Summer Recap

I don't know about you, but summer seemed to fly by this year. Part of me was happy because I don't like the heat and I hate to sweat, and another part of me was sad because I'm always trying my best to live in the moment, and squeeze everything out of life that I can, yet it seemed to slip through my fingertips and before you know it days are getting shorter and cooler. But you won't find me complaining because that means Autumn is here :). So here's a recap of some of the fun things we got to do.

God blessed us with lots of work, we were able to crush our financial goals and therefore we went home twice this summer! I know that doesn't sound like anything until you consider that last year we didn't go home at all during summertime. It was such a blessing to have time off in Montana! All David cared about was getting as many miles on his bike as possible, and my goal was to spend every day swimming in the pristine lakes. Haha! :)

The lakes in Montana are the best. They're so clean and fresh, and some are so clear you can see straight to the bottom! So yea I'm pretty spoiled for the best swimming in the country ;)

Grilling burgers after all day by the water. They always taste way better when eaten outside!

We went on several day trips on the bike. We explored some new roads, and new little cafes in nearby towns that have been on my "to try" list for awhile.

We spent July 4th at home, which was the first time in 3 years! The town next to us, Troy puts on such a fun parade in the morning, and then after wards they have booths set up showcasing local artist, plus food trucks and all the fun fair food in the park by the river. We spent the day just walking around and enjoying it all. And the fireworks are pretty dang good for such a small town!! I guess we had too much fun because I failed to get any pictures.

One of the most exciting things we did while we were home was take photos for a company called Viking Cycle who reached out to David on Instagram wanting to collaborate. So in exchange for product reviews and photos we were able to try out some of their products.

Our friend Jeriah even helped us put together a video review!

Having quality motorcycle gear is very important to me! You can't be too safe or wear too much protective gear in my opinion ;). And we were super pleased with these real leather jackets and we can't wait to put more miles on with them.

Like I said we were real busy with trucking and that didn't leave much time to play. And it seemed like most of our travels were on the same boring and monotonous highways that seriously lacked in the sight seeing department. But just as always, you can still find the beauty and excitement in less than ideal places if you look for it!

Such as these sunflowers!! They were in North Dakota.

We waited until golden hour to go and take these. Let me say that the lighting might have been good, but the mosquitoes were absolutely horrible!! Basically sunflowers are just a huge breading ground for the evil little things, and that drastically took down on their beauty for me.

There were lots of fields like this lining the highways in their full golden glory.

This is Lake Superior in Michigan. We were driving along the shore on our way to Canada and decided to pull over for a bit and enjoy the views.

Somehow we got the wild hair to jump in and swim a little bit, and man was it cold!!! It also didn't help that it was a very fresh morning and was only about 50 degrees. From what I hear this lake never really warms up for comfortable swimming. However Lake Michigan is very pleasant, we had the chance to stop in and see some friends who live in Michigan and so we all went to the pier for the afternoon and swam.

Another place trucking took us was through Wisconsin several times. We have some dear friends, Dennis and Elise who live in Black River Falls, and so it's always fun when we get a load going through the area over the weekend and we get to stop by and hang out with them instead of at a truck stop like usual. It's a small town, but has such a fun little downtown with neat stores and antique shops.

This is the ice-cream station inside the General Store pictured above. It's like walking into an old Mercantile from back in the day. The downstairs is full of old books and vintage finds.

David is always riding Dennis' bike when we're there!!

We always love to hit up the Revolution coffee shop. They have good healthy eats, unique drinks, and a fun atmosphere to hang out and talk.

It's a little hard to see but David is holding a big trash bag full of old books we found in this antique store. We love old books and are always on the lookout because you never know what you might find. Somehow I had to sit on the back while holding this bag which is the size of a small child all the way to the house. Maybe next time we go antiquing I can convince him to take the car instead of the bike... doubt it!! ;)

And the highlight of our summer was going to the Ashley for the Arts outdoor Concert event in Arcadia WI. It's crazy how God times our loads outside of our control, because we had no idea about this event, but were able to go since we were in town anyway!

We went for the last night when Dan & Shay, Andy Grammar, and Rascal Flats played. It was awesome and SO much fun!!!! There were over 50,000 people there over the three day event. They had arts and craft booths, and lots of different food trucks. We just ate cheese curds for dinner, and if you've never had them you are seriously missing out in life! Haha!!

They also put on a firework show that was better than the majority of July 4th fireworks I've seen.

I was having way too much fun to have to keep up with a camera, so sorry for the cheesy phone pic. :)

We only got one load through Colorado this summer which is a bummer because we love going through there. David and I both thrive in the mountains and just the site of them makes my heart so happy!!! This is going down Wolf Creek Pass.

All the creeks are pretty low this year, but still cold!! We stopped by the side of the road and walked down to this little creek and went for one last dip for the season.

One thing I love about Colorado is basically anywhere there's a wide spot next to the road you can just pull off, park and walk a little bit and you're in the woods or near a creek.

Hot air balloon in Pagosa Springs.

We found this coffee shack on the side of the road in South Fork Co, and it was way too cute to not stop. I got a homemade lemonade, and they had a food truck as well so we grabbed some lunch and gosh it was some of the best food!!! I love finding little treasures like this, but to be totally realistic we only get to experience things like this once every several months. The majority of times the cutest stuff is far from truck friendly.

View from Wolf Creek Pass.

At the top of the pass is one of the places the Continental Divide trail crosses. It's so beautiful up there!

Earlier in the day we had stopped by the store and gotten steaks to cook, so we parked the truck at the top and fired up our grill. Apparently charcoal takes longer to start at high altitude, but we didn't mind so much as it gave us more time to kill running around with the camera!!

It’s so hard out here on the road to truly be able to relax and snap out of always being alert and on guard. But the mountains are our happy place, and evenings like this are what keeps us going out here.

As the light faded our grill was finally getting warm enough to cook our steaks. We sat up there and ate our dinner as we watched the sun set and the stars come out. It was a magical evening!!

We spent the night there as well which wasn't quite as restful as we'd bargained for because every time a truck went by going down the pass we were awakened by the loud disturbing jake breaks.

But waking up to fresh mountain air made it worth it.