The Beginning of Our Happily Ever After

Happily married in the Twin Falls, Idaho temple we began our journey as husband and wife.  The ceremony was absolutely perfect and we so enjoyed having friends and family there support and celebrate with us.  We were very grateful for the Spirit which we felt the entire day and for the excitement and adventure to come! 

And come it did.... 

After a relaxing weekend staying at a nice hotel in Boise, during which we were able to go to a Zickgraf family barbecue, and a Viehweg family lunch before everyone went their separate ways, we embarked mid-afternoon on Monday, April 30, on our first adventure together: CHICAGO.

Before we were engaged, Weston signed a contract to do summer sales in Chicago working under the direction of a family friend. While he did converse with me on the matter during the process, it did come very quickly and has turned out to be quite exciting.

Monday we made it as far as Diamond Fork Campground, Utah. Which is just SE of Mappleton, Ut. We'd been there before to hike to a nearby hot springs, but we hadn't had a tent with us, which was brand new, which we had never set up before, to set up in the dark. The original plan in our heads was drive a little ways, stop in SLC to get an air mattress at a Cabelas to use a gift card from the wedding, have a wonderfully romantic night sleeping under the stars and then start fresh in the morning. Well...we knew it was going to be a long night when we found out that Cabelas had closed 20 minutes before we could reach it.  And then the dark made things pretty difficult tent-wise. But this also helped to lighten the mood because we were laughing so hard at what idiots we must have looked like. At least he had his handy-dandy head lamp to guide the way.  However, I don't think we ever got the rain fly on right. At least it was a crystal clear night!  Once settled we were able to enjoy the area we were in a little bit. River nearby running happily on its way, no other campers in sight, a big moon in the sky and the quiet of the night to relax in.  Sleep, however, was a different story...I think I had bruises from 2 rocks with I couldn't get out of the ground under the tent... However, this was cause for MORE laughter :)  Morning time came very quickly for us, I think we just got right out of bed when we woke up around 6:30 and started on our merry way.

The first stop of the day was in Price, UT, to get some gas and eat some breakfast. Another adventure. I don't remember the name of the place we ate but I will remember the awful food we ate there for the rest of my life. Breakfast burritos smothered in strange sauce... with the sauce scraped off it was decent but it did give both of us terrible stomach aches.  We were happy to leave the wonderful ghetto of Price.

After that I we didn't make another stop until both of us needed some shut-eye in Colorade. We pulled over for about 10 minutes and then, when I couldn't fall asleep, I took over driving and we continued on stopping only for gas. I have to say I think I got the more beautiful part of the drive. Weston was sleeping pretty much the whole time, but I did enjoy winding through the mountains of Colorado, passing old mines and going through mile-long tunnels and all the beautiful red rock cliffs and trees. I especially loved passing through Vail, Colorado and seeing the cute little town that it was. I want to stop there someday, because it looks really nice!  We stopped in Denver, where we stayed in a hotel, thankfully. First thing we did there? Shower.  Both of us were ready to be clean of camping smells and feelings. We then walked around for a while to stretch our legs, stopping to get dinner at Panera (him) and Cafe Rio (me). It was delicious, especially Weston's Panera sandwich. Neither of us had heard of it but were pleasantly surprised by its tastiness.  Back at the hotel, we turned on a movie and went to bed fairly early in order to get up early enough to make it to the Denver temple for a 9 o'clock session, which was wonderful. It's such a cute little temple! I'll add more pictures later :) While we didn't get pictures of the camping, I did manage to remember to get a picture at the temple!  Then, we changed in the car, got snacks at Walmart, and headed on our way! 

