Hello friends!

Happy Good Friday and almost-Easter! I don’t have any deep Easter posts for you this year, just cute springy duckling pictures. Last week Sully and I finally got to visit Aria (my matron-of-honor at my wedding, remember?) and her husband Andrew. It was a 14 hour drive, thus why I hadn’t made it before on my own. But we had a grand adventure of car camping, “icecuum,” fuzzy baby birds, and a photoshoot. Enjoy this small travel journal!

We left on Friday evening after Sully got home from work, and made it about to Charleston, WV that night. I searched for available hotels during the last hour or so, Sully-style, but to no avail. Long story short, RESERVE YOUR HOTELS BEFOREHAND. It was about 11PM, so after a bit of discussion we decided to sleep in the car in a Kroger parking lot, during a very windy and cold rainstorm. :’D The first picture is the lights of Charleston out the window. The second is rather creepy picture is us preparing to sleep in our seats. Spoiler alert: I didn’t sleep at all. Oh dear. Sully slept some and woke up refreshed at 5AM, ready to drive again.

We ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel at like 7:15, sponsored by a wedding-gift gift card. That perked me up slightly. We also stopped at a rest area in Illinois and saw the weirdest ice cream vending machine. A vacuum pipe suctioned to whatever dessert you selected, picked it up, and dropped it behind the little door for you to pick up. Like a claw machine that actually worked! Sully called it “icecuum.” Has anyone seen those before?  We also had lunch ft. some ideas in my packed lunch post. 🙂

A few other notable sights from various parts of the drive: the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and a town named after my husband. Sully was delighted. Not pictured: TONS of huge and neat bridges.

We finally made it to Aria’s house on Saturday afternoon, a lot earlier than we expected because of the whole car-camping thing. Andrew gave us a tour of the house and a chance to bring in our luggage and freshen up. (This is a shot of Aria’s aesthetic living room. ❤ )

We drove to town to get supper at a Mexican restaurant and then got to see Aria’s play! She did an AMAZING job. I don’t have any shots of the play itself, but here’s a blurry BeReal afterward. 🙂

The next day, after a much better night’s sleep on an air mattress in their living room, we accompanied Aria and Andrew to church. I enjoyed getting to see the service and meet the friends Aria had told me so much about. ❤ We stopped on the way back at a cute mural to take souvenir pictures. (Also Sully accidentally left his beloved trench coat at Aria’s, oops.)

After Aria fixed us lunch and we relaxed inside the house a bit, we went out and looked at her adorable chicks and ducklings.

This picture instantly reminded me of these adorable baby bunny photos from when Sully and I were engaged.

THIS PICTURE IS TOO CUTE HELP.

My cousin thought Aria looked like a Disney princess in these pictures. I was like, “Yes! As usual. <3” Seriously though!

Look how cuuuute! I’m so pleased with how these pictures turned out.

Pro tip: let the wind blow some of your hair into the frame to get a nice golden glow off to the side. :’D

I forgot how adorable ducklings are. I mean… they’re so perfect looking!

Doesn’t this look cottagecore with the basket and blue dress and ducklings?

I couldn’t resist mixing up the editing styles on one of them. What do you think?

We ended our visit with a little photoshoot in Aria’s backyard. Aria or Andrew took these pictures and Aria edited all of them. We always have to get a besties picture when we see each other.

This one turned out so good!

Hehe, Sully’s expression when I kissed him… XD (As you can tell it was rather windy.)

We’ll end with another favorite shot. It was lovely to have another mini photoshoot since our wedding pictures are almost a year old now. This sweet weirdo still makes me smile. 🙂

That’s all the pictures I have for you today! The trip back was fairly uneventful. We got a good night’s rest at an actual hotel on Sunday night and made it home without too many incidents of note other than a delicious Chinese buffet supper stop. All in all, it was a fun adventure, and one that brought back fond memories of the road trips I went on with my family growing up.  I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Ducklings or chicks? Weirdest vending machine you’ve seen? Is Aria secretly a princess?

Thanks so much for reading, my friends, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***