The Art of the Vacation

Last night, T. and I sat down and reserved the hotel rooms for our road trip to Colorado in a few weeks.  At first, we were going to book all but a few of them on the fly, but then we found some really good deals at locations that we just could not pass up.  Like... two nights at Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort, south of Buena Vista, and two nights at the Limelight Hotel in Aspen, for a few examples.  We also figured that booking ahead will keep us on schedule and pace.  To say this road trip is going to be incredible is a total understatement.  I am SO excited!  Is it May yet?

Anyway, I was thinking earlier, and over the last eight years, the husband and I have taken some pretty amazing adventures together!  Time for a walk down memory lane...

Another photo from our 2008 Colorado excursion.  God, I love the mountains, and I am excited to experience them for a whole week.  This will always be one of my favorite trips.

Sunset at the dunes in Michigan.  He and I had been planning on going camping for a week at Devil's Lake, but an unusually large amount of rain had flooded the place and the park was closed.  We spent part of the week in Chicago and the other part exploring Michigan and it was a fun alternative, even though we were sad about missing out on camping.

That's me, barely 21 years old, on our first trip to Las Vegas!  My parents took us out there as a birthday gift, a long weekend from Friday to Monday (between his spring break and mine) and as I had celebrated that birthday the night before last, I wasn't really able to consume any alcohol until the second day of our vacation.  Oh, to be young again, haha...  (I also took a midterm in one of my hardest classes at 8 a.m. the very morning after I turned 21.  This is a story for another time, but I managed to get a better grade than some of my classmates who were, let's just say, in much better shape than I was.  Good job, college Jess.)  Anyway, this trip instilled in me a love for Vegas and a desire to return and see everything I missed the first time around...

...which we ended up doing, spending a few wonderful days playing on the Las Vegas Strip with some of our dear friends...

...and then again, for our honeymoon, which was another amazing week in the desert.  Yes, that is a souvenir photo from the Hoover Dam.  No, we could not be any more Midwest.  I love this photo.  I also miss my long hair.  We both agreed that a week in Las Vegas was a long time, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

We have also been to Charleston, South Carolina!  I really enjoyed our time there and I hope to go back soon.  We were there over New Year's Eve and got to attend a swanky party before heading back to our hotel room to watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin and throw our own little party with champagne and the Champagne of Beers.  We also took a carriage tour and explored an old plantation.  It was a nice little mid-winter escape from Chicagoland.

And finally, our most recent major expedition, a week in Costa Rica.  I wrote a few things about the trip here, on my old blog.  It was probably the most fun I've ever had on a vacation and one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to.  I will go back some day, mostly because it would be a shame to never return to a place that is Paradise, in every sense of the word.  Plus, one of our closest friends lives down there!  I'd say that's an amazing reason to go back, too!

Soon enough, we will be making all sorts of new memories and enjoying what is certain to be another incredible vacation.  Here's to adventure and the open road!

(Honorable mentions also go to our Louisiana road trip, where we got stranded for a few extra days in Tennessee due to brake problems on the Volvo, and our less than 36 hour road trip to Washington D.C. for The Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear.)