#4thOfJuly Weekend Festivities

After an insane winter, the warmth of summer feels so incredibly nice. I'll even take the humidity! There is nothing like falling asleep to the hum of the air conditioner, having sunnies permanently affixed to my head or long naps in the sun. Better yet, was having all this glorious weather present for the long holiday weekend! 

Friday started with a Starbucks fueled ride up to Door County with my sister and her family, keeping north until we hit the top of the peninsula. The most I've ever seen of  the islands off the tip of Door County was in the distance, but on the fourth a 45-minute ferry ride fixed that. And let me tell ya, it's not easy keeping a gaggle of 5-7 year olds entertained in all that time either... which is why I left that up to the captains. On both trips. Yes, those kids weaseled their way next to the crew twice!

On the island, the first stop was to get some food and join the infamous Bitter Club. After much debate with my sister on what bitters actually is, we took the challenge of taking a shot! The second it went down I wiped my mouth and it looked like I was bleeding from the mouth. It was disgusting. That little business-card sized piece of paper was totally worth it.

After our induction the club of all clubs on the island, we went to the beach of all beaches. Schoolhouse beach is known for it's rounded, white-pebbled beach, which is a dream if you're the type of person who never seems to be able to get rid of sand even weeks after last visiting a beach! 

As I mentioned, the winter was loooong and cold, leaving Lake Michigan in a chilly state, still. That didn't hold me back from at least a few solid minutes of snorkeling around the rocky beach. I can confirm there is not much to see except for large, white rocks of varying size. 

 

The trip wasn't without some thrill, for the kiddos at least! One stop had them strapping up and zipping down a 30ft tower. While I've never been zip lining, I had jumped off cliffs higher than this tower. I figured I'd save my first time for something special and exotic. Recommendations are always welcome!

Of course the 4th isn't complete without ending the night with a series of incredibly bright and loud bangs! Our chauffeur drove us back down to Kewaunee where we hung out in one of the old, industrial buildings near the lakeshore until dusk, mostly to avoid the chill of the lake breeze (anyone who's been around the Great Lakes knows what I'm talking about).

When dusk approached, we headed towards the beach, arguing along the way on where the fireworks were going to be shot off. Turns out, they weren't launched from the usual location and our view was initially obscured by trees. They were not distracting us enough from the bumps arising on our skin from the cool night air and accompanying mosquitoes. We started heading back to the car when we thought they were finished and ended up watching the rest in the comfort of the car. 

Saturday made up for the lackluster display in Kewaunee as my very large, extended family gathered at my aunt's annual 4th of July party. As always, there was plenty of food, fireworks and drunk relatives. I self-proclaimed myself the event photographer for the night and literally took hundreds of photos of fireworks. Without fail, if there are fireworks, I cannot stop taking photos. I have a problem. 

They're just so pretty though! Aren't they!?

Hope you had a great holiday weekend!

 Here's the the 2nd half of summer,

Cheers!

#BigPlans // #BigCity // #LittleBlogPost

So, I have some big, exciting, semi-ambitious plans in the works! And no, unfortunately it does not involve moving to Chicago. Even as sweet as that would be, I have to be satisfied with mere weekend trips to get my fix of big city life. As much as I'd love to get back into a real city, that's going to have to wait a little bit longer... 

I did tease myself last weekend as I drove into the city and immersed myself back into crowds of interesting folks, stunning architecture and the constant hustle. I had to stop myself multiple times from even entertaining the idea of moving down here! As much as I'd love to, I reminded myself the situation I have up in Wisconsin is good.... especially for saving money. 

The money I'm saving is pretty crucial for what I have planned in the next coming months, I won't tease too much since there is still a lot of planning and figuring out of visas'n'such, *hint hint*. BUT(!), my weekend in Chi-town revolved around a two-day class that I hope will help significantly with my grand plans! 

There is a fantastic group called Girl Develop It, if you haven't heard of them, check it out! They're based in a lot of major U.S. cities and even a few international ones. They are an incredibly welcoming community of female (and some male) coders that hold regular meetups and classes. I took a two-day intermediate HTML and CSS class that I learned a heap from!

