Today was such a stupid busy sh*t day at work that I’m going to decompress on my train ride by writing about our vacation last week, which was so relaxing and wonderful…

This was our sixth year in a row visiting Guttenberg, Iowa with Gina, Steve, and Luca (aka “the otra familia”)! The first two years, we did the visit around Labor Day, but now that Luca is in school, we do the trip around RAGBRAI time in the end of July/beginning of August!

Why Guttenberg? Because it’s a beautiful town on the Mississippi River that I’ve been visiting since I was a toddler, and I LOVE sharing it with close friends. It’s such a great place to slow down and unwind, which is exactly what this trip was about!

SATURDAY

Gina, Steve, and Luca flew in this year! It was their first time doing that and saved them two days of driving ON EACH END of the trip. Smart! And bonus, they flew in to Minneapolis and got to explore there a bit. They arrived at our rental cabin (we’ve outgrown the family cabin we stayed in previously) right before Dad and I came in from RAGBRAI. We enjoyed pizza and swapping stories from our day. And Gina presented us with mugs she made us all!

Ha, so Mom’s “E” fell off when we were at the beach, so we kept teasing her “Who’s Tim?! Does Dad know about him?!”

SUNDAY

It’s funny to me that I am writing about the trip by days of the week because while we were there, we made a rule that we would NOT discuss the day or date! We wanted to stay in vacation mode as much as possible!

But we did have some errands to do. We spent Sunday morning planning out our meals. We make everything to eat while we’re there, except for ordering pizza out the first night, and sometimes a meal out if we go to a bigger town.

While we were leaving our rental house to drive (over forty-five minutes) to get groceries in a bigger town, I got a call from my mom that my younger brother was headed up with his family to surprise us! Good thing she called right then and “spoiled” the surprise! We changed our plans and got groceries for lunch in town, had lunch (walking tacos/stationary tacos) with them, then spent time on the pond by my parent’s cabin. We had a lot of fun at the pond, and it was great to see my younger brother and his family.

Then we went and got groceries (after dinner at HuHot), which, duh, made more sense anyway – we had a lot of groceries to buy and we would have been fighting the Sunday noon crowd had we gone when originally planned!

Groceries for seven people for four days

MONDAY

On Monday we started our day with a run (we ran down the road our house was on, to my parent’s, and had them drive us back <—winning), had burgers for lunch, then went out on the river.

The Mississippi River was still really flooded in Iowa – higher than we’ve ever seen it this late in the summer on any of our trips. Because of that, no one had their docks in in the area where my parent’s cabin is, so we used the public marina to put the boat and two jet skis in (usually we put all the water crafts out once, dock them at Grandma’s house, then take them out at the end of the visit). The exciting part of that was that Steven got to trailer the jet skis (since we had to take them in and out each day, instead of leaving them at Grandma’s, and it made sense to take two cars trailering water crafts to the marina)!!!!

We had a great day in the sun, made Italian food for dinner, and stayed up late chatting. I don’t have a lot of photos from this visit because I was really trying NOT to be on my phone that much (and I wasn’t!). The lack of photos here, or photos of certain people, does not say anything about this trip – just that I wanted to chill and not force (many) photos.

TUESDAY

Tuesday was the day of our big adventures! But, first, a run! This time we ran down the hill behind our house (photo below) in to town, then had Mom and Dad drive us back. There’s a trail just over .35 miles in to town, and it cut some time off our run since we didn’t do any switchbacks.

We had “Kim bowls” (actually, plates) for lunch. A “Kim bowl” is what I make at home when Steven orders pizza (since I usually do NOT want pizza) – it’s hashbrowns, broccoli, fake meats, garlic, and cheese. NOM!

We split up after lunch. Mom and Dad went to see Big Boy (aka BIG BOIIIIIIIIIIIII) and the rest of us went to Maquoketa Caves State Park.

Holy cow, was that place cool. You’re driving through miles and miles of cornfields, then all of a sudden, you’re in this depression of the earth with trails and over ten caves! Some were tiny and some were HUGE!

My favorite was the huge one, called “Dance Hall Cave.” It had a large entrance on each side, then you could walk through it, by bending over (if you’re an adult) as shown in the photo above. It looked like a set from a movie! I definitely recommend seeing this if you’re ever in central eastern Iowa.

Also, I got to hold Leche the milk snake twice! (The DNR was there with him.)

We met Mom and Dad at Dairy Queen in Dyersville on the way back to Guttenberg. Gina and I rode back with them, and Dad dropped us off at the foot of the trail to walk up to our place (we told him to, so he wouldn’t have to drive the long switchback!). Dinner was enchiladas, NACHOS!, beans, and rice. Mom and Dad ate every meal (except breakfast) with us, so we made a lot of food, and had plans to eat leftovers too. After dinner some watched a movie and some played games.

Yes, those are tots on our nachos and yes, they were amazing, and yes, we’ll be making this again next year

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday we drove in to town to run with Dad while he biked. Steven worked and hung out with Luca all the mornings we ran. I didn’t know it at the time, but during our run on Wednesday, they made a cake (for my birthday)! They had picked out ingredients during our Sunday shopping trip, and Luca had kept it a secret that whole time! It’s so adorable – he really wanted to plan out when to make it and help Steven, and was worried that they wouldn’t be able to get it done while we were running, so they came up with several “backup” plans for when they could make it instead. Little schemers!

After leftovers for lunch, we went out on the river (for the last time, cry). The water had gone down a lot since Monday, and there was more beach to dock on! We used the public marina again.

We had another fun day at the beach, and had “fish” tacos for dinner, and cake after. Before dinner, Steven insisted I opened up my birthday presents. I’d asked him for a harmonica, and all month, he was teasing me about getting me a kazoo instead, saying “that’s what you wanted, right?!” He had several gifts for me to open in order, the first being a button that makes a horn noise, the second being party horns for everyone, the third being a kazoo, the fourth being kazoos for everyone, and the fifth being a slide whistle. After opening each one he’d say “that’s what you wanted, right?” and it was really funny, because he’d brought everyone in on the joke, so during the previous days we were saying we were going to start a band with random instruments, and here, Steven had gotten them all for us. We made A LOT of noise on the horns and kazoos! Then I opened the harmonicas (one for him and one for me). And we made more noise and had a lot of rowdy fun! I was even serenaded with “Happy Birthday” on the kazoos while I blew out my candles!

THURSDAY

On Thursday morning we (Gina, Steve, Luca, and me) hiked down the trail from our place in to town while Steven worked. Then Mom and Dad came over for brunch and we cooked as much of the leftover food as we could! Last year we had a lot more leftover, and we’re getting better at this each year.

We packed up our rental place and went down to Mom and Dad’s for golf cart rides of the “islands” their cabins are on, then said our first goodbyes… then decided we were all going to drive to the fun gas station in town (their smoothie machine is so amazing I made a video of it) and get snacks and say goodbye from there. Gina, Steve, and Luca headed to Minneapolis for their flight back to Dallas, Steven and I headed home, and Mom and Dad did a bit of work and went home late that night.

It was such a fun and relaxing trip that it was hard to get back in to the swing of things. I’m still struggling! I took the Friday after we got home off, and had the whole weekend to catch up, but it just never feels like enough time, does it?

I love that we have this tradition with the otra familia, and with my parents. We don’t see each other often, so it’s great that when we do on this trip, we’re really focusing on spending time together and maybe doing a little sight seeing… and a lot of eating. I hope this tradition continues for us!

Yay! Writing this helped relax me!