Lee and Beth's road trip to the states.

The trip down was lots of fun and great to get to spend two weeks together again traveling around and seeing new things,  And a good time for Lee and I to experience "real life" together and grow closer through stressful moments of traveling such a long ways. We left Tuesday around 11:00am and arrived in Haines Ak the next morning to caught the ferry to Prince Rupert CA.

 Some of the highlights were; traveling through the coastal parts, like Haines Alaska and British Columbia.  We enjoyed being close to the ocean and seeing different terrain, I loved seeing the big trees with forest green moss growing all over them.   We also found some cute friendly forest squirrels who didn't mind posing for close ups. :) We got to Haines early the next day but we didn't need to get to the ferry check-in station until 1:30 PM  So we explored Haines a bit we went to this really cute natural and organics store that had a small deli and espresso bar,  they also roasted their own coffee beans.   - Lee and I ordered espresso drinks and thoroughly enjoyed some of the best espresso we've had.  Afterwards we headed back into town were we tried to go to two different museums one was a culture and history type museum the other was a museum of hammers.  Neither were open or opened until we'd already be floating away so at the gas station a guy told us about a lake up the road a ways past were the ferry docks that the spawning salmon are caught (But more like picked at by the local scavenging birds)  we headed up there and watched eagles and seagulls wait for dying salmon,  And made our way to a near camp ground that ended up being surrounded by a beautiful coastal forest that we went walking through for a wile.  Also wile we were in Haines we went to a small camp site called Portage Cove that was at the top of a hill that went down to the "beach" and had lunch there, you're see pictures of this on Facebook.    

Once we were on the ferry it was really fun... but I got rather sea sick and ended up spending a lot of the first day trying not to vomit all over our berth. :( it was also so cold and cloudy I didn't really enjoy walking around on the decks of the ship anyways.  But Lee felt fine and was able to enjoy exploring the ship and watching the ocean go by and spotted a few light houses, the second day a lady who worked the gift shop on the ferry gave me some "white flower" a Asian medicine, which I think is just peppermint oil and that helped me feel much better but it was still cold and rainy but we were able to enjoy the trip anyways the third day was beautiful, clear sunny and warm so Lees and I spent several hours out just sitting on the deck and soaking up the sun and enjoying the islands and other pretty land passing us, we also spotted wales, dolphins and Lee saw a sea otter.  

 Once we got to Prince Rupert it was more driving through BC and that was exciting, we did end up driving through some of the moutainy places at night time which was a little eery we had huge mountains on one side, lots of tunnels to go through a big train on the other side for a wile and the fear of hitting a deer.   

We traveled a wile and got to Washington were we  stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Vice, we got there late at night, the next day we slept in,  grandma got off at lunch time and had the rest of the day off so we were able to spend time with both of them, later that afternoon Uncle Nick and Aunt Colleen came over and brought Mexican for dinner,  we ate and visited and had a good time with them, Also Aunt Colleen helped teach me how to knit. 

The next day we headed out and went to Mount St. Helen's, Also another really pretty road through big beautiful trees and ground once we got there we were amazed to see the still so obvious effects of such a powerful volcano 32 years later.    We packed up to leave after about a hour and drove back to a rest spot that had a good view of Spirit Lake which is one of the surrendering lakes that was dramatically affected by the eruption,   just when we were finishing our lunch we started hearing this weird high pitched howling from below us,   Lee spotted movement on one of the hills below us in the valley before the base of the lake and once we looked through our binoculars we spotted elk, all together we counted 13 elk, we watched them graze on the trees and "fight" (which seemed more playful) with each other for a wile then headed back down. 

The next majorly exciting thing was getting to yellow stone national park, another geological site that both of us have wanted to visit for a long time, It wasn't quite what I had expected I suppose I was thinking that their would be more evidence from the previous volcano there, even after thousands of years.   So I was sad to not see many lava formations or particularly "string lava" formations which are often around rolling landscapes.   We did see several geysers, a fumarole  (a crack or cave that release gases like sulfur, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide also steam from the high pressures, gases and heat) which was exciting we also visited the "painters mug pots"  :)  and we were able to watch old faithful "erupt"also. :) it was fascinating but also scenic. 

After Yellow Stone we kept going, headed to Salt Lake City Utah to visit my Sister, Ashley.  once we were about 4-5 mi ( I think ) outside of Ashton Idaho the belt on our truck broke and we were stranded it was late at night so we weren't sure if part stores were open and the nearest town was 6 miles by back roads away, so after stressing out and praying we decided to ride our bikes into the next town:  Rexburg, as the last town didn't have what we needed, we set out following Lee's Garmin GPS and after about 45 minutes we got to the auto store to find that the "store" was someones garage that closes early,  so we asked to borrow their neighbors phone who were just pulling into their drive way, to call my sister and let her know that we weren't going to  make it to her tonight,  I wasn't able to get a hold of her and it ended up that this man and his daughter and her friend took Lee and I to town to a hotel for the night so in the morning we could get parts and ride our bikes back to Clyde.  Well once we got to the hotel he left us and we said our byes and thank yous he headed back and on his way home we saw a O'Reilly auto parts still open went in to find out how late they were open (it was about 8:00pm) and found they were open til 10:00.   So we came back just as we were going over the rules of the hotel with the receptionist and gave us the good news and took us -back- to O'Reilly were we got our parts and then took us back to Clyde.  But of course the belt was just a bit to big but we were able to limp back into town anyways and purchase the right size belt change it and then be on our way to the walmart parking lot and sleep there for the night and then start out the next day and head to Salt Lake, on the way still in Idaho we stopped at a rest stop that was stationed around a 1,400 year old lava formation! We were so thrilled, especially when I found several sites of string lava. :) We walked around for a little over a hour and had lunch there, around 4:45 we got to Salt Lake, so we got to spend that evening and early night spending time with my sister and her husband Randy which was great and then the next morning had breakfast together got set and helped them move some heavy furniture around as they are moving to a bigger apartment in their complex and then were on the road again.  The next day we drove through Wyoming and to Illinois, stopped for the night and woke up this morning to drive the rest of the few miles to Olav and Kera's. 

we arrived at Olav and Kera's House around 11:00am Lee and I were so tired from the last few days on the road which kept seeming to get longer and more tiring as we went that we unloaded the truck just enough to yank our bed out of the back of Clyde and plop it in our bed room, took showers relaxed and ended up taking a three hour nap.    After our nap and being *all* rested up we were able to finish getting moved into our temporarily room.   by this time Olav had gotten back from work, so we all went into town; Lee and I needed to get some groceries and stuff, we went to a few of the "neat" stores and then headed back, Afterwards I was able to organize our room and mess with laundry wile the guys finished unloading all of the truck and making room in the attic of the garage for the rest of our things that we don't need now and will wait until we get our own house to unpack.   

This evening we've been planning the next day, tomorrow we plan to go into Jane's Vile WI  and start looking for jobs and housing again.   And right now I plan zzzzzzzzzzzzzz 


~ Beth. :)