Colorado Bound!

Driving 625 miles in one day is certainly a feat. In order to make it to the Rockies game in the evening, our group loaded the van at 6:15, ate some breakfast, and hit the road by 6:40 am! Yay for early mornings and sleep deprivation. Perhaps because of our overall lack of sleep, the group was quite slap-happy all morning. Personally, I was ecstatic to be ending our drive in my native Colorado at Coors Field, which I refer to as the most wonderful place on Earth. My enthusiasm combined with the over caffeination of my classmates made for lots of puns and laughter on the way out of Kansas City, Missouri.

As the class settled down, our class DJ played some tunes. Most of the day was spent uneventfully as part of the class slept in an attempt to catch up on the sleep we had missed, and everyone else read to stay on track with the more tradition part of this class. We had a quick dance break when One Direction's "Let Me Kiss You" played, courtesy of Hailley's playlist.

We stopped for gas partway into Kansas at a station with more trucks than I've ever seen parked before. It was nice to get out and walk around before settling back in for three more hours of driving. Then came lunch on the western end of Kansas at Montana Mike's Steakhouse. We had a wonderful waitress, who quickly found the class trouble maker after the first time Brendan opened his mouth. All her teasing, the delicious food, and the homemade cupcakes we were giving made lunch fly by, and it was time to hit the road again.

Shortly after lunch, we crossed into Mountain Time Zone, which gave us an extra hour to reach the game on time. Not long after that, we crossed the state line into Colorado. Though the landscape looked about the same, words cannot describe how excited I was to be back in my homeland. There is an overwhelming sense of state pride that runs through the culture of the Centennial State, and I was overjoyed to share my place with the rest of my classmates. About fifty miles in, we encountered another oddity of the state. Within the Colorado border, I-70 is 450 miles long, and there is a rumor floating around social media that the 420 mile marker sign had to be replaced with a 419.99 sign in order to stop it from being stolen. We did indeed see the new 419.99 sign, confirming the rumor.

As we looked into the distance, our hopes to see mountains were overshadowed by the ominous greenish-black clouds ahead of us. We drove into the heart of a thunder storm, which soon chased us off the road. We waited about ten minutes for the heavy hail to subside. After the initial blast, we had relatively clear skies for the rest of the drive in, which enabled us to see the silhouettes of the cloud covered mountains in the distance. The edges of the highway in Denver were coated with plowed hail that we originally mistook for snow. We maneuvered successfully through Denver to find parking just three blocks from Coors Field, and I quickly forgot our almost twelve hour drive as I marched toward the ballpark where I knew an exciting Colorado Rockies game awaited!

Travel Time - Germantown, WI to Chicago

After a great day of baseball in Milwaukee, we packed up the van to follow the Brewers to Wrigley Field in Chicago. Thankfully, the drive was significantly shorter than the day before, so we were able to leave at the more reasonable time of 8:00 am. As we drove south, the clouds completely obscured the sun. It started sprinkling as we crossed into Illinois where we encountered our first toll road of the trip. As we journeyed on, the rain got harder, and it was even snowing lightly for a time. Fortunately it lighted up a little by the time we reached Wrigley, which meant the game when on as planned.

The night before, the class had discussed whether we should park outside the city and ride the train in or whether we should drive right into Chicago and try to park as close to the park as possible. In order to (hopefully) expedite leaving the park, we ended up choosing the second option.  We drove past the ballpark and begun our search for a spot to leave the van. Our first try was just down the street, but a native Chicagoan told us that the sign saying weekend parking was prohibited included Friday. Not how we understood it, but we decided to move the van rather than risking a ticket. We drove around a little while longer before finding a spot farther into the neighborhood, though still quite close to the field. We ventured to the ballpark to watch the game. (See Ryan A.'s post about the game for more details there.)

