the journey

It's been almost two weeks since we drove into Michigan and I now have a few spare moments to sit and recap our cross-country adventure (even though the kitchen does need cleaned up a bit).

Our last day in Seattle seems worlds ago. Loaded in the car, said one last goodbye to neighbors and making it an hour and a half outside of Seattle before bedding down for the night.

Thursday we made it out of Washington and into Montana and the sights were amazing. Beautiful mountains all around. We didn't stop much as we had lots of time to make up.

Friday we drove into Yellowstone via the back door of Wyoming. We stopped and took pictures of a herd of elk and a buffalo, that ended up running right past us (and running with a seven year old child on your back so as not to be in the path of a running buffalo is not an easy feat....adrenaline was pumping!)

Saturday we headed out of Wyoming and ended up just inside of South Dakota. At a hotel with a water park. A watiki to be exact. All four of us played until 10 pm and then Sam was up at 6 ready to get one last watiki thrill before we left.

Sunday we started out on one end of South Dakota. We heard that morning that our house was in Iowa and that the driver was going to be in Michigan the next morning. He was an entire day ahead of us. This was not good. We knew it was going to be a long haul as we had 17+ hours to drive, not including stops.

So we locked down the hatches and started driving. And driving. And driving. South Dakota is one very wide state.

Then came Minnesota. The Iowa at sunset. Midnight loomed and we were still in Iowa. Signs of Illinois were popping up and we were determined to get that far. The kids were fast asleep, as was the cat, whom we let out and he snuggled up with the kids. 2:30 am approached and so did a rest stop. After finally settling in the parking lot that was very hot and humid, we managed to get a couple winks of sleep. 4:30 came all to soon and we were hitting the road. Kids were still fast asleep, as was the cat.

We saw the sunrise outside of Chicago, the haze of Gary, Indiana and then the beautiful sight of Michigan.

We beat the truck by 20 minutes.

All in all, a grand adventure. One I'm so thankful we journeyed. One I know the kids will remember for a very long time.

Oh...and I have to say that my husband is amazing. He drove all but 2 hours. Yeah. Amazing.