road trip photos [part last]

over first wedding anniversary happened while we were on the road home from michigan in september.  we stopped in bardstown kentucky where we had an adorable little cottage booked and where we enjoyed too much dom perignon and veuve cliquot and where we reheated all of our billions of leftovers from the epic eating fest that was our trip up north.

we spent the last leg of our trip in new orleans where some kind of crazy kayak deal got us a room at le pavillion hotel, but where we were unfortunately just too exhausted to do much beyond collapse on our luxuriously smooshy bed.  we didn't even get a chance to take advantage of the hotel's outrageous quirks and services like unlimited pb & j or the drawn bath service with a history of hotel hauntings on a wax sealed scroll, a bottle of wine and your own voodoo doll (seriously).  

anywho, we'll be back up north at christmas time, but these days we're really digging the beautiful november weather in houston!  can't wait for thanksgiving with sarah, dave, josh & lucy!

13 states in 10 days snapshots

snapshots from our road trip north [part one]

steve and becky's extended future inside a subaru forester

we are headed back to the lakes y'all!

it's pretty hard to believe, but we've officially lived in houston for a solid 13 months now.  there's lots to love (frost-free winter and cheap groceries) and some stuff we might not really say we love (dear houston:  zoning laws exist for a reason, and jungle animals are not pets).  but the fact remains for all our road trips exploring texas, we genuinely haven't been north of college station since attending my cousin's kzoo wedding in october 2014!

one of the big bummers about our drive down when we moved here was that it was, well... moving.  we drove in separate cars, steve dragging our uhaul, and i attempting to keep the cat from getting stuck between all the junk we had packed in the cab of my car.  the only chances we had to talk about the landscape comprised of angry discussions about last minute lane changes in memphis and my unwillingness to eat church's chicken in the middle of arkansas.

labor day weekend, however, we will embark on a road trip twice as extreme (literally the round trip version of our drive from ann arbor to htown).  we're so excited for our first big trip since greece and can't wait to see everyone we're missing up north!  here's a look at what we're doing:

 saturday, september 5, 2015

drive from houston to the vibrant city of poplar bluff, missouri

sunday, september 6, 2015

drive from poplar bluff, missouri to steven's point, wisconsin... where....

our bffs, the new MR. AND MRS. John and Saki L. are currently living!!  John and Saki eloped in july and ever since we have been dying to celebrate with them (and, of course, we've been dying to see them ever since we moved)!  we'll be spending all of labor day up in wisconsin with them; long weekends rule!

tuesday, september 8, 2015

leave steven's point, wisconsin and drive to kalamazoo, michigan!!  with luck we might be able to say hello to some of our chicago friends on the way.

throughout the week we'll be visiting with family, chasing down our friends spread across the state, and definitely going to lake michigan!

friday, september 11, 2015

friday evening we'll head to ann arbor in anticipation of the first home football game the following day.  after a couple of attempts to book a place via airbnb, only to have 3 owners cancel my reservation and take weeks to refund my payment, (it is written:  becky is NOT impressed with her first airbnb venture) we ultimately opted to get a hotel in livonia, where the radius of the football-weekend hotel room price gauge ended.

sunday, september 13, 2015
it's our first anniversary! awww!  (which means it's nobody's business where we'll be or what we'll be doing so let's carry on)

monday, september 14, 2015
drive to birmingham alabama

tuesday september 15, 2015
drive from birmingham alabama to houston!  (in this stretch we'll drive through the 45th state i'll have visited: mississippi!  only oregon, oklahoma, north dakota, alaska, and hawaii to go!)

then we'll power through a 3 day work week and probably sleep for the entire weekend after.  but we cannot wait!

volcanos, red sand & tomato fritters

after our epic day in athens, when we exhausted ourselves trying desperately to see everything we possibly could, we woke up for our first morning on santorini ready to continue the extreme touring madness.  we found this to be an excellent strategy for travelling in greece.  we wore ourselves out at the beginning and enjoyed relaxing later on in the trip.

i was stunned by how much there was for us to do on santorini.  the island has such a reputation for being a relaxing paradise, i think it occasionally gets a misleading rap for being just a pretty view.  while you’ll certainly still enjoy yourself on santorini if all you want is cliff-top scenery, there were definitely more amazing activities than we were able to squeeze in to our time on the island.  while we were there, we had to skip the local wineries, and we did not make it to any of the black sand beaches or the ruins of ancient fira.  we didn’t try our navigational skills on a four-wheeler, nor did we get to do the hike between fira and oia.  oh well, just means we will have to go back!

