Days Sixteen & Seventeen - Tuesday & Wednesday

Sorry for the delayed update, but the last couple of days have been crazy. Tuesday and Wednesday kind of melded into one day on the road, so thus they are combined in one post. We got out of Miles City, MT at around 4:30pm Montana time on Tuesday. We drove and drove and drove some more, finally making it home to Minnesota at around 4:30 am Minnesota time. So, we'd been on the road for about 11 hours at that point. I grabbed a couple hours of sleep and then got up to get some laundry done and get repacked to head back to Milwaukee. I got back to Milwaukee around 7:30pm. In the end, the trip ended up being about 7, 230 miles for me. Don't get me wrong, it was a ton of fun and I got to see a lot of God's awesome Creation. However, I'm definitely happy and content to be back home...in Milwaukee that is. So, that is where the notes from the road end. I will add a few more details when I have them handy to this last post as well as to the list of town names, but for now, thanks for reading and we hope you have enjoyed our notes from the road.

Until we are crazy enough to go again........Katie (& Kathryn even though she's in Seattle now) :(

Day Fifteen - Monday

Well, just as week three of the trip was getting started it came to a crashing stop...literally at 3:41 pm! Somewhere about 30 miles East of Miles City, Montana we hit a deer. I made it 5, 770 miles, with Kathryn for 4, 460 of them, with no problems, and then my mom arrives.:) My mom was driving, but it scared me nonetheless. The car would have been driveable except for the fact that anitfreeze was leaking from somewhere. So, we called directory assistance and got the number of a towing place and body shop. The tow truck man called the highway patrol because they showed up a short while later and said the two people had called. So, the cop wrote up an accident report and then the tow man showed up. I must say people were quite friendly...two stopped and backed up on the interstate to make sure we were okay and had help on the way. We got to Miles City, MT and a hotel around 5:40 pm.

So, that was the excitement for today. We left Butte, Montana around 10:30am and were going to try to make it all the way home to MN tonight, but clearly that isn't happening. So many thousands of miles and almost home and something has to happen. But, I must say the crash could have been a lot worse. It also could have happened when Kathryn and I were in the middle of some freaky state like New Mexico or Nevada. So, I guess in the end I should be thankful.

End of the story is we are stuck in Miles City, Montana for who knows how long. They will look at the car tomorrow (everyone is closed because of Memorial Day) but no one in town stocks parts, so it may take a day or two to ship a radiator or whatever is leaking antifreeze in from somewhere as well as any other parts that are needed to make it driveable.

There is one less deer in Montana tonight.

Quote of the Day:
"The road of life can only reveal itself as it is travelled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise. Man's future is hidden."

Day Fourteen - Sunday

Today was a drive through the clouds. Literally, it was raining/misty/cloudy from the time we left Seattle until we stopped in Butte, Montana. However, it was pretty cool to see the clouds just sitting on the mountainsides at times.

My mom and I slept in a bit and then went to a church in Seattle called Mars Hill. The pastor has sermons on iTunes and he's pretty good. So, we got a later start out of the city, not until about 1:00 and headed East. Eastern Washington is pretty ugly honestly...looks nothing like the western part of the state once you get past the Cascade Mountains. We made it to Idaho around 5:30ish and were in that state for just over an hour. Driving through the mountains in Idaho though we saw an awesome rainbow. It started on the trees on one side of the road and arched clear across to the other side. Pretty cool for sure, though pictures cannot really capture it. After Idaho came Montana around 6:40 which was really 7:40 because we lost an hour at that point. Nothing really exciting, the trip now is pretty much just to make it home so I can make it back to Milwaukee. Only a couple more days. The views are still beautiful though of course. I'm not looking forward to leaving the mountains of Montana behind for the boring landscape of the midwest again tomorrow. Well, it's midnight and I'm tired. G'nite.

Quote of the day:
"Rainbows apologize for angry skies." - Sylvia Voirol

Day Thirteen - Saturday

For those of you keeping track, it is just me (Katie) now. It was a tearful goodbye this morning, but reality probably won't really sink in until August when we don't go back to school. For now, it just feels like summer. It's crazy, you live with someone for three years and spend nearly everyday with them and then all of a sudden they're just gone. It is at that point that you realize how much you enjoyed their company. But, on to the travels of the day.

