Honeymoon...days 2.5-4

Honeymoon...days 2.5-4

When I last posted, we had just woken up and finished working out...We left Ann Arbor, MI and headed to Frankenmuth, MI.  We arrived in Frankenmuth in time for lunch.  After driving through the town, we stopped at Bavarian Inn and had lunch.  Megan tried sauerkraut for the first time.  We checked into the hotel, Bavarian Inn Lodge, which is a SUPER family friendly place...with five pools and a HUGE arcade center!  I would highly recommend the Bavarian Inn Lodge for a family!  The bed was SUPER comfortable, and the pillows were awesome (Megan told me they were maleable and fit just right!).  We took a nap, and then decided to go visit and enjoy the town.

We went to a couple of small shops...and ended up having dinner at the Frankenmuth Brewery--where the beer is good, the onion rings are awesome, and the people are super friendly!  I ended up buying a big jug of beer...primarily for the beer, but it makes an awesome reminder of our honeymoon!  We went back to the hotel room, enjoyed the sunset, and crashed hard.

We woke up early, worked out, loaded the car up, and went to checkout.  After we got in the car, we noticed that the car wasn't cooling down (the air conditioner).  We tried everything we could, and called Enterprise.  They asked if we were somewhere where we could go in and switch out the cars.  We checked into Ray's Bucktown Bed and Breakfast, and after getting the laundry started, went and traded in the car.  We had to give up the Kia Sorento and got a Ford something-or-another.  We went to pizza, and purchased a 12" pizza...only it was HUGE!!!  Way too much for the two of us to eat.  We should have followed what the locals did...purchases a slice, and call it good--we will learn next time!

On another note...we are back at the bed and breakfast, finished the laundry, and are now watching one of Megan's favorite shows...it's been quite the trip!  We're excited to see what's in store for tomorrow!

--KK and MK <><

HONEYMOON...days 1-2.5!

Honeymoon...days 1-2.5!

After Megan and I got married sixteen days ago, we finally got to go on our honeymoon.  We were invited to one of my good friends' Tura's weddings on May 28, 15 days after our wedding, and we decided that we would make two trips out of one, and go to Chicago for our honeymoon.  We left on Saturday at 7:30 from the Boise Airport, but being the workout junkies we are, we were awake at 4:00 a.m. putting in a 40 minutes run.  Oh yeah...and of course, we were packing the night before until 12:15!  A lack of sleep doesn't begin to describe what we were running on!

We landed in Chicago right on time at 2:40.  Of course, between Boise and Chicago, we got to meet some really cool people!  On our first flight, we sat next to this high school kid who was heading down to San Antonio Texas to sell pesticide.  He was a cool guy.  On our second flight from Denver to Omaha, we sat next to a Korean Minister, John Paul.  John Paul was hard to understand, but he had been in ministry for 30 years, and in America for 10.  He had three kids, and he was going to go visit a fellow preaching friend.  We shared some of our jerky with him, and he shared the Word of God with us about Love, Wisdom, and relationships.  As he departed the plane, we gave him some more jerky for his travels.  We moved to the exit row that had two seats.

We landed in Chicago, picked up our rental car (was supposed to be a Ford Expedition, but instead we got a Kia Sorento).  We began the 4+ hour drive from Chicago to Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Of course, I left the GPS car charger at home, went to Taget to buy one, they didn't have an exact one, but one that we thought would work, it worked long enough to get us to Ann Arbor.  On that journey, we drove through, what I can only describe, as akin to the Projects.  It was quite an experience, where we learned that cross walks don't mean anything, because drivers don't stop...and if you do stop, the pedestrians can't figure out what you're doing.  Pedestrians make up their own crosswalks, and out of everyone we saw, only one gal waived to use for stopping so she and her friend could cross.

The GPS finally got us to the toll road...but I wasn't able to find the entrance, so I paralleled it for a while (too long) until we were finally able to get on it.  We drove out of Chicago, into Indiana, and finally hit Michigan.  We saw multiple different police cars (they have a bunch of different ones up here!), and didn't get pulled over.  We ended up in Ypsilanti, Michigan where we stayed for Saturday - Monday morning.  We arrived at 9:15 p.m. local time (7:15 MST), which made for a 17 hour day of travel.  We went out that night to Sidetracks Bar/Grill...That was some good coleslaw burger I had, with sweet potato fries.  Everything on the menu looked really good, so I told Bryan, our waiter, to order me something!

