Rewind
Raleigh, NC — May 19-22, 2022
Well friends, it’s been over a year of living on the road. I’m sad to say that it’s almost coming to an end. It has honestly been the best and coolest year of my life and I cannot recommend enough to anyone who wants to travel to make like Nike and JUST DO IT. If you’re planning on doing something similar, I made a handy-dandy packing checklist for you.
You may be wondering what’s next for us on our journey! We have a couple more stops to go and then we are heading to Milwaukee for a wedding, then Bloomington to take care of the kitties while James’s parents do a month of travel. Then we’re heading back to Milwaukee for the rest of the summer and fall to be with family and friends, attend some weddings, and make a final decision on where we want to live!
It’s been so fun looking back at photos from the past year. Time feels like an illusion. Almost an entire year ago we were in Raleigh, NC visiting our friends Nick and Natalie. It feels like yesterday. Natalie was my RA freshman year, then she auditioned for the Meladies a cappella group and we sang together and became good friends! She’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met and I think everyone needs a Natalie in their life. Nick was in the all-male a cappella group at Marquette, the Naturals, and I actually became friends with him first before Natalie moved from the RA to friendship threshold. They started dating and it was just like the movie Pitch Perfect and the rest is aca-history. After we all graduated, we frequented Paulie’s Pub in West Allis to do live band karaoke with a group of our college friends. They hired the band to play at their wedding reception and got a bunch of us to sing and it was iconic. That was back in December 2021, we visited them in Raleigh 5 months later, and NOW they are expecting a baby! A lot can change in a year and a half. 🥲
Here’s a few highlights from our long weekend in the Triangle (i.e. Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill for people like me who did not know that)! We spent May 19-22, 2022 in Raleigh right before heading back to Milwaukee for Memorial Day weekend and the end of what we called the first leg of the trip. Nick and Natalie were absolutely fantastic hosts and we had so much fun in Raleigh that it was quickly added to our list of potential places to live. We were experiencing a heat wave when we got there but it didn’t deter us from having a great time!
When we arrived on Thursday evening, they cooked us a lovely dinner, introduced us to their very good dog Chance, and showed us around their new house! It was so great to catch up with them—the last time we saw them was at their wedding and they were a little busy that day. We felt right at home with them; it was really great to be there.
On Friday, we young professionals had to work, so we all went our separate ways. I was able to meet up with a former colleague, Claire, who I haven’t seen in forever, for lunch! It was SO great to catch up with her and see her again. We of course did not take any photos together but I have a nice photo of the sushi we ordered. I really need to get into a better habit of taking pictures of people, not things. 😅 Claire and I worked together at Children’s Wisconsin. I got to hang out with her dog, Lemon, back in 2016 before she went into labor with her twin boys. She’s now a real estate agent in the area and I introduced her to Nick and Natalie, who she helped with buying their first home! I always love connecting people with each other (aka a crossover episode), it brings me so much joy when friends meet other friends. Claire is also a bad-ass who beat breast cancer and just reached her 1 year cancer-free milestone on April 20, 2023!
On Friday night, when everyone was done with their big-kid jobs, we got to watch Nick perform with the cover band RadioStar, which was definitely a highlight. The man really knows how to work a crowd. We had a lot of fun and Nick somehow convinced me to go up and sing with the band. It was not my best performance so there will be no evidence to share. But it was a lot of fun! Please enjoy these videos of Nick.
Nick singing Brown Eyed Girl
Nick singing Kiss (aka his go-to karaoke song)
Nick singing Highway to Hell with a very convincing AC/DC voice
On Saturday, we went to an art festival that happened to be going on the same weekend we were there. It was hot but we got some cold refreshments (particularly one in a pineapple), which helped with the heat. We cooled off in the A/C at the City of Raleigh Museum. That night we found out that Sylvan Esso was doing a hometown performance at a baseball field in Durham. Turns out you could see and hear the show from a bar overlooking the field for free! Half of the duo is from Durham and the other half is from Milwaukee. They met at Cactus Club, one of our favorite places in Bay View, and I’ve long been a fan on them. It turned out that Nick and Natalie’s friends were planning on going to the show so we decided to go with them! It was such a great performance and a serendipitous coincidence that they were playing that night. I feel like that was the theme of this road trip—we always seem to be in the right place at the right time.
On Sunday, we spent some time in Durham walking around some shops and looking at the Duke campus, then I met up with a coworker and friend, Ashlie! Nick, Natalie, and James went to a botanical garden while I had crepes and coffee with Ashlie. It was awesome being able to meet her in person. I’ve been freelancing for The Clorox Company, which owns Burt’s Bees, headquartered in Durham, so some of the people I work with live there, some live in Oakland, and the rest of us are scattered around the world. Although Ashlie and I rarely work on projects together, we have similar roles so we often meet up (virtually) to share tips, tricks, and support each other. She has been such a huge help to me since I started working with Clorox and I’m so glad that we got to meet up. She’s a talented artist with impeccable attention to detail, care and compassion, and delight in the beauty of nature. I love being her colleague and friend! She showed me the Burt’s Bees campus and we went to an art gallery in Durham. The time absolutely flew by when we were together, it was like we’d known each other forever. Check out her lovely art here.
My absolute favorite thing about traveling around the country has been the people that we’ve been able to spend time with along the way. This long weekend in the Triangle was one of my most cherished parts of the trip. I think the reason we liked Raleigh so much was because of the people. I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family in my life! I look forward to going back to the area again soon.
