End of our Road Trip - Minnesota!

I'm actually writing this a couple weeks after we finished our roadtrip, but better late than never! Taking a slightly different route this time, we left Fort Collins to head through the southeastern tip of Wyoming to Nebraska to South Dakota. We stayed a night in Valentin, Nebraska, but then kept moving to Rochester, Minnesota, to see my friend from college and her husband - Dr. Lizzie and Dan. Their 9-month-old, Julia, thoroughly entertained us with her toothy smile and their cute Vizsla, Cosmo, also raced around.

After Rochester, we headed up to Minneapolis for a few nights with my step-grandmother, Sherry, and to see old friends. I'm so glad I had time to meet up with a previous composition professor of mine and three former co-workers/bosses at the university. Walking around my campus all grown up was a bit surreal, but I love the vibe on a college campus. The night we got in we took Sherry out for a nice meal in a cute neighborhood near her house - she seemed like she needed to get out after a full day of watching the granddaughter!

The next day, we were due to meet up with one of Greg's old friends from high school, Trisha. She's a fabulous hair stylist in the Warehouse District of Minneapolis now. I grew out my hair for at least 4 months just so I could get one of her haircuts. Yes, she's that good. I'm back to short, chin-length hair now, which was my norm before moving to Germany. Or as I like to think of it - the land where no one knew how to deal with my hair correctly. When I lived in Spain, I had great haircuts so I hope Quito will be similar.

Trisha led us to a quiet spot for lunch and good catching up time. She had visited us in Munich almost exactly a year ago. What a difference - even in the weather alone! Here it was sunny and warm; last year in Munich it was rainy for quite a few of the days she was there.

After lunch and a long walk, we met up with another of Greg's friends from high school, Matt and his fiancee, Khayla. We're sad to be missing their wedding in October, but I enjoyed getting to know Khayla and talking about everything under the sun with the two of them. One thing I learned from them is that if you are already mildly scared of sharks, don't watch Shark Week on the Discovery channel!

After we said goodbye to the two of them, Greg and I dropped by one of our favorite pizza places in Minneapolis for a few quick slices and carrot cake, which we ended up having for breakfast because we couldn't finish it all. Not a bad start to the next day! The great thing about this road trip was that we saw so many people who we'd kept in touch with, but hadn't seen in two years. It was fun to see the directions everyones' lives have been taking.