Nebraska

We unexpectedly rested for three full days before any more traveling. This was good, because we could relax and see Kansas City. It was bad, because we still didn't really sleep. So when we finally decided to go to Omaha, Nebraska, at four in the morning, after realizing that we weren't going to be able to sleep, it was insane. We were exhausted.

Omaha Zoo. The zoo was the main attraction for this leg of the trip. Everyone we talked to about Omaha said that we had go. We went as soon as they opened, so that we could have enough time to drive all the way back to Oklahoma City. They had some really neat exhibits. Despite my constant desire to sleep, I really enjoyed the animals. Some of the highlights were the penguins, the bears, and the aquarium. There isn't too much to say about it. To be honest, I was unimpressed. The hype built up around this zoo seemed silly once we had seen it for ourselves. The OKC Zoo is just as cool, and I can now appreciate it even more than before. 

When it started to get hot out and we had seen everything we wanted to, we left the zoo to get some lunch. We were told that the Old Market was the area to be. So, we found a nice restaurant called Zio's Pizzeria. The pizza was really good, but it was difficult not to think about sleeping. Shelby and Jordan dragged Patrick and I around the shops. There were some neat stores, but I wasn't really in the mood to enjoy them. We ended our Omaha day trip at Ted & Wally's Ice Cream. This place was really awesome. They made the ice cream right in front of you, and they had good flavors. It was good to enjoy these last few moments together before the long drive home and the switch back to reality after a week of fun.

states: 04/50

Bryce :)

Iowa

The next day, the four of us took our second day trip. This time, we went to Des Moines, Iowa. Shelby and I had never been at all. I could probably make every fifth word of this post "crops," because there was literally that much corn to see, but I'll just get it out of my system now. Crops, corn, so much corn. Okay, there. Everyone who we talked to told us that there was nothing to do there, and that we were wasting our time, but it was honestly my favorite part of our entire trip.

Our first stop was lunch. I had looked up some cool attractions that Des Moines has to offer, and something that really caught my eye was a restaurant called Zombie Burger. So, we checked it out. It was so good. The entire place is decorated with a walking dead theme. The menu was really awesome. The sandwiches were mostly inspired by lines from movies, and it was just really neat how different some of the ingredients were. My sandwich was called The Walking Ched, and it included: breaded + deep fried macaroni + cheese bun, Cheddar cheese, caramelized + raw onion, macaroni + cheese, mayo, chicken breast. It was incredible. You can't possibly imagine this food until you see it for yourself.

After, we checked out the rest of the East Village. The first shop we went into, the owner was really cool. She sold me this awesome Kind granola. I am forever grateful for that, especially because there is no tax on food in Iowa. She gave us a map, and showed us the places we had to see in the area. We shopped for a couple of hours. The capitol is beautiful, and there were a couple of really neat local shops. It was fun. Because of the granola-seller's recommendation, we next went to the Sculpture Garden. It was basically just a big grassy area with abstract sculptures inside. It was a hot day, so we gave nearly all of our attention to one. It was a huge person sitting, kind of, made entirely of big white letters. There were so many letters, and it was just really good. To cool down, we walked over to Ritual Cafe, which is a coffeehouse. I had tea.

We then started the drive back toward Kansas City. We had one more stop: Indianola. It's just south of Des Moines, and there is essentially nothing there. Unless you go the week that we went. This week was special, because of the 2012 Balloon Classic. The hot day was finally cooling off. We parked in a field along with the rest of Indianola and walked to an open area where the spectators waited. We grabbed some lemonade, put down our blanket, and managed to all sit on it. There was a cover band, Past Vertical, who played the alternative jams of our childhood. One of those songs was "All the Same Things," and I'm not joking when I say that I experienced all of the negative emotions I had during those three minutes. I was angry, upset, disappointed, sad, and generally displeased. It was bad enough that I feel the need to document it. That's my favorite band, and the cover was just dreadful.

Within an hour, the first hot air balloon was in the sky. Balloons are amazing things. They're massive. But they barely weigh anything. And they're so colorful. It felt like everything was aligning. We had a nice day, followed by a great evening. After all of this balloon watching, we were quite hungry. The goal was to get something local from Indianola, but our phones were kind of failing us. We finally just went to the grocery store, hoping to find some kind of food. Instead, we found a pleasant woman in the cereal aisle. So, I asked her where we should eat. She gave me a couple of suggestions, but seemed not to be as familiar as we would have liked. Suddenly, like vultures, the eavesdropping Indianolans were on us. "WINN'S," they said. "YOU GOTTA GO TO WINN'S." I may be exaggerating a little, but we were natives, and there were at least four of them suggesting we go to this Winn's. The online menu was really interesting. They had pizza, steak, egg rolls, gyros, pork chops, etcetera. We finally found Winn's; it was closed. Extremely frustrated, we went to Taco Bell.

states: 03/50

Bryce :)

Kansas

After spending the entire summer in Oklahoma, it was time for a road trip. Shelby and I decided to choose destinations that were affordable, so we took advantage of Jordan and Patrick's summer housing at William Jewell. From there, we were able to cross three more states off our lists while having a great time with some best friends. The first day trip was to Wichita, KS, which is conveniently located on the way to Liberty, MO where we stayed for the next week.

Lucky for us, Jordan's friend Whitney lives in Wichita. She acted as our generous guide for the day. Let me just say that after multiple drives through and around Kansas, I'm really grateful that we had a connection and got to experience what seems to be the coolest, most interesting part. We spent the majority of our time in Old Town, which is basically a square of cool shops and restaurants and entertainment.

