Home

Arrived home on Thursday, at 5pm, another 600 mile day--we started to smell the barn when we hit Iowa. So we drove from Eugene to Sycamore in four days this time. Starting to get this travel thing down, each of us doing two two-hour shifts a day. Cully loved traveling (except for some squiggly mountain roads). Lovely sunny weather almost every where on the road, except for that 15 minute blizzard in eastern Oregon and the blowing snow in the Medicine Bow range in Wyoming, where it was also -16 when we hit the road.

You all warned us about Illinois--snow and ice everywhere here. We're missing the evergreens and the 40-50 degree weather in the northwest, not to mention the Olympic waterways and birds and winter farmers' markets and that wonderful wet, green smell of cedar and fir.  We'll adjust--slowly--but Cully doesn't like his cold, white bathroom!

Great road trip: 6,573.5 miles.

Leaving the Northwest

Out our window--sunrise on the Straits was hard to leave.

Inside our January  home, Cully ponders packing for the road.

Final sunrise in the "blue hole.'

Leaving Mt. Baker across the water

Leaving downtown Dungeness

Like father, like daughter? relaxing before leaving W. Seattle

While dutiful son-in-law and grand dog prepare dinner!

Post-foot surgery Elise welcomes us back to Eugene to wait for good weather

Where Lois and Bob prepare a gourmet family dinner.

And we all have a farewell party with the Eugene gang.

Pit stop at  Bonneville dam as we drive thru the Columbia Gorge

Oh No! Didn't we do this on the way Into Oregon?

Soon, more gorgeous vistas as we head eastward

Seriously concentrating driver.

Little America, Wyo. (some other season?)

homeward bound

The weather along I 80 finally looks good for travel, so we hit the road for home. But after driving 490 miles from Eugene today, we're still in Oregon! Ontario. Just for a few more miles--then we're into Idaho and the Snake River valley.  The Columbia River gorge was the usual stunning, and we stopped to visit the Bonneville Dam for a brief hit of one of America's big things. During a sun break at one point, a full rainbow developed running east-west along the river.  Except for a fifteen minute blizzard in eastern Oregon as we crossed a mountain pass at just 4200 feet--snow everywhere, sticking on the interstate, traffic slowed to 35 mph--the drive along the Old Oregon Trail highway was gorgeous, snow capped mountains all around, luminous and electric blue sky, pink and gold clouds as the sun set, sweeping mountain valley vistas. It's empty and beautiful out here.

Tomorrow, on to Wyoming!

Final destination

Local Produce!

Our Chariot awaits

Out the front

Lighthouse on Dungeness Spit

Still heading west

Leaving Seattle

Our Sequim location: Blue Horizon

Dungeness-Sequim

After a great holiday with family, first in Eugene, then in Seattle, we moved on to our next destination--
Sequim, WA, below the Dungeness Light on the Strait of Juan De Fuca, looking cross the water to Mt Baker and to the Canadian coast.  Here we be till the end of January.

The Route

Cross-country Christmas

Into Oregon!

First taste of winter driving

Hood River

And a welcome coffee break

Following the Voyage of Discovery

in the Columbia River Gorge

Multnomah Falls

Self West! We made it!

The long and winding road

2,223 miles later!

We're in the Willamette Valley!

After two hours of snow packed roads in eastern Oregon and a brief stop in the winter wonderland of Hood River in the Columbia gorge, the temperatures rose to 45, the sun came out, and we rolled down into Eugene in time to watch the Huskies demolish Fresno State. Five days of amazing weather, one cracked spark plug, two hours of snow, one sweet traveling cocker spaniel--beating the Oregon Trail average of 4-6 months by some days. Fantastic trip.

Pictures follow.

Thanks for watching our journey west.

Love,

Bob, Lois, Cully

Sunny Western Traveling

Lois is in here somewhere!

northern Utah

Southern Idaho

Boise: Humanitarian Bowl tomorrow!

No beer for the driver!

We're here.

And the mountains keep on going

Snake River on the Oregon Trail

Pioneers on the Oregon Trail

Leaving Ogden, Utah at daybreak, we've enjoyed another day of  stunning scenery and have arrived safely in Oregon.  Once again, the weather gods smiled on us and we had clear sailing with only a little daunting  driving (such as  the six-mile downhill grade into Pendleton at sunset).  On the way,  we enjoyed a fun break for lunch at a  brew pub across from the site of tomorrow's NIU Huskies game  at the "U-Drove Humanitarian Bowl" in Boise, Idaho.    We showed the NIU colors, took a picture of the stadium, took Cully for a much-needed walk on a nearby bike trail and drove on. 
   
Go Huskies!! 

In the morning, we head out for Eugene and  the last leg of this part of our northwestern holiday adventure.  Since the previously predicted "big snow storm" seems like it will pass south of us (and what's a few inches snow with mild temperatures to us midwesterners anyway?) we plan some sightseeing along the Columbia River Gorge, Hood River, and Portland on the way.  Meanwhile, we are very thankful for our great trip thus far and all  three of us are eager to wrap up this trip and settle in for Christmas with the family.  We send you our warmest wishes too!

L, B & C

Smooth Sailing

Crossed the Continental Divide three times today. How can that be?

We had a nervous beginning at the auto repair shop in Cheyenne this morning--but the problem turned out to be a cracked spark plug, quickly fixed, in and out in 50 minutes, on an 11 degree sunny morning without a cloud in the sky. We flew across the wonderful, weird, vastly empty Wyoming plateau and arrived for the evening at Ogden Utah, another beauty, nestled in snowy mountains overlooking the Great Salt Lake. Still can't believe our weather luck--except for a few minutes here and there where black ice and leftover snow reminded us how treacherous it could be out here. We may have tomorrow before a "whopper of a storm" (TWC) heads into the northwest, so we'll miss the Huskies playing in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise Saturday,  push on, and hope precipitation is only rain along the Columbia River.

Travel in the winter is tricky--

If the weather is good, you want to move out,
So you miss all the cool spots going by
(like the Wyoming Territorial Prison "Historical Place,"
Or the Fossil Butte National Monument,
Green River Flaming George)
But if the weather is usual and road-closing bad,
Then you're stuck
In Carbon County,
At the Sinclair Oil Refinery
Sucking fumes.

Thanks for following our christmas travels!

windy wyoming

open road to winter

 

Wyoming Dog Park

Bob's 50 cent ice cream

Western wild life

natural cathedral

It gets pretty awesome out here

upscale digs in Ogden

Great Plains

Central Nebraska--just like home

Amazing highway sculpture

Celebrating us pioneers

Sidney NE--"where the West begins"

Uh-oh--it's still winter?

Wyoming--two sides of the highway...

at the same time. Lovely!

Cowboy Dodge in Cheyenne....