RoadBlogging Day 4 - Pendleton, Oregon to Bellevue, Washington

We have arrived!  Yay!  Super easy and quick day.  Charlie was quiet and absorbed the scenery the whole way.  It was actually kind of eerie!  But very nice for me.  It was great crossing back into Washington, heading west, seeing things become familiar again.  Then I caught my first glance of Mt. Rainier about 40 miles east of Yakima and that put the biggest smile on my face!  I knew I was home then.

Actually I knew I was home when I got to Bellevue and saw my sister and Erik!  They were supposed to have left already (I misunderstood, actually), but fortunately we got to see them for a few minutes before they left on vacation.

Anyway, I’ll post more later today or tomorrow.  Will eventually get pics and video up here.  For now, I’m going to go take a look at the townhome I’ve been renting since May 1st but never seen!

Also, what is up with this heat, Seattle?  I know I complained about the long, cold, bitter winter in Iowa, but you didn’t have to turn up the furnace quite this much!  I don’t know what it is out there now, but when I drove in to Bellevue at 11 a.m. Pacific time, it was 86 degrees already!

RoadBlogging Day 2 - Sidney, Nebraska to Tremonton, Utah

As I recently said, “Wyoming is always interesting…” Wow, was that an understatement.

We gained an hour yesterday, so we actually wound up getting on the road about an hour early this morning. That gave us a really good start while Charlie was still in a good mood. On the other side of the coin, we hit peak altitude in Wyoming pretty early - While it was still, like, REALLY COLD!

As in 31 degrees and snowing. For the love of God, I just can’t get away from the stuff. Charlie was really mad because he thought it meant we weren’t going to be able to go swimming. I was not thrilled because it got pretty bad in places - low visibility and just enough to slush up on the road and make you think it could be pretty slick if you had to brake or quickly maneuver. Fortunately we got through safely and as soon as we started to descend, altitude-wise, everything was fine.

But after that we saw the most amazing scenery. I’ve only ever been “through” Wyoming, never “to” Wyoming. And I really want to come back some day to Rock Springs and Green River to see the Grand Tetons and the Flaming Gorge. I just kept looking at that scenery and saying, “That is just so unbelievably beautiful.”

I did stop a couple of places with Charlie but not too many. The travelling is just so hard on him. He had a pretty bad episode today. So as much as I’d like to draw out each day and do fun stuff, it’s almost like it’s just better to do it like tearing off a band-aid - Best just to do it quick and get it overwith!

I hope to post pictures later, but I took a LOT plus a lot of movies. So they might be posted after we get back. The movies certainly will get posted after we get back. My old laptop + hotel wi-fi = NoYouTube Uploading. LOL (Just because it would be painfully slow to do so.)

Utah is really beautiful as well, but we had some trouble with our Hotel so had to spend some time on that. Then I promised Charlie swimming so we put in some time doing that. I’m thinking that since we will gain an hour again tomorrow that maybe we will drive around here a bit in the morning to take a few pictures and see if there is anything to see.

I may add more later if I post some more pics. But that is pretty much for the day. Oh, except that I nearly ran out of gas and virtually coasted into Clearfield, Utah on fumes (I think that was the name of the town). That was actually really annoying and kind of scary, because there weren’t many good places to pull over. I won’t let that happen again. Fortunately it was in the all-downhill ride to the 80/84 interchange.

RoadBlogging Day 1 - Ankeny, Iowa to Sidney, Nebraska

We got started on schedule at 8 am. It was a pretty boring and uneventful day, in that all we were doing was crossing Nebraska (Sidney is nearly to Wyoming). But it was just great to get on the road and get started. It was a welcome change of scenery.

Charlie was really good for a hyperactive 5-year-old. The best part of everything was that the speed limit in Nebraska is 75, so you can easily go give-or-take by 5 mph and really make some time, if you know what I mean.
Oh, I don’t know if it was the headquarters or what, but I saw a huge building in Omaha near the freeway with a big sign on it that said “PayPal.” That was kind of exciting. I guess that is about as exciting as Nebraska gets! Oh, we did stop at a “Stagecoach” souvenir shop with an authentic stagecoach wagon on it, wooden sidewalk and the usual souvenir fare for the MidWest. Amusingly it was playing really loud Mexican pop music on the porch!

Here are some pictures. Not very exciting, but they give you a feel for the road. There should be some more interesting pictures tomorrow night, as we will go through Wyoming tomorrow and up to Ogden, Utah.

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