Winter Trip to WI and CO

I would like to go on record as saying that this was the worst trip ever, but I shouldn't be so negative about it. I am sure that by the time I get around to scrapbooking this trip, I will be able to look back and remember the good things or at least laugh about the weird stuff that went on.

My Family
First and foremost, my family members were all healthy and happy. Everyone got along well, and there were no major gaffs. We arrived in Wisconsin on December 22 and stayed in Antigo until December 27 (morning). For the entire time, the house was full of people as it was non-stop visiting, gossiping, cooking, playing, and if you know my husband and me, arguing! It was great to see Mom and Dad and their new house, which is in the process of being built. This was our last Christmas in the old house, the house they bought when they first married in 1969. In honor of this, the whole family made sure to get home in order to celebrate one last Christmas here. The new house will have more space, more bedrooms and bathrooms, and it will be closer to our greatest source of pleasure, the woods. So, everyone is looking forward to future Christmases, but it was nice to be in the old house one last time. They will move into the new house at the end of February 2006. It was also great to see my nephew Oliver. What a funny boy he is! And, if I was worried that he wouldn't remember me, I was wasting my time. Every day, he was going around saying, "Auntie Mande, come with me! Auntie Mande, I want you to do this with me. You have to play this with me, Auntie Mande."

Christmas
On Christmas Eve, we had our first official family party and opened almost all of the gifts. Of course, we saved Mom's birthday presents for the next day. Aunt Cindy and her husband Steve had come all the way from Idaho to celebrate Christmas with us. It was their first visit home in 5 years. On Christmas Day, we checked our stockings, and then Mom and Dad left to pick up brother Seth and his new (secret) wife. Of course, she is no longer a secret, but we all go to meet her for the first time. She fits right in with the relatives, and in fact, her voice sounds just like some our cousins' voices. After they arrived, we started our second official celebration and ate a turkey dinner. Afterwards, we opened the rest of the gifts - Seth's and his new wife's, along with Mom's birthday gifts. Then we met Shannon's family and went on a sleigh ride (yes, a real sleigh with horses and everything!) in the woods. It was Yusuke's first time to do this, and I forgot to check on what he was wearing before we went out there. Of course, everyone else had long johns and ski pants on with scarves, hats, etc. But, Yusuke had a coat and a hat. He was freezing the whole time, but luckily the temperature was not nearly as low as it would normally get at this time of year. My bad!
The next day, we had a "free" day, but we were still quite busy. We were able to meet up with Carrie, my friend from high school. Yusuke had never actually met her before even though she came to our wedding. Also, we did our last-minute Walmart shopping, and then prepared to leave Antigo for our 1-day excursion to Madison.

Madison
In Madison, Mom and my aunt dropped us at our rental car we went our seperate ways. Yusuke was so excited to eat at his favorite State Street restaurant, Tutto Pasta. I would very much like to introduce him to some of my other old haunts, such as Dotty's Dumpling Dowry, but he seems to be stuck on Tutto. We ordered way too much, and halfway through the meal, we realized we were making ourselves sick, so we surrendered to the doggy bag. After that, we hoped to do some shopping on State Street, but Yusuke was suddenly feeling ill. We split up, so we could do some shopping separately, but when I found him in a coffee shop about 30 minutes later, he was a wreck. I called Shannon's house and asked them if we could go there earlier than planned so that Yusuke could rest. It was a 40 minute drive to their house, and I felt disappointed because I couldn't go clothes shopping at my favorite stores in Madison. I had pitched all of my underwear in Antigo so that I could buy a whole new supply, and I still needed to pick some up, at least a few day's worth.