Lunch was at Caffe Moderne, where we had delicious paninis. I'm going to describe my sandwich, because it's important that this gets documented in history. It was called The Josephine and consisted of smoked turkey, gorgonzola, toasted walnuts, and honey-thyme mayo. It was so good. After this, we did some light shopping. I spotted what looked like a mangled body on a bench, so I stopped to check it out. Turns out, someone left a lifesize doll here with a sign in hopes that it would find a good home. I had Whitney snap a picture of the four of us with it. If only we had enough room in the already stuffed car...

We visited a free city art museum that had some pretty cool stuff. I especially enjoyed the oil paintings and photographs. Whitney then took us to Mead's Corner Coffeehouse, which was quite good. Shelby enjoyed some gelato, and I found that they make a mean iced latte. We hung out for a while, and then decided to head over to an antique mall. They had neat old books and other ancient things, but what they didn't have was air conditioning. Fans blowing lukewarm air can only satisfy me for so long. Needless to say, I was glad to get back to Whitney's loft.

Her house looked like it was straight out of a catalog. It was beautiful and modern and perfect. The craziest part was probably that her parents' bed is on a glass floor which just kind of hangs out over the kitchen. That description leaves quite a bit to be imagined, but I'd like to leave it that way. Just trust that it was really awesome. We watched the Olympics and generally just hung around until we got hungry enough for dinner.

For our last stop in Wichita, the five of us decided on Knolla's pizza. What should have been a simple fifteen minute drive to our location turned into about thirty because we chose the restaurant next door to a Chick-fil-A on the day that conservatives flocked there for chicken sandwiches to show their support or something. I've never. It was worse than Black Friday. Finally, we got to Knolla's and enjoyed some awesome pizza. After that, Patrick drove us the last three hours to Jewell.

states: 02/50

Bryce :)

Texas

It's probably a little strange that as Sooners, the first place in all of the United States that we went was Austin, TX. That's just how it worked out, though.

First of all, Austin is amazing and magical and beautiful and weird. Mid-January may be the worst time to visit this city, but we still had such a good time. Luckily, my roommate Abby went to Austin this summer; she had some suggestions for us first time visitors. I'll move on to the details. We started driving late Friday night, and arrived in the IKEA parking lot just before the sun came out. We slept for a couple of hours until the store opened. I knew being tired at this point in the day was problematic, but all of my worries were washed away when I walked into IKEA. It's everything you could want it to be, honestly. We spent over two hours searching out the surprisingly cheap items. I certainly enjoyed it, but it was Shelby's personal heaven. This was probably the highlight for her. We could have easily doubled our time in there, but there was much to do and not as much time.

After lunches and more driving, we decided to scope out Book People (the store that was putting on the event that I'll get to later). On the way to the bookstore, we drove down 6th Street. Maybe when we're older and wiser, it will be nice to go back just to spend some time there. As for then, though, it was the afternoon and we had missions to accomplish. Book People is this perfect independent bookstore with all good things in it. If there was something like this in Norman, it's safe to say I would spend time there at least weekly, if not more often. After, we walked across the street to the original Whole Foods. We didn't spend much time there, because it was quite busy. It was cool to see how different it is, though.

Our next destination was incredible and tremendous and just perfect. I don't think I can ever thank Abby enough for the Zilker Park tip. The picture below is the Austin skyline from the park. I know you can't see from that image, but just trust me when I say that it is one of the coolest places I've ever been. Even though it was the middle of January, all of the people were out. They were running, biking, throwing frisbees, playing with their dogs, hanging out, being beautiful, etcetera. The grass was almost completely dead, but the scene was so serene and flawless that I couldn't even contain myself. The best part, by far, was the number of free roaming dogs. There were all kinds of breeds, and they were all living it up. So much good in one place; we absolutely loved Zilker.

Just when we thought we'd seen all the beauty, we went to eat at Oasis. I don't really want to talk about the experience we had--because it was terrible--but it was really a stunning place. The drive was winding and lengthy, but the statues and landscaping and everything were really great. It's definitely a place to revisit when it's warmer, because nothing worthwhile is open in the winter months. It was finally nearing evening, so Shelby and I drove back to civilization and found somewhere to park at Westlake High School. The line to get into the auditorium was ridiculously long, but we didn't have to wait too long before we were inside. Finally, I had arrived. I was at the Tour de Nerdfighting. Maybe you have no idea what that is, maybe you have every idea what that is. Just trust me when I say that it's everything.

I have been following John and Hank Green for four plus years, so to actually see them in person was extremely surreal. John read out of his new novel, Hank played some songs, they answered questions. I found myself dying over and over again, because I couldn't quite get over seeing John Green in the flesh only a few feet away from me. The crowd was intimidating, but that was expected. 1,100 nerdfighters in one room should not be underestimated. It was a perfect show, and I was so grateful that Shelby went with me.

Tiff's Treats was our final stop. We had delicious cookies and ice cream as we began our drive back to Norman. I surrendered the wheel to Shelby after I absolutely could not hang on another second. As you can imagine, I was very tired. Early Sunday morning, we arrived safely and I fell asleep faster than ever.

states: 01/50

Bryce :)

Traveling

Shelby and I have big plans. Something we both have our minds set to do is visit all fifty of the United States. We decided that the beginning of 2012 was the most opportune time to begin this. Sure, I've been to California, she's been to Florida, and we went to New York together, but this is time for a clean slate. So, here I am. The plan is to spend a significant amount of time (not just pass through) each state and then write out the memorable moments from each of those trips. We also have plans to go out of country, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Anyway, I'll be using this blog to document our vacations. Thanks for reading.

Bryce :)