Happily Ever After the Next Stop

Hey Y'all! I can't believe it's been a full four days of marriage to my lovely man! w00t! We both are so grateful to everyone who helped with the wedding (including but not limited to) Miriam & Randy, Garth & Becky, mi familia, Summer, Lindsay, Sarah, and Cathy! Many more helped set up the venue and reception, and many many MANY more of you were so kind and generous enough to make our honeymoon trip possible (and safe!). God has truly blessed this time of starting a new family together. With that said, here's a look into our trip so far!

 Day 1: After spending the night in downtown Greenville, Daniel and I hit the highway on our way to the Creation Museum. It was one of our longer legs of the trip, and it was fairly quiet. Driving through the mountains is always enjoyable.We arrived at the Creation Museum at around seven at night. Honestly, we were worried that the office would be closed or that we would only have about half an hour to wander around. Not only were we two hours before closing time, but the whole place was still decorated like a winter wonderland with all of the fairy lights and even "Bible characters" wandering around talking about the good news. The man at the ticket counter even announced that there was a special which included access to this amazing walk through the grounds and two very nice travel mugs with unlimited hot cocoa during our time there!! God is so good! When we finished walking through the place as best we could, we started making our way to our night's stop about an hour from St. Louis. We were so thankful for that hotel, especially after passing through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana (twice), Ohio, and Illinois.

 Day 2: Rain visited us in the morning, and we skipped the hotel breakfast in order to get some miles under our belt for the day. We eventually stopped at this little restaurant called the Blue Springs Cafe after seeing a sign somewhere, and it happened to be the best random food decision of the trip that far. I have never had better meatloaf, and I am fairly certain Daniel would have loved taking a bath in that country fried steak and gravy. Apparently, this cafe was "Home to the Mile-High Pies as Seen on Food Network", so we decided to test their banana cream pie. I can see the...a-peel. Haha. Get it? Banana. *cough* ANYWAYS, we finished driving through Missouri, which was a lot of flat farm country. Iowa was next, and though the road was smooth, I would rather not drive through it again. The land was so flat that, after the initial awe of seeing everything for miles, it was rather dull. Towards the end of our drive through Iowa, we crossed over into Minnesota and had to skip our adventures to the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption and the Jolly Green Giant statue due to the weather. The roads had become a little icy and it was snowing. Thankfully, our AirBNB was just over the Minnesota border, so we drove through this cozy little town of Fairmont easily. It was a town straight out of a Hallmark movie with powdery snow covering the ground and all of the wreath-trimmed light poles lining the main street. The only complaint we had was our first encounter with negative seven degree weather and strong winds.

 Day 3: My mom gave me a new luggage set, some cozy fleece leggings, and a very thick pair of gloves for Christmas......and I absolutely used all of these and two layers of clothing the next day. Poor Daniel volunteered to warm the car and even pull it around to the front of the apartment, so that all I had to do was load the luggage and hop in. We started our daily journey early in the morning, knowing that we had a good bit of ground to cover. The flat farm country started changing early into the day, and we crossed the South Dakota border not long after. Flat farmland also greeted us on this stretch of road, but we started to see more shrubs, hills, and even a few jackalopes along the way! Our original goal was to visit the Corn Palace, then Wall Drug, then round out the evening by seeing Mount Rushmore before heading back to a surprise hotel/stop that I had planned for Daniel. The Corn Palace was closed, since it was New Year's Day, and that made me sad. It was still very cold, however, so we took a picture with the mascot and hopped back into the warm car. Wall Drug was also closed, and we were very hungry by this time, so both of us were disappointed with not getting a juicy bison burger. We kept plugging along through the endless stretches of road until about an hour and a half to our stop. The snow had stopped the night before, but it left a lot more ice on the roads. The setting of the sun made this even worse, so we decided to skip Mount Rushmore that night and head straight to the hotel. When we arrived at the surprise, we were both tired from a very tense drive, and I remembered that Rushmore likely would not be an ideal stop during the government shutdown anyways. We relaxed by treating ourselves to some pie at the local diner and passing out in the room.


 Day 4: I was SUPER excited about this stop, guys! It was my intention during planning for this trip to provide a fun stop and a nice break from driving on this day before traveling to the next stop. The hotel we stayed at had an indoor water park where we ended up spending the morning. Daniel's eyes lit up when he saw the huge jacuzzi, and we got there early enough to beat most of the crowds. We took our time getting ready and started to drive through Wyoming. I was afraid we would face more of the ice that had given us such trouble the night before, but with the sun coming out and making the day a sweltering forty degrees, the snow had cleared up for most of today's journey! Wyoming has been the most picturesque drive by far. Sturdy pines poked up out of their pillowy blankets and the mountains came alive with winds strong enough to blow someone into another lane if they weren't paying attention. One of my favorite views was seeing the setting sun through the mountain peaks. Our hotel greeted us warmly with the smell of freshly baked cookies. It was nice to feel like we had returned to civilization. There was even a Starbucks down the street! Before we turned in for the night, we decided to give the sushi and Chinese food restaurant called Bonsai a try. It sat right in front of our hotel's entrance. This definitely topped the little cafe in Missouri! The fish was so fresh, you could taste the stream. Now we are full and ready to pass out again. Who knows what we will encounter on the road tomorrow, but we hope to see Daniel's home state of Washington soon and earn a good rest near family.

 ~*Mrs. Simpson*~