Husband + Wife + Car + Week = AWESOME

Ryan and I found out we were awesome road trip partners back in grad school when we routinely made 12+ hour trips together in a jam-packed car (sometimes with the added bonus of our dog - and she always wants to "drive" so you can imagine what that's like) between the midwest and east coast. We even did a "road trip" one year for spring break - we drove from Terre Haute, Indiana to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and stayed in the cutest log cabin (with the biggest hot tub on the back porch overlooking the Smokey Mountains) for 5 days, and let me tell you... the driving portion was just as fun as the cabin portion.

So when we were looking at our finances and deciding if we had the funds to take a vacation this year, two things came to mind - we have no dollars, and next year I might be "with child". Now, I haven't unveiled my big To Do Before Getting Knocked Up List (no worries, it's on the way), but roadtripping to Chicago is on that list, because as much as I love Chi-City (dear Lord, I love Chicago: the hot dogs, Michigan Ave, the skyline, Millennium Park.... I could live there), I know it's completely out of the question when I'm carrying 25+ pounds of fetus and fluid.... and even more out of the question when we have an actual child. I can't even imagine how many bathroom breaks a 4 year old would need on the 12 hour drive from the coast to the Windy City. At any rate, we decided that it was more important to spend quality time together Before Baby, so we threw caution (and a small chunk of our savings) to the wind and started planning full force.

We decided that we'd take a road trip through the midwest with 3 big stops - Chicago, Champaign/Urbana, and St. Louis. Having lived in the midwest for a total of 2 years, I have no idea how we never made it to St. Louis, and I think it's a little funny that we decided we needed to go after living back east for 3 years. I might actually be just as excited to see the Gateway Arch as I am to see the Bean in Millennium Park - and I am THRILLED we get to see the Bean again:

Bean Source

Now, you may be wondering why we're stopping in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. You may be saying "There's not really that much going on in Champaign OR Urbana to nessesitate a stop-over there. How much corn do you need to see on this roadtrip?" We're not going for the corn, folks. We're going to see these wonderful people:

They're our friends from college (BFFs, really) and were both in our wedding party (thus the gown and tux) this past November. And fancy for them, they've just set a wedding date for Fall 2010! So we'll be spending a full weekend with them at their place in between Chicago and St. Louis - if we're lucky, we may even get to the Champaign County Fair for a good tractor pull or demolition derby.

As I said, we're (I'm) in full planning mode.... details to come!