I left Kathryn's house fairly early and successfully found my mom at the airport. Then we headed down to the Space Needle which was a cool view of the city, although it was quite cloudy today so you couldn't see very far. After that we headed to Pike Place Market to explore a bit and see the fish market. The original plan was then to take a boat ride out on Puget Sound. However, my mom really wanted to see the real ocean. So, after looking at the map we decided we could make the 130 or so mile trip to the ocean and back to Seattle. So, off to the ocean it was.

We ended up in Ocean Shores, Washington which is by far the coolest beach I have seen. You can literally drive right into the ocean if you want to. For as far as you could see it was nothing but beach, ocean, sky, and pepole and their cars along the beach. There were only a couple hotels and even those at least several hundred yards off the beach. It wasn't overdeveloped or a tourist money scam. You could simply drive to the water, park your car, and enjoy the ocean. It was my mom's first time seeing the ocean so she was quite excited. And I can now say that I have been to both the Atlantic & the Pacific Oceans.

After some time at the beach we made our way back to Seattle and found the church I want to go to tomorrow morning. Then the challenge was finding a hotel...not an easy feat outside of downtown Seattle. After over an hour of driving around we had success and now I'm calling it a night.

Quote of the day:
"Nothing is waste that makes a memory." - Ned Rorem

Day Twelve - Friday

We are in Edmonds, Washington!

Today we started out the day by having breakfast with Katie's friend Ryan. It was a lot of fun, we went to IHOP and had our only "real" breakfast of this entire trip! After some good food and conversation we were on the road again!

The drive up to Seattle was pretty quick. We left at 11ish and got to my house at around 2:30. On the way up we got to see some pretty mountains and some of the city. We made a brief stop at the University district to buy a Huskey jersey for someone but we were unsuccessful. However, it was a nice break from driving. I need to get used to spending lots of time in this area since I'll be going to school at the UW. After a stop at Dick's Drive-in for lunch (a true Seattle favorite) we were back on the road.

When we got home we were unable to find any peace and quiet! However, this was ok because my sister and her two friends were over and we had fun cooking and baking real food!!! It was exciting to not have to eat out! Once everything was ready we headed down to the beach for a BBQ with a couple of friends. We all had a good time, the water was beautiful and we had quite a few adventures involving a mini-theatre production and bird poop. Although not in the same adventure. So now we are back at my house just hanging out. Katie and her mom are going to bum around Seattle tomorrow and see the sights and I am off to dance practice in the morning and then Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center in the afternoon. It's been a fun journey of 4460 miles and I'm sad to see it end, however, stay tuned for Katie's adventures as she heads back to good old Milwaukee!

Quote of the day: "A friend is a person who thinks you're a good egg even if you are slightly cracked." Anon.

Fun Mormon Fact of the Day: Mormons believe in three levels of heaven. In the highest, man can eventually become like God.

Day Eleven - Thursday

Well, tonight finds us in our last night in a hotel. Tomorrow will be our last day on the road as we make it to Seattle and that means home for Kathryn. We will be at her house tomorrow night and then my mom will fly into Seattle on Saturday and Sunday we will begin the much quicker, less adventurous journey back to MN and then I will continue on to Milwaukee. But, on to the adventures of the day.


We left Central Point, Oregon a half hour ahead of schedule this morning...we were quite proud of ourselves. After hitting the grocery store for some much needed fresh fruit we have been craving we hit the road to Crater Lake. It was another one of those "scenic routes" which meant it was beautiful but a narrow curvy mountain road a lot of the way. We went through a variety of state and national forests along the way as well. We got to Crater National Park a little before 11:00am. Before we paid to enter we began seeing snow on the ground. And not just little random piles, I mean snow cover. So, we should have known adventure may lie ahead. When we entered the park we discovered our timing was just right. The ranger said that most of the rim was closed, but the west rim drive would be opening today at noon. And that was the direction we wanted to go to get out of the park.


