Journey to Champaign

     The final chapter. The journey to Champaign begins. After spending some time with my family in Las Vegas and seeing some friends, we headed out on the road for Austin, Tx. You cant't drive from Las Vegas to Austin without stopping in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I can only think of one reason for stopping --- WALTER WHITE. After the very long drive, we could think of no thing better to do than a mini Breaking Bad tour.

Heisenberg's house! 

"It's All Good Man" This was my favorite part.

Can't forget the car wash!

Las Vegas to Austin = 1,266 miles. 

    

     We spent a little over a week in Austin visiting Bobby's family and some friends. While we were in Austin, we picked up a new member of the family. Bobby talked me into getting a Siamese kitten. It just so happened that Austin has a giant Siamese rescue, so we decided that it might be better to get the cat while in Austin instead of waiting until we got to Champaign for more options. Our 8 week old Lynx Point Siamese =) . Her name works for both of us--- me loving Harry Potter and Bob being the Astrophysicist that he is...it's perfect. Ladies and Gentleman, I give to you....Luna.

She is pretty adorable

Loves being upside down. 

     After the cat was picked up, it was time to head to our "final" destination. Well we couldn't make a trip from Texas to Illinois without stopping in Memphis, TN first.

Graceland

The living room

RIP Elvis

Oh and lets not forget the all important...

                            Peabody Ducks!

**Think this was more of a kid thing, but I guess now we can say we've seem them =) **

Austin to Champaign = 1,033

   We are officially Champaign residents. Well technically we live in Urbana (the two towns are right on top of each other). We made great progress in finding a home. Only had to stay in a hotel for about 7 days. That was really fun with a kitten... in the event you were wondering. Anyway, Urbana is home for the next year. Possibly two and even possibly forever? Ehh...I don't know. This town seems cute, I for sure enjoy the quiet at night time. No more fog horns!!!! YAY! Happy me. Now the only sound we hear in the morning is Luna meowing for us to wake up. She is pretty obsessive. Requires a lot of human attention. Looking forward to her lazy days in her older cat years. I wont be doing much blogging for awhile..., not too much I am going to need to update everyone on. Unless you are interested in corn, we certainly see a lot of that around here. Looking forward to seeing the seasons, and maybe some snow. =) Hope everyone enjoyed their summer and thanks for following along on the adventure. As always, XOXO!

  

       Hillary, Bobby and Luna =)

    

Last days in Cape Town and Kruger Park

     Most of you already know, we're back! Yay! We enjoyed our 18 months in Africa, but very happy to be on home soil again. I know it was been some time now, so if you will bear with me, I would like to take you back to the end of May, beginning of June.

     

 Our last few days in Cape Town went by quickly. 

• We were able to make it to Cape Point. 

The most southwestern tip of the African continent.

Very beautiful mountain range over looking the waters below.

•    The top of Table Mountain.

   

Pano up top.

You can see our old house just over Lions Head. =)

Taking the cable car down.

     After our time was up in Cape Town, we headed to Johannesburg to spend a few days before ending our trip in Kruger National Park for Bobby's work conference. In Joburg we had very little time, so we chose to spend it at the Cradle of Humankind. We took a private tour of a live dig site.

That hole in the middle has taken 20 years!!

   After two nights it was off to Kruger Park! 

Hotel in Kruger. Lots of roaming monkeys.

Our first day we decided not to go into the park, but to drive to ex-park rangers house to see Jessica the Hippo. Watch the video to learn more. It's an amazing story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BqvZ1aVugs

Feeding Jessica

Giving Jessica a bottle of tea

The newest member Richie. 3 yrs old.

 Inside Kruger Park!

The lone giraffe. 

Just a herd of elephants crossing the road!

Zebras grazing.

Giant rhinos eating by the road.

