Civilization!

I am happy to announce our arrival in the state of Missouri! It has been quite an emotional trip but we have finally made it and could not be more excited that we have left South Dakota, cold weather, and depression behind (for now). It has been only about 24 hours that we have been in Springfield and already the birds are chirping louder, the sun is brighter, and Kina and I are being even more obnoxious than ever. After a pretty tumultuous relationship with Interstate 29 (story to follow) we get to our hotel to find out that our worst fears had come true...NO CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST! How could this be, you ask? I wish I knew. Even worse, there's no outdoor pool. Its a travesty, really. Kina and I did what any normal, enraged women would do. We put on our swimsuits, headed outside and tanned on the hotel lawn like gigantic hoosiers. Don't give us the kind of service that we want and we will make your hotel look like it is overrun with people in town for a NASCAR race. take that.

As I mentioned before, our trip wasn't exactly easy. We saw a alot of flooding on our 10 hour trip and were eventually detoured off the Interstate and forced to take back roads through the rest of Iowa and into Missouri. As we were getting off the highway we realized that we had no gas and the street leading to the gas station was closed..due to flooding. I'm not pointing any fingers here (though if I were, they would not be pointed at me) but SOMEONE let the gas gauge get low enough that we were worried that we may run out of gas and be stranded on a country road. Luckily, we found a town with a gas station....that had no gas. The 7 inhabitants of this town, which were all standing outside of the gas station, gave us directions to the next town with gas. When we get to the second town, named Farragut, we drove around unable to find a gas station even though there were only about 4 roads. Finally, we ask someone and they point us in the direction of a gas station with no price sign, pumps that look like they haven't been used since 1972, and a building that seemed to be vacant. To our surprise, we pulled up and a man popped out from under the hood of a car that I would swear hadn't run in years and pumped our gas. He was even friendly enough to let me use his very sanitary bathroom (see photo).

Needless to say, I would rather risk getting a little pee on my hand than ever touch this sink.

As many of my friends would know from my recent facebook updates, I am currently OBSESSED with the Amish. They are fascinating and wonderful and I wish that I could spend all of my time observing them and watching TV shows about them (thankkk you A&E). Luckily, I have discovered that traveling from South Dakota to Missouri is Amish wonderland. I even saw a man on his horse trotting down the highway. In St. Louis we have "Share the road" signs...well, so does Iowa, the difference is that in Iowa they are asking you to share the road with horse and buggies. AWESOME. If I saw someone in a horse and buggie on the highway, I am certain my life would be complete and consequently I would have nothing left to live for.

After our tanning, we decided to head to the gym. Kina and I are struggling to stick to Crossfit in these hotel gyms because usually there are only a couple dumbbells. Today we reverted to a Bro workout and we did abs and bi's. Tomorrow..glamour muscles. We gotta get jacked and tan before the lake.

and finally, the part I am sure you have been on the edge of your seat waiting for....the MY COW update. In a thrilling game that literally has consumed our traveling, the bad guys are still winning. Kina: 2196 Allison: 1468. All I need is one graveyard and I will DOMINATE this game.


peace and brown cows,
Allison

another dull day

Well, we have been in Sioux Falls now for four full days and I think that I may be in a boredom induced depression. I have spent so much time on my couch watching TV that I have started quoting episodes of "Keeping up with the Kardashians" and can tell you at least 7 facts about any or all public figures featured on E! News. Did you know that Rachel Bilson will be running a 5k next weekend? Nope? Didn't even know who Rachel Bilson was? Yeah, me neither. Well, there's a dose of hard hitting journalism from me to you.

My boredum has created a perfect situation to partake in some of my favorite activities: shopping and thinking up ways to upset my mother. Unfortunately, there are no stores in Sioux Falls that I feel deserve my money so I have resorted to online shopping. If anyone has a great website where I could find vintage-inspired or unique clothes please send them my way. So, since I've exhausted all of my online shopping options I turned my attention to upsetting my mother and started researching a new tattoo. I stumbled upon a phrase "she flies with her own wings" I feel like this fits me and my life persuits very well and think that it will probably be the next addition to my small tattoo collection.  :)

Work has been a little dull the past couple days. We have spent a majority of our time getting lost, which is completely ridiculous and entertaining if you have ever been to Sioux Falls because it is about as big as Affton, Mo. It seems that neither Kina nor I have a real knack for reading maps...even when we have a bright purple line pointing us in the right direction. It is possible that our constant misdirection has something to do with the fact that I am constantly pointing out the smaller and smaller locations that they are shoving casinos into so we aren't paying enough attention to our map. I am positive that if the local Subway were to close tomorrow, the spot would be filled instantly with a casino and I would definitely be so busy gawking at it that I would without a doubt miss the left turn that I was supposed to make.  The picture below is of a Little Ceasars...that little sign next to it is the casino. Thats right, it is half the size of a LITTLE CEASARS!