So, we headed to the visitor center where we watched a short video about the finding of the lake and snow removal. They apparently get a lot of snow each year. The snow removal which begins in April doesn't end until mid-May and that still leaves piles of snow which can last until July. After stopping to get a spectacular view of an absolutely beautiful lake we got in line to wait for the ranger to open the road. At noon, as promised, the ranger opened the road and he led a line of cars towards the exit to the park. As we drove out we were surrounded by walls of snow on either side. It was absolutely crazy to see that much snow.


We eventually, after another scenic drive, made it back to the freeway and to civilization. From there it was a couple hours to the Portland area where once again we had impeccable timing and hit rush hour traffic. After stopping to get gas at the second they pump your gas for you station of the day, which by the way freaked me out, we sat in traffic for quite some time and eventually ended up in Vancouver. Washington welcomed us at 5:41 pm. We found a hotel on the north side of Vancouver...a Holiday Inn Express for the 3rd time on our trip...we've come to like them. After discovering that there were no movies and no good shows to watch on TV we decided to go see a movie.


We ventured into Vancouver and found a theatre despite bad directions. We saw "Georgia Rule" which was a great movie. Now, we're waiting for pizza from some very crabby sounding pizza people.


Tomorrow we will head out early enough to bypass Seattle before rush hour traffic and head to Kathryn's house. We are anxious to cook and eat a homemade meal after what will be 12 days and over 4,000 miles on the road. Well, pizza's here...that's all for tonight.


Quote of the day:
"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page." - St. Augustine


Mormon Fun Fact of the day:
Mormonism is the richest religion in the United States


Questions to Ponder:
~How does Crater Lake not overflow?
~Umpqua - person, place, thing? (it's the name of a river, park, bank, schools, etc in Oregon)
~What is the 45th parallel and why is it important?

Day Ten - Wednesday

Hello all! We are currently in Central Point, Oregon. Today was fairly uneventful. We left San Francisco at around 10 and drove up along the "scenic" route on the coast. Katie is sure that "scenic" is code for "curvy, narrow, steep, mountain road". However, it was absolutely beautiful. We drove through several groves of redwoods, it was amazing! These trees are so tall and huge! The forest was just so peaceful and the light drifting down to the ground just looks so cool. I kept trying to take pictures but the batteries ran out so I don't know how many came out. Driving along the coast was also really, really beautiful. The ocean is so awesome! I could look at mountains and water all the time. Now I remember why I LOVE the west coast! Near the border of Oregon we cut back inland in preparation for visiting crater lake tomorrow. So that should be nifty. We drove up to some little town a little closer to crater lake but they didn't have any place to stay and the next little town only had "motels" and "inns", which we have been trying to avoid, lol! So we hopped on the interstate for a few more exits to a more civilized town. Today wasn't all scenery though, we saw a photo shoot for the people who hold the slow/stop signs for road construction. It looked very professional. I also saw a black bear walking through someone's back yard. I thought it was a cow and I got all excited because I like cows but then I realized it had fur so I thought it was a dog but then as we got closer I realized it was too big to be a dog and it was actually a bear! It was nifty. Anyways, I think that's all for now. Katie and I were so careful to get to a hotel in time to watch Lost, although we couldn't decide if it was on at 8 or 9 so we were here at 8 and this hour is just a stupid recap episode...*sigh*....oh well, night all!

Quote of the Day: "Beauty is an all-pervading presence...it waves in the branches of the trees and in the green blades of grass...the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and the setting sun, all overflow with beauty...the greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire." William Ellery Channing

Fun Mormon Fact of the Day: The Mormon church has over 120 temples worldwide.


Questions to ponder:
How did the redwood trees get so big and what keeps them from falling over?
What is a/the "confusion hill" in California?

Day Nine - Tuesday

Today was a check back into reality. It appears that you can be on vacation for about a week before life calls again. Our day was spent basically doing errands. Kathryn tried to figure out some of her loan stuff for school for her post bac classes this morning while I tried to find a Chevrolet dealership to get my turn signals fixed. They were both burned out and we have discovered that driving, especially in California, is dangerous without them. This morning was also the morning my cell phone decided to not let me hear anything on the other end so, alas, another problem to be dealt with.

