ROAD TRIP !!!

Our road trip is going to be posted chronologically. So feel free to read if you want but it may be long. We never had a plan to start with so we didn't know where we were going to be from day to day. That doesn't sound like us :)
June 27, 2009---Today we started our 2 week long roadtrip up the west coast. All I have to say about the long drive was BORING. We woke up early that morning and drove from San Diego up to Santa Rosa, CA. We arrived around 8 or so and visited with everyone. It is great to see family and to see how the little ones have changed.
June 28, 2009---The next day was Sunday so we went to church with all of them and then came home and had a BBQ. Kent's cousin Ryan and his wife Cazra came over as well with their two children, Ava and Teegan. Benson and Ava played in the pool together that afternoon and had a blast. Ava kept pulling up her grandpa Ron's flowers out of the ground so hopefully Benson put that idea into his short term memory. I hope.:) Kent also took pictures of Teegan for a birth announcement and Teegan peed on Kent. That was awesome.

ROAD TRIP

June 29, 2009---Well we have officially started the roadtrip by camping the rest of the way. We left Santa Rosa,CA around 11:00am and headed to the Humboldt Redwoods. We saw a lot of vineyards and redwood trees along the way. When Kent was 13, he came to California to go to scout camp with his cousin Ryan. They went to camp Navarro which we were able to pass through. We even found the rope swing that they played on when they were there and picked a few berries. We then drove along the coast for awhile as well which was beautiful. It reminded us a lot of our trip last year to Big Sur. It was a day full of sightseeing and around 7:00 that night we decided that we needed to find a place to camp. So we stayed in Myers Flat. It was our nicest camping spot the entire time. We tried going for a bike ride but we only made it 2 spots down the hill from ours. We were laughing so hard at who knows what and decided that we would not make it back if we tried riding to the river. So we turned around and I had to run my bike up the hill because I was laughing at Kent trying to make it up the hill with Benson. Good times.

June 30, 2009--- We made a good breakfast this morning and started on the road to finish California. Driving through the redwoods that morning was amazing. The sun's rays that would peep through every so often was a sight to see because the forest is so thick. We made a lunch break at this lake outside of Orick,CA where Benson was able to play in the water for awhile. The lake was on one side and the ocean was on the other side of the sand barrier. We saw some Roosevelt Elk along the way to the Jedediah Redwoods, which is also where they filmed part of Star Wars. Who knew? We camped there and went swimming in the Smith River. Benson had a blast of course throwing rocks in the river. It was surprisingly really warm since it was shallow in most parts and it had been a really hot afternoon. That night we had the crazy redneck family next to us. They had a baby in their carseat sitting right next to the fire and they were just weird.

ROAD TRIP

July 1, 2009- We knew today was going to be a fun day. We had heard so much about Crater Lake in Oregon and we were finally going to see it. We drove through the rest of the redwoods which led us into Oregon. Right across the border we kept seeing signs for a world famous cat exhibit. When we were driving past, there was just a fence around a dirt baseball diamond. WOW! World famous. Then we stopped because being pregnant you take every chance you can get to go to the bathroom. Check out the fly on top of the bathroom along with the massive fly swatter for the little key. What a nice welcome to Oregon. We continued on to Crater Lake. There was still a lot of snow up there but the weather was perfect. We could not believe how beautiful it was. The mosquitoe population was just as intense as the blue of the water. We hiked around for awhile but Kent had bites all over that looked like little welts. So we called it a day and went to go find a place to camp. You can camp anywhere in a National Forest so we just kept pulling over trying to find a good place. The problem one may ask...mosquitoes had multiplied and replenished where we had been looking. We finally found one after awhile but wouldn't let Benson get out of the car. Trying to cook our chili dogs, which we thought would be fast, seemed like an eternity. I put our drinks in the car to grab plates and get back in real fast but Benson allready had taken a drink of the grape juice and the cup didn't make it all the way back in the cup holder. When Kent got in the car as fast as he could since he had even more bites now, he turned the car on, and a bag of all our stuff went flying all over the ground. Benson had turned on the wipers while sitting in the car. We never did finish dinner because we were laughing and going crazy over the mosquitoes. Chemult,OR...never again.

July 2, 2009- We woke up with surprisingly no mosquitoes but still decided to pack fast to avoid a problem later. Bathing with a tub of warm water was interesting to say the least. We drove past Mt. Hood, OR to get a glimpse of another volcano and ate lunch at a park off the side of the road. Benson had a great time. We then made our way to the Columbia River Gorge. Definitely made it to our top 10. There were a lot of waterfalls in that area so we went on a few small hikes then made our way up the 17 miles of winding road for another hike to see 5 volcanoes at once. They are Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mt. Rainier in Washington. In Oregon, they are Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson. We were actually able to see all 5 because the weather was perfect. Finding a camping spot near Vancouver and Portland was going to be hard so we decided to try Paradise Point State Park. We got there 5 minutes before they closed and they had a primitive site available which is exactly what we wanted.

