Day 4 Tuesday Sept 21

We left Hays at around 10 am this morning and stopped at Bank of America to deposit a check. On the Hays map it says that it is the German capital of Kansas! Fantastik! Also, the mall in Hays is actually just called "THE MALL" So apparently every time I've ran to the mall, it hasn't been the "real" mall because that is in the middle of Kansas. Other things in the middle of Kansas, you ask? Well that would be nothing. A lot like eastern Washington--flat, brown, and green in places.

We stopped in Salina to fill up and to grab a bite at Wendy's. Now we are off to Kansas City, then to Osage Beach, Missouri to visit with Tabitha.

Oh I forgot to mention that driving from Denver to Hays we were listening to "midnight trucker radio". It was kinda funny.

7:00 PM

So we are almost to Osage Beach, Missouri. Tabitha is putting us up in the "Scottish Inns" for the night. Quite fitting:) I think Kansas City was nice, but we drove through it during rush hour, which sucked. I think I got a picture of Arrowhead/Kaufman Stadium as they are right next to each other. Evey has been driving all day long today. Her own choosing. We luckily scraped up enough change to pay for the toll on the Kansas Turnpike (which is just I-70 east from Topeka to Kansas City). We hit the starbucks in Lawrence, Kansas (rock chalk jayhawk) to get a couple of strawberry and cream fraps, which was a nice treat. So here comes Osage Beach, and I think our doggie officially hates our guts now.

2:00AM

We just got back from Tabitha's house after going to Denny's first for some eats. Tab's mom, who is a riot, was staying there for a couple of days as well. So we visited with them and looked at our wedding pics and just relaxed and drank some wine. Tomorrow we plan to hang out for a while and then take off, probably in the late afternoon sometime.

Monday......10:30 PM

So we got into Cheyenne, Wyoming around 5:00 PM. We decided to stop off at a rest stop to let Belle out to run around for a bit. There was these two statues and for some reason Belle was tripping out barking at one of them. It was pretty funny, sometimes she's not the brightest bulb.

From there we headed into Colorado and into Denver. We would have liked to have driven around the city for a bit but we were already running late. So we just found the Pepsi Center where the Colorado Avalanche play. It is a pretty cool looking building. We walked around for a bit with the dog and took a few pictures and stuff.

After we left Denver we continued east on I-70 to Limon, Colorado and stopped in at Denny's for some coffee and some eats. As we were leaving there Chris decided we didn't need gas quite yet, and then a few miles down the road the gas light came on AGAIN. We pulled into this gas station in a place called Arriba only to find that it was closed. But LUCKILY the lady let us fill up anyways. So now we have a full tank of gas and we are back on the road. Our goal tonight is a place called Salina, Kansas. We will see how we are feeling.

And if anybody cares, there are STUPID bugs in here and we can't get em. GRRRRR!!!

3:21 AM

Finally we decided to stop in a place called Hays, Kansas. It's super late and we are both pretty tired, so we didn't quite make it to Salina. Tomorrow we have about a 7 hour drive to my friend Tabitha's place who lives about an hour and a half southwest of St Louis.

Ok, it is so time to pass out!!

So today we drove in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Kansas.

Day 3 Mon Sept 20

Well Evey is driving through Wyoming today. We stopped in "Little America", and hey guess what? Cones there are .35 cents!! I think leading up to the exit there was about 12 billboards stating this fact.

It is no longer snowing, I guess that was only in the Evanston area. My doggie is being pretty good for the fact that she has to sit up in the front seat the whole time. She is such a good girl.

We are listening to Switchfoot right now, and we got stop up here in Rawlins for some gas.

So last night (and yesterday) we drove in 5 states, which I think is some sort of record. At least for us. WA,OR,ID,UT,WY. We were almost in trouble coming from Idaho into Utah because we almost ran out of gas. We went about 20 or so miles on the gas light until luckily we found an open "Flying J" travel Center in Snowville , Utah (in the middle of nowhere) at like 12:12am. Let me tell you, if we would have ran out of gas, that would have SUCKED big time, cause there was nothing on I-84 where we were. Just darkness, and that lingering thought in the back of my head that Utah sucks.

