Drive to Chicago

Today we left on our drive to Chicago. We started out with a fantastic breakfast at a really cool diner type place...

On the way out of town, Stephen showed us the sites around both Minneapolis, and St Paul. This included a really cool Church...

... And a view of the city from one of the over 10,000 lakes in the state :)

Also, it turns out every police car has the same unoriginal license plate number: POLICE

Then we took the drive down towards Chicago. On the way we picked up some cheese, (since we were in Wisconsin)

And we also ran into someone else from Oregon... something about license plates today...

Anyhow, so we arrived in Chicago after a 7.5 hour drive!

More to come :)

North Platte

As I mentioned before, we made a quick stop in Nebraska. Michelle's Great x3 Grandpa built a home in the North Platte area back in 1869. (here is a write up outside of the house).

The house is now part of the Lincoln Country Pioneer Museum.

It was really neat to be able to see something that Michelle's family built such a long time ago, still around today.

There were all sorts of neat things inside, and they were fun to photograph.

The museum is actually closed until May, but they let us in, since Michelle is family and all :)

So yeah, a good trip and a good visit. I kind of took a lot of photos...

Second Long Drive

Today we had another long drive, leaving early this morning to a slight snow storm in Boulder. The snow stopped eventually and we drove on through Colorado, into Nebraska, Iowa... Roarie decided to try out a new spot. ...

...and then we made a quick turn up north. We arrived later in Minneapolis to visit our friend Stephen.

Tomorrow we will all four head down to Chicago! (Me, Michelle, Stephen and Roarie!)

(I'm going to make another post about a special stop we made in Nebraska :)

Boulder, day two

Last night Michelle and I had a fantastic dinner with her past co worker, and her husband Tara and Riley. Sadly we forgot to bring the camera :(

Today, we went hiking! Up at the start of the Rocky Mountains (or the end, from our prospective). It was a lot of fun, and good to get out walking... especially since we have a 14 hour drive tomorrow! Amanda led the way ...

We also saw some animals, and the tips of the famous "Flat Irons" in Boulder.

Afterwards, we discovered that the local brew pub invented a new day of the week :D

Tea Time

On our first full day in Boulder, we stopped by the Celestial Seasonings tea factory just across the street from our hosts' house (Michelle's friends Amanda and Trevor). I'm sure if you go back a year, you'd see similar photos. It was so good last time, we knew we had to do it again!

Hates...

We've been saying we'd keep track of how many times Michelle says she "hates" something on our trip (i.e. "I hate stormy weather!" ). Well, she finally had the first hate moment of our trip. Here's a little background:

We've been trying to take photos/video every time we crossed a state border. After missing the first and most important one (Oregon thanks you, come again soon) we decided we would get every other one to make up for it. Unfortunately I (Chris) ended up driving across all of the borders, and would tell Michelle about the sign coming up about 5 seconds before we'd pass it by. She didn't have a chance to snap the picture for any of the crossings. After missing Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, the dam finally burst, and she let it out... "I hate taking pictures!"

14.5 hours later..

Today we had our first of three long days. We drove 988 miles from La Grande OR to Boulder CO. That may sound like a lot... and yes, it was... but it wasn't as bad as you would think. First of all, Roarie had to assume her comfort position...

She actually stayed there almost all 14.5 hours... And then we were off... Into Idaho, down through Utah, and across the Rocky Mountains...

They weren't so rocky where we crossed them :) And then up through Wyoming.

And then we crossed onto I 80, where we would stay the rest of the time, if we weren't staying in Boulder :)

We turned south, and stopped on the other side of the Rockies (just in time for the sunset) where we'll be for the next 3 days! That's good, because while it was a fun ride, we could use a rest from driving ....

Oh, and on the way we had to stop at Little America hotel and gas station for some 50 cent cones ...