Oh the Places We'll Go...and end up!

We both woke up this morning with one thought: our LAST day! Whew! On one hand it was a long drive and on the other it went by way too fast! We were excited to get started, so after our continental breakfast, we got on the road. We didn't have far to go before we passed into Idaho, with that came Pacific Time. We are now 4 hours behind the east coast! We were only in Idaho for about an hour and a half, passing through Coeur d'Alene and into Washington!!! We had quite a few hours ahead of us once in Washington. We stopped for lunch at a Burger King and we actually sat inside the restaurant! The dogs had been on our little walk at the Columbia River so we decided they would survive in the car for a few minutes while we ate. We continued on our way and arrived at our destination around 4:30pm. Nicholas was very excited to see us and the dogs!

We woke up to a very foggy morning in Montana. It was into some big mountains after this!

We got to pull over on I90 for our picture!! While we were paying attention to the weather, we didn't think to put our coats on so we are laughing because of how unbelievably cold and WINDY it suddenly was!

We needed to stop for gas and this little town called Wallace was nestled between the mountains and under the highway, literally! I90 ran over the town on stilts!

Here we are!! We decided to just take the picture of the road sign and keep on truckin'. After all, we don't have any more states between us and the Pacific Ocean.



Dad let me take the wheel here in my new home state and this is what I saw...absolutely nothing :) I really got worried after this went on for over an hour!


The Columbia River had this beautiful lookout point. We were surprised by it and didn't know that it would be such a pretty area! We had a good time walking around with the dogs and looking at the river which was way down below us! The picture of us together was quite a feat...I had to run a pretty good distance! After enjoying the view for a minute we picked up some rocks for Mom and got on our way.

We thought we had left the turbines back in Iowa!

So the tunnel is on our side of the highway with trees on top of it and everything...just neat!

Evergreen trees...it smells like Christmas year round!
So we say goodbye to I90...we got on WA18 after about 1,628 miles on I90! We started on I90 back in Minnesota so we got a little attached! Something funny about I90 that I forgot to mention, when we were passing through the mountains there were signs at all of the exits that read: If I90 closed return to ______. (here it would have the last exit or town we had passed). I guess I90 closes and you are out of luck!

Silverdale...where Nicholas and I (and Julius) will be living for the next 3 years.

Here is our Washington picture! It was so nice to be out of the car, even though the hotel beds were much more comfortable than what we had waiting for us here! We found the nearest Wal-mart and Dad bought us a few things to survive on, for example: card table w/ 4 chairs and pots (which he cooked us some spaghetti in, yum!), towels, sheets, etc. Dad stayed for 2 days and found several things that we had to report to housing (that's what Dads are for!) and then he was off for N.C. again...at least this time it would only take about 6 hours!

This was by far the best trip I have ever been on! Dad and I are so greatful that we didn't have any mishaps and I'm especially greatful that Dad was willing to go on this trip with me! Hope you all enjoyed our adventure as much as we did!