Thanks for blowing my mind every single day.

Love,
Sara

We pretty much made this entire trip up as we went. The only thing we knew for sure was that we had to be in New Jersey for the wedding, but other than that it was a free-for-all. We could’ve jetted back to Minneapolis right after that but instead decided to head up the coast (for a LONG TIME . no, really . we went to Boston).

The first stop on this leg of the journey was Playland in Rye, NY.

Enjoy the moments!

We got pretty good at this whole driving thing by stop 5. Truth be told I’ve been pretty ok at it for a while. I’ve had my car for 3 years and have put 80,000 miles on it so far.

This stop was another result of us driving, seeing a billboard, and screaming “Let’s check it out!”

Clearly every cavern needs a goat.

I was almost positive that we would look around and find the Goonies:

I didn’t actually see any, but I’m pretty sure this was written by One-Eyed Willie:

BarTour Stop 1 | Mill Bluff State Park
BarTour Stop 2 | Kickapoo State Park
BarTour Stop 3 | Turkey Run State Park
BarTour Stop 4 | Indian Echo Caverns

If you followed the BarTour madness from the beginning there’s a good chance that you heard us constantly talking about the Topiary French People. It seemed that every update, tweet, video, facebook message, etc., was about these ridiculous French peeps.

We got there and stayed about 12 minutes before we departed.

I shot the topiary peeps, then got distracted. Also, it should be noted that there weren’t any Montour topiary people. This is unacceptable.

(look closely)

Ok, back in the car!

BarTour Stop 1 | Mill Bluff State Park
BarTour Stop 2 | Kickapoo State Park
BarTour Stop 3 | Turkey Run State Park

Clearly we were having an awesome time driving because we made it 46 miles before we felt the need to stop again. Thankfully we did because this place was GORGEOUS and exactly what we needed to re-energize and get ready for the next leg of our little journey.

We walked into the park and immediately there were a million signs saying things like “Doomsday! Don’t walk off the path or you’ll die 48 painful deaths! BEWARE! CLIFFS! Don’t even think of swimming or you will absolutely drown!” It was like Fox News owned this place.

After seeing those signs I knew this was going to be an awesome place.

<3

Such a gorgeous, gorgeous place. It was like we were in a fairy tale the entire time, and I was in heaven soaking it all in.

I usually love bright-colored photos, but today I was feeling the moody black and whites, I guess. These photos will probably reappear at some point in a completely different way.

(That spider rocked my world!)

Are you ready for stop number 2 of BarTour?! Get excited! In case you have no idea what I’m talking about you might want to check out stop number 1.

After we left Mill Bluff State Park we stopped briefly in Madison to grab some Ian’s Pizza and then drove for another million years. We stopped briefly at a rest stop to try to sleep, but we built a fort instead:

I remembered that a ridiculous majority of homicides happen at rest stops, and even though we had our Rest Stop Protection Kit we decided to keep driving. We ended up catching a couple hours of sleep in the parking lot of a Super 8 (BarTour: classin’ things up since… 2009), and then started up the Montaxi and kept driving. Jenn rocked a few hours of driving and then I took over and right before I passed out from sleep deprivation I saw a sign for Kickapoo State Park and decided to swing in and walk around for a little bit.

Right when I drove in I looked down the hill right by the road and saw a doe and two fawns jumping around and playing.

I grew up in Minnesota, so I’ve seen roughly 70 bajillion deer in my life, but there was something magical about watching these young fawns, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen deer play like these were.

I drove in a little bit further and came across a little pond:

I’m a lover of nature through-and-through, so sitting next here in the early morning, watching wildlife everywhere was the perfect way to unwind after hours and hours of being in the car.

(I could decorate 7 houses with the dandelion photos I have…)

I sat down on the shore and there was life everywhere. All I could hear were birds, and crickets, and frogs, and fish jumping. Then I heard the most insane sound of a deer sloshing around in the water, and snorting, then it took off through the woods. I looked down and there were still signs of wildlife all around.

I was already in love with life and feeling the magic of this place, then I looked up and saw Big Fish at my feet, staring right at me.

Perfection.

I laughed pretty hard just now as I was looking up the mileage from Minneapolis to our first stop. 180 miles. That’s right, we couldn’t even make it 200 miles without stopping on our 3,500+ mile road trip.

Jenn and I had both had long days already. We planned on leaving at noon and ended up leaving closer to 5, so by the time we got in the car we were both about ready for a turbo nap. We also had to go to WHCC to pick up some photos for Jenn and then go up to St. Paul to get the strobes for the wedding photo booth. We got there and Jenn realized that the cords were actually back at her house in Minneapolis. We both felt defeated until Jenn realized that she grabbed a giant pile of cords before she left and luckily enough one strobe cord happened to be in there. Thankfully we were finally on the road and ready to rock.

For a little bit.

Before we even hit Madison we decided it was time for a break. We had already fought over whether clouds were awesome or not (for the record, they are), we fought over music, and made some embarassing audio updates. When we saw the sign for Mill Bluff State Park we said “HECK YES, LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!”

This park was gorgeous and we got there at the perfect time; an hour or 2 before sunset when the sun gives off any photographer’s dream light. We wandered around for a while, then decided to hit the road again since we had about 10 states left to rock through. But! Before we got back in the car this happened:

Last week I departed onto what could be possibly the best road trip ever. A few months ago Jenn Barnett asked me if I would shoot a wedding with her in New Jersey, and I said Heck YES. We planned on flying out there, but then realized that we both had the time to drive, so we decided to do that instead, and it was the best decision in the history of decisions. The whole trip was captured on our Tumblr blog and on Twitter, but I’m stoked to share all of the photos that I took along the way in the coming days.