Shannon's House
At Shannon's house, I put Yusuke to bed and promptly left (with her brother) to do some quick shopping in a town nearby. I hated having him present while I bought a whole slew of underthings, but he has always been like a real brother to me, so it didn't seem to bother him at all. Back at Shannon's, I checked on Yusuke who felt wholly abandoned by me. He said he was in hell and that he wanted to go back to Japan right away. I just couldn't imagine forgoing the rest of our trip, especially since we were basically giving Shannon a ride back to Colorado. At that point, I really felt at a loss. I went downstairs for dinner and found that Shannon's entire family (mom, dad, 3 brothers, 1 sister) and our friend Jill were there to celebrate Shannon's birthday (and possibly my homecoming). It had a lot of potential for fun and excitement, but I felt slightly overwhelmed. I was torn between wanting to visit with her family in the worst way and between having to take care of Yusuke. He was couped up in the bedroom, taking his temperature every 10 minutes (it reached 40 degrees C at one point!) and bemoaning the fact that he was missing out on so many things and that I didn't care about him. During dessert, which was Shannon's birthday cake, I started to feel strange as well. I picked at the cake for a while and then went upstairs to check on Yusuke. At that point, I started to feel extremely nauseous. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I didn't want to tell anyone, especially since I had just been sort of making fun of Yusuke for being such a baby. When I went back down to the kitchen to make some more tea for him, the smell of the alcohol and food aromas in the air caused me to run to the bathroom and throw up. This lasted all night. I also was unable to visit with Shannon's family in the end! Late into the night/early in the morning, as I lay writhing in pain, I did something that I very rarely do. I actually prayed that I would get well and be strong enough to start the road trip to Colorado in a matter of hours. And, no, in case you are wondering, I am definitely NOT expecting!

Road Trip
In the morning, Shannon, Yusuke and I were planning to leave for Colorado. It would be a 19-hour drive, but we were planning to stop for the night in Missouri and then again in Kansas. Luckily, Yusuke awoke in the morning feeling fine. I felt markedly better, but had a sore back and headache. First we had to take care of our rental car, which had a "mechanical problem." We were supposed to trade it in for a different car before getting on the road. We meant to leave early, but after driving to the Hertz Care Rental in Janesville and filling out the new paperwork, we had to unpack and repack the car many times in order to get everything to fit into our new Toyota Camry. That wasted a good hour!
Then, we were on the road with Shannon at the wheel, me in the passenger's seat gabbing with her about our lives, and Yusuke taking up the rear, bored as ever because A) he still hadn't been given the chance to drive B) he thought Illinois was the most boring state ever C) he despised being in our presence during our girl-talk session D) All of the above. If you chose D, you are absolutely right. He was becoming increasingly annoyed with us, and he soon began masking all of his statements in sarcasm. Amateur sarcasm, if you must, because as we all know, Japanese people have not yet mastered the art of sarcasm. This, in inself, caused us to become increasingly annoyed with him. Need I say more?
By the time, we got to St Louis's Gateway Arch, 10 hours of hell-in-a-car had passed and everyone was exhausted. It should have only taken 6 hours from Janesville. Why the extra four hours? I have no idea because we didn't stop to see anything worthwhile along the way. Then, we still had two hours to drive to Jill's house where we would be staying the night.
Jill's house was peaceful and her cats are adorable, even though I don't consider myself a cat-person. She has a cute place, and I especially liked the red walls in the kitchen. Very tasteful. In the morning, we went to eat breakfast at a local diner, and then Jill rode with us to Kansas City where we planned to meet up with her boyfriend, Bill. Once again, Yusuke had to silently suffer through the noisy girl-chat, and he was noticeably getting more and more anxious by the second. I had to stop a couple of times so he could get out of the car and cool off. If we could have spent more than an hour in Kansas City, that would have been fantastic, but we were on a tight schedule and only had time for Kansas City Ribs. I was less than impressed, but this is just the start of my disatisfying food experiences in the USA on this trip. Up until now, I have always enjoyed the food on our trips, but this time was terrible. Anyway, on with the story.
We wanted to get on the road by 2pm (actual time - 3pm) so that Yusuke would have plenty of time to drive in the daylight. We wanted to come through on our deal that he would only be able to drive Kansas. We came to find that he is lacking in confidence, but at the same time, he is overly enthusiastic about the prospect of driving - much like we all were back in high school! However, this lack of confidence (not to mention competence) almost got us killed on the 75-mile and hour freeway, and I was kind of glad when, after 45 minutes, he decided he needed a rest and we switched drivers. Later that evening, he asked to drive again, and we let him for about 45 minutes. And, the next morning, we let him drive the first shift. It was still dark, and he was probably sleepy, so that was a mistake! I won't get into details, but let's just say that Shannon and I are really glad to be alive today. In reality, he just needs some more practice in Japan, and he needs to drive by himself with no one else in the car in order to gain that much needed confidence.
As mentioned above, we spent the night in Kansas, in small town called Hays. I heard there is a lot to see and do there if you are an American history buff, but we arrived late and had to leave early the next morning so as was the sucky thing about this whole road trip, we had no time to actually see anything! One good thing we discovered about Kansas is that the sunsets are absolutely gorgeous! We were driving right into the sunset and it was amazing.

