The Escapade: Springfield & I-70+

[Orville's note: She's dragging me around the country again. I'm starting to think she enjoys this or something.]

To Springfield!

Hello hello! I realize there has (once again) been a long silence on the blog, but I finally have something fun to share! I've decided to stay on with Hartung for another year, meaning I've got a few more weeks of free time before the boss wants me back to start working in March. Soooo... logically, I decided to road trip it to New Jersey. I'm going to attempt to document the highlights here in the blog both for my own remembering purposes, and to share with all of you!

So. Why New Jersey? This June one of my NJ cousins is graduating high school, so the whole whole family is planning to visit for it... except for me, since June is right at start of the busy season for harvest. So I'm going to visit them now instead!

I suppose the escapade really started when I left Madison again at the end of January to return to Kansas. Momma's birthday was in the beginning of February, and it had been a few years since I'd been home to celebrate with her. After spending six days back in the home country--mainly just regenerating and seeing family--Orville and I hopped back on the road for Springfield, Mo., to visit my awesome people living there.

The first stop was with our good buddy in Middle-of-nowhere, Mo., who lives on top of the mini-mountain at the end of the terrifying narrow dirt driveway that stretches on and on and on and on...

Said buddy and I had our (belated) Christmas gift exchange, which resulted in me jumping up and down for several minutes in elated excitement. (haha. belated elated. yay.) In his words, "I thought Orville could use some travel companions other than you." His gift was a complete set of -adorable- Eeveelution plushies (yes, I'm a nerd). As you can see, Orville is very excited about his new friends:

[so excited.]

I've been letting the newbies ride on the dash three at a time for the trip. They seem to like it. [Meanwhile, she has me stuffed in a pillow in the back seat. So much for seniority.]

I was in Springfield Sunday through Wednesday, and got to hang out with some of my favorite peeps. The super bowl commercials were enjoyed with my weekend hostesses, after which we had a movie night. Monday allowed for quality fellow Epiphany-header time, and a fun evening visiting with The Professor. Tuesday started off with a make-your-own breakfast with a fellow anime lover, then a long stretch of the afternoon was spent route-planning and bonding with The Auntie while watching Courageous [many tissues required]. Tuesday evening was former suite-mate time! We located a fun tea place in Springfield and promptly raided them of all their bubbles (tapioca pearls):

Yay Door County! Except we're in Springfield... don't get confused.

After filling up on smoothie / milk tea goodness we went to Gem of India, leaving feeling very American (in the sense that we could no longer button our pants...). Delicious. Wednesday was considerably more laid back in the AM, but the afternoon was pretty full. I actually ended up going back to the same tea shop with another friend (also an anime lover) for a short while before meeting up with dear ol' K-Dog, aka The Great Black Dog for you fellow bloggers out there, and we had a fun / nostalgic evening of free pie (thank you, Village Inn), Bass Pro perusing [complete with random conversations with fish], and soup at the Aviary (which, ironically, is also were the fellow Epip-leader and I went on Monday). K-Dog humored me with a picture to document the day:

Note the longer hair! The gf thinks a ponytail will do him good. [The verdict's still out.]

After the whirlwind visit in Springfield, the Bride-to-be bestie and I met early (7 am) at Starbucks for a farewell coffee / breakfast before hitting the road on Thursday. I was proud of both of us for actually making it, lol. ^^; By her agreeing to get together, it forced me to get moving at a decent time for the 14 hour drive I had ahead of me.

I left Springfield at 8 a.m. Thursday and arrived at another EU friend's home at around 10 p.m. near Pittsburg, Penn. that night. The peanut gallery kept me amused with their dash-sitting cuteness during the drive (dashing cuteness?), but, rather tragically, a naughty stone managed to reach my windshield while I was in Illinois, and now I have a crack in the upper right-hand corner (not quite visible in this picture). Insurance arranged for a fixer to come out on Saturday once I reach NJ (to be continued...).

(The old tractor was for Daddy's benefit, since he collects them. ^_^)

I felt uber excited (and grateful!) to see / crash for the night at the fellow English majors' place from EU. Both are going through some interesting changes right now that I enjoyed hearing about. She (fellow English major and Walther gal!) explained how they are only in Penn. for a few more months, so I was glad I was able to see them when I did, because their next destination is L.A. (which is a bit out of the way for this trip). He is in a master's program for film / entertainment, and I'm thinking perhaps I went into the wrong work field, because hearing him talk about his experience at a video game creation company was pretty much epic. I parted ways with these two early Friday morning when they left for work, hitting the road by 8 again for central Penn. to meet up with another friend: dear Quetz!

I was very pumped about this get together, mainly because, despite having met online way back in 2006 and having lots of fun skype/facebook conversations, this would be our first in-person meeting. I reached her residence around 11 a.m. near the state university, and after meeting her family we walked to the campus and met up with her sister for ice cream at the campus creamery:

[The ice cream didn't last long enough to make the picture.]

Chocolate chip cooke dough ftw. After freezing our (very happy) tongues, we went out and froze the rest of ourselves as we walked from campus to the downtown, hitting up a Starbucks (love) and a comic book store (more love), both of which managed to somehow acquire some of the papery stuff in my wallet. [So sneaky.]

Since the family members I was heading for in NJ had an event that afternoon, I ended up hanging out with Quetz's family until evening, making the rest of the drive later than planned (silly computer clock was still on central time). I -finally- reached my final destination around 11:30 p.m., and waited for my cousins to come escort me onto the base. Uncle had already called it a day (quite understandably), but the Aunt and cousins and I all stayed up and visited a while.

This morning the glass-fixer-man came out, and we got that squared away for the time being. After a big family breakfast, I finally got a chance to sit down and blog this all out. I'll try to keep everyone updated on the escapade!

~to be continued~