Rushmore

We still have things to share from our cross country road trip... After spending time in Montana and Wyoming, we headed over to South Dakota to get a glimpse at the great Mount Rushmore! An unpatriotic admission: I kind of thought it was going to be really lame. And boring. However, the setting in the Black Hills was so beautiful, and the monument was really amazing. Take a looksie :)

We also decided to make a pit stop at the Crazy Horse Memorial. It is still unfinished, except for the face, but it is HUGE. Maybe one day we will be able to see it again when it is complete.

Also, we realized upon driving through the state of South Dakota that it is kind of a ...unique... place full of strange roadside attractions. Exhibit A:

George W. So hot right now.

I can just imagine what the creator of this was thinking... "Hey, what should we do with an empty lot next to this gas station in the middle of the Black Hills?" "How about fill it with giant busts of presidents? Also, throw in a windmill." Naturally, we used this glorious backdrop to show off how ridiculously good looking we are.

Other strange places: a giant park full of bears that you can pay to drive through and Wall Drug.

From there we made our way through Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and finally home to North Carolina (toward the end there, we got a little tired of taking pictures). It was a long trip and a whirlwind of a week, but we had lots of fun and got to see so many areas of the country. Since then, we have just been settling into our new place and trying to make it as homey as possible. More pictures of the town where we live to come, so stay tuned!!

What we've been up to...

Due to a bout of sickness and overall laziness, I've been a little slow on the blogging front, but here are some fun things that we have been up to for the past month/couple weeks :)



For Memorial Day weekend, we took a spontaneous little trip over to Wilmington. After some mishaps (and no camping vacancies, like, anywhere), we slept on Carolina Beach with about a thousand other people. Due to mosquitoes and some loud parties, not many Z's were had, but waking up to the sound of the ocean was pretty neato. We also got to use our new tent and camping pads, wedding presents from Jordan's family. We love them! Thanks, guys!


I sure do miss my beloved Sunflower Market, but we found a place that has served as a substitute for now. It's a fun little open air market with tons of produce and beautiful flowers. I have been thinking about taking some home and creating a makeshift planter on our porch :)

One thing we are learning about the summer months here in NC is that the storms are WEIRD. They come seemingly out of nowhere, are really scary for about fifteen minutes, and then disappear, leaving a bunch of fog. The most recent one gave us some nice-sized hail, followed by what can only be described as a scene from The Mist, sans creepy critter things trying to eat us.




Things that we did this past weekend... a fun Friday night Uptown with some friends, imaginary house hunting, listening to the outdoor summer symphony performance, puppy window shopping(since we can't exactly adopt any pets at the moment), and my husband fell in love with a ferret. The end.

Oh, hey...

So I am already slacking a bit on this whole thing. My sincerest apologies, even though at this point, I think maybe two people know about our bloggedy shmog. More info about the Rose adventures/happenings/past month to come. In the mean time, here is an adorable picture of my blind and diabetic dalmatian (because I miss him like crazy). Enjoy :-)

Yellowstone Part Deux

Here are some more little snippets of our time at the park... Feast your eyes upon these beauties!

We were able to get up close and personal with some of these beasts... Most of the information that we got at the entrance warned against angering the bison and getting gored. Yikes. However, I found them to be quite docile and, dare I say, cuddly-looking? They were really fun to look at at first, but toward the end of the day we were a little tired of them acting like they owned the place... Stopping in the middle of the road in huge herds and staring at us blankly when we politely asked them to move. Rude. Case in point....

Bison Blockade from Alyssa Rose on Vimeo.

Sorry about the brief PDA. It was our honeymoon, after all. Also, Jordan is dreamy. Moving on...



When we were heading out on our way and leaving Yellowstone the next day, we had one of the coolest wildlife experiences. Driving along, we saw some bighorn sheep (rams?) climbing the rocks, and we quickly pulled off the side of the road to get some pictures and video.

Yellowstone ram sighting from Alyssa Rose on Vimeo.

How cool is that!? We were a little bummed that we had such limited time to spend here, but we had to get moving to get to our next destination in time... Mount Rushmore! More on that later.

And so it begins!

I guess the real "beginning" of our lives together was our wedding day, but until I can get more photos to post for your enjoyment, let's take a gander at the honeymoon! We decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and use the time that Jordan had off after the big day to drive me, Starla (my car), and most of my earthly posessions across the country, while making some fun stops along the way. First up, Yellowstone!

Since it was still early in the season, we didn't get to see a large variety of animals. There were about 3 billion bison, a few elk, and a mama bear with her cubs way off in the distance at one point. We went around to the different landmarks and had an overall grand ol' time.

On our way!

The geysers and landscape were actually really beautiful in their own unique way. Nature is amazing!

Jord's photographic artistry in use

We shivered in the cold for a good twenty minutes anticipating this guy's eruption. It was both old and faithful, and the wait was worth it.

We are so thankful that we were able to share this little adventure together, and I promise that we will post some more exciting pictures later when we get a chance.

As for now, I am off to go take my North Carolina driver's license test... To be continued!

When I stepped...

...out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home...

We heard that you have to have a blog to hang out with the grown ups and that if you quote literature you're really refined and stuff.

Here are some pictures from the start of our life together as a freaking cute couple. View them with your eye holes.

Stay gold Ponyboy.