the remainder of our U.S. journey

"what is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." - jack kerouac, on the road

so...the past few weeks have been wonderful. as soon as we left paul, melissa, and haley in wisconsin, we headed south through wisconsin, with a stop at lauren's favorite former study spot in milwaukee (alterra coffee, whoot whoot!), and then made our way to chicago and beecher, IL, lauren's hometown. well...here are some photo/note highlights of the past few weeks.




probably the most common tourist photo in chicago...a reflection picture standing next to "the bean," in millenium park. we had to do it! anyhoo...after a great reunion with some our galway, ireland friends, we spent an afternoon hanging around downtown, including another reunion with lauren's former coworker. and since it was a day past my birthday, we then headed to our friend's place on the northside of the city for some celebrating!



a shot of chicago and the awesome spring blooms on michigan avenue.



farewell to lauren's honda :( after 220,000 miles and touch downs in every corner of the U.S. (including ontario!), we sold it. not quite how we expected though! thinking that we would drive it down to southern illinois, lauren posted it on southern IL craigslist. since we were going to be in chicago for a couple more days, we also posted it to the chicago craigslist as well. within 4 hours and many many phone calls later, it was gone and didn't even make it to southern IL! sad to see it go, but happy for some extra travel cash!



a week in chicago wouldn't be complete without a white sox game! we had quite the crew, complete with all the best gals from beecher :) a great night at the ball park...a winning game, awesome spring weather, and getting kindly asked to leave, as we were probably the last people left in the park.



maybe the last photo in front of lauren's parent's house in beecher? since lauren's parents will be putting the house up for sale shortly to retire in NM/southern IL, we had to pose with lauren's dad and abby in front of lauren's one and only family home!



after a great week in chicagoland, we headed south for our cabin in southern IL. one of the best parts about the property is the amazing sunset views. this one from our first night there is no exception.



the property down in southern IL. soo green and beautiful this time of year.



although we were in southern IL for about 5 days, we kept so busy that we only had time for one good trail hike! fern clyffe state park was gorgeous...a great spring hike. here's us with lauren's mom and abby along the hike.



so...quite the jump. joe and i and lauren's dad left southern IL on sunday, may 9th in lauren's dad's jeep for the ~24 hour drive to las cruces, NM. except for the usual gas and bathroom breaks, we only stopped two other times! once was for dinner to visit lauren's cousin down in eureka springs, AR. another...breakfast the following morning. it was a long drive but we finally made it in time to rest up and then pick up lauren's mom at the airport. this picture is from the microbrewery, high desert brewing co, in las cruces. again, we're suckers for good beer stops on the road :)



here are some shots of the unique flora life of NM. this is the alligator juniper tree.



a bird of paradise in lauren's parent's backyard.



another one in the backyard...an ocotilla. these plants are great. they have extremely tall green stalks with bright orange flowers at the top...and they are all over the place!



some brilliant yellow/orange poppies along our hike up to bar canyon, near cruces.



until arriving in NM, we had no idea that pecan trees were such a huge crop here. there are pecan groves all over the place. this plot had probably the oldest trees in NM and they were awesome.



joe and i near the top of our hike up dripping springs canyon, complete with the view of the valley of las cruces.



we loved the cloudy days in NM. although the blue sky is beautiful, we welcomed some clouds to block some sun! although it's a great, dry heat, 90 degrees is still hot :) this is a view from the top of our hike up to bar canyon.



we left las cruces for a couple days, heading west towards the guadalupe mountains and to carlsbad caverns. although we didn't have time for a good hike in guadalupe mtns national park, we still had time for a good family pic.



carlsbad caverns! it was hard to choose two good photos, since we took about 300. the caverns were great...in total we walked about 4 or 5 miles of the 130 total miles in the caverns.



this shot of the caverns is called the dolls theater.



on to our next big national park/monument around las cruces! white sands national monument. this is such a unique area, although unfortunately settled between the large white sands missile range. the white sand is basically a large dune field, formed by old dry lake bed deposits of gypsum, eventually creating the largest deposit of gypsum in the world. it was an incredible place. we took a little hike along the dunes and then just soaked in this unique climate. joe was enthralled by the white sand, crunching down on a hardened piece :)



joe and i enjoying the white sand dunes



one of the craziest things about this area is that there is a pretty diverse ecosystem here. although these flowers basically just exist on the dry beds of the dunes and not on the dunes themselves, other trees and yucca plants actually grow on the dunes. since the dunes are constantly changing and moving, a plant that actually appears to only be 2 feet tall, may actually be 32 feet tall, because its roots are 30 feet below the top of the sand. pretty amazing



you can barely see them, but you can see the movement of the dunes by the amazing evenly spaced ripples.



we figured out the best way to get down the dunes is to jump down them! this was the largest ridge we saw so we had to jump down it...



a zoomed in shot. joe was fearless, as evidenced by his ridiculous facial expression and much higher jump than me :)



can you see him? one of the few desert lizards we saw along the dry beds of the dunes



in front of lauren's parent's house, before we left for the airport to drop off lauren's mom. what a great time! we did so much in the great southwest...met some of our parent's great friends, traveled to some unique national parks, and ate a boatload of mexican food :) it's now just a couple hours before we drive off to the el paso airport for our flight to guatemala! we have an 8 hour layover in LAX so we'll be arriving to guatemala city at 7:25 am tomorrow (central time!). then...a 4 hour bus ride to quetzltenango, aka xela (pronounced shay-la), for a 2 to 4 week stay with a family while undertaking a spanish immersion course. we're sad to leave the comforts of family and home, but yet so excited to start our international journey.

keep in touch everyone!

tallyho!

-lauren and joe