Dec 20

Dec 20 Year in Review: 2023 Travel

Natalie Hofreiter

January

We went to Tampa for my cousin Holly’s wedding.

We spent a long weekend in Knoxville, TN to celebrate my birthday.

February

We visited Florida to see Wicked.

We traveled to Wilmore, KY to experience the Asbury Revival and I got to show Christopher the places I remember from living there while my dad was in seminary.

March

This was a big travel month; we visited New Mexico, Colorado, Rhode Island, Plymouth and Natick, MA, Blue Ridge, GA, and Orlando to see To Kill A Mocking Bird.

April

We spent a long weekend in Raleigh/Durham, NC to see Chicago the musical and check it out as a potential next place to call home.

May

We went to Blue Ridge, GA again, and Florida.

June

We visited Orlando to see some of the fam and float around in pools.

July

We surprised my parents with a 40th Wedding Anniversary brunch with the extended family. Later in the month, Chris had a work trip to Southern Orange County, California. YAY! I love California! We were finally able to go to Disneyland and California Adventure!!! We also visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.

August

This was the month of midwestern state fairs! We went to both the Iowa and Minnesota State Fairs and whoa! I expected these to be big, but I was NOT prepared for just HOW BIG they were. They were both amazing and I would definitely try to make it back to one or both of them again. We had horrible weather in Iowa, it was 102 degrees on the day we went to the fair, and perfect weather in Minnesota so this time around Minnesota was the better fair, but if the weather had been lovely at both, it would be too hard to pick a favorite. We also visited the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and National Historic Site while we were in Iowa.

September

September was a quiet month for us. We went to the county fair and watched young children wrangle big pigs, it was hilarious and reminded me that no matter how cute an animal is, I have no business caring for anything that lies on a farm.

October

We went to Texas to see the Annular Solar Eclipse in the path of annularity. It was cloudy all morning and during peak eclipse time but cleared up to a perfectly cloudless blue sky day after the eclipse was over. We still had fun seeing the San Antonio Missions, a cool art park, and eating In-N-Out. We also visited the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. We then got violently ill, and on the drive home from the airport, a semi-truck drove us off the road and bashed our sideview mirror off. This trip was a whole ass shit show.

November

We visited Florida to have Thanksgiving with Christopher’s family and see some of mine while we were in town. Plus, we had to eat some of our favorite foods and celebrate one of our bestie’s birthday.

December

We made a second scouting trip to the Raleigh, NC area to look at neighborhoods and see if we think it would be a good next step. We like Cary and Morrisville, so we’ll see what happens.