Kina and I have continued our game of My Cow... Currently she is in the lead 5 cows to my 4 but our trip to Springfield/Branson will be the real test of cow spotting ability. Stay tuned...


OH YEAH! how could I have forgotten? Kina contacted a Des Moines store that is quickly becoming our favorite find of the trip asking for a favor and mentioned that we were talking them up on our BLOG. We are now featured in the "in the press" section of their BLOG at raygunsite.com. Not too shabby since we've only been at this for about a week.

I hope I haven't bored you all to death...I really had to pull for material today. Good news though, next week brings news of Kina's Tough Mudder experience and our trip down south. The South Dakota long OOOOOs really entertain me, but I am ready to head somewhere where the necks come a little bit more red.

Peace and Flamingos,
Allison

PICTURE TIME!

I love explaining our outrageously mundane days through words, but some things can only truly be appreciated through pictures so I have decided to do picture entries every now and then so that you guys can really dive into our action packed days. :)

This is our GTV. I refer to it alot and realized that not all of you actually know what that means soo here she is! We have very much of a love/hate relationship with the GTV but in the end she gets us from point A to point B so we are thankful to her.

While in the GTV, we have seen a couple interesting things. Mostly, we just see cows and trees but the pictures above are some of the more entertaining things. The first is the Capital building of Des Moines which looks more like a palace. It caught our attention so much that we drove around downtown until we found it (not a huge task). The second is the leaning tower of ...Des Moines. I wish I had an explination for this picture, but honestly I don't.

 

While inside the GTV, we also felt the need for a little updating. This picture comes from when we talked the men at Best Buy into letting us borrow their tools and took out our stereo. We were so please that we documented the event...would you expect less from us?

Im not a player, I just BLOG a lot. Found this shirt in RAY GUN in Des Moines, IA. Awesome store with a very unique inventory for the area. check out their website!

And in the coveted "last picture" position (yes, if you haven't caught on..this is where my favorite picture of the week will go) are the men that Kina and I have left behind while on our travels. We miss them immensely and are lucky enough to have both of them joining us for a couple of days very soon!

Okay, so there it is..my first picture time post. I hope that you all enjoyed it because honestly it was a huge pain in the ass. On another note, I just wanted to thank everyone who is already following us for achieving the seemingly impossible. My mother has been telling me for years that my head could not get any bigger but (as I assumed) she was wrong. I have gotten so many compliments and positive feedback already in the my short blogging life that it has completely motivated me to keep blogging and try to make entries more often. Also, if you are reading this and aren't following us....WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? There's no time like the present, folks! My head is still small enough to fit through doorways and such so I am fairly certain that we have more than enough room for you on our followers list!Seriously though, I am very very thankful that you guys are interested in what I have to say. I do love to write and it is pretty useless without an audience.

Peace and Pretty Pictures,
Allison

two goofy girls in a van

As we pulled into Sioux Falls, SD, Kina and I both thought that we might have finally found an interesting city that we could enjoy andddd unfortunately we were wrong again. Do you find this shocking? Nope...us either. We spent a couple hours driving around today trying to find whatever it was that we thought we were missing but we ended up just driving up the same 3 or 4 streets multiple times just hoping that the little rows of uninteresting stores would morph themselves into adorable boutiques, awsome t-shirt shops, and charming restaurants. We officially enjoyed Des Moines much more. There were at least a COUPLE of cool shops there. If you are ever passing through you should check out Domestica and Ray Gun..they are awesome!

So far, we've not met many people on our travels but those that we have met have made quite the impact. Our first traveling friends came in the form of 3 twenty something guys and their 14 or 15 year old younger brother that were in the pool/hot tub in Des Moines at the same time as us. We were all sitting in the hot tub together when one of the guys struck up conversation merely to cut the awkwardness of strangers having seperate conversations within three inches of each other. Kina and I merged into the guys conversation when one of them that looked older and was heavily tattooed started commenting on the crazy baby mommas (yes that means more than one) in his life and how one of them attempted to stabbed him once. The 14 year old looked up in complete seriousness and asked, "well, with scissors or a knife?" Apparently, this made some sort of a difference to him. Secondly, we met a young man in the mall who very slyly swooped into Bath and Body Works to try to talk to Kina. All was going well in the conversation while he asked us about the candles we were holding but quickly went downhill when he pointed to me and asked, "is this your daughter?" Clearly this dude isn't too wise on the ways of picking up women. Both situations made for endless entertainment for Kina and I.

It seems that the people of Sioux Falls are aware of the fact that they live in a land of vast nothingness. To cope, they have filled any open space, no matter the size, with Casinos. From the door to my hotel room I can see at least three. When there is nothing to spend your money on I guess casinos are the best way to keep the economy flowing? 

