Oregon

As you may have noticed, I sort of stopped blogging once we got to Oregon.  There's a good reason for that - we were busy!

My grandparents live outside Portland, Oregon, and they have come out to the East Coast every couple of years for as long as I can remember.  They are AMAZING people, wonderful grandparents, and just sweet, dear, Christian people.  We decided that this year, WE would be the ones to travel.

We arrived on the 26th, about 4 pm.  We were a little earlier than they anticipated, but we made very few stops between Idaho and their house.  We were all very excited to see them!  We had dinner, figured out our plans for the next few days and crashed.

Wednesday morning, we got up, packed up a lunch, and headed for the Columbia River Gorge,  Multnomah Falls, and the Bonneville Fish Hatchery.  This is a trip I made when our family visited back in...oh...1992??  A while ago!  It was just as beautiful and the kids loved it just as much as I did.  We saw our first Stellar jay, the kids played in water, saw "silver dollars" growing in the wild, and just enjoyed visiting with their great-grandparents.

On Thursday, we kind of slacked and didn't pack a lunch.  Not to say we didn't have any food, but we didn't make up the sandwiches ahead of time.  We then drove up to Mt. St. Helens.  So amazing.  There was a new visitors center with a movie and lots of interactive displays.  The kids really enjoyed it.  It reminded me how big our God is - much bigger than we give Him credit for.  We sort of confine him to our country, our town, our house, our own little problem.  He's HUGE!!!

Friday was Oregon coast and Tillamook day!!  For those of you who don't know, the Pacific Ocean is COLD....all the way down to California, in my opinion.  My kids did not know that and were looking forward to splashing in the ocean.  Yeah - that was funny.  They did put their toes in, so they could say they've put their toes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Tillamook is a town famous for a dairy...so we sampled their cheese and for lunch....ICE CREAM!  They make their own waffle cones there, in which we got two very large scoops.  Everyone except Caroline ate every bite - and she was really close.  Victoria didn't want any more ice cream for several days.  She hardly had any dinner, either!  Dinner was at Mo's, a famous seafood place.  Delicious.  It was right on the water, so we could see seals cavorting in the water, cormorants, pelicans....it was so much fun.

We were also able to touch base with some dear friends, the Krauses, when we returned that evening.  It was so great to see them again!

Saturday morning was the day Tim returned to Virginia.  We dropped him at the airport and then we all went shopping.  We went to a HUGE used bookstore called Powell's.  I loved it.  If it were on this side of the country, I'd be broke buying all the books I wanted, but I restrained myself.  Then we went to the junk stores (what my grandmother calls thrift stores) and Oregon City to ride the elevator.  It's the country's only municipal elevator.

Of course, in between all our travels, we played games - mostly Mexican Train (a domino game).

We got up Sunday morning to head south.  We were sad to say goodbye, but we had a great visit and were so blessed!

Idaho

Yesterday morning we packed up, drove out of Yellowstone, and headed for Idaho.  We stopped along the way to look at the Grand Teton Mountains.  Wow!!  My pictures aren't as good as the pictures my dad took and had hanging in our house when I was kid, but they're still cool!!

After the Tetons... lots of nothing.  Oh, there were fields of wheat and potatoes, but my oh my.... not much else.  As we were driving, Tim decided we would stay at Mountain Home AFB.  It was lovely to shower, use a stove, and sleep in a bed!  

We awoke pretty refreshed this morning, packed up, and started the drive to Oregon to visit my grandparents.  Stay tuned for further adventures!

My kids and Yellowstone ROCK!!

You might think the title of my post is a little odd, but wait 'til you finish reading.

We arrived in Yellowstone after a very long drive across Wyoming.  When we arrived, it was about 50F and raining.... not really camping weather.  We again made use of our huge tarp.  Tim had the brilliant idea to string it up between two trees, then set the tent up underneath.  The boys, Tim, and I set it up while the girls huddled in the car, staying reasonably warm.  After we got everything set up, we drive to Old Faithful.  We had to wait only about ten minutes, and it erupted!

