What a Long Strange Trip...

After almost a month and a half without any new posts, here it is. This post will be slightly epic because of all that has transpired, so I've taken the liberty to break it into "chapters" with sub-headings.

If you didn't know, Binzer and I have now landed in a small one bedroom apartment just north of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii. We will be in this apartment for three months as we look at neighborhoods and get ready to settle into longer term housing. Lindsey is loving her new job as a Wilderness Therapist and I am trying to get our apartment settled and in order as I also look for work. If Lindsey hasn't let you know already, I went a little crazy the first week due to being homeless, jobless, and hungry. But I'm good now! No worries! We are starting to figure out our new home and are still just trying to get comfy in our new surroundings.

New York

After leaving New Orleans with a Penske truck and all of our possessions, we drove to Vestal, NY to say goodbye to my Grandfather, who was rapidly deteriorating due to brain cancer. We were able to see him just before he passed. While the time spent in New York was somber, due to my Grandfathers passing and the funeral, we were able to spend a lot of time with family and friends. It simply all worked out to allow us to be there to say goodbye.

Gene was an avid outdoors-man and photographer and he loved to take the road less traveled, many times literally. My Grandmother and Grandfather would drive the back roads of the country for week-long road trips. What I will always remember most about my Grandfather was his love of the Adirondacks, where he would come to camp with our family every summer, and his love of photography. You could always count on Grandpa to sit quietly at family events, with one of his cameras trained on us, while he patiently waited for some look or smile. I love you Grandpa and you will be dearly missed.

My Grandfather collected hundreds of cameras and developed all of his own pictures in a dark room in the basement.


One of my best buddies, Chris Cimino, just returned home from Japan. It was great to see him and catch up. It was also awesome to take the Home Run Derby Crown off to Hawaii.


I think I probably played this for at least 4 hours a day. Coach was still pretty good though...


The whole fam.


I was using my new camera way too much. Lindsey was about to go crazy by the time we arrived in Hawaii.


My Dad and Grandmother.

The night of the wake.


Our buddy Steve was able to make it out for a couple of days. It was great to see him again post-wedding and it turns out he's gonna be Poppa Steve!



Roadtrip: New York to Minnesota

After about three weeks in New York, we drove to Minnesota. We took the longest way in the entire world, going to Niagara Falls, then to Port Burgess in Ontario Canada, and finally to Chicago. It took about 18 hours to drive, which includes getting lost in Canada.

We stopped at my Aunt and Uncles house in Spencerport, NY, which was right along the way. Ellen made us a super awesome breakfast. It was really nice to see the house, Mike and Chris' rooms, and just hang out for a little bit.


Then we headed to Niagara Falls and we crossed right over to the Canadian side of the falls (better view, cleaner, beautiful gardens, feels like Europe, etc.). We were there for about 45 minutes and then loaded back into the car to drove through Canada to Chicago.


We stopped at Port Burgess Ontario (not on the way to Chicago) to see where Lindsey's ancestors spent some time before making their way to Minnesota. It was a cute little mainstreet right on Lake Erie. We ate a small meal, asked about Burgesses ("Sorry, don't know any"), and continued on our way.


We arrived in Chicago 18 hours after we started because the rural routes in Ontario were like 50 mph and we got lost. It was really fun to finally see Chicago in the summer, as we had been there in the winter two other times. We stayed for two nights with our buddies Mat, Karen, and Amina.


We read a ton of childrens books, ate some awesome food, and saw some of the sights in Chicago. It was a great stay. We owe Mat and Karen about 3 weeks in Hawaii for all the crashing we have done at their house.


Minnesota

We stayed in Minnesota for about two weeks, and it was freezing when we arrived! A cold front literally followed us in. We had a lot of fun meeting Audrey (cutest baby in the world), playing with Joey, and just relaxing after spending so much time on the road.


Joey was a little shy upon first seeing us arrive at the house. He had to devour this entire truck before he would even talk to us.

My god! She was so adorable. We had so much fun playing with and spending time with Audrey, she was just the quietest, best baby ever.


We took a trip to the Orr Bear Center, which is simply a place where a guy started feeding bears years ago, so these are all just wild bears that know where to get some free food. There is a viewing deck, but the bears are just walking around all over and there were probably 80 of them.

Lindsey's cousin Nathan just moved to Duluth from Italy.

We stopped over at Josh and Jen's new place to see Mattie and Emma, they were both so much fun to play with. Thanks for the awesome lunch Jen and for the swim shorts Josh!

At the park with Joey.

Audrey and the girls.

We stopped at some other northern Minnesota sights and had a little picnic at the Vermillion Falls.

Family shot.

This is the "Lindsey getting frustrated because Brian's taking too many photos" face.

Here is Lindsey with two of her ol' college buddies, Laura and Lainski'

Homeless in Hawaii

We flew to Hawaii and planned on simply camping at a county park close to the farm where Lindsey would be working for the first week. After landing in Hilo, we picked up our car and stayed at a small hostel, which was nice. Hilo is a dusty, third world type of town. There are a ton of great asian restaurants, an awesome farmers market, it rains a lot, and one way streets start and stop completely erratically. After two nights, we made our way south to Punalu'u Beach, where we would be camping for the week. This island is vast and it does not have the stark natural beauty of the other islands at first glance, but it is still a pretty impressive place. Hilo is a tropical, green place; as the east side of the island receives all of the rain. But as we drove west, it gets drier and drier. We passed through desert and recent lava flows and watched the sun start to set over Mauna Loa, the worlds biggest volcano.

The campground was nice, but there is no one to check in with or anything. You basically fend for yourself and set up wherever you want.

This is the beach we stayed at. There is a turtle somewhere in the background, oh well.


Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. It is a really beautiful place. It's very dry, sunny, lots of turtles, and the waves crash dramatically into the coast all around here.



Here is our buddy Ed. Ed is a Vietnam vet with some of the craziest stories that span his entire life. He was camping out in the park with us for the week that we were there. Ed sold his business in Arizona, left his wife, and flew to Hawaii with 80 pounds of stuff.



This is a lava tube just north of Hilo. There are caves all over this island from past lava flows.



At a neighboring park, there was a little festival for the region we were in with food, crafts, music, hula, and more. It was really nice to just relax and hang with the locals.



This is the coast in the south of Hawaii, near where we were camping. It's sunny every morning and then clouds slowly build up by the afternoon.



Turtle. They were eating the algae all over the beach we were staying at, it was really cool.




Hula Dancer at the county festival.