We'll leave the figuring to those we pass on our way out of town...

Well folks, here's the last installment of Kelly and Kassie's Magical Roadtrip Adventure. Amazing how quickly time flies when you're having fun, isn't it? We are in Albuquerque, New Mexico right now and tomorrow marks the end of our adventure. The last few days have been spent mostly with family in California. Driving through the Mojave Desert, Arizona, and New Mexico has been hot, hot, hot but it's been really fun to see the tumbleweeds and dust tornadoes sweeping over the highway. Today we couldn't find anything for lunch in Albuquerque so we drove 50 miles north to Santa Fe...which seems to be a way cooler city anyway! Getting ready to venture on our separate paths tomorrow, we wanted to tie up our blog with a little conclusion:

We've driven through parts of twelve states from Wisconsin to Washington, to Southern California, to New Mexico. Our car has gained over 4,500 highway miles! Big cities, small towns, ice cold snowy mountains, grassy plains, HOT deserts, and wild animals from prairie dogs to seals only begin to characterize the wide variety of landscapes that have significantly expanded our narrow understandings of what the United States is truly like. Our Midwestern "accents" (we don't have accents!!) have made us stand out on multiple occasions and the lack of cheese in all other states besides Wisconsin has made us appreciate our roots.

 

Along the way, we've also picked up a few other bits of wisdom:

Prairie Dogs are friendly if you feed them

Late May does not equal the end of winter in much of South Dakota and Wyoming 

Some big cities (San Diego) are way easier to drive in than others (San Francisco)

You're not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon

We don't need a psychic 'cause we don't really like it when someone tries to tell us what our future holds...

If you like road side attractions and billboards, go to South Dakota!

Conversations will make hours in the car fly by

It is often difficult to distinguish between wild animals and rocks from a distance

Contrary to popular opinion, and certain facts, Motel 6s are actually quite nice 

The shuffler isn't broken, you REALLY have been in the car long enough to hear that song 100 times 

Don't prejudge cities before you experience them for yourself

Most restaurants in small towns close before 9pm

Old Faithful smells like rotten eggs. really. it's gross.

Camping in the cold is COLD! 

The vast majority of campgrounds and motels in America are caaareepy 

Family is awesome 

The capitol of South Dakota is not Souix Falls. 

Get lost on hiking trails...it will lead you to amazing places 

Deep into the heart of snowy, isolated mountains, there are sometimes scheduled power outages that prevent you from getting gas

ALWAYS knock before entering public restrooms...even if it's not a oneer 

Don't eat dinner at Denny's. Just don't. 

Mormons are SUPER friendly 

If you want to find the gay community, just ask for a vegetarian restaurant...

Three weeks in the car is not enough time to get sick of somebody, even if you're trying really hard.

Roadtrips. are. magical.

 You don't need a map, just pick a direction and GO!

 

Thanks for reading our blog. We really had a fabulous trip and are sad that it's already over...but we're looking forward to our next one! Peace and love, friends!

Got a lead foot down on my accelerator and the rearview mirror torn off...

 OCEAN!

Our blog has been a little neglected over the past couple of days, but that definitely does not mean we haven't had enough to write about! Since Seattle, we've driven over 1,000 miles through the redwoods and along beautiful Pacific coast line ending up in Southern California near Los Angeles! Who knew California was such a long state? 

After spending a second afternoon in Seattle, we drove down through Seatac (Seattle-Tacoma area) and prepared for another city adventure in Portland. Our neighbor recommended that we check out Portland's famous Powell's Book Store, which is one of the largest bookstores in the country taking up an entire city block! 

Most of our time in Portland was spent getting lost in thousands of books--we also found a cute coffee shop called Anna Banana's which is housed in an old Victorian House. (I bought a packet of wheat grass from Anna's...anyone ever tried straight up wheat grass in water? It was like drinking the clippings after mowing the lawn!...pretty sure most of that mixture is still sitting in the car...)

One of the most awe-inspiring moments of our journey so far was when we drove through the redwoods and eventually stumbled upon the Pacific Ocean after miles and miles of dense forest packed with ginormous ancient trees. 

We ate at a small town diner where we were told to backtrack on the highway till we found the old road leading to the town through an amazing forest path. We followed the instructions and ended up in an enchanted land where trees seemed to stretch up to the sky and a river with extremely blue water rushed below in a little canyon. We took a short hike along a roadside trail--the trees are truly amazing, they make you realize how powerful nature is and also how small we are compared to it. 

Following Highway 101, we soon found the ocean. Running onto the beach and into the waves, we quickly lost all sensation in our feet and headed back to the car with soaked, sandy clothes and frozen smiles...nothing beats the ocean. We found a campsite somewhere south of the California border, this spot was probably one of our very favorite camping locations. We had a spectacular view of the ocean, built a nice fire and cooked a potato couscous dinner, we even found a couple of friends...

