Ellison Bay, Wisconsin

Just...just watch and enjoy the beauty.



This is really one of the most beautiful and serene places I've even been to in my entire life. Nature, shops, restaurants...wow.  It feels like you went back in time into your favorite old movie.  I will go back every year, so hopefully I can have more to say about it other than just having my jaw on the floor the entire time.

Broken Bow, Oklahoma

I literally woke up in Ashdown, Arkansas, grabbed a danish at a gas station, and gunned it to the closest town in Oklahoma!   I would have loved to have had the time and/or the money to be more picky about which towns I went to, but I had two days off and at this point, I had little choice!  I know Broken Bow, much like Ashdown, may not be the perfect representation of these states.  At the same time, I think everywhere is worth seeing!  People still call these towns home, and maybe it  deserves a  little spotlight!  

One of my favorite parts about going to these little towns are the comments I will get about where I should have gone, or people saying "hey, that's my home!" Being from Redding, California, I know how exciting it can be when somebody acknowledges your small town.  It's silly, but it's true! I wish I could reach out to these people beforehand and get suggestions for restaurants etc!!

Arkansas

I didn't realize I hadn't posted my past few states on this blog!  I apologize to my zero followers!  


Before I left Texas I made a stop in Arkansas and Oklahoma!  I'm very glad I made an effort to do so, because who knows when I'll have the opportunity again? 





I stayed in a town called Ashdown!  I stayed at the Economy Inn which I believe was one of two motels in Ashdown. As you can see in the video, it's a pretty small and seemingly uneventful town, but according to the comments on the video, there are more up-to-date parts of town with a bit more life.  If you get the chance to stop there and grab some Jakes BBQ as you're passing through, I highly recommend it! Absolutely delicious!!

Texas!

I'm currently living in Texas until December!  I've lived here since August of 2009.  I got a decent amount of tourism in while living here, thanks to my sister!   I'm going to cheap out again and link you to a post on my regular blog, because it has videos from San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin.  All of which are awesome (go watch!)!!  




One of the most special things about Texas is the sky.  Other then that it's absolute misery to walk outside.

It really has been a great experience living here.  It's not my favorite place in the word by any means, but I had a lot of great and weird experiences while living here. 

I met a lot of sweet, insane, and special people.  

I occasionally focused a lot on my health. 

I traveled to Mexico, Illinois, and Louisiana while living here, and I previously had never been to any of these places.  

I learned I should not be in sales!  

I've worked at/been to a decent amount of NFL games, and began to embrace the sport a bit more.  

I saw Bono.  

I babysat my fabulous nephew, who I can honestly say has made me more open to having children in the future.  

I saw where JFK was assassinated. 

I saw two bands I love, Paramore and Tegan and Sara.

I had the best hamburger ever, a Smashburger.

I got to watch my sister and brother in law graduate from college.  

I learned to love dogs.  

I saw one of my favorite musicals, Miss Saigon.

I owned my first car.  

I learned to (kind of) drive in a big city

I wrote a few ok songs

I read 25 books

I set a lot of goals for myself, when before I never gave the future a thought

I learned to be more careful with money!  Pretty late in the game though haha.

I learned a lot of my own flaws and one at a time I'm learning how to improve on them.

I'm sure if I sat here longer I could think of more experiences, but I'll stop there.  This is more personal then travel related I suppose, but it really was a good move for me in a lot of ways.  To see highlights from most of the major cities, check out the videos I linked you to earlier!  I've had a great time here, and it's time for me to move on.  Illinois, here I come!

New York!!!

It's about time I post a blog for each state I've already been in!


I moved to New York (Kew Gardens, NY...in Queens) right out of high school to be a nanny.  I then went back about a year ago and had an awesome vacation.  So this post is going to be long, haha.  

The first thing I had when the family I worked for brought me to their apartment was pizza.  New York pizza is indeed delicious, but not ALL New York pizza.  Danny's Pizza in Kew Gardens was absolutely delicious and the slices were giant.  It should be noted that I gained about 20lbs or so during the year I lived there (not exaggerating!), so I found some good food.  


Now I'm not into bars, clubs, etc..so none of my post are going to tell anybody where the "hot spots" for partying are.  What I really was into more than anything was the theater.  There are always dozens of Broadway shows and even more Off-Broadway shows.  Tickets are expensive, but a lot of people utilized the TKTS booth in Times Square to buy last minute tickets.  I never used that booth because they never had a show I wanted to see for a very good price, but if you're not picky (and you don't need to be, a majority of the shows are very impressive), it's a great way to get a better price.

As typical as it is, Times Square is a pretty cool place to walk through as a tourist.  It doesn't cost you anything, but you get to see some serious characters and the flashing lights are too much fun.  It does get crowded at night, especially on weekends.  You almost can't walk at that point, so don't cut through if you're in a hurry.  They set up some "bleachers" so if you don't want to walk through the madness and you just want to be still and soak it in, you can.  


There are so many restaurants, and shops that I could never possibly have visited them all!  I'm not a big shopper (unless it's food), so I didn't really pay much attention to the boutiques.  So I'm not the person to ask where the best shopping is.

If you want to get away from the really thick crowds, head down to the Village, Brooklyn, or Queens.  I spent very little time in the Bronx and I never went to Long Island so I can't say much for those two places.    The picture above is right out of the Union Turnpike subway station in Kew Gardens.  It's peaceful and residential, with some great restaurants mixed in.  If you want a great park but Central Park is too crowded for you, there is a beautiful parked called Forrest Park in this area.  Although I highly suggest giving Central park a visit.  


