Dietz Summer Road Trip

The Dietz are headed back out this summer. Not nearly has exciting as last year, definitely not as many places on our list, but still some really cool stuff and new adventures. It’s still hard to believe we spent 5 weeks driving around the county last summer and seeing everything we saw. (if you are just now joining start back at the beginning of this blog. Grab yourself a six pack of your favorite craft brew and start reading!)

Sometimes some thing will come up and we will reminisce about a certain park, experience, person we met, etc. We live the experience all over again. And over time we get to talk to someone about it and we appreciate it more and more each time. Some of our students will say “I want to do that when I get older” or some might say “Thats something I wish I had always done”. Thats when we know we did something special. Set it as a goal, and its not too late! Get yourself a tent and Go West Young Man!

On June 23rd we are headed back to Pennsylvania to visit our families until July 5th. I am sure we will make the most of Altoona and Pittsburgh with hopefully a stop along the way at Slippery Rock. Then we are going to camp for a few days in Ohio to explore Cuyahoga Valley National Park from July 5-9. We have never been so we are looking forward to checking out another National Park. (We are officially addicted and on a mission to visit them all!). We will also check out some other things in the greater Cleveland, OH area. Any suggestions, cool places, museums, historical markers,etc. to check out? We have been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before, but thats about it!

Then we are going to head a little further West into Indiana which is where we will be for the next 4 weeks. We both applied and were accepted into the NEH Summer Seminar Institute called “From Plessy to Brown: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century.” We will live at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN during that time. We have a full schedule of seminars, presentations, trainings, etc. We are just 2 of about 17 other teachers from around the country to learn about this topic. Two summers ago we did one for 3 weeks at Western Carolina University about the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee people. It was an amazing experience and we are sure this one will be too.

So most of our week days will be spent in the classroom or other learning experiences. However we do have the evenings and weekends to play! Our first weekend we have already made reservations to stay in Chicago, IL for 2 nights! Neither of us have ever been there before. We already have a few restaurant and sight-seeing recommendations from a teacher colleague, but any other suggestions please share! The other cool thing about this program is it includes a group visit to Chicago throughout the week, as well as a trip to Indianapolis. Maybe a trip to Mulligan’s Steakhouse?

I can’t lie, we have been re-watching Parks and Recreation to prepare for our extended stay in Indiana. I hope we see the ghost of Lil’ Sebastian.

We are currently researching the Visit Indiana website to find some cool things to do on our remaining weekends. We will be headed back to Pennsylvania August 5 or 6th to get our dog and then return to the Old North State in time to enjoy a few days before we head back for the next school year!

Please feel free to comment with any suggestion, restaurants, breweries, museums, parks, that we need to check out this summer! And be sure to follow us this summer and hope we DON’T beat our flat tire and ER visits records from last summer! #RoadTrippinDietz version 2.0.