Packing for Adventure

I’ll kick off this series about our pizza trip by telling you why we did it.

Chris. Loves. Pizza.

I often joke that while most people are 80% water, Chris is 80% pizza (insert laugh tracks here).

I knew before marrying him that pizza was important to him. In fact, he didn’t have much say in our wedding plans, but his family hosted the wedding dinner. Instead of prime rib and crème brûlée, he served pizza and donuts. (Don’t worry, everyone loved it!)

It was very early on in our marriage that I realized how important pizza is to Chris. Very early. I’d say probably the first Friday after the honeymoon. We both get home from work and needed to resolve dinner plans. He asks if we can do pizza. I say sure. Then he looks me dead in the eyes and asks “can we have pizza EVERY Friday?”

I kinda shrug and say “sure?”

Chris has treated this response as a legally binding contract signed in blood.

Any time I suggest an alternative to pizza on a Friday? “You agreed to have pizza every Friday. You said you’d never lie to me.”

Eye. Roll.

Dinner plans with friends on a Friday that does not involve pizza? “We’ll have to get some pizza on the way home.”

His rules have gotten stricter over the years. If neither of us have time to make dinner on… say… a Tuesday, and one of us brings home a Little Caesars Hot ‘n Ready- it doesn’t count and we have to get pizza on Friday too. And not only that, but not all pizza is “Friday” pizza. Little Caesar’s is fine on a Tuesday but not good enough for a Friday.

Me and Chris have been married for 11 wonderful years. I joke about how annoying the pizza rules can be, but I am 100% aware of how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband. And it could be worse… at least he’s not addicted to sloppy joes or, I don’t know, chopped liver. Everyone enjoys pizza to one degree or another. But I sure can get sick of the same pizza over and over again. (Chris somehow doesn’t.)

Over the years we’ve come to an arrangement with Valentines Day and our anniversary. Our anniversary is about a month after Valentine’s Day. Chris plans Valentine’s Day and I plan our anniversary.

For our milestone 10th anniversary, I wanted to do something extra special. I spent a couple months toying with the idea of how to combine our love of food, travel, and Chris’s love of pizza.

The idea? A cross-country pizza crawl.

I knew we’d have to include New York City and Chicago, with a third being Detroit. I figured that was sufficient, but my research at the time was pointing to New Haven, Connecticut being a top contender.

All four are pizza powerhouses, and close enough to string together into one amazing itinerary. The next trick would be keeping it secret from Chris!

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