                                                                      Central Park

Forrest Park in Forrest Hills

I'm going to end the post here because I could honestly go on and on and on and on and on.  I absolutely love New York!  Rather then posting the links to all my NYC videos (from my most recent trip) on here, I'll link you to my blog post about it, HERE.  Worth a watch!

Some quick tips:

-Use the subways and your feet as much as possible!  Subways are $2 a ride, and they used to have a $10 pass for a day or two if you were going to be using it a lot.  Bring your walking shoes...seriously.  No flip flops.  If you are all dressy then stick your heels in a bag and change when you get to your destination. Taxis are far too expensive.  I admit I usually took one from the airport, but that's because I'm lazy.

-If you're there for a short period of time but you want to see as much as possible, I recommended those cheesy bus tours or a Circle Line cruise.  Both are around $30, but if you'll kick yourself for not seeing all of the major sites, then it's worth it.  If you have some time to kill, do what I did and make a list of MUST SEE'S and take a walk there or take the subway.  Print yourself a subway and a street map unless you have a fancy phone.

-If you get lost, ASK somebody.  You might encounter a snob here or there but most of the people are very warm and kind, they're just in a hurry.

-Keep your purse closed and in sight at all times.

I love New York!!!

Louisiana

This was my first trip made specifically for the purpose of this 50 state goal.  I drove a little under 3 hours to Lake Charles, Louisiana.  Honestly, I would've loved to have gone to New Orleans, but the drive would've required an overnight stay, which would've made my trip cost literally 5 times more.  

I did a little research to find anything worth seeing while I was there.  I found the official tourist website wasn't much help for somebody just wanting to take a day trip there.  It was mostly hotels and what not.  I went to Yelp.com to see if anybody had any suggestions, and I found a lot of people raving about this little hole-in-the wall restaurant called The Kitchen.  I added that to my short list of things to see.  The only other things I had down was the lake itself, and a Veteran Memorial.  It wasn't much, but I was just excited to see if there was any difference in culture or style in this state that's so close to Texas (where I live).  I really feel like there was!

The first thing that was pretty cool when driving into Lake Charles was the big bridge that went over the lake.  It almost looked like a roller coaster when I was driving up to it!

So that was a cool welcome to the town!  Right on the other side is the lake itself.  Nothing to shout about, especially because the weather was so thick and humid...it hardly made lounging or even STANDING on the beach, seem enticing.  I only stood there long enough to get some footage and then ran back to the car.  I was really excited about The Kitchen anyways!  The GPS has a tough time finding where I thought the memorial was, but I ended up finding it just driving along the other side of the lake!  It wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, online it was depicted as some sort of structure/sculpture.  Perhaps that was there somewhere, but I enjoyed the nice memorial I found.  It was a tank, a huge flag, a helicopter, and bricks with soldiers names on them.  Here's a cell phone picture I took:

The town was much cuter town then expected!  The streets were lined with old stops and cafes, it was really charming!  The houses were older, and more colorful then I've seen most other places!  I wanted one!  If the rain wasn't coming down so hard, I would've spent more time driving around, or I would've stepped out and walked around a bit.  There were cool buildings and churches on almost every corner it seemed!  Then there was the moment I was waiting for...The Kitchen!

The Kitchen is this little brown building in the middle of an old neighborhood.  You will see it in my video.  The front door is hard to open, and you walk in thinking "...this is highly recommended?  REALLY?"  The floors are a bit uneven, and there just isn't much to it.  Looks are deceiving!

It's a straight up small town, cafeteria style (almost) place to eat.  There are certain foods you can order on certain days, and it's served on paper plates.  The man who ran the counter was incredibly kind and a little thrown off by a stranger coming through the door!  It seemed like all of the people eating there, came there regularly for years.  Once I discovered the food was absolutely delicious, I just devoured it and enjoyed listening to some Southern gossip.

Everything on that plate was absolutely to die for, minus the green beans.  I love green beans, but they were too spicy for me.  I would recommend The Kitchen to anybody who wanted to get their eat on.  It was definitely the highlight of my short visit. http://www.eatatthekitchen.com/

After I found a hard to find gas station, I drove around a little bit more just to enjoy the atmosphere.  It was such a cute town.  The rain was getting awful so I finally headed home, with a brown paper bag full of delicious leftovers, and a camera full of the footage below!

 

Grand total of the trip: Gas $50 + Dinner $14 = $64

50 State Goal

I posted this on my other blog, but since I want this one to be exclusively about travel, I'm going to post my goal here as well!

I know it's not terribly ambitious or original, but I've decided I'd like to see all 50 states in my lifetime.  I'm always aching to travel places abroad, but I realized I need to see and appreciate the land I live in as well!  There is so much to see, more then I will ever be able to see myself I'm sure.  I just like to think there is something worth seeing in every state, every CITY even in this country. I'm not just going to the major cities, and I'm also hoping not to just step over the state line and count that as being in the state.  Although I'm sure some visits will be shorter then others.  

This is my current progress.  Pretty lame!  I have to start somewhere though!  Eight out of Fifty is a start.

A few of the places I haven't been to since I was little (Oregon, Nevada, Utah), so even though I want a blog post on every state, some might not be up to par.  I will give it my best anyways!  I may be moving from Texas to either Illinois or California, and when I do that I plan to make a road trip out of it so I can knock a few more states off of the list!  I'm very excited about this, and I hope to see a lot of our country and of the rest of the world!  It's a beautiful place, and I want to see it!