Kina and I have noticed lately that our thought are starting to merge. Before one of us can get out a complete thought, the other is either answering the question or shouting "I was just thinking that!" We are literally morphing into an old couple who can make it through the day without any verbal communication. Between our 4pm dinners, books on tape, walks after dinner, and ability to read eachother's minds it seems that maybe the fact that Kina will be out of town this weekend will be a good thing so that we can have a chance of converting back to normal people. Speaking of Kina going out of town......

I am SOOO proud of Kina for putting on her big girl panties and taking on the Tough Mudder this weekend. I only wish that I could be manly enough to be standing next to her on Saturday but one of us needs to be here to man the (very productive) ship. Everyone please go to facebook right now and give the girl a few positive words to carry her up to and through what may be one of the most difficult physical tasks of her life.

Peace and Muddy fun,
Allison 

This place is weird

Today, we had to run some errands in the Des Moines area which turned out to be both frustrating and exciting for Kina and I. Frustrating because we are both so tired that we have lost all of our cognatitive ability to make logical decisions, and exciting because we achieved a seemingly difficult task rather easily.

We had to get tires on our vehicle and so we went to the local Penske which sent us to a tire and auto shop. He told us that the shop was close by and easy to find and gave us the address. We put this address into our GPS and headed into a 35 minute trip to the burbs never realizing that this destination was neither close by nor easy to find. We didnt catch on until we started driving on gravel roads and then frustratedly moved on to our next task, leaving the tires for later.

Our second task was to replace our Auxillary cord so we could plug in our Ipods and quit listening to the obnoxious techno CD that we found in the GTV. This was the one win for the day. The score is now: Des Moines: 11 Kina and Allison: 1. Anyway, it took us 2 best buys and a Walmart but we finally located the tool that we needed to get our stereo out of the dash (note: Best Buy will let you borrow this tool if you have Kina Coutavas shoot a smile at the creepy sales associate). We then successfully pulled out the stereo (easy part) and fished the new wire through to connect to the stereo and come out of the perfectly placed hole next to the steering wheel. This may sound unexciting to you, but we are thorougly pleased with ourselves.

More than likely, if you follow our blog regularly (which is what we are hoping for), you will have the pleasure of reading about our vehicle, which is slowly losing the battle with life. When we recieved the GTV we had a lot of issues with it but the most frustrating by far was the bungee cord that was holding the glove box shut...luckily, we have found a positive use for this bungee cord. It is now our in-car office. It holds papers, pens, our wifi hotspot, and notes as we research in the GTV. This is the one negative that we have been able to turn into a positive. We are hoping to find many more of these situations. At least we have our team mascots to entertain us everytime we get in the GTV.

We have started a perpetual game of "My Cow." A game played mostly by my friends that have been forced to travel between Saint Louis and Springfield. So far, Kina has 3 cows....unfortunately I only have 1. I will certainly prevail given my experience and impeccable vision. We will keep you updated over the weeks.

I leave you with a request to pray to any God that you may believe in (or to just keep in your thoughts if God isnt your thing) the family and friends of Stephen West as they celebrate his life this weekend. At least we can be sure that there is one more angel smiling upon us and waiting to greet us all when our time comes.


Peace and Rainbows,
Allison

This is it?

Kina and I spent the day traveling to Des Moines, Iowa. After a full day of being on the road we arrived to find...absolutely nothing. Literally.

I would think that Kina would agree that she and I share a need for being a part of the action. We are the type of people that like to find the biggest event, the most interesting people, and the most fun situations. Fortuntely, (and unfortunately) we ARE the biggest event, most interesting people, and most fun situation in this city so we should be pretty well received.

More to come tomorrow...I cannot keep my eyes open.

Peace and counted sheep,
Allison

Day 1

Well, it has started. Kina and I got into Chicago this morning and the adventure has begun. Tomorrow we will go to a kickoff event and then start our traveling. Like most things, it is not going as smoothly as we would have liked but we are taking this as well as we can. We found out that our schedule will be completely self produced, we ended up only booking one hotel room, we struggled to find a spot to park the GTV, we don't get to go to some of the markets that we were looking forward to, and my day was clouded by thoughts of an old friend that passed away today.
The idea of death has never been present for me, but today while trying to prepare for this new position it is all I can think about. My thoughts are in Saint Louis with my St. Joan of Arc community and with the West family.

On a lighter note, we are both getting used driving the GTV again and getting back into the swing of things. (a couple of clipped curbs already on my part!) We will be updating this as often as possible with stories of our adventures and mishaps, which will more than likely be plentiful, and hopefully keep everyone updated and entertained!

Oh yeah, we have decided that we are living stress free for this trip and are looking for some sort of catch phrase that we can utter with every issue that will make us laugh or bring us back to our carefree state. We are opening this up to suggestions! haha

We love everyone and cant wait to see our friends and family again but are so looking forward to what lies ahead.

peace and spaceships,
Allison