Adventure Honeymoon 2013 - Drive to Sioux Falls

After work on Friday, we did our final preparations, loaded the car, and after a quick tiff about whether to unpack clothes and repack a "daypack" to bring into hotels en-route to Glacier (Kari thought it was a waste of time but Ben thought it would be more efficient and worth the short-term effort ... Ben won), we were out the door and on the road by 6:15pm.

Next stop was REI. Nothing like a last-minute stop for the REQUISITE essentials for a big backcountry trip. :-p

The night before, Ben had been testing out the food bag when the pull string ripped off the bag, dumping the entire culinary content all over the living room floor. Consequently, we were in need of a new, STURDIER food bag. And Kari was somewhat indecisive (no? really?) about whether she was happy with the hiking shoes we had just purchased and wanted to try on the alternative pair "one last time". Fortunately, it really was just that one last time and after a short trip through REI, we were on the road for real. (Go Gorgeous Go!)

While calling to let family know we were on our way, Ben remembered that he forgot the park maps for Glacier National Park and Theordore Roosevelt National Park, but he did not want to backtrack the 15 minutes each way to get them from the house. So, aside from almost hitting a possum outside Albert Lea, MN, we had a fairly uneventful drive highlighted by phone calls to the families and marred by an unfortunate and regrettable exposure (says Kari) to the movie Borat.

We successfully arrived in Sioux Falls and circumnavigated the local construction to reach the hotel at 2am.

Disclaimer

For those neurotic grammar nerds like Kari, yes I (Ben) am well aware of my use of third person singular and first person plural in my storytelling. Frankly, I do not care. Please enjoy the stories and photos without worrying about my grammar skills. 

Thanks!

Ben

Quick Update

So it has been a while since my last post. I have actually taken quite a few photos; however, I have not been super diligent about editing and posting them on the web. I have a few new albums on my site, and I will try to get some more up in the near future. I am attaching a few photos to this as a teaser of some of my trips in the last year to Door County, DC, and South Dakota.

It's been a wild year with a lot of ups and downs. Now that I have installed the blogger app on my iPad, I hope to be able to add more as I go throughout life this coming year. As a quick preview, I will be in Indiana for Christmas with my family, LA for New Years with my sister and family, plus backpacking Yosemite and Glacier National Parks this coming summer. Not to mention winter training for cycling has begun and I may add some quick stories about that too.

Summer - Wedding Season

With Summer being a rather beautiful time of year, it seems only natural that people decide to get married during the Summer months. Two weeks ago, I spent a Friday afternoon and evening helping Blake Dieringer shoot a wedding of a friend from high school. It was a lot of fun seeing old friends, some of whom I have not seen since high school. It was wild!

The ceremony and reception were both held at Valle Vista Country Club in Greenwood, IN. I have been to Valle Vista several times for banquets and receptions, but I have never be apart of a wedding on site. It can be a rather stressful experience for those involved. For the guests, I am sure that it seems like everything is running seamlessly, but that is not exactly the case. Blake and I rarely knew what was going on more than a few steps up the road. To make things even more enjoyable, we had a wedding planner who could be a little mean keeping everyone on the same page. I was just glad that I was able to keep a fairly cool head and take some lovely photos. I am sharing a few here. Check out the proofs page for more!

Well, back to laundry and organizing things, so I can race off to Indiana tomorrow and help Blake with another wedding!

Southeastway Park Crit and Fountain Square

This past weekend, Kari and I spent part of our time at a cycling race for me and some nice couple time walking around Fountain Square. I also spent some time shooting at a wedding with Blake Dieringer, but that post will come later.

Back to our story, Kari and I jumped in the car Saturday morning to head back up to Indy to return my rental equipment and spend some time together before we had to go babysitting. Following a leisurely warm-up ride, Kari and I cleaned up and headed down to Fountain Square to walk around and take photos. Blake mentioned that there was a really cool location that we should check out, so that was our goal. I believe that we found it. It is a nice little community nestled close to downtown.



After spending a night babysitting her younger siblings, Kari and I woke up early to head out to the race. While I was getting prepared and racing, Kari was completely responsible for any of the photos taken. I believe she did a great job!

Update

First off, it has been a long time since I last posted some photos to this blog. I got a little behind with graduate school and all of the events that I've been fortunate enough to participate in. In the last few months, Kari and I went to the Indianapolis Zoo, walked around Downtown Indy, went to the Milwaukee Air Show among other things to take pictures of. On top of that, I have been helping a couple friends shoot some weddings. This update will have a couple pictures from the weddings as well as the random adventures that Kari and I have gone on.


Blake has been kind enough to continue to let me help him shoot weddings with him. We shot one in February and July and have two more coming up this month. I have definitely learned a lot from each experience and continue to see my craft growing. It is rather exciting and I find myself becoming more addicted to helping it grow!


In the interim, Kari and I went to the Indianapolis Zoo. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, albeit a little on the warm side. We enjoyed walking casually around for a few hours and taking tons of photos of the animals.

The goal for the day was to catch the Indy 500 parade, but we got to town a little late. Following our excursion around the Zoo, Kari and I set off for the Canal and walked around Downtown on our way to find some dinner. The evening was capped off by enjoying some time with friends at Scotty's before heading back to our car and then back down to Bloomington.


During one of Kari's visits to Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Air Show was occurring. We went down Lake Michigan and found a great spot on a pier for viewing the spectacle. Some friends joined us for a fun day in the sun watching the action in the skies.


Finally, I helped another friend, Rasheed, shoot a wedding for some mutual friends in the Chicagoland area. It was a blast and yet another great experience. I can feel that all of the experience helping others shoot a wedding is preparing me well for my first. I am feeling more confident that I am getting the shots and capturing the moments of the couple's special day.


I am sure there are adventures that I am missing and that I did not fully give the detail that each of these events deserve. I will try harder to reduce the time between posts to be able to do justice to how cool our adventures are.

Practice with Kari

Kari asked me a while ago if she could learn how to use my camera, so I have slowly been showing her how to shoot with my camera in manual. While I am by no means an expert and have a lot to learn myself, I have a basic understanding of how to take a decent picture. With the start of my company, I have a goal of using her as my second shooter, so I do not have to hire someone outside of the family. I know you're next question. Are you engaged yet? That seems to be a fairly frequent question of late. The answer is no. We are not engaged yet, and I do not plan on asking her for a while.

Ok back to the story. Kari and I woke up feeling a little less than energetic, so we scrapped our plans of hitting the rock climbing gym in favor of driving around and exploring the Bloomington and surrounding areas taking pictures. It was an awesome day. Despite being a little gloomy out, we ended up with some really cool pictures. It was also a great bonding experience experimenting with my camera. I'll post a few of our pictures here with more in the Nature Portfolio on my site. I hope you like them.