On Sunday, we were up early, went to Church, and then we drove into Ypsilanti for some Jimmy Johns.  We saw a really cool fire house, and some other really cool buildings. We drove back to the hotel, did some research on the GPS, determined that the power cord we had purchased at Target was crap, and that we needed to get one from Best Buy that was made for the Garmins (different power outputs).  We left for Tura and Justin's wedding, stopped at Walgreens to get a card, and right next to Walgreens was Kluck's!  It was a drive-in, that looked like it had greesey food...but it was named KLUCKS!  You're darn right we're going to go get a picture of that!

We went to Tura and Justin's wedding, had a couple of slow dances (we were called out on the generation dance by 15 days...Tura did the math.  But we weren't the FIRSt couple...nor were we the SECOND couple!  We were the THIRD couple that were called out!)  We had fun, and then took off.  We went to Best Buy, purchased the CORRECT GPS car charger, and found a Joe's Crab Shack to eat dinner at.  We got back to the hotel room, and crashed.

Day three started with my alarm (on the computer) waking us up.  I groggily killed it, and went back to sleep.  We woke back up at 9:45.  We decided we ought to work out this morning, so we went running for about 35 minutes...it was HOT!  That is all for now!  I will post pictures later...but we are off to Frankenmuth, MI (Bavarian town USA!!!! Where it's Christmas YEAR ROUND!).  Here we go!  Day three of the adventure...BEGINS!

Kauai Day 6

On Day 6....August 31, we visited Queens Bath on Kaua'i. It was a great trip and very fun. We saw several sea turtles (watch the movie closely on some of the videos and you can see them come up for air!). I finish this video up with a timelapse of our view from the lanai. Quite the view! :-)

Kaua'i Day 5

On our 5th day of adventure in Kaua'i, we visited Waimea Canyon. It was a late start, as we lounged around for a bit. We started the hike around 12:30 or 1:00. We drove up the canyon and it was a great, but twisty, drive up with a few stops at some lookouts. My 28-135mm lens had trouble focusing, so I put on the circular polarizer filter and it worked really well, then when we got to the second lookout and I pulled the lens out, the polarizer was busted, so I switched to Kim's 70-300 lens. The camera took some "okay" pictures, but nothing I was super pleased with, so I switched to my Pentax Optio WG-1. It took some pretty good pictures, but I don't like the video that it's taking. I put together some pictures into a video. Hope you enjoy!

Kauai Day 4

On Day 4...August 29, 2011...of our Kaua'i adventure, we decided to go and visit the National Tropical Botanical Garden on the South Side of the island. It was a great experience, and we learned a ton about the local plants. It turns out that most of the plants, trees, etc...that are on this island are not meant to be here at all! In fact, less than 10% of the plants and trees we see are meant to be here, most of the things we see are introduced species and are actually considered weeds, no matter how pretty they are!

Here's a short video of some of the sights!

Kauai Day 3

Day three, August 28, 2011, was a great day! We woke up early to see the sunrise, but instead of the sunrise we saw clouds, and the sun illuminating rain that was happening out at the ocean. It was really very pretty, but not what we were hoping to see. We then got ready for Church and visited the Kauai Christian Fellowship on the North Shore. It was quite the adventure and quite a fun Church. I was glad to find out that reGENERATION isn't the only church that pushes out around 100 dB's on their music! After Church, we went and visited Poipu beach, walked around, saw another monk seal, and decided it was a great day for snorkeling. We snorkeled for probably 30-45 minutes (or more), and saw some very pretty fish! We then did lunch, drove up to the National Botanical Garden, reserved a spot for a tour of the gardens for Monday. We went shopping, and then came home. It was really a long day, but gorgeous and a lot of fun!

Here's a video!

Kauai Day 2

I learned today, August 29, 2011, that if you don't blog about what happened on that day or the following day you often forget! Well, on Kauai Day 2, August 27, 2011, we explored the North side of the Island. We rented snorkel gear, visited Ke'e becah and snorkeled, and toured the North shore for a while. I tested the Pentax for the first time underwater and it performed better than I expected. We finished the day off with steak, shrimp, and salad. It was quite the day! :-)

Check out the video here!!!!