So, we headed out to find a Sprint store to get a new phone and the dealership to get the lights fixed. We also had plans to go to the Oakland Museum of California.

After a not so friendly or helpful, but nonetheless successful, encounter at the Sprint store we venture to Alameda, CA (just south of Oakland) to fix the car. The people at the dealership restored our faith in the possibility of Californians to be friendly and helpful. We had to wait a while so we walked the streets a bit and then found some lunch at a grocery store. Then we waited some more, but finally the car was fixed. The blinkers work and the oil is changed so it will make it another couple thousand miles back to Milwaukee. In the meantime we called the museum and discovered that they are not open to the public on Tuesdays, so there went that idea.

After our adventure in the much friendlier Alameda we took a trip to Ikea...one of our favorite fun stores. We didn't buy much, but, as always, had fun looking around.

Tomorrow we will head out north up the coast and through the Redwood National Park in northern California. Hopefully it should be a pretty drive. In Oregon we will take a side detour to see Crater Lake and then pick up the freeway again and head up to Washington. We may take another detour and see Mt. Ranier depending on the timing. The next couple of days travelling via scenic highways could prove to be an adventure.

We definitely will not be leaving our hearts in San Francisco.

Quote of the day:
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Phillip K. Dick

Mormon Fun Fact of the Day:
Mormons beleive that God was once a flesh and blood man who has attained perfection and now lives in the highest heaven and is married.

Questions to Ponder:
How do California drivers get anywhere without killing one another?

Day Eight - Monday

First off, just for the record, we have no plans to go to Disneyland. We just passed a car with a Mickey Mouse sticker and it made us curious as to where Disneyland was.

No, as for today's adventures. We slept in after our long night of driving around San Francisco yesterday. Then, we headed out to explore San Fransisco. We went to Fisherman's Wharf, a cool tourist area of the city. The Aquarium of the Bay was our first stop. It had some pretty cool tunnels that surrounded you with the variety of fish and sea creatures in the San Francisco Bay. They also had touchpools. We touched the very smooth rays and the rougher baby sharks.

After the aquarium we headed to Wipe Out Bar & Grill for lunch. We even were adventurous and tried shark. Doesn't really taste much different than any other fish.

The afternoon found us on a boat cruise of the San Francisco Bay. We learned a lot and had some great views of the city, the Goldben Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz Island. By far the highlight of the day.

After the boat cruise we made a brief stop at Ghiradelli Square and the chocolate store before heading out of the city trying to beat the afternoon rush hour to get across the Bay Bridge.

All in all, another good day. However, San Francisco is certainly not at the top of the list on the trip. I enjoy the feel of being close to the water, but it is a city full of crooked and confusing streets, pedestrians who walk wherever and whenever they want, lanes where you're not sure if you're going to get run over by a bus, and a city that lacks communication. It is, by far, however, the most unique city we've visited with the most variety - in people, in places, in things to do, and in climate.

We've been on the road a week now. It's crazy to think back about how much we've done, how much we've seen, and how far we've come in that amount of time. The adventures along the way have certainly kept us from getting bored and despite the minor challenges along the way we've enjoyed the trip. Only a couple more days and we'll be in Seattle. The primary goal right now, however, is making it out of California, specifically San Francisco, alive and without an accident caused by the crazy California drivers!

Quote of the Day:
one for the drivers in California: "Commit the Golden Rule to memory - now commit it to life." Edwin Markham

Mormon Fun Fact of the Day:
Mormons are encouraged to stockpile at least a year's worth of food in the event of a disaster or the tribulation they believe is coming.

Questions to Ponder:
We were questionless today.

Day Seven - Sunday

Well...

....

We are in San Francisco...sorta...actually, we're across the bridge on the Oakland side of things. This is not to say that we have not been in SF yet, in fact, we spent about an hour and a half driving around SF looking for a hotel to stay at. I have come to the conclusion that nobody visits SF because there are no hotels. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

We started out today in Salt Lake City at 10am and headed west, across Nevada. We made a brief stop at the very smelly salt lake. I was brave enough to venture over the crunchy salt flats to the water's edge but I didn't actually go really close because of the sludge bordering the water. It was gross, it was smelly, and overall I was unimpressed. Plus it was kinda hazy so we couldn't see very much anyways.