   Kruger Park was simply amazing. Showing a few photos doesn't do it proper justice. Seeing those animals in their natural habitat going about their normal lives is indescribable. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it. We did in total 5 drives into the park, each day seeing something different. One of my favorite moments was on the night drive we got to see a pack of Hyenas. I didn't capture the moment on film, but surely have it ingrained in my memory forever. South Africa offered Bobby and myself lots of opportunity to explore uncharted territory. We are grateful for the experience, but glad to be back. Our next chapter, perhaps my final chapter for awhile, Urbana Illinois. 

Next week --- I will introduce our newest family member and the journey to our new home.

        XOXO

Zimbabwe & Botswana

    **This is a short blog, with an even shorter video**

    

     Our trip to Zimbabwe and Botswana. I tried to write all about it, but I couldn't seem to put it into words. Literally I sat here for an hour writing and deleting, writing and deleting. I didn't take as many physical photos as I should of, I mostly captured it in my memory. However, thankfully, Bobby managed to take a few videos. I decided to compile a small video to help you guys get a better picture of our trip. 

     

            

   As you can see, we have been very fortunate to have spent time here on the African continent. Not only traveling around in South Africa, but now making it to a few other countries as well. Hope you enjoyed the video, only a few more blogs to write before we are stateside. =) Kruger park is our next big adventure in the first week of June. We'll be sure to document the last few weeks of Cape Town the best we can. Looking forward as always to seeing everyone when we get back.

XOXO from South Africa

Stargazing and Wine

     April. April. April. I feel like I say this every time, but dang time is going fast this year! We have moved back into our apartment for the remainder of our stay in Cape Town! (48 days and counting....but who's counting...) I would like to say it's easier to be here in the apartment with all the noise, knowing that we are going home soon, but it actually makes me more homesick. I lay in bed at night and dream of In-N-Out or a MOM-cooked meal. We are such nerds that basically every day we have a conversation about what we want to do first when we get home. As many of you can probably guess, it includes food. I would also like to give out a few good and long hugs. Soon enough. First we have to get all the best we can out of Africa with the time left.

     Now that our adventure is coming to an end, we have been trying to squeeze things in for the last two months. We still have quite a list of things to get done before we go, but this month we have accomplished two. =) Our first check box was a trip to Sutherland. The second check box which also happens to be an ongoing check box...hehe...was a winery trip to Paarl. Luckily you can never taste test too much wine! 

• Sutherland is located in the Northern Cape province. Home of the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. So being married to an astronomer, warrants a 4 hour drive to see it. Hehe. We drove out to tour the telescope facilities and to also do a little stargazing. 

Bobby standing in front of SALT

I have never seen such an amazing view of the stars

    The stargazing part of the trip was by a local man in the town who sets up private group viewings of the stars. We had dinner at his house, then he takes you out to his 11 inch telescopes and tours the evening sky with you. Absolutely breathtaking. Being out in the middle of nowhere really gets an amazing view of the sky. WOW. I really cant even begin to explain the awesome views we had. Only down side of the STARs to Midnight---hehe---Sutherland is the coldest place in South Africa. Boy was it cold!

 Huguenot Tunnel. 
2.5 miles through the mountain! YIKES

• Wine  =) All along the way to Sutherland and back to Cape Town we probably passed 50 wineries. We stopped at two on the way back in Paarl. Fairview and Spice Route. Spice Route was giant facility that not only had wine but also a brewery and 4 restaurants. Fairview had the traditional wine tasting, but they are also well known for their cheese. Very yummy! 

One of the many wineries on the drive.

MMMmmm Amber Weiss local brew @ Spice Route.

Fairview wine tasting.

Driving home....greeted by the fabulous FOG!!! NOOOOOO

Winter is coming! ;)

     The weekends are quickly filling up. We are very excited about our next trip. VICTORIA FALLS! In the first week of May we are flying to Zimbabwe to visit the falls. My next blog will have lots of beautiful photos to share. That is all for now. As always, much love to everyone. See you all very soon!