This is the sunset from the beach located directly behind our campsite! 

We probably could have spent a couple of days here, but decided to drive down to San Francisco and see the golden gate city! Unfortunately, our experience with SF was not the greatest. We must have entered the city during rush hour, and it is anything but a driving city...horns honking everywhere, tons of traffic, $26 parking, and extremely steep hills! 

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant in the city and then decided that we didn't want to see San Francisco again until we could plan a little better and not have to drive! 

After that crazy adventure, we headed down to Monterey where my aunt lives! Monterey is famous for its aquarium, but without even walking into this landmark spot, we saw seals, otters, birds, and all kinds of cool creatures! With many thanks to my aunt, we explored the whole Monterey area, ate some delicious pesto pizza, and slept in the most amazing hotel ever! I think this must have been our reward for surviving SF. 

Seals on the beach!

After leaving Monterey, we hit the Pacific Coast Highway headed for Southern California! The coast was bright and sunny, waves crashing on the rocks and ocean for as far as our eyes could see. Due to heavy rain a couple of months ago and a missing chunk of road that disappeared into the ocean, we had to take a detour over some insanely steep mountains that led us up through a military base away from the coastal highway. Luckily, Kelly was driving over the mountain...I made the mistake of peaking over the edge of this tiny, one lane road that led us up, up, and up along a cliff right next to the ocean...beautiful but terrifying! 

We drove about 10 hours yesterday and landed at my grandma's house way past bedtime, but are now relaxing and will be spending some time here in the sun with my family! 

Stay tuned for the last installments of our road trip blog as we make our way to New Mexico! 

Smells like teen spirit...and bonfire smoke...

We're in Seattle!! Buy your plane tickets now because we're moving here! We spent all of yesterday (after the four hour drive from our campsite in some state park between the Washington and Oregon border) walking around Pike's Place Market and other parts of Seattle. It was sunny and beautiful, people everywhere, fish being thrown through the air, sweet smells, ships and piers, and a delicious little Russian bakery item called a piroshky.

I can't even remember what we did before Seattle. There was A LOT of driving (from Salt Lake City through Boise, ID across Oregon, and into Washington...all in one day!). We left Salt Lake City in some nasty weather--the rain followed us for most of the day, but determined to find summer and sun, we drove and drove and drove.

In Boise, we met up with my cousin who I haven't seen in years, after a quick visit, we kept on driving into Oregon. Following the infamous Oregon Trail, we set out for Washington because Oregon was too weird to camp in. Speaking of weird, we have really hit a "lucky" streak in finding the most creepy places in America. It all started with Gammy's motel in Montana. Now we're at the point where Kelly walks into a Sinclair to use the bathroom and hightails it out 4 minutes later in a panic yelling "we HAVE TO GET OUT of here!!!" No, she didn't steal anything. But...well, maybe she'll have to tell you about it later.

 

To keep with the creepy trend, we slept last night in an island hostel that prided itself in its tepees and wagons while potentially harboring criminals on the run....umm, yeah that's pretty much all you need to know 'bout that. Despite the weirdness that seems to follow us (can't imagine why) we are having a splendid time exploring the beautiful country! We took a fairy boat (I know, it's ferry...but they are just too magical to use the 'e') last night and this morning. On the boat, we had a spectacular view of either Mount St. Helens or Mt. Rainer, not sure which one because you can see both from different parts of Seattle. 

 Today we're updating the internet machine with our travels and reading in a coffee shop for a bit, then walking around the city to do some more exploring!...and maybe finding ourselves another piroshky.

One more thing that happened somewhere along the way...I'm going to blame it on Kelly, but really it was me. We had our first encounter with the law. Yep. Going 79 in a 70...or 81 according to Officer Martinez, but I maintain that his clocker was off. We've been warned and told to drive safe--we've also learned all about the terrible gang violence in the area where we were pulled over...NO WONDER I was speeding! Right? Just tryin' to get away from the gangs, officer!

Borderline...feels like I'm gonna lose my mind...

Cowboys, more buffalo, thirty million state borders, creepy (no seriously, CREEPY) motels, some amazingly beautiful sights, and a whole lotta fun! That's all that we really need to say to accurately describe our trip thus far, but here are a few more stories:

The whole adventure started in northeast Wyoming, where we had slept at Vern and Shirley's Motel. Nice place, Vern may or may not have been an axe murderer...but he took our picture before we left, so that's good.

 After grabbing some breakfast, we attempted to take the "scenic route" over to Yellowstone. Wanna know what's confusing? Highways in Wyoming. Our whole trip up to Yellowstone was an adventure. To say the least. We ended up driving around the entire state (literally) on the wrong highway...but it wasn't too bad because along the way we saw some REAL cowboys and a bunch of cattle in the road!

