Travel

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Nothing Like a Day in New Mexico/Texas/Oklahoma

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

Molly and I had quite the interesting week a few weeks ago.  I had to spend 3 days in Charlotte, NC for work so Molly flew back home to Mesa where I would join her after I was done with work.  I had never been to Charlotte, but I gotta say I was pretty impressed.  The downtown area was new and very clean.  I don’t know if all the Nascar posters plastered throughout the airport and the city were a plus or minus, there’s nothing quite like a nice Dale Jr photo and I love me some Wranglers.    Here’s a couple  pictures of downtown.

Fountain

White Building

Fountain 2

Fountain 3

After leaving the Queen city, I met Molly in the AZ.  The reason for the trip was to pick up a car to bring back to Chicago so Molly can always have a car with the baby.  Thanks Janet and Terry for the great deal on a fine automobile.  So early Friday morning, sitting pretty in our new SUV, we found ourselves right in the middle of New Mexico staring Texas and Oklahoma right in the face.   Having now made my way across the country by means of three different freeways (I-80, I-70, and I-40/44) I can’t decide which is more painful.  I think I’ll just leave it as a tie, it’s like deciding between a punch in the face or a kick in the throat, in the end I prefer to choose neither.

We got through most of the trip on the first day so we could spend Saturday afternoon in St. Louis and go to the Cardinals – D’back game.  As much as I dislike the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, there’s no denying that their stadium is top notch, I was very impressed.  Nothing will ever beat a game at an old stadium like Wrigley or Fenway, but for a new stadium, the Cardinals know how to do it.  Having watched my first Harry Potter movie with Molly and Terry earlier in the week, I channeled my best inner Hogwarts to put a hex on the stadium.  And, based on the fact that Cubs have been playing horribly and dropped way out of first, I think it may have backfired.  I guess I need to read the books.  Here are a couple of pictures from the trip, more can be found under the Photos tab, here.

Molly

Us and the arch

Boston

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

If you have never been to Boston, we strongly suggest you go. A few observations, first, it’s a lot smaller than I expected. Having lived in Chicago for the last year I was expecting a big city like Chicago, I was wrong. You can walk almost anywhere in Boston in about 20 minutes, everything is so close. Molly even figured out where things were in our short time there, and that’s really saying something. Second, you can barely go anywhere without running into some important historical landmark. You know, all those things you learned about in your 4th grade history class and by watching Johnny Tremaine? They’re all there, as you can see by some of our pictures here. The city is just full of reminders of the Revolution and having recently read “1776″ it was a very humbling feeling to be walking where those incredible men walked who founded our country. 

Paul Revere

But the highlight of the trip was being able to go to the Boston temple with all of the Turk family.

 

Boston Temple

A special shout out goes to Ma$e & Ashley and Nic & Holly for being our tour guides and chauffers. Shout out.