ROAD TRIP

July 3, 2009- Since we missed the Oregon coast we decided to try driving along the Washington coast. We added 6 hours of driving to get to Olympic National Park and we only saw the coast for literally a mile or so. Along this stretch of road there were a lot of salmonberries and huckelberries though. They were good. We went on a hike in the Hoh rainforest. There was a lot of moss growing down from everything. Then we set off to find our camping spot for that night. We tried several spots but they were all full since it was the day before the 4th of July. So, we started down our dirt back road trying to find some hidden spot. Kent tried to go up a hill in our car but the wheels were just peeling out. I laughed.

July 4, 2009- Happy 4th of July!! Where am I again? The birds woke us up at 4:30 this morning because it was allready bright outside. Dumb birds. Then, when we were packing up the tent, we noticed that there was poison oak all around. I was also not as fast as Kent on my end of the tent and when I pulled my tent pole out, I got wacked really hard in the chin. I thought for sure that there would be a bruise. Thanks Kent for laughing at your pregnant wife in pain. :) I was determined to see a parade. Mostly because of Benson...well that's what we are going to say anyways. So we hurried out of there to the next biggest town, Port Angeles. We found out that the parade didn't start until 6pm. We couldn't wait that long so we decided to go on a hike where everyone said that it looked just like the Swiss Alps. It was a 14 mile drive to Hurricane Ridge. Then we made our way to Port Townsend to catch the ferry over to Whidbey Island. On the island we saw Deception Pass, which was beautiful. Then we headed out toward North Cascades National Park. We found a spot to camp outside of Concrete, WA. It was next to a river and the only spot left. Lucky us.

ROAD TRIP

July 5, 2009- To start the day off Benson took one look in his cup and dumped the entire glass of milk onto himself. Not sure what he was thinking. Then when Kent was getting his breakfast, he dumped all of his potatoes and pancakes onto the ground. Before the trip, I measured everything into bags so that we knew exactly what we had for food. So we didn't have a lot of extras. We went on to see North Cascades National Park. It is one of the least visited parks in the U.S. and one of the best in my opinion. They have a lot of glaciers, bears, hiking, etc. Everything you want to see in one trip. After spending the afternoon there, we went on to Winthrop. It was a quaint, old town so we decided to stretch our legs for a bit. Benson loved the gold mine water exhibit they had so of course he had to get wet. There were a lot of people around watching him and what does he decide to do now? He walked over to the dog bowl, looked at it, and decided to put his entire left foot in the water. Everybody laughed, including us of course. Kent had placed some of our towels and clothes on the bike rack to dry while we were walking around. When it was time to go, we forgot about them. We drove down the road a few miles when we decided to stop for a bathroom break. Wandering from store to store to find one, I finally noticed them. Surprisingly, they were all still there. We got back on the road to head towards Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. When we arrived, it was pouring down rain. There was a lot of thunder and lightning as well which scared Benson. We don't see too much of that in San Diego. To camp that night, we found a picnic shelter and put our tent up under that. Quick thinking on the husbands behalf.


July 6, 2009- Well there was a lot of wind and thunder last night and we were very surprised that Benson slept through the entire night again. Kent and I woke up a lot because of it. Glacier National Park is only about a 4 hour drive today. We have always wanted to see it and have talked about it as far as we can remember. With our maps in hand of the park, we debated what would be the best hike. So that night we went for a bike ride down to the glacier fed river, and let Benson throw rocks in it. He could have stayed all night just picking up one rock after another. We headed back to cook dinner and to make sure that nothing was left out. The campground where we stayed in the park had the most bear warning out of any of the places that we had been. It is one thing seeing them everyday in Alaska to seeing one while you are camping or hiking.

Last Day

July 7, 2009- So we woke up to another beautiful day. We decided that we were going to go on a hike up to Avalanche Lake. It was 5.7 miles round-trip, but the elevation gain was only about 500 feet. Everybody said that it was a great hike so we loaded up our tent once again into the car and put Benson into his backpack. The rangers said that there were bears up this hike the day before so we just needed to make sure that we made a lot of noise. It was beautiful and not that bad of a hike being 5 months pregnant. Benson again loved throwing rocks and sticks into the water and we just enjoyed everything around us. Benson was obviously tired on the way back. The drive out to the east side of Glacier National Park was amazing. Rocky peaks and deep valleys were on every side of us. As we were driving trying to figure out our next place of rest in our tent, we decided to just keep going and drive all the way to Idaho Falls. My grandparents are amazing and stayed up until we got there around midnight. Thanks grandma and grandpa. :)





July 11, 2009- Idaho rocks! We went four wheeling up in the mountains with my family. On the way there, my dad's truck got a flat tire. When my dad and Kent were done fixing it, they were putting all the stuff away when my brother Robert and his family pulled up next to us in his truck. We could hear his back tire leaking air. We just laughed. So they pulled everything back out and fixed his tire. We then headed out to our destination to go four wheeling. We had a great time and on our way back home, my dad got another flat tire on his truck. So we had two trucks with no spare. Luckily my dad's brother has a truck and he happened to get in town from Oregon when we were leaving. So he drove out there to meet us and brought us his spare. Awesome!!