Wyoming was a gorgeous place, we went a bit crazy from all the driving but ended up loving Yellowstone!  We stayed in the park for a couple of hours to see Old Faithful and the other beautiful sights. After exiting the area, we decided that another trip to this place with our families and an extended stay is more than necessary.

Directly outside of Yellowstone, we found Al's Westward Ho Motel. We drove into the little town of West Yellowstone, Montana at about 8:45pm and stopped in to see if we could get a room. Picture your great great grandma's living room...now picture an older woman with dark black hair that stands straight up all around...this is gammy and her motel office.

The town closed at 9pm, but we still needed to find some food--after walking to the only open restaurants with menus that included buffalo burgers, three meat cowboy dinner, chicken, hamburger, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, etc...we finally found a pizzaria that served meatless spaghetti and bread! Magical little adventure in West Yellowstone.

After saying goodbye to gammy and finding a little diner, we decided that we really just wanted to spend the day in a coffee shop. So we set out for Salt Lake City where they were sure to have big city cafes....

That's right. We drove from Montana, through the eastern half of Idaho and into Utah to find coffee. Some of you might think that's just crazy. And you're probably right. BUT Utah is way cooler than we expected, might even want to move to SLC someday. Our hotel front desk man gave us a suggestion for a restaurant that might serve veggie burgers, it turned out to be the cutest little place ever and we had a fancy dinner to celebrate our crazy road trip and split second decision making skills that brought us to the great salt lake and morman country!

We'll keep you updated! 

Where the buffalo roam...

Anyone know that song? "where the buffalo roam, the deer and the antelope play...?" It's a song, right?
 
South Dakota sure is the perfect state for road trippin'. The weather's been cold and rainy but there are plenty of road side attractions, animals,and  interesting billboard to keep us entertained--not to mention the amazingly beautiful country!

Our first stop in South Dakota was at a CREEPY rest stop with a bathroom that looked like it had come straight out of a horror movie. Needless to stay, we didn't stop for long.

This picture is of us in Souix Falls...at the actual Falls. We grabbed some coffee in the town and had to admit our geographic ignorance when we asked a local if Souix Falls was the capitol of South Dakota (it's not. Pierre is the capitol, just in case you ever need to know!)


After Souix Falls, we kept on keepin' on westward. One of the most exciting parts of the drive was a run in with some prairie dogs (not a run over, don't worry.) Wow, are they some adorable little critters! We pulled off the highway after seeing a sign for "Prairie Dog Town." Expecting to look on from a distance at some wild prairie dogs, we got out of the car to stretch

Almost immediately, one little creature scurried over to us from it's hole.

We gave her an unsalted peanut and were soon completely surrounded by prairie dogs begging to be fed!

 After that little adventure, we took a hike through the badlands. This part of South Dakota has some of the most spectacular views either of us have ever seen. Giant rolling cliffs of red rock and steep drop-offs leading to long stretches of grassland are spread out over miles and miles of scenic pathways. We stopped at one overlook and ended up hiking along this gorgeous trail with mountains of muddy earth and rock surrounding us. The trail was kind of hard to follow--so we got a little lost, but fortunately so. Our path off the trail led us up a big hill that dropped straight off into a huge rock bed and grass prairie. Amazing view.

We found the badlands so captivating that we decided to forgo the rest of the day's drive and camp in the park.

 

After taking a long, winding dirt road up and down through the hills and plains, we found a patch of grassland made for primitive camping. 

 

 

 

Our campsite was surrounded by prairie dog towns and herds of buffalo, which made the night's wind storm play tricks with our ears (4am: "is that a prairie dog outside our tent!?" "maybe!...wait maybe it's the wind?" "No, definitely a prairie dog!" "nah uh, it's just the wind"....10 minutes later "I think there's a buffalo outside"..and so on). 

 

The site was also decorated with large mounds of buffalo poop! 

We're loving South Dakota! Today's adventure will take us through Mt. Rushmore and the black hills! Stay tuned for our next update from further west!

au revoir!

Today's the big day! 

Cars all packed up...almost. We're ready to drive. And the adventures await. 

~Stay tuned!

it's the final countdown...

Not tomorrow but the next day and we're outta here! 

Goin' ridin' on the freeway of love, in my pink cadillac...

Alright, so we won't necessarily be ridin' in a pink cadillac as suggested by Aretha Franklin's Freeway of Love, but that doesn't change the fact that our roadtrip starts in THREE DAYS.

School is basically over and summer's beautiful face is peaking around the corner. We're kickin' it off right with a trip around the northwest corner of the United States and down the sunny...or foggy..coast of California.

Stay tuned for updates and pictures!!