After that we hopped back onto the freeway and eventually came to the great Salt Lake Desert, which is white. We couldn't decide if the whiteness was sand or dried salt so we pulled over and I went down to investigate. Turns out it is a layer of salt over grey, squishy clay. It was weird, but kinda cool. We also saw some nifty salt collection/processing plant factory things with the Morton salt chick on the building.

At around noon Nevada welcomed us and we entered the Pacific Time Zone, which threw us off, again. :) We had an interesting experience in Elko, Nevada where we stopped for lunch. It was this tiny town and we walked into the restaurant and everybody looked at us like we had two heads. And to add to the weirdness the soup of the day was macaroni and cheese soup. We didn't order it.

Nevada was kind of interesting in a not so good way. There are a bunch of small towns, dead grass, semi-pretty mountains, and whacked out rest stops. We stopped at one that looked like a regular rest stop but just had individual toilets which turned out to be biffys which smelled so gross we almost died. Also there are slot machines and casinos everywhere you look, even in the gas stations.

At 5:45 California welcomed us and we made our way to SF. We got to Sacramento around sunset and we were treated a beautiful one. It was sooo pretty. I forgot how much I love the mountains and water. Driving through California was also really, really pretty. We were up high in the mountains and there was still snow on the ground and we went from 80 degrees to like 53.
However, once we got to SF we were tired. And we couldn't find a hotel! And people drive way too fast, like, way, way, way to fast. I thought we were going to die so many times! And they cut you off and merge w/o their blinkers and the roads are narrow...it was scary...and there were no hotels, did I mention that there were NO hotels??

Oh, and when we first got the city and were crossing the bay bridge there was this police car in front of us and all of a sudden he starts driving back and forth across the lanes, keeping all the cars behind him. Back and forth, back and forth, and then all of a sudden he stopped and we could go ahead. It. was. strange.

Anyways, we ended up going back across the bridge and are now sitting inside a hotel (thank you Jesus!) and we're both really tired and ready for bed. It's been a long day, we were in the car around 13 hours today...but its all ok now, now we can sleep...goodnight all!

Quote(s) of the Day:
(as we were walking out the restaurant in hickville Nevada)
Kathryn: Was everyone staring at you when you walked in too?
Katie: Yeah, it was strange.
Kathryn: Well, you have your hair brushed so you do kinda stick out.

Fun Mormon Fact of the day: The first group of Mormon pioneers to come to the Salt Lake valley only included five women and children in a group of a 100 or so men.

Questions to Ponder:
What is "fancy ketchup" and why does ketchup not labeled fancy taste the same?
Where did the saying "one horse town" come from?
We know Disneyland is in California, but where exactly in CA?

Day Six - Saturday

Well, in light of yesterday, today was a pretty uneventful day. We slept in and got some much needed rest. Then we headed out on the town in Salt Lake City. We made a stop in Temple Square. Must say, all of the buildings and the grounds are absolutely beautiful. Sad to think they are all going to hell. We saw lots of brides taking pictures in the gardens and what not...four or five we counted. We watched a movie about Joseph Smith. The more we learn about the Mormons the more questions we have. But, you have to give them credit...they were pretty sincere about what they believed and suffered a lot for it. Too bad they didn't believe the truth. After temple square we hit up a local brewery restraunt for lunch, the Red Rock Brewery.

The food and the heat made us tired so we decided to head back to the hotel and chill for a little bit. We needed to relax after two longs days of traveling. We hung out and then tried to venture out for dinner but gave up after we drove around to several restraunts and were unable to find a place to park. Salt Lake City needs serious help in the downtown parking department. So we hit up a grocery store to restock the cooler and then ate at the hotel. All in all, a pretty un-exciting day, but a relaxing one.

