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A tipi-like structure marks every rest area in South Dakota. This particular rest area is on I-29 at the Vermillion exit, and this may have been my second stop here (ever) because it’s only 8 miles from home. (The first being a geocaching adventure.)
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My college buddy Brian, his wife Kaitlyn and I drove to South Dakota for the weekend for a 40-hour adventure. It turns out you can stay pretty busy, even in a small town.
– Horseback riding on Sandman and Barney the mule
– Visit to the tri-state area with a loop down Dakota Ave in South Sioux City, Nebraska
– Lunch in Sioux City, Iowa (Amen for Chick-fil-A!)
– A visit to Palmer Candy for their cherry Twin Bing bars, a Midwestern favorite.
– A visit to Vermillion, South Dakota to tour the National Music Museum
– Church and then dinner at Los Amigos, one of two sit down restaurants in my hometown, and some of the best Mexican food north of the border.
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I’d love to say that taking this photo only took a New York Minute. But, mirror + window + self-portrait = fairly difficult (like 30 minutes). At least it was easier than my birthday photo. And this photo.
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After 13 months at Target working on a project that involves reporting about events, I actually attended my first Target event in New York City. Target celebrated 50 years with partners and friends in a Chelsea warehouse. And I finally met Bullseye!
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This year, we got to the church in time and snagged some seats at one of my favorite churches, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, Ind.
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It was a super soggy Saturday in South Bend, but that didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm to see Notre Dame (fortunately) win against Stanford in overtime.
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Every year since we graduated from MBA school in 2007, some friends and I have met each fall for a Notre Dame football game. 2012 was no different. We flew in and drove from many parts: Chicago, Nashville, Minneapolis, Vermont, Connecticut, and Washington State to South Bend–a place we once called home. And for a three-day weekend (now with six kids along), we kicked leaves around campus, gathered at Bond Hall for the marching band, joined the crowd in the stadium bleachers, reminisced old tales, and shared our latest adventures.
One of the great things about Notre Dame is the geographic diversity of people I met in grad school. The downside? All those close friends have moved back to cities far and wide, and we only see each other all together once a year. But we make the time count. And, I can always count on our time being a blast!
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Cloudgate, also known as The Bean, is a popular Chicago tourist attraction in Millennium Park. Inspired by liquid mercury, the structure is made of 168 highly polished stainless steel plates and stands 33 feet long. I took this photo the summer of 2006 when I lived in The Loop. Normally this plaza is swarming with people. As you can see, not many tourists at 8am on a Sunday morning!
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A beloved building on the campus of Notre Dame, the Main Building serves primarily as a headquarters for administration, although it still contains classrooms, harking back to a time when students learned, ate meals, and resided there. It was built in 1879 and the Golden Dome was added in 1882, most recently regilded in 2005 (right before I attended MBA school). The regilding process uses only about a fist-full of gold leaf to cover the entire structure. On top of the Dome is a 19-foot-tall, 4,000-pound statue of Mary, the Mother of God, “Notre Dame” (“Our Lady”).
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The glistening White Sands National Monument of New Mexico engulfs 275 square miles of desert creating the world’s largest gypsum dunefield. The active dunefield moves from west to east as much as thirty feet per year. The wind moves small sand grains by bouncing them along the surface in a process called “saltation.” Saltating sand grains create a beautiful pattern of ripples on the dune surface.
From Wikipedia: Gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand because it is water-soluble. Normally, rain would dissolve the gypsum and carry it to the sea. The Tularosa Basin is enclosed and water either sinks into the ground or forms shallow pools which subsequently dry out and leave gypsum in a crystalline form, called selenite, on the surface.
It was the first time my friend Steph and I had gone sledding in the desert! And what inspired today’s post, you ask? I was thinking about this August 2010 vacation and my impending move, and like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives.
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