now been there no less than 2 times, going on 3 as we are gearing up to pack the dogs in the car and take the 9 hour drive to go to DGs 20th high school reunion. More than the event, I am looking forward to being in the car with DG, stopping at the one Dunkin' Donuts located in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, buying sparklers and other tame fireworks on the side of the road, listening to MY Ipod, and eating egg salad sandwiches that I've packed for us in the cooler.