Elk Grove

The Bonneville Salt Flats

Matt and I tarping the trailer to take to the landfill

We drove from Aspen to Elk Grove via Salt Lake City.  On the way, we really only stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats to take pictures.  It was pretty surreal – white salt everywhere and blinding light bouncing off the glassy surface.  We couldn’t actually go on to the salt, though, since they were filming a car commercial.

The drive through Nevada was nice.  I expected it to be sort of a wasteland, which it was, but it was also really beautiful.  There were plenty of interesting mountain ranges (duh, since we were in the basin and range territory), and the scenery was pretty calm and pleasing to the eye.

Our plan for Elk Grove was pretty simple – finish the trip up comfortably, go to Go Congress in Seattle, and find a rental house in San Francisco.

Oh and one other thing – Kristen really loves to clean her parents’ house when she’s there.  She considered this visit to be potentially the last time she’d have a solid few weeks to clean, so she set out on the ambitious task of blowing the whole thing up.  It was The Great Purge.  We went room by room, separating everything we found in every nook and cranny into donate vs. keep vs. trash piles.  I had to rent a 4’x8’ U-haul trailer to haul multiple loads of trash and recycling to the landfill, and a huge load of donations to Goodwill.  It was tiring, but the house looked great by the end, and should be easier to keep organized in the future.

Finding a rental house in San Francisco was more difficult.  The rental market in SF is even worse than in NYC.  Not only is there way more demand than supply, but the rules work differently.  In NYC, housing is first-come, first-served.  So the first qualifying applicant for a rental unit gets it (the purpose of this is so the landlord can’t racially profile people).  In San Francisco, the landlord gets to take lots of applications and review them all, so timing is less of an issue, but you feel like you’re on The Bachelor.  Plus, a lot of people here seem to hate pets.  I can’t even remember how many times we heard people tell us “we love cats, but one tenant’s cat peed on the floor and we had to re-do all the hardwood for $10,000”.  Who are all these cats that are peeing on floors?  Our cats have never peed on the floor.  When we finally found a landlord that was willing to consider pets, we had to get references for our cats.  Thank goodness our apartment in NYC had hardwood floors, and the management company there was able to say no damage was done to the unit when we had our cats in it.  That’s how ludicrous this was.

Anyway, we finally found a fantastic house in Oakland, right near Ben and Trisha.  It has a full, furnished basement, and is really nice.  We’re excited to move in!

Aspen

Kristen with the Maroon Bells

Aspen Mountain, the town of Aspen, and the Roaring Fork Valley as seen from the top of the Ute trail

Part of the 7 Castles, up the Frying Pan Valley

We drove from Boulder to the Aspen area.  We AirBnB’d an in-law apartment on the bottom floor of a house up Frying Pan Valley, which is in Basalt, CO (about 30 minutes from Aspen proper).  We weren’t sure how it would go, but the place was GORGEOUS.  The apartment was very nice, and the hosts were very accommodating as well – they invited us to hang out and use their hot tub, and recommended several things to do.

The plan for our 3 days in the Aspen area was pretty much just to check everything out and do some hiking.  First, we headed to Maroon Bells, which are always touted as the most photographed mountains in the country.  We did a hike back to a lake near the bells, but the view was honestly better further back.

We also did a hike up the Ute trail, which is famous among local (and not so local) fitness freaks.  It’s a very steep, switchbacking trail that you pick up right in the town of Aspen, and ascends up the side of Aspen Mountain.  People time themselves to see how fast they’re able to go up.  Anything under ~30 minutes is considered a good time.  I got up in about 22:30, and Kristen was about 30 seconds behind.  We were definitely feeling the altitude – we were pretty winded at the top.  But wow was there a great view.

Afterwards, we walked around the town and got some ice cream at Paradise Bakery.

On our last day in town, we decided to do a hike in Frying Pan Valley, into the rock formations known as the 7 Castles.  They do indeed look like castles – cliffs of red rock that look like spires and battlements.  It was a very nice hike, ended at a waterfall at the back of a red rock box canyon.  I had no idea Aspen had Colorado Plateau-like scenery.

Boulder

From Chicago, we were headed to Boulder to visit Maggie again.  It’s a long, pretty flat drive, so we decided Kristen would be better off skipping it to save her the back pain.  She found a cheap plane ticket from Chicago to Denver, so I did the drive solo.

Honestly it was kind of nice.  I split the drive over 2 days, and stopped for the night in Omaha.  I listened to all of “The Endurance” book on tape, which was very interesting.  And the states I drove through were quite pretty.  Iowa is hillier than I expected, though Nebraska flatter and more boring.  I really didn’t mind the solo drive, though when I finally arrived in Boulder I was pretty exhausted.

Kristen was waiting for me when I arrived (she flew in earlier that day), and we had a fun couple of days with Maggie.  We did the hike up to Mt. Sanitas, walked around town, went to a very interesting guitar trio concert up at the Chautauqua, and I cooked some ratatouille.  We really love hanging out with Maggie, and love Boulder as a town – there is so much to do right at the foot of the mountains, and the weather is about perfect in the Summer.

I’m really glad we got to spend so much time with Maggie over the past year and a half.

Chicago

After leaving Detroit, we drove to Chicago to spend a couple days with Karoline and Wentao.  It was a fun long weekend – we went to the Morton Arboretum (where Karoline works) and rented bikes for a spin around the gorgeous premises, we went downtown to walk around the city and visit some of Karoline’s favorite shops, we went for hot pot in Chinatown, and Wentao taught me how to make those amazing Chinese pork dumplings wrapped in banana leaves!

Detroit

Us at Joe Muer’s with Tenny

The rest of our time in Detroit was mostly spent hanging out with family.  It seemed like everyone we knew wanted to have some one-on-one time with the new bride and groom!

Tenny took us to Joe Muer’s in the Renaissance Center, which was fantastic.  My mom, dad, Cara and Julie Greenberg were also there.

Aunt Muriel and Uncle Bernie took us to Lelli’s.  We were with them for a good 5 hours or so, mostly telling jokes and having a great time.

Phyllis and Gerry took us to dinner at Pepino’s in Walled Lake.  We had delicious planked whitefish and a great time chatting with them.  I don’t think I’d ever been out with just Phyllis and Gerry before, so it was really nice to talk to them one-on-one as an adult.

The Sterns and Cicurels also took us to a great Italian restaurant in Rochester.  I think the fam filled half the place up, laughing and chatting all night.

And finally, on July 4, we had a BBQ at the house, and Jan and Gary came over for a fun evening.  I cooked steak and they brought delicious ribs.

So we had a very busy, but very fun time in Detroit.  We were sad to leave.

Walloon Lake

The sun sets over Lake Michigan

Waterskiing on Walloon Lake

My second cousins Kathy and Richard Lenter invited Kristen and I to come stay at their house in Northern Michigan for a few days.  The house is on Walloon lake, which is gorgeous.  I have fond memories of visiting them when I was younger, during trips to Harbor Springs.

We spent 3 days at the house.  The weather was perfect, and the lake was very warm.  I’d forgotten exactly how nice Walloon Lake was.  Kristen went for a couple swims, we went kayaking, did some waterskiing, and toured the lake on Kathy and Richard’s boat.  They were very gracious hosts, and we decided we’d absolutely love to go back there soon.