People say that the hardest part of the drive to Chicago is the stretch in between Denver and Illinois....and it's true. All there is to see for miles and miles and miles is field. Flat, dry, barely rolling hills of field. Not even field most of the time, actually.  It's prairie. At first we didn't think it was that bad because we'd never seen anything like that before, and you could see storms WAY off in the distance with lightening going off, etc. And that was exciting...for the first 1.5 hours. THEN we got bored. And it stayed like that ALL the day long.  We only stopped for gas/food until we got to some dinky little town I don't even remember the name of in order to pick up an air mattress since we were most likely going to be needing it that night. I swear this town matched PERFECTLY to the Cabela's store.  A small community college and boys running around in wifebeaters and cowboy hats, little diners, rundown gas stations, blinking stop lights....And then IN the store you had girls and guys alike buying hunting gear, fishing gear, looking at ammo...it was hilarious. We very much enjoyed our stop there :)  And waiting behind a long train full of who-knows-what to get back to the dinky highway that took us back to the interstate to continue our trip.  We stopped in Nebraska just outside Omaha for the night, and decided to camp.  So I looked up a camping ground and we drove through it..in the dark again! But we were unsuccessful in finding a campsite that was tent-friendly. All of them seemed to be fore RV's only..and they were all built on hills so there wasn't even a flat space we could just manage with to sleep for the night. After driving around getting frustrated for about 20 min, we decided to just go find a field (not hard to do, remember?) and just set up there for the night. We'd be leaving early so even if a farmer came out...we'd be outta there by then!  So we drove....and found some corn fields...and decided to stop in the middle of some guys' field, literally, so that we could watch the AMAIZING lightening storm just west and south of us. There were flashes SO bright happening about every 5 seconds. It was the coolest thing! Eventually, we decided it was time for bed since we had another long day of travel ahead of us.  Originally we were just going to sleep with the tent mesh over us so that we could watch the lightening. But, lucky for us, I got paranoid and said I wanted to rain fly so no one would come a-creepin on us.  Not 5 seconds after we got the last part of the fly tied down it started to rain a little. So we laughed and got in our tent and got ready for bed. Little gusts of wind, nice raindrops, it was all very nice sounds to fall asleep to.  And then about an hour after we'd fallen asleep the noise was DEAFENING.  While we'd slept, the two storms we'd been enjoying had converged LITERALLY right over our heads, and it was a little scary.  I thought my eardrums were going to burst. BOOM BOOM BOOM again and again and again. Flash, Flash, WHOOSH! The wind picked up HARD. Only positive of the whole ordeal was that our tent proved itself to us. Didn't blow over and kept the rain out, which was steadily POUNDING all over us..causing a mini-flood outside our door.  Both of us just laid there amazed at what was happening and frightened...being in the middle of a field and having lightening probably touching ground all around us. I was shaking.. but we calmed our fears a little with a prayer and decided to try to enjoy the craziness, and peeked out of the bottom of our door to watch the show.  I don't know how long we did so, nor how long it lasted. But somehow, eventually, we were able to fall asleep. We were woken up by a car driving by.  And by again going to other way, and then again...and again....That's when we got up, packed up quickly, and were just about to leave when the same car, which turned out to be a farmer in his little pick-up truck, stopped by and said, "You guys need any help?"  "No," we replied, "we're okay."  The look on that man's face...I will never forget. He thought we were completely insane! If we weren't having any car problems why on EARTH would we have been camping out during a storm like that? haha it was funny to kind of read his mind.  Breakfast that morning was Mcdonald's pancakes and breakfast sandwiches, and we didn't stop again until we were just outside the Illinois border, I drove most of the way cause Weston was tired. But that's ok. I don't sleep in cars anyway :) We stopped for lunch around 2 at this tiny Sub sandwich place that was TO DIE FOR. Or maybe it was just way better than Gummy Bears, Chocolate covered macadamia nuts, fruit leather, and almonds.. we hadn't had a lot of good food in the last 24 hours. But anyway..it was tastey. Then we got to cross the Mississippi River on the coolest bridge ever to touch down in Illinois! That river, goodness gracious, is HUGE. I always thought I'd pictured it pretty well in my head when people would describe it. But I was wrong. It was like a long, skinny lake.  Boats and all. Amazing! One of the highlights of things I saw on the trip for sure.  After that it was nothing but lush farmland and green forest everywhere as far as you could see- even when we got close to the city.  I can't imagine how hard it would have been to clear all that land to make these big cities without modern machinery. It just makes you thankful for the time you were born in, I guess.  Anyway, I ate up all the forest everywhere. It's so pretty! And we have that where we live here in Wheaton, IL, too. I run on a path that is canopied by trees and lush grasses and bushes...beautiful. Makes me feel like I'm not in the city at all, but on a hike! I love it.  Probably what I'm going to miss most about this place when it comes time to go home.  So, we arrived! Safe and sound. A little tired, ready to be DONE, but happy nonetheless :) We were lucky to have Carson and Jared there to meet us and help us quickly unpack the car, and then I quickly put everything where I wanted and got everything set up in the next few hours before we headed to Target to get all the things we didn't need. For instance, of course we wanted to shower right when we got there due to the places we'd stayed in the last couple days...but we had no shower curtain! We were desperate, though, so Thankfully I had a nice sheet that I just clipped over the pole there to make due til we went shopping. and it did the job pretty well!  Looked silly as heck, but oh well!  

Target was QUITE the experience. Buying trash cans, shower curtains, pillows, plates, towels, broom, cleaning supplies, dishwasher detergent, ETC.  It gave me quite the headache. And BLEW my mind when we had a total of 400$. Just for NECESSITIES!  We were very grateful for our gift certificates then. Thanks to everyone who helped us get on our way!

I set up the towels and shower curtain right when we got back. Made things a little more "Homey" and I have pictures to prove it! :) I will get on adding those. 

The next morning, Weston and I started work...so I guess it was "good-bye" to the Honeymoon! Wasn't a dream but it sure was an adventure :)  And sometimes, it still feels like we're on our honeymoon. It's nice to be getting to know each other so far from what we're used to. We love it!

Welcome to our lil' home! :)