Our last months in the States

After a few months living with my mom, we set out on a road trip to the East Coast to spend some time with Melissa’s family.

On our way through Utah, we spent a night in Zion national park, then did a hike the next morning. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get deeper into the park proper because tickets on the bus (the only way in) were booked months in advance! Regardless, what we saw was beautiful.

After Zion, we headed over to Moab. We camped on BLM land that night, watching Grace and Frankie in the car until we fell asleep.

The next day we went to Arches National Park, and we went off-roading in the Prius, as one does. (Not pictured – any actual Arches)

We camped another night and then rode our bikes into Moab. There was some kind of Jeep owners convention going on, and there were endless parades of hundreds (if not thousands) of jeeps driving in and out of town all day. We didn’t get any pictures of the Jeeps, you’ll have to trust us on this.

Once we were done with Utah, our next stop was Colorado to visit Julie (and her dog River). Julie was able to hook us up with ski passes, so we were lucky enough to get to ride during the last week of the season, and it even snowed!

Fortunately, there’s a wormhole between Colorado and the East Coast, so once we left Julie’s we immediately found ourselves in New Jersey. Melissa’s parents, Joe and Nancy, graciously hosted us in their home for the next three months.

We took plenty of trips to NYC, I saw the Jersey Shore for the first time (but didn’t get to do any Jaeger bombs, is it the Jersey Shore without Jaeger bombs?), we got to hang out with Melissa’s college friends and two of her three sisters (the third is in the UK), we saw upstate New York, we saw New Jersey in full bloom, I got to meet the extended family, Julie came out and visited us, and we even found time to take a quick trip down to Florida to visit my buddy Chris. In short, we had a wonderful time.

As July approached, we got the news that Europe was opening up for travel. We booked our tickets to Rome, drove back across the states, stayed at my mom’s for another week wrapping everything up, and boarded the plane.

We’ve ridden our bikes a total of maybe three times up until this point, so we feel we’re well prepared for the tour ahead.

(Did not happen to take a photo with my mom this time around, so to help everyone picture what the three of us look like together I’ve substituted an old photo as a visual aid)