 XOXO from Africa

3 Events in March

     March. Wow! Heck March is nearly over, it's practically April. I can't believe we are almost 4 months into 2015. Why does time go so fast when you get older? I remember being 8 for like 10 years! Why don't we listen to our parents when they tell us to just be a kid because we will be adults forever? Do you think I'm getting wiser with age? Haha. Yeah probably not. ^Leave it to me to take this off on a tangent. Speaking of tangents, man I hated geometry in school. Okay, so back to March. We spent the month away from our "South African Home" in the guesthouse in Rondebosch. Never thought I say this, but I missed the seagull noises. This side of the mountain is like a different world. The sun sets nearly two hours before it does on the ocean side. Alright I have three events to share with you from the month.

• Our trip to Robben Island. For those of you who are not familiar, Robben Island is the prison where Nelson Mandela (18 years), and many others spent time behind bars as political prisoners. It is hard to fathom that South Africa recently (1994) ended their apartheid. It was a very eye opening trip into the not so distant past. 

View from Robben Island looking towards Cape Town. You can barely see Table Mountain.

Mandela's Cell

View from the ferry on way back to Cape Town

• Bobby got a job and we are moving out of Africa! Do you ever feel like you don't know how to set something up, so instead you just blurt it out? ^ That just happened. =) Hurray!!! Bobby accepted a post-doctoral position at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Champaign is a small college town about 2 hours south of Chicago. Lots of corn, lots of snow and lots of flatlands. I can say that we are looking forward to living in a town with seasons. I think the average high in the summer is around 85. Definitely going to be an experience, and again, it is nothing permanent. The life of a scholar seems similar to a traveling nomad. In a way we are happy to do it, eventually we will tie down and put some roots in the ground. But until then we are going to continue to journey around. 

• We celebrated our 2nd Wedding Anniversary tasting wine in Constantia and dining at Myoga. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing my day was. First we went to the winery. Had a tour of the wine making process and facility. Then we tasted 5 wines. We even got to taste the #1 Chardonnay in the WORLD. (<---as of three days ago)

My favorite was the last one on the right side. It was called the
governours wine. It was a red blend, mostly merlot and cab.

Wine aging =)

Gosh I love him! 

        Next stop was dinner. Oh man! I'm getting excited just writing about this.  Myoga is a fusion restaurant that tries (and succeeds) to incorporate flavors from all over the world. We ordered the 7 course tasting menu. I took a picture of each course I selected. I am going to try and list all that I had to the best of my ability.

Course #1. Tickler. The starter before the starter.
- Tomato puree thing...lol
-Squid ink fried ball
-Chicken and pistachio
-Aged chedder cigar (egg roll looking thing)

Bread platter

Course #2. All white scallop

Course #3. Veal Schnitzel
*I think this was my favorite. Hard to pick just one.

Course #4. Herb Frittata with wild mushrooms

Course #5. Lime Lemongrass sorbet
Back one is Bobby's Kalamansi 

Course #6. Beef Shin with beets
(I can honestly say I am not a fan of beets, but damn
I scraped the plate clean. To be fair I scraped every plate clean.)

Course #7. Alota Chocolate
Just as it sounds. A LOT of chocolate.
Even that ice cream was chocolate flavored.

Surprise course #8. Dessert version of the tickler.
-Dark Chocolate ball
-White chocolate and pistachio
-White chocolate with mint sauce (egg roll)
-Strawberry cream shooter

     The idea was to have symmetry in the meal. We started and ending with seemingly the same thing. Wow! I can't even tell you how good this was. Poor Bobby had to hear me rave about it after each bite. He considered at one point video taping me eat, but we decided against that...lol. Lisa I eat like you, with every bite, it's..."Mmmmmm!" I forgot to mention that I went with the courses that also paired with wine. I didn't take a picture of the wines, but man, again sooooooo good! This restaurant was so good that I have already talked Bobby into taking me back before we leave! 

That is all for now. XOXOXO....See ya soon! 

Cheers from South Africa