Road Trip Day 5-8

On day 5, we arrived at my brother's house to visit him and his family for a few days. It was fun to see them again. We had a nice time hanging out the first day and had a delicious meal. It was very nice to be with family.

Bill and Daniel hanging out

Day 6 was spent with the family and we went in to downtown Chicago to be tourists. We visited Millennium Park and we saw the big Bean. It was fun to take pictures in the giant reflective jelly bean! We also had a Chicago must and ate deep-dish pizza for dinner...yummy! After dinner, we went to see the Blue Man Group. It was a very fun show and Bill laughed more than anyone. He really enjoyed it.

Daniel and Drew reflecting in the Bean

can you find us?
the big Bean with Daniel and Drew
the exciting show!

Day 7 was equally exciting...Bill and I took Daniel and Drew to Six Flags Great America. There were long lines, but that was expected because it is an amusement park, after all. We had fun riding the roller coasters and my nephews convinced me to go on a couple rides that I don't think I would have attempted on my own! It was a fun long day and we finished it with another delicious dinner from my sister-in-law.

after riding "The Dark Knight"

The next day, Day 8, was also very thrilling. It was our last day with my brother's family so we wanted to make the most of it. We went to a baseball game and supported the Chicago Cubs (even if they aren't the best). The atmosphere of the game was exciting and we ate all the traditional baseball game food: hot dogs, brats, jumbo pretzels, soft serve, etc. Even though the Cubbies lost, we had a great time! Before leaving Chicago, Bill had another hot dog, this time "Chicago Style".

enjoying our seats at the game

we were way up there, but we had a good view

After the game, we drove on (that's what most people do on a road trip) to visit more of my friends in Indiana. We had dinner with a college friend of mine and then stayed with family friends. It was a long day and a good time was had by ALL!

Road Trip Day 4

I don't have any pictures from Day 4, but I'll give you a brief recap of the highlights. We started in Kansas and drove to visit my friend Sandi. It was great to meet her husband and son and her little dogs (who were very excited to have visitors). We enjoyed a wonderful Kansas City BBQ dinner with Sandi and were able to get all caught up. It really was great (thanks Sandi) and we'll have to do it again soon.

From Kansas City, we drove in to Missouri to camp. We found a lovely State Park that had a very nice campground (the nicest one we've stayed at so far). It was getting dark and the clouds were gathering overhead so we quickly set up our tent. A few minutes after climbing in the tent, it started raining. Not just raining, but POURING!! The wind and rain pounded our tent all night. And the lighting was spectacular - the whole sky would light up completely every few seconds and the thunder was incredibly loud. We didn't get much sleep, but we stayed relatively dry...only the corners of the sleeping bags got wet. By morning, the sun was out and the sky was blue. We were thankful that it only rained at night, and not while we were setting up or taking down the tent! We were more than ready to leave Missouri after that.

Road Trip Days 1-3

The first day of our Road Trip was spent driving from Oregon to Idaho. We didn't really do anything exciting. We were planning to camp, but it was rainy and very windy so we decided to stay at a hotel instead. The day was pretty boring, so I don't have much to share about it.

The second day was a little more interesting. We drove from Idaho to Utah and we visited Arches National Park (amazing) and then we stayed at a camp ground. I took pictures all day and have a picture diary below. Enjoy!

our day started too early!

free hotel breakfast...better than I expected!
I get to drive first

welcome to Utah!

time for a break - rest area

our trusty vehicle

stopped in Provo to mail gifties to my friends

Bill filling us up with gas

lunch time at Arby's

my lunch

windmills in the canyons

stopping to take pictures

Bill gets to drive now

traffic and construction

another rest area

we've reached our campground

it was windy, we weren't sure the tent would make it!

we visited nearby Arches National Park

it was beautiful!

we walked up to several of the arches (this is Double Arch)

Bill is on the left taking pictures of Delicate Arch on the right (very famous)

we stayed in the park until sunset

the park was amazing even after dark!

back to camp for dinner

I didn't take any other pictures of the tent. I was going to, but I got tired and forgot...instead I just went to bed.

On the third day of our Road Trip, we drove from Utah to Kansas. We stopped in Denver to visit my college roommate, Rachel. It was fun to see her again. We made a lot of progress driving today and had beautiful weather. We even stopped in Limon, Colorado to eat dinner at McDonald's. (That's another story that I'll tell some time about stopping in Limon at the nicest McDonald's I've ever been in, but that was many years ago and it has changed.) Now we're stopped in Colby, Kansas for the night...and its getting late so I better go to bed.

The Road Trip Begins!

We started our Road Trip today. This is the legendary Road Trip that we have been thinking about and planning for over a year. I'm very excited that we're on our way! We returned from Peru a couple days ago and I have a lot of video clips and pictures to sort. Once I get time to work on those, I will write some more posts to finish the Peru trip. In the meantime, I'm going to share some Road Trip adventures. I'm taking video clips on this trip too, so you have something to look forward to!

We decided to do a scavenger hunt on our trip and try to find things along the way...but I haven't compiled the list yet, so we haven't started. If you have any ideas of what we should look for, let me know and we'll add it to the list. Until then, we are looking for license plates. We figured we should be able to find a lot of them, since we are traveling thru 25 states in the next 4 weeks. So far, we had a very good first day! We've already found 16 states and 1 Canadian province. That's pretty good for one day!

Tomorrow, I'm going to do a picture diary. I'm going to copy Rachael's "A Day In My Life" and take pictures of our whole day. I might not take as many pictures as she does, but it should be entertaining. I've started taking a lot of video clips lately, so I haven't been taking as many pictures. And Bill didn't take many pictures today either. But, tomorrow I will work hard on documenting our whole day for your viewing pleasure. So, stay tuned and check back soon. I'll upload pictures as soon as we have another internet connection!