Tomorrow morning we're ready to head out to see Salt Lake and then on to Reno, Nevada in route to San Francisco. At least we know that with the exception of the detour to the lake we will be on the freeway. Certainly a less adventuresome roadtrip but a much quicker and safer option as we have discovered. We have certainly covered a lot of ground in six days and we still have almost a week to go before we make it to Seattle. Then, Kathryn is done, but I'll still have the drive back to MN/WI. At that point it will be a lot of driving and very little sight seeing. I might be touristed out by then though so it will be okay. It certainly has been awesome to see God's wonderful creation. I never cease to be amazed at the beauty of it all.

Quote of the Day:
"I didn't find God - He found me. Religions teach man's search for God, but the gospel teach's God's search for man." - E. Stanley Jones

Mormon Fact of the Day:
Joseph Smith had 6 wives and 48 children.

Questions to Ponder:
~How does someone like Joseph Smith convince himself that he is a prophet from God to the point that he is willing to die for what he believes?
~Where do people in Salt Lake City park?!?!?!
~Why did so many people take the long journey by wagon out to Utah following Brigham Young? A lot of them died!!! They talk about signs and revelations...maybe the one true God was trying to tell them that they were following a false prophet and not to go!

Day Five - Friday, continued...

Quote of the day: "Life is either a glorious adventure or it's nothing at all." Helen Keller

Fun Mormon fact of the day: 7 out of every 10 people in Utah are Mormons.

Day Five - Friday

Soooo....

We are in Salt Lake City!!!! Finally!!!! Today was the day of nothing going quite how we thought. Because it is technically Saturday now and I am tired I'm just gonna hit the highlights, here we go!

- Started out at 9:02 (Arizona time, they don't observe daylight savings so they are one hour behind, we eventually had to switch forward so we lost an hour which didn't really help matters as you will see later!)

- 10:22 we got to the Grand Canyon. We went to the south rim and hopped onto some handy shuttle buses to see the sights! It was so awesome, it is HUGE!!! I didn't realize how long and wide it was. God must have had fun making this! Everything was just beautiful, although driving to the canyon I got sick of pine trees and dead grass...but it was way cool and I'm really glad we made time for it!

- 3:15 we stopped for a mini-adventure at the Little Colorado Gorge Scenic overlook and looked at some Navajo crafts for sale, it was cool. I bought some earrings :)

- between 3:15 and 6:12 or 7:12 we drove and drove and drove some more. Over mountains, across valleys, up and down hills, through mountains, across Native American reservations. It was awesomely beautiful but also a whole lot of nothingness. We were sometimes the only car we saw for like an hour!

- On that note: I need to go look up information about the Native Americans in this country, obviously my "native american culture study" from EDU 451 did not inform me very much because I have so many questions! The people on these reservations look so poor, some of them don't even have running water, I can't tell you how many outhouses we saw! Outhouses!!! There are no stores, no gas stations, nothing. We saw some kids get off their school bus and walk into a house we thought was abandoned, it was crazy. So what do these people do for a living? How did they end up on the reservation? How independent are they? Are they U.S. citizens? Why is there nothing there?

- 6:12 or 7:12 Utah welcomed us, finally, it took forever to get there.

- 7:15ish, we, under the impression that driving on route 9 would get us to the interstate faster made the mistake of traversing through Zion National Park. This was a mistake as you shall see.

- 7:42, we almost hit a flock of turkeys with our car. That's right, turkeys...apparently Katie has hit one before...

- 7:50, we have to pay $25 to drive through the park. Ok, fine, whatever...we start driving, on this freakishly narrow road cut between these mountains and cliffs....and it's curving all around with sharp turns and Utah drivers who like to drive way too fast! Then we come to the tunnel. This tunnel was literally cut through a mountain, it was dark, long, and scary. AND THEN once we were out of the dark, long, scary tunnel we had to drive down the mountain to the bottom of the canyon. This road wound along the side of the mountain with really, really sharp u-turns and a sheer drop on one side. I'm really glad I wasn't driving! If you messed up you would drive right over the cliff and head straight to the bottom...it was beautiful though, red cliffs with streaks of white and and the sun starting to go down...it was pretty.

- 8:51, the interstate! Yay! Only 300 miles to salt lake city!

- 12:30, we're in Salt Lake City, finally. It took forever, I am tired, Katie is tired, so we will say goodnight!

I know, I know, we said there would be pictures but they won't be up until tomorrow, sorry. Have a good night everyone!