now in light of all those amazing sounding things we missed, what we did do was absolutely fabulous.  our first day, marios from hotel Antonia (i seriously cannot oversell how helpful marios was) booked us tickets on a boat trip to see the volcano of santorini.  on our way to the port, we picked up a hot sundried tomato and feta breakfast pastry from a gelato shop.  it was unbelievably delicious (we went for another the next morning too).  we had no idea what to expect from our boat trip, and thus, flip flopped and swimsuitless, we boarded one of the gorgeous tall ships taking tourists out into the blue caldera, to the sounds zorba the greek and other traditional music.

when our boat docked at the black, ashy volcanic island in the center of the santorini caldera, we learned that we could hike to the top for some natural history lessons, sulfur stank, and breathtaking views.  though we hardly had the footwear for such an occasion we trekked to the top of “new burnt island” where a panorama of the entire island of santorini waited for us.  but 360 degrees around we were able to see more than just santorini.  across a suspiciously brownish orange channel of water, we could see “old burnt island,” which looked like something out of a tropical middle earth style fantasyland.  the island of therasia lay not too far off as evidence of the atlantis-legend ancient eruption that sunk most of santorini.  it was, as the tour guide promised, breathtaking.

after our hike we were taken to swim in the brownish orange channel, which is the hot spring created by the active volcano.  we weren’t as prepared as most of our shipmates, but decided to jump off the boat in our underwear anyway to swim in the lukewarm water.  a saltwater-in-contact-lens fiasco took place, but other than me looking like a victim of violence for the mascara-smeared afternoon (thank goodness for big sunglasses) the boat tour was a total hit.

in the afternoon we rode the bus down to the village of akrotiri to visit the famous red sand beach.  akrotiri is a hidden gem on the island in my opinion.  it seemed like the village is probably busier in summer months as it has a very “beach town” feel.  it is a small trek from the bus stop to the red sand beach and there are some really wonderful sights and smells of fresh agean seasfood along the way.  it’s quite the rock climb getting to the beach, and the “sand” is really more like pebbles, but the view was one of the best of our entire vacation, if you ask me, and the beach itself was definitely one of the coolest places i have been in my life.  there are mysterious doors into the cliff that i can only hope lead to incredible cave dwellings where steve and i can stay next time we go.

after the beach we stopped for a drink with growltiger the one eyed cat of akrotiri (as christened by myself) and by the time we got back to fira we were absolutely starving.  fortunately marios (that magical human fountain of knowledge) had hooked us up with the what’s-what and we headed out to carboload on homemade bolognese and tomato fritters at o souvlaros, a very sweet little family owned taverna in fira, where our english finally did us no good!  fortunately pointing to the menu worked out fine, and let me just repeat the phrase “tomato fritters,” because no amount of gushing about how amazingly delicious they were will do them justice.  we continued to eat them at every opportunity, but i am certain o souvlaros were the best.

so yeah.  day one on santorini was pretty darn good.

fira heights

our first stop on the island of santorini was the main town of fira.  we spent our first two nights on santorini in fira at a really charming little place called hotel antonia.  they were extremely well reviewed on trip advisor, and for good reason.  priced extremely affordably, we were welcomed by marios with wine and a quick map-rap session where we were directed to the best restaurants, views, and things to do on the island.  truly, the hoteliers of the greek islands are absolute gems.  we always felt like the most well-treated guests.

after enjoying a little welcome wine on the spacious balcony of our room at hotel antonia, we continued the somewhat lush, dionysian evening with a stroll through the winding staircases, considered to be streets, per marios' recommendation for the restaurants with the best views in fira.  we stopped for a few big mugs of mythos at a caldera view bar, to give the sunset a little catch-up time so it would be part of the entertainment at dinner.

of the many delicious looking restaurants over-looking the caldera in fira, we settled on fanari, where we enjoyed incredible service, local wine, and a sampling of the seafood specialties we would spend the next week eating.  i had my first taste of grilled octapus at fanari and life has genuinely never been the same.  goodness gracious is it ever fantastic.  i'm also pretty sure the waiters on santorini all have training in photography.  they are pros at capturing that view.

it's still pretty mindblowing to think the trip only got better from here, but our first night in fira really set an unimaginable tone.  if ever you're looking for a spectacular value in fira don't hesitate to check out hotel antonia.  we felt incredibly welcome and centrally located between all parts of the island we ultimately visited.

these are probably getting boring, but oh well, i'm going to keep posting one day at a time!  happy new week everybody!