Two months of nearly non-stop road-tripping exhausted us, so we decided to take a break.
We wanted some time to relax, regroup, and work on our blogs, and to do that, we needed to stay still. Luckily, we were traveling around the midwest at the time, and my twin brother had a room available for rent in his Chicago apartment. So we settled down for a full month and used the time to explore Chicago more, set new goals for our projects, dabble in some artistic hobbies, and even launch a new business. See what else we accomplished during our month-long road trip break in Chicago below!
Note: I’m still catching up on our weekly road trip re-caps! This one covers July 5 – August 1.
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You can get an overview of our trip each week here on the blog, but we’re posting more frequent updates of our cross-country U.S. road trip on Facebook and Instagram.
States Visited These Weeks
- Illinois
- Wisconsin
(no new states visited these weeks)
States Visited in Previous Weeks
- Week One: California, Nevada, Arizona
- Week Two: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas
- Week Three: Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri
- Week Four – Six: Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota
- Week Seven: Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Alberta (Canada)
- Week Eight: North Dakota back to Chicago
Total States Visited So Far: 19
California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota
Stops/Landmarks
- Chicago, Illinois
- EAA AirVenture Oshkosh fly-in convention (Oshkosh, WI)
Highlights
- playing Whirlyball for the first time in Chicago
- visiting Ian’s parents and the Seabee Warbird at the Oshkosh fly-in convention in Wisconsin
- homemade beer brewing, video game nights playing DOTA 2, and repeated delicious barbecue nights with my twin brother in Chicago
- oodles of deep dish pizza
- getting artsy-craftsy with jewelry and camera strap making
- testing out the GoPro HERO4 Session
- rock climbing
- rainy days
- meeting up with some fellow freelancers and entrepreneurs
- launching Boost Marketing by Diana
Notes and Insights
- Playing the game of Whirlyball requires a great deal of hand-eye coordination.
- Playing the game of Whirlyball while also wielding a selfie stick requires a great deal MORE hand-eye coordination.
- Barbecuing with butter is definitely the most delicious way to prepare shrimp.
Planning your own trip to Chicago? Check out Airbnb’s list of things to do in the Windy City.
Home brew bottling before we leave Chicago. Making room in the bottles for the new batch. Time to drink up! #NTSroadtrip2015 #chicago A photo posted by North To South • Diana + Ian (@dianasouth) on
Photo Gallery
All photos were taken by Ian and Diana with the Sony a7 II (Ian’s camera), Sony RX100 III (Diana’s camera — review here) and our smartphones.
Week 13 Preview
- Ann Arbor, Michigan and a visit to Dynamic Perception, makers of the slider we used in the making of our On Photographing the Milky Way video
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Ian’s college town)
I hope you enjoyed this U.S. road trip re-cap! In case you missed them, check out our other weekly recaps from our road trip. Have you road-tripped to any of these U.S. locations? Tell us about your trips in the comments.
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