Day Four - Thursday

This is the day that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends! We started out at 9:00 am this morning from Denver, CO. We stopped about an hour into the trip at Manitou Springs to see some very cool Anasazi cliff dwellings. Pretty impressive what people could build so long ago and it still stands today. This stop also made for a 45 minute detour trying to get back in the freeway under construction though. The construction worker we asked for directions looked at us very strangely. The drive through Colorado was absolutely beautiful. We got into New Mexico at 2:09pm. New Mexico was not nearly as nice as Colorado!!! First, we almost ran out of gas because although there are exits every 5-10 miles, they are simply roads that lead to who knows where, they do not have gas stations or anything. But, we made it to a gas station in Las Vegas, New Mexico just as the gas light came on and started to ding. The drivers in New Mexico suck! Almost as bad as Milwaukee drivers I think. They do not know how to use their blinkers and are not polite at all! The country was pretty though, much rockier than the Colorado and definitely Southwestern US. We stopped for dinner at a Denny's in Grants, NM. Never visit here! It is home to several hotels (we don't know why!), a Walmart Supercenter surrounded by barbbed wire fence, a Denny's, a makeshift car lot, and at the time we visited a carnival. We drove across the Continental Divide in New Mexico as well. Kathryn is still fascinated by the cows. She thinks maybe someday she'll buy a house in the Colorado mountain countryside and own two cows. I explained that they are heard animals and only have one or two is ridiculous. So, she's going to pay a farmer to keep her cows with his heard and raise chickens as well. We survived New Mexico and made it to Arizona around 8:00pm. Arizona looked very similar to New Mexico. A lot of nothingness, but much prettier than the nothingness found in Nebraska or Iowa. We drove through a lot of Indian reservations. Looking at the houses, we never realized how poor they were. So many of the houses don't even look inhabitable. It's sad really. Finally around 10:30pm (which was really 9:30 we found out after we got into our room because Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time) we made it to a hotel in Flagstaff, which was our goal for the day. So, after a 13 hour day, we were done. But, it puts us on schedule to see the Grand Canyon tomorrow morning and then head up to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Quote of the day:
"It's like we drove off the map and landed in hell." - Kathryn (said about our adventure in Grants, NM)

Questions to ponder:
What is a "wash"? (we saw signs similar to river signs along the road several times in AZ, must be some geological form?)
What is the Ludlow Massacre?
Where do the people who live in the middle of places like New Mexico buy things? Food, gas, clothing, etc? Also, where do they work? Seriously there is nothing around for 50 miles + on the interstate. (Kathryn's theory is only old people live there and they don't eat anything so they don't need food, they wear the same clothes for years, they don't go anywhere so they don't need gas, and they're retired so they don't work)
How does a car get here from Costa Rica?

Mormon Fact of the Day:
In 1887 the United States passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act which outlawed Mormonism in the United States. It was intended to eliminate polygamy so the church would be decentralized and unable to function.

Day Three - Wednesday

So Denver is our new favorite city! It is so awesome! It is absolutely beautiful and there is so much to do!

Today we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They had a nifty Benjamin Franklin exhibit which was really interesting. It's really amazing what he did in his life, I don't think we have people like that these days, kind of sad really. We also got to see some Egyptian mummies and some dinosaurs. Today we realized how incredibly STUPID evolution sounds. There was a video at the beginning of the exhibit that tried to tell us that life developed from a pile of sludge. It was ridiculous! Creation makes so much more sense compared to some of these evolutionary explanations for things. It is really sad that people, educated people, spend so much time and money trying to convince themselves that evolution is fact just so they can deny the existence of God. However, I can see how dinosaurs could puzzle a Christian. First of all, how did they fit on the ark? Secondly, what happened to them? And what was the earth like back then, was it one continent? Were there animals outside of the garden of Eden? It was thought provoking. Katie's newest plan is to become a certified paleontologist at their little training center so that she can say that creation was how life began. We also visited their Native American culture exhibit.

After stopping in the museum's cafe we headed out to a Latin American history museum...which turned out to be more of an art gallery. Their current exhibit was something about making art of the saints and the Madonna and something about feminism. It was kind of cool, there were a lot of beautiful carvings. There was also a video of a girl shaking her head back and forth...it was "hmmm" inducing overall...