Day 3 Monday Sept 20

Ok wow, we woke up a little while ago to a chilly 31 degrees and its snowing. Hopefully it will clear up as the morning passes. It is so pretty though, and the flakes are so huge. Ok I have to go drive now.

Day 2...Sunday Sept 19

This morning we somehow managed to get ourselves up and ready at a decent hour, had some breakfast at the hotel and then headed down to Vancouver Washington to spend some time with Lief and Terri. We were at their place for probably an hour or more and had a really nice visit with them. We were very happy when they loaded us up with jars of homemade jam and pickled beets, fiesta corn and three bean salad:) So I guess between that and our "burger bucks" from mom and dad we will be able to eat on our trip out east:)

FINALLY we made it out of Washington and we just passed through Pendleton Oregon. It's almost 4 PM, I am not too sure how long we are going to drive today. Depends how we are feeling I guess. Chris is pretty happy though since we are way into Oregon and we still have the Seahawks game on the radio. And even better, the game is almost over and the Hawks are leading 10-6. If they can hold on and win they will be 2-0 to start the season. Seattle fans need something to be happy about cause we sure haven't got that from the Mariners this season.

GOOD NEWS----The Hawks held on to win the game 10-6. 2-0 to start the season, the first time in 10 years they go 2-0 on the road to start the season off.

OOPS, I just spilled gatorade on my dog:)

12:19 AM Mon Sept 20/04

UTAH SUCKS

2:35 AM

FINALLY we have decided to stop for the night. It is just after 2:30 am and we are not far into Wyoming in a place called Evanston. We made good time today trying to make up for the whole day we lost yesterday. The drive today was pretty uneventful, except for when Belle puked in the car. Luckily Chris got her to the floor before she puked in his lap. I think we have just let her eat way too much crap today. AND Utah sucks, their roads are horrible and their signs make no sense. We saw about 20 different exit signs for "RANCH". We are yet to figure out what the heck that means. Anyways Motel 6 is always a good cheap choice:) This room is so freaking huge. I think my puppy is so happy to be out of the car for the day.

Ok, so now we NEED to sleep. Tomorrow we need to do some laundry here at the hotel and then the plan is to drive through all of Wyoming and into Colorado.

States visited today--Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming

Day 1....STILL in Washington

Well the plan this morning was to leave Seattle around 8:00 am. But of course that DID NOT happen. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that we stayed out WAY too late last night. We got together with some friends at a pub in Seattle and it was after 1:00am by the time we got home. And also there is the fact that Chris and I are both procrastinators. So when we finally woke up at 7:30 this morning we still had SO much to do.

After many hours at the storage sorting through things (in the pouring rain) we finally got a load of stuff in Chris's dads Explorer that we are storing in their basement for the time being. Then after a lot of organizing and MAKING things fit we FINALLY got the SUV packed as full as we could. You really should see how much stuff we managed to cram into this thing. It's a Buick Rendezvous. I had never heard of it before, but it's pretty nice.

We headed over to Chris's parents for a little while, and after we got loaded up with brownies, cough candy (I'm sick) and "burger bucks" we went down to Bryan and Andrea's for about an hour or so. Then we FINALLY got on the road around 8:00pm, which was only 12 hours later than we had wanted to leave in the first place. From there we headed down to Centralia and spent some time visiting with Uncle Bob and Aunt Julie and Grandpa and Char. Grandpa and Char got themselves a dog, we thought Belle had lots of energy until we met their little Lhaso Apso Jo-Jo, she is so stinking fast and so cute. Anyways we left there around 11pm or so and decided to spend the night in Chehalis. So now here we are at the hotel and Chris is happy cause he is watching ESPN news or something and this tv is so BIG.

So the plan is to get out of here early tomorrow morning...that's the plan, but we will see if that actually happens:)

States travelled through....STILL IN WASHINGTON--boy we got far today.