We ate hotdogs for dinner, cooking at a picnic area to avoid making our tent smell like food (have to beware of bears), then quickly changed in the freezing cold restroom building, washed up with the ice cold water, then bundled up with all the blankets and layers we had.  It was 35F when we woke up.  Yes, that's right - 35F.  The kids didn't complain once!  So we were able to stay the whole day and stay overnight again.

During our driving around, we saw bison (alone and in a herd), a trumpeter swan, elk, white pelicans, cormorants, common mergansers, and yes, finally, a grizzly bear!!  We saw geysers of all shapes and sizes, mountains, valleys, lakes, streams... it was truly amazing.  

Wow...

Yesterday was a very exciting day.  We started in Sioux Falls and headed west... fairly full to start, although we did enjoy the 75 mph speed limit.

We traveled into the mountain time zone, which was good, because we had a lot of exploring to do.  We saw fields of sunflowers and amazing views.  Then we turned off into the Badlands.  Wow.

We saw bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and the most amazing rock formations.  God is so creative!!  

We stopped off at Wall Drug, which was cool.  Good ice cream, though!!

Next stop, Mount Rushmore!!  So neat!!

This trip has seemed a bit surreal!!  Hard to believe we're actually here!!

We drive in to Devils Tower, Wyoming....

The rock is gorgeous, but the weather was BAD.  We set up our tent, then hurriedly packed it up again as the bad weather neared.  We drove to Gillette to find a hotel and it was an UGLY drive.  UGLY.  Hail, wind, torrential rain.  Thank God they put reflectors up on the side of the road.

Anyhow... We had a decent night's sleep and now we're off to Yellowstone.  I'm hoping the precipitation will finally come to an end...

Rain

I was awakened this morning by a gentle shake and Tim's voice saying, "now don't be alarmed,".... yeah, those are words to keep you calm!!

Well, for some reason, he had decided to check the weather in the middle of the night and discovered we were going to be rained on.  No worries... we had a HUGE tarp we had purchased at Menard's.  (what a cool site that is!).

It starts to rain... we're dry... yay!  Then a voice," I have to go to the bathroom." Caroline.   <sigh>. It's fine, Tim takes her to the building, they come back and they report that it's not nearly as bad as it sounds inside the tent.

We managed to fall back to sleep, then woke up when it stopped raining.  We packed up quickly, before the next wave of rain came, and headed out.  We stopped to get some groceries (especially cheese-we were in Wisconsin, you see), and headed for  South Dakota.

We arrived in Sioux Falls in late afternoon and walked around the falls.  Not as tall as Niagara, but beautiful in their own right.

Chicago

Today's post comes to you from Chicago!  We spent the night at Indiana Dunes State Park.... it was lovely!  We met a German family camping next to us and had an opportunity to practice our German.  We waked on the beaches of Lake Michigan and dipped our toes in.

The extra hour we gained by crossing into the central time zone was well appreciated.  We were able to take showers, sleep a little longer, and be leisurely in our packing up of the car.

We then drive into Chicago - cool!  The kids know about the city from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  We visited the Museum of Science and Industry, ate deep-dish  pizza, and drove by Sears Tower and Wrigley Field.

We are headed towards Wisconsin now and look forward to eating some cheese!!

On the Road

Good morning!!  It is the 19th of August and I am writing this from our car... inside the Seneca Nation in NY!  We left for a three-week cross-country trip yesterday.  Our first stop was Niagara Falls.  Amazing!  I had been once when I was in high school, but that was a few years ago.

We drive through West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania on our way to see the falls.  We took a ride on The Maid of the Mist... and got soaked, of course.  But it was so beautiful!!  God's amazing handiwork.

We then found our campsite.  This was our first time camping... ever.  It went reasonably well!  We had hotdogs for dinner, got a decent night's sleep, and then are Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast as we packed up.

We're on our way to Indiana.  There's nothing we're really going to see there, but it gets us closer to Chicago, where we'll sight see on Wednesday.

I'll try to keep you updated, but no promises!