After the game finished, we went back to the van to search for food. Our Illinoisians strongly recommended that we find a Portillo's to satisfy our hunger. As we slowly made our way through typical Chicago Friday afternoon traffic, there were stories told of the wonders of the chili dogs, Italian beef, and chocolate cake shakes that would be available for dinner. We were all famished by the time we got to the restaurant in Lombard. Once inside, we all ordered, and Hailley made contact with a former Kohawk in the area who came a visited with us while we ate. The food was delicious and just what I needed after a long day of travelling and sitting outside in the cold. 

We gassed up in Dekalb shortly after dinner and drove into the sunset as we headed back to Cedar Rapids for the weekend. The drive seemed to stretch on as most of us were exhausted from the three day whirlwind trip we just had. Fortunately, we have two days to rest, relax, and pack before heading off on our longer west coast adventure on Monday. I can't wait for the rest of adventures we'll all have together!

Rachel

Game Time at 4:55 AM (Eden Prairie to Milwaukee)

The van left Eden Prairie bright and early Thursday morning headed to Wisconsin. As we settled into our approximately five and a half hour trip, the van fell asleep (other than Ryan A and Rachel). When I woke up, we were in Wisconsin, the sun had risen, and the heat was blowing hot air against my leg. Our pit stop was Black River Falls and as our van pulled into the local Kwik Trip, I got super excited.

Let me explain. Kwik Trip is a popular gas station chain in Wisconsin. When I'm traveling with my family, stopping at a Kwik Trip means a cappuccino. So while most of the group was stumbling around Kwik Trip in a sleepy daze, I headed straight for the cappuccino machines.

Dr. Bob filled up the van, took a quick cat nap, and then we were back on the road. While most of the group proceeded to fall asleep again, I couldn't help but stare out the window, the cold glass against my check. It was funny, I thought to myself, that I knew Interstate 90-94 East so well and no one else in the car knew this road. To them, they were sleeping through it, or if they were up, it was just a road to them. For me, this road carried enough memories to several Word document pages. This was the road my family took for all sorts of adventures: to a Boy Scout camp in Haugen, Wisconsin, snow tubing at Fort McKoy, the Wisconsin Dells, East Towne Mall in Madison, the Johnson Creek Outlet Mall, or to places in Milwaukee. Here I was, all these memories running through my head while my classmates were looking outside thinking, "Well this is Wisconsin." I found myself telling a lot of stories about my travels on that road, to anyone that would listen. Hopefully I wasn't too annoying, but it was one of those moments where you want to share; you want your stories to be heard. I wanted to make my classmates appreciate not only this road but also Wisconsin as a whole. I hope it worked.

The construction in Milwaukee was just as bad as it was about a month or so ago when my dad and I drove to the airport to fly out to Boston for a graduate school visit. But instead of making our way to the airport, Dr. Bob drove the van to Miller Park.

Game time.

Post-game (I'll let Ryan R. talk about the game), we made our way to Germantown to our hotel. We were told to eat at Brisco Country restaurant and boy was it delicious. On top of that, I think this restaurant allowed us to bond. We were psyched about the Brewers win (or maybe just the energy of Miller Park or maybe it was because we were finally getting food after a very long day). Lots of great conversation and it makes me excited for the rest of the trip.

Hailley      

First real van trip! Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis

Today is the day! After months of planning, eight students and one fearless professor are off to 17 professional baseball games during the next month. We left this morning on our first trip, to Target Field in Minneapolis to watch the Twins take on the Boston Red Sox. We began our trip with a quick game of catch in the parking lot at Coe, and it allowed all of us to stretch out before our five hour drive, in a beautiful 15 passenger van.


On our way up, we made two stops one at a Gas Station/ Culvers for a quick lunch and the other at the Minnesota state rest area, and sticking to the theme of our May Term, we always found a way to make time to play catch.  I hope that as this trip continues and the drives go from an easy five hours to a 20 hour drive from Kansas City to Denver, we continue to make time for catch!

We arrived at our hotel in Eden Prairie Minnesota at around 2, which gave us just enough time to check into our hotels, and take a solid 45 minute nap! The nap proved to be just what we all needed, before we headed into the heart of Minneapolis for the game!

Until The Next Adventure,
Ryan Rey