I am continuing on with several online courses to further the mind-boggling task of learning to build websites. I really want to immerse myself to the level of being able to pretty much do everything myself as much as possible, and the class I took verified this is going to be a long process! So far Skillshare, Lynda, Skillfeed & Treehouse are all proving to be fantastic resources to expedite the process! I'm loving Skillshare and Treehouse the most so far! 

What all this basically means is that you may see a makeover done to this blog very soon, one that includes ditching blogger. Gasp! I'm super excited though to learn Wordpress and play with my new Adobe Creative Cloud programs and features! I finally stopped being stingy after many failed attempts to torrent it and first now realized how nice and extensive the new cloud service really is! 

I have a lot to keep me busy with this summer, but I'll do my best to continue storytelling about my European, Tasmanian and Great Lakes trips I took last year! 

Cheers!

#Travel // Niagara Falls

To say that we were excited to see Niagara Falls would be an understatement. If you don't recall, This road trip was originally planned to go out west, stopping at several different National Parks and Monuments. Well we had to change our plans drastically when the Government Shutdown became official a week into our trip. We were in Minneapolis when we heard the news and decided to reroute around all five Great Lakes instead, with the biggest highlight being Niagara Falls. 

The reason the falls were our most anticipated part of our trip was because it was really the only stop that we had prior knowledge of. With that, we really hadn't planned to do anything other than simply look at the falls from various different viewpoints, sans expensive attractions. As mundane as that may sound, the sheer volume of the rushing falls is really enough to be impressed with! 

Niagara Falls lie on the border of Canada and the U.S., with stark differences on both sides. Surprisingly, the Canadian side is way more touristy and flashy, with so many attractions that it was overwhelming walking down the main roads to the actual falls. You could easily spend a week here and never get bored!

En route to the viewing area, the sky was omniscient. When we first reached sight of the magnificent falls, we thought we lucked out with no rain.. Torsten was prepared with packing a practical jacket, I on the other hand had nothing. We'd park at least a mile away to avoid paying and had planned to hang around the falls until nightfall. I was in such excitement to see the falls I didn't bother looking at the sky or bringing anything other than my camera. I just hoped our luck would hold out! 

Naturally, about 15 minutes into view the falls, it started raining. It was tolerable, though enough to soak me. We planned only a night for the Canadian side and a day for the American, meaning the rain was not going to get in our way of seeing the falls light up! These photos were next to one of my favorite spots, right next to the horseshoe falls. 

We hid out from the rain in the information center until the sunset, waiting for the the falls to show their colors. Though it was still raining, and getting chilly, it was worth the soggy wait! Even on a random autumn weekday, with soggy conditions it was still busy with bodies admiring the beauty, we still had to fight for ideal spots to take photos of the falls. After about an hour of watching the colors change, we headed back to the van to van to dry and warm up before heading over the bridge, back into the States.

 Before leaving Canada, we debated if we wanted to check out any of the gazillion attractions. Torsten was really curious about the haunted houses, being October I assured him there would be far better options available just about everywhere we'd be going in the States! 

Fortunately, the next day made up for the damp day before it. Nothing but the warm, autumn sun as we ventured around the American side of Niagara Falls. Much unlike Canada, this side of the falls was really just a large, open park and green space. It was kind of odd to see locals strolling along with families and pets as if this was like any other city park. 

We opted out of having a Pam and Jim moment of the Maid of the Mist and instead only paid $1 to use their view platforms, with views both above and alongside the American Falls. As far as views go, the American side trumped. Seeing the rushing waters, the eerie mist rising before the Canadian skyline and the falls from all sorts of angles exceeded our initial expectations of how amazing the Niagara Falls would be! 

Out of all honesty,  I preferred the American side over the Canadian. Going to both is definitely a must, though I liked the expanse of green with paths to along all the best spots over the crowded strip of the Canadian side. Then again, I'd probably reconsider if we'd actually gone the typical route of getting a hotel for a few nights and had the money to preoccupy ourselves with all the flashy attractions!


This post is part of an never-ending series about the road trip my German boyfriend, Torsten, and I took around the Great Lakes this past autumn. Catch up with the rest of the trip by clicking here!

Cheers!