first half of the great western road trip…

What you see in Red is the distance that Brett and I have traveled on our road trip. We arrived in Salt Lake City today, so I thought I would give you a summary of the trip so far.

It all began on Monday July 26 in Madison with me, Brett, and a Garmin code named “nimrag” as our guide.  Brett had his coffee as well.

We drove for a couple hours through Wisconsin on the way to Iowa. In college we would drive to meets at the University of Iowa, so this part of the drive was pretty familiar.

Upon crossing the Mississippi River we entered Iowa. Our first stop was Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. To find out what I ate in Iowa City, you will need to wait a few weeks. After lunch we continued on through Iowa and into Nebraska.

Nebraska was a new state to me! I want to visit and eat a meal in each of the 50 states, so this was crossing another off the list. In Nebraska our destination was Lincoln, home of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers and future Big 10 member!

In a few weeks, I will show you the awesome food I discovered in Lincoln. Day two began with Brett getting his coffee. Upon leaving Lincoln we  continued our trek through Nebraska. Brett and I discovered that Nebraska has a lot of corn.

As we headed through western Nebraska there was still a lot of corn, but we also saw terrain looking like this.

We learned a few things about Nebraska. There is a lot of corn, and there is no cell service in the majority of the state’s western end. As we continued to Fort Collins, CO, we entered Wyoming.

The first thing we saw in Wyoming was a 30 ft tall Our Lady of Peace shrine. This would not be the only statue we would encounter in Wyoming. Not to long after entering Wyoming, we headed south into Colorado.

In Colorado we ran into the Badger Bus!

The Badger Bus is in Wisconsin and is what we would take to swim meets in college. What it was doing outside of Fort Collins, Brett and I have no idea. Our second day concluded with eating at several places in Fort Collins. Fort Collins is home to Colorado State Rams. I was incredibly impressed in Fort Collins and can not wait to visit again. In a few weeks what I ate will start appearing on the blog.

5 restaurants later it was time to leave Fort Collins and head to Salt Lake City. But of course not until Brett got his coffee.

Leaving Fort Collins, we headed towards Laramie,WY. The majority of  day 3′s drive would go through the whole state of Wyoming. I had never eaten in Wyoming, so the goal of the day was to fix that. O, and also make it to Salt Lake City.

Just outside of Laramie, we came across another statue at a rest stop.

Perched on top of a 30ft tall granite pedestal was a 13.5 ft tall bronze head of our countries 16th President. Brett and I had heard about this statue when researching oddities, so we could not turn down the opportunity to see it. It is right off I-80 just a few miles from Laramie. After visiting the statue, it was off to Laramie and dine on the University of Wyoming’s campus.

You will have to wait a few weeks to discover what I ate on this campus, but I promise it will be worth it. After leaving Laramie we continued on our way to Salt Lake City.

Laramie was not the only food stop we made in Wyoming, we also stopped at the Little America rest stop. Why you ask? Well their marketing worked. After seeing billboards for 200 miles we had to check out their clean restrooms and 50 cent soft serve.

Was it worth it? Yes it was. I highly recommend you do the same if traveling across I-80 in Wyoming. After our soft serve stop we continued through Wyoming and into Utah.

We ended the day by arriving in Salt Lake City. In Salt Lake City we did two things. 1. check out the University of Utah campus for dinner and 2. find the high school that the High School Musical movies were filmed at. Brett was pretty excited about finding East High, while I was excited to Find Utah’s campus. Lucky for us they were on the same road!

So far we have traveled 1,422 miles since Monday. It is now Wednesday. Tomorrow (Thursday) we continue our adventure to Las Vegas, NV. Then we will head to Santa Barbara, CA and finally to Pasadena.

Upon arriving in Pasadena, I will head up to the Bay area and see what food I can find in Berkeley. Thank you everyone for your suggestions so far! I really appreciate your input. If you have any suggestions for Santa Barbara or Berkeley I would love to hear them.

By the way Mom and Dad, I thought it would be easier to show you the trip so far as opposed to tell you.

Continue on to the Second half of the road trip…