October has been one of the first months where I have had plans every single weekend. Sometimes it’s nice to be busy, but I have been craving some downtime. This past weekend I went to a Harvest festival in Stillwater, MN which is a gorgeous river town. This next weekend from Thursday – Sunday I will be in Chicago visiting a friend from college. Hopefully, after Chicago, I should have a couple slow weekends until Thanksgiving. I wanted to share pictures from the Harvest Festival and talk about how excited I am to go to Chicago again.

Stillwater is right along the St. Croix River on the border of Wisconsin. It’s a bright river town away from Minneapolis & St. Paul. There were a couple activities such as the beer tent, but we didn’t participate in those. Instead, we walked around the town and explored. There was a candy shop that was filled with chocolate goodies and I ended up purchasing a dark chocolate-covered Oreo. Nearby was a small bookstore attached to a coffee shop. I did end up buying some books which I know I didn’t need, but I cannot resist a cute bookstore. It turned out to be a perfect Fall date day. The pictures below are from Teddy Bear Park which has statues of bears in the park. Me and the boyfriend wanted to check it out.

I have only been to Chicago once and that was back in July 2016 on my birthday. My former roommate from college is from Illinois and is living near the downtown area. We coordinated a weekend where I could drive to stay with her. It’s about a 6-hour drive from my apartment to Chicago which seems long, but I would rather drive that distance than pay 180 – 200 dollars to fly for a 45-minute flight. I already have my podcast episodes picked out for the drive and I’m looking forward to a smaller vacation away from my daily work routine with 2 days of paid time off. I am counting down the days till my tiny road trip.

So that sums up what I have been up to and why I haven’t been blogging as much. I try not to let myself get frustrated if I hit writer’s block or I become busy. My blog will be here when I’m done with mini vacations or I have a short 30-minute window to write about what’s on my mind.