Thursday, June 24, 2010

3,000 miles down

Our trip across North America has been great so far - we drive until we are tired find a campsite in our AAA book and then go and set up camp. That all ended when we got to Yellowstone!!! The first night we got one of the last camping sites on the West end - that should have clued us in. Well after a day of seeing some of the most amazing sites ever we could not find a single place to stay. No joke!! Seriously all campsites were full and hotels trust me I asked and tried to get us in a few. So we drove an extra 50 miles decided we would spend the night in a hotel since it would be closer to 9pm when we finally got somewhere, well 50 miles out of Yellowstone all hotels, B&B's and other such things were full and luckily we found a campsite that had a few tent sites left. So at 9:30 at night we set up our tent and went to sleep. This morning we woke up to a FREE PANCAKE breakfast at the campsite!!
Glacier National Park was great but the weather stunk so we didn't stay too long, just long enough to get a hike in and see St. Mary's falls.
Yellowstone National Park - AMAZING! We had great weather and Molly didn't hate us for going in and out of the car for 13 hours. We did a few short hikes and saw most of the major sites, which is good since we are now 50 miles outside the park and well from the east side that is 100 miles to the nearest site at Yellowstone so we won't be going back. We are going to take a leisurely drive to Mt. Rushmore and make sure to get our campsite early!!


St. Mary's Falls, Glacier National Park
The entrance for Yellowstone National Park
Look dad some more geysers - the ground is smoking!
Old Faithful - it was amazing!! What I didn't realize is that there are over 100 other geysers that go off during our hiking - pretty cool.
Family photo at Yellowstone. The sun in the lower 48 is much stronger than what is was in Alaska!! After only a few hours outside we all came away with some pretty bad burns - we already have sunscreen on for today. Can't wait to get in the car and start our drive!!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

2,000 miles in 5 days

There are less bugs to eat us b/c most are on our car

We have traveled over 2,00 miles and have only about 3,500 more to go on our cross country journey. Molly has been quite the trooper and entertains herself in between naps with reading, playing games and screaming at Jon and I. Jon and I have listened to The Chronicles of Narnia and loved it!! We have camped, cooked, and slept in nature for 4 nights and tonight treated ourselves to a hotel. After 4 nights of being in nature we realize that it is a treat to be in secluded areas with no noise, cars and fast food. There has been some awesome bonding times at night when we try and get Molly to sleep outside without blackout curtains, remember we were in the north where there was no NIGHT- perpetual daylight/dusk. After looking forward to the Edmonton Mall for the past 2,000 miles is was a HUGE let down. Instead of staying 2 nights we will stay tonight and hit the road. We are adding Yellowstone to our itinerary and can't wait to see Old Faithful. Molly cna't wait to be outside where she gets to run wild and play in the dirt.
Night 1 Sourdough Campgrounds
Day 2 - Random roadside lunch, probably one of the highlights of the trip for Jon and I. It was beautiful and Strong River was flowing next to us and Molly ran and played and then fell asleep until we arrived at Tahiki Hot Springs!!
Day 3 - Watson Lake and the sign forest. Not too bad, found some others that went to NC also and found one from the Rose family - Meredith did you take this trip as a kid??
Day 4 - Molly has become one with nature. Yes that fly died in her snot - I guess I don't know. She entertains herself for the 10 minutes it takes me to get dinner and Jon to set up the tent, she comes and talks to both of us but neither of us noticed this until it was too late for the poor fly.
Molly with her 2 sippy cups, alphabet caterpillar and book. I love noise making toys because they entertain her for the few hours that sleeping and books don't!
Day 5 - Edmonton Mall - LET DOWN!!! I guess after sleeping at 2 hot springs and driving with some of the most amazing sites a mall filled with nasty people is just not that great. I guess it was culture shot for us all since AK. I am not used to people running around in next to nothing, shops in malls that I don't want my child to ever enter, or the crazy prices people want you to pay when we had been happy with next to nothing. The upside is that we are making and addendum to our trip and are now going to Yellowstone!!!
Me, Molly and the Mounty.

We have made the best of our hotel stay - playing on the computer, taking a shower without shower shoes and I can't wait to wake up not in the cold dew of the morning but we are all ready for the open road and some more awesome sites!!!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Day 1

Today is the day we start the journey out of Alaska. Just 22 months ago we moved here from Texas and now we head out to North Carolina. We will post some things we see along the way as often as we have wi-fi on the road. We will be tent camping and cooking our food on our camp stove as we head along the path. While we are all super excited Jon did point out that his joy diminishes by 100% when it is raining and cold out like it has been this morning. Today we will be going to Tok, AK can't wait to tell you all we see.
Goodbye snow Oct - May hello open roads.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Movers are coming

There will be no pictures today even though we have gone on many adventures in the past 2 weeks. We road our bikes on the Tony Knowles, road our bikes to Subway and Marble Slab, went to the Saturday market and have been getting ready for our last week in Alaska. Molly and I tried to make sure that Jon at least got to do some of the highlights in his short summer here so while we road the bikes we pointed out to him the train as it passed and told him what he missed and the same when we saw the flight seeing helicopter fly over us. I can't believe our time in Alaska is coming to a close - it has been fun and I will miss it here.
TOP TEN THINGS I WILL MISS
1. My friends
2. Nonstop daylight in the summer
3. Random adventures that only Alaska offers
4. Seeing moose and bear walk down my residential neighborhood
5. Riding my bike around
6. Sledding down some of the most awesome mountains anytime I want from Oct - Apr
7. Snow City, Mooses' Tooth and Hacienda's
8. my amazing on-post housing
9. my friends amazing off-post housing for the moments I needed to get away
10. My friends - luckily the Army moves you a lot so I should run into at least one of them again!

Maybe once the packers have come and gone I will post some pictures.