Colorado
After Hays, we drove to Colorado Springs, and it took about 4 1/2 hours. Colorado Springs is located on the east side of the Rockies, so there is a wonderful view of mountains, including Pike's Peak and Norad. That afternoon, Shannon's boyfriend came over and took us to a place called Garden of the Gods. This used to be a sacred place to the Native Americans, a place where they speculated that the gods were living. Now, it is a national park with hiking trails, riding trails, etc. Shannon and I went horseback riding there several years back. This time, we only had time to drive around and take photos. We did stop at the souvenir store for a quite a while and we picked up a poster print called "Dancing til Dawn." It is a painting of four Native American women facing the sunset. They are wearing colorful blankets over their shoulders, and the colors of the blankets and the sunrise kind of blend together. After passing up a great piece last year in New Orleans, I had promised not to pass up art if I saw something I liked. Now, we'll be able to hang this up in our new apartment.

The next day, we met up with Shannon's boyfriend again, and the four of drove to a hot springs resort about 2 hours west of Colorado Springs. It is near a town called Salida. Shannon and I have been there before and we wanted to take the boys. I don't know what Russ thought of it (he seemed to enjoy it with Shannon, at least), and Yusuke thought it was interesting but that Japanese hot springs are definitely better. Okay, I will admit that Japanese hot springs are amazing, but this one had a certain charm as well. It seemed almost untouched, and we were all wearing swimsuits. And aside from the rocky springs, there were also two chloriene pools for swimming and hanging out in. But, when you look up at the mountains and evergreens which surround the resort, you really feel like you just stepped into John Denver's Rocky Mountain Vacation with the Muppets (which, by the way, we were forced to watch over and over again with Oliver while at my family's house!).

Although exhausted from our hot springs excursion, Russ and Shannon were planning a New Year's Eve/Birthday bash that night, so we went back to Colorado Springs to prepare for that. The party was at Russ's house and by the time we got there, Russ had decorated the house. It was a fun party even though we didn't know anyone except Shannon. We got to meet a couple of her friends, but mostly, it was Russ's friends who came. We never did get over our jet lag during this trip, so actually, Yusuke and I had agreed to take off early and get a cab back to Shannon's house. We would have liked to stay and party longer, but we were afraid that the longer we wait, the longer it would take for a taxi to come and get us. Meanwhile, Russ broke out his Karaoke video game, and everyone was taking turns at the mike. I would have loved to sing one of my Journey songs, but we couldn't. And Yusuke later told me that he regretted not being able to try it out. We took the taxi back to her house (Shannon stayed at the party, of course), and promptly fell asleep watching Meet the Fockers on DVD. Oh, how we love Ben Stiller movies, but for some reason, we just couldn't stay up past 10:30 during this whole trip!

The next morning, we waited for Shannon and to come home so we could do our last-minute shopping. I still wanted to buy lots of clothes, so we went to JC Penney's and Kohls where I proceeded to spend way more than I budgeted though. It's okay though because I love all the clothes I got. Shannon is a great helper when it comes to shopping. One of many talents is definitely choosing clothes for other people. That night, after packing our suitcases, Russ drove us to Denver so we could stay at a motel for the night. We would have to get up early to catch our flight back to Japan.

So, that was our trip in a nutshell. At the beginning of this blog, I described it as the worst trip ever, but now that I am done writing this, I feel that it wasn't so bad. Shannon was very understanding and hospitable. Russ was so nice to take us places, and he was fun to hang out with. It was great to see Jill and her condo, her cats and her new boyfriend. Also, everything went smoothly with my family - no major fights or gaffs. All in all, a nice trip.