Then it was off to the capitol building! We didn't go on a tour but just walked around and took some pictures. It was kind of funny, I guess they couldn't decide exactly where one mile above sea level was so there are not one, not two, but three possible places on their steps, all of them marked. The building is really pretty. It has a gold dome which was pretty cool. And of course, off in the distance were the mountains.

After a brief break back at our hotel we went downtown and walked up and down 16th street. They have all these cute shops and restaurants with buses running up and down the center of the street. It was really fun, we just dinked around in some of the shops, bought a tee shirt or two and then ended up at a brewery for dinner. Overall, we both think that Denver is totally awesome and living here would be a blast.

Tomorrow we are going to drive, and drive, and drive. It won't be much fun but seeing the grand canyon will be so worth it. So, Lost is on and I'm off!

Quote of the day: "He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else." Benjamin Franklin.

Fun Morman fact of the day: They own the largest cattle operation in the U.S. and it is in Orlando, Florida.

Questions to ponder:
What is the deal with dinosaurs?
Why does Denver have such a large Hispanic population?
How can people believe that we just all of sudden became such complex beings out of nothing?

Day Two - Tuesday

Greetings from Denver! We made it here about 4:00pm Denver time today after a long day of driving through Nebraska. It may just be worse than Iowa, hard as that is to believe. We may think our country is heavily populated, but that is so not the case. There is plenty of space left. We have driven through roughly1,000 miles of nothingness between Milwaukee and Denver. Literally with the exception of Des Moines, IA, Omaha, NE, Lincoln, NE and a few semi-towns along the way. We only saw THREE Starbucks between Milwaukee and Denver. But, there are miles upon miles of fields. Kathryn received quite the education in farming and cows today. She's quite fascinated by the "cute baby cows":) Though it is all flat and all fields, it does have a different look and you notice the changes when you are driving across the whole state. Kind of cool to see. So far, we love Denver. The plan is to explore the city tomorrow and then head out of here Thursday morning in route to the Grand Canyon sometime Friday afternoon. Not part of our original plan, but we're making good time so we're going to try to make it there.

Quote of the day:
"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." - George Washjngton Carver

Questions to ponder:
-How many brain cells do you have to lose before you can be a truck driver? They are seriously NOT friendly or polite people!
-Who takes care of the random cows in the wide open fields along the road? Kathryn doesn't understand.
-Did you know that there is a Kool-Aid museum in Nebraska?
-Need a friend? Take exit 369 off of Interstate 80 to Friend, Nebraksa:)

Mormon Fact of the Day:
Mormon prophet Joseph Smith had a militia of 4,000 men

Day One - Monday

Hello all!

Welcome to our very special road trip blog. at 2:42pm today as were were heading out of Milwaukee we decided that not only should we keep a travel journal recording where we're going and all of our other weirdness, but we should put it online so that we can share it with everyone!

We started our trip officially at 3:01pm when we got on the highway in Milwaukee. Our first offical road trip song was "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts. So far we have been "welcomed" by Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. Overall today was prety boring, driving by flat, green fields...followed by more flat, green fields...once in a while there was a brown field but that was about it. Never go to Iowa, it's really, really boring. Right now we are sitting in our hotel room in Omaha Nebraska.

Questions to ponder:
"Who decided how and where to put up all the powerlines?"
"What are the historic Amana colonies"
"Why would you name a school Scatter Good Friends School?"
"Why do most trucks have license plates from two different states?"
"What the hell is Auld Lang Syne"
"What do the Spanish words in the Macarena mean?"

Quote of the day:
"The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs" Vance Hevner

Starting tomorrow watch for our "fun Morman fact of the day" courtesy of Professor Holman.

License plate count thus far:
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, Ohio, Indiana, Conneticut, Oregon, New Jersey, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and either New Mexico, Arizona, or Wyoming, we're not really sure, it was raining and we couldn't see well. Also we have seen Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

By the way, anyone know for sure how many provinces are in Canada?

So long for now!

Kathryn and Katie