Road Trip: Part 3

When Blake and I first began planning our trip to Washington, we entertained the idea of going home along the west coast. When we began budgeting and thinking of how many days it would take, we decided not to do it. When we were actually on our trip we decided we needed to do it because it would make the way home much more entertaining! Plus.... it might be a very long time before we will ever have the chance to drive down the California coast!

Our first point of interest was the Avenue of the Giants in northern California. It's part of the redwoods and it was amazing! Blake had seen some of this before but it was my first time. I had "This Land is Your Land" stuck in my head the entire time! The road was winding and narrow and at times scared me! The trees were tall and incredible. We had the sunroof open and enjoyed the sites.

When we stopped to take our first picture, the battery died on the camera. We had to drive all the way through to find a place open so we could charge our camera. This put us behind schedule a bit. We were not able to stop at take pictures at the Golden Gate Bridge, but I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me share some pictures from Avenue of the Giants.

We continued our travels down historic highway 1 and had some gorgeous views of the coasts. The wild flowers, coastal grass, and beautiful trees melted my heart and took me to another time.

Even though it was like 65 degrees, we had to get out and play at the beach. How often to we get to see beaches living in Oklahoma?

We spent about 30 minutes splashing around, taking pictures, and wiping the sand off of our feet and then we were on the road again. We got back on the main road, hoping to reach the Golden Gate Bridge before dark.

We did reach it! We didn't have time to get out and take pictures though. It was cool to see though. Some day we will go back and walk down it. Blake had been there before, but I hadn't. I was excited just to see it!

We drove out of the city and found a place to stay the night. Our next destination was Las Vegas. We got to our hotel (The MG Grand) in the late afternoon. We enjoyed walking around and seeing a little bit of the strip. We didn't want to carry our camera around because it was just too hot! Plus there were lots of people and we just wanted some time to just enjoy what we saw. We had a good evening in Vegas (with sadly no pictures) and headed out around 11 the next day.

Our last point of interest was the Hoover Dam. It was huge! I was always interested in it growing up because it was built during the depression. The depression was always my favorite time in recent history to study because there are so many personal stories about it. It was cool to see in person something I'd only seen in my history books and video documentaries. It was also extremely hot outside so we didn't stay too long.

We headed straight home from here. It was a fantastic trip! Truly a trip of a lifetime! It'll be a long time before we have this amount of time to take a road trip of this length again. We really enjoyed it though and we feel a lot more cultured now!

I'd highly recommend a road trip. It's a great way to see God's beautiful creation and our homeland!

Good ol' Billy

As I was putting on my make up today, one of my favorite songs came on the radio. This song came out my senior year of high school and so it instantly brought back so many memories. I had a 30-45 drive to school (depending on traffic) and I would roll all of my windows down (because my ac didn't work) and I turn up my music really loud and jam the whole way... unless I was on my phone.

I loved all sorts of music, but country was my favorite. My favorite country artist would have to be Billy Currington. I remember my friend in 9th grade told me turn my radio to KILT and listen cause I good song was on. It was the first time I really listened to country music and I was hooked! So anything by ol' Billy will send goose bumps down my back because it makes me so happy!

If you're in the mood check out this song I jammed to this morning by him called "Good Directions" and tell me if you don't instantly feel a smile in your heart... cause that's what Billy does to ya!

(Copy and paste the link into your browser)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awmaDhKwU-8

Road Trip: Part 2

After we spent several days in Richland, Washington we headed over to Seattle. We stayed in the Paramount Hotel, which was just one block down from the Paramount Theater. It was right in downtown and that's pretty much where we stayed the whole time we were there.

We started our first evening by walking down to Pirate's Landing. It's a cool little place right on the water. We ate dinner at the Crab Pot.

We'd heard about it on the travel channel. We got one of their famous seafood feasts. It was a "culture experience" to say the least. Eating clams and oysters and king crab was fun. I don't know that I'm super crazy about the crabs and oysters though! Anyways the place gives you a mallet and pours the bowl of seafood on your table and you start whacking!

The next day we went on a food tour through the public market. That was one of our favorite parts of our road trip.

Our tour guide walked us through the market sharing with us the history of the market and all of it's unique aspects. We stopped at several shops and restaurants and sampled some of their popular offerings. At most stops, there was a representative from the shop to tell us all about their products and company.

We followed her pink umbrella so we didn't get separated!

Our favorite part of the food tour was the stop at Beecher's Handmade Cheeses. We sampled some of their macaroni and it was OUT OF THIS WORLD! You could also watch them make their cheese in another room.

Later that evening we went to see Mary Poppins at the Paramount Theater. (I didn't get a night picture because I didn't want to carry the big camera bag there) It was great!

It's completely different from the movie, and that sort of bugged me. They didn't sing, "I love to laugh"- which is my favorite song from the movie! It was still very good though and we had a fun time.

The next day we went to the Space Needle for lunch.

The restaurant was really nice and the food was superb.

Then we headed south to California! We had a great time in Seattle and we'd go back in a heart beat if the opportunity came again. It's a great vacation destination. There is so much to do there!

Stay tuned for our trip home!

employment!

A little announcement to do folks. Blake and I have jobs!

I'm going to be a teacher's assistant at the OKC downtown YMCA child development center. I'll start out in the 3 year old classroom and move to a new class room in the fall.

I'm really excited about it because I get to wear scrubs! Who wouldn't want to wear PJs to work! For the summer we can wear what ever we want, but once August gets here it'll be all scrubs. YES! I also get a free family gym membership so that's great too!

Blake finally got the call today from Tinker Air Force Base. He'll be working there as a civilian. Of course there are all sorts of perks with that. We're just so excited!!

We got lots good going on and lots to be thankful for!

Road Trip Part 1: OK to WA

Blake and I recently took a very long road trip. It all began when Blake's friend (from Richland, WA) asked him to be his best man. We were so excited for him and couldn't wait to go up there and meet his bride and see Washington. Right off the bat we knew we wanted to drive. Plane tickets are awful (price) after all!

This gave us a chance to see the country- we drove through 13 states including Oklahoma and put over 5,000 miles on Blake's 95 Toyota Avalon. It was a once in a life time experience. There are absolutely NO regrets!

Blake and I watch a lot of Food Network and we love Guy's Diners Drive-Ins, and Dives. We visited lots of places we saw on his show, as well as places we heard about on other shows such as, Man Vs. Food. We had a fantastic time learning after the different types of food throughout the country.

Our trip began with 8 hours of driving in Kansas. I have no pictures to show you of this- it was awfully boring BUT we couldn't wait to see mountains in Colorado. Needless to say... Colorado was MORE boring that Kansas! We saw nothing but flat flat very flat farm land until we reached the out skirts of Denver. We only drove around Denver so we didn't see much. We ate dinner in Colorado and continued into Wyoming. We spent a very long time driving on our first day but it was worth it! We could enjoy our trip a little more leisurely now.

Wyoming was beautiful. If I had another life, I'd like to live on a ranch there. It was truly spectacular- and cold! We drove through a little "snow shower" as the locals call it. Then Utah was beautiful too! We could see the following snow capped mountains for a very long time:

Our next big highlight was Shoshone Falls in Idaho.

Next came Oregon. Ironically this picture doesn't have trees in it. There were some gorgeous views of trees but we were on crazy roads that went up and down and round and round with no turn offs for pictures. We did see a turn off for this spectacular view though.

And finally, after 3 days we reached Richland, Washington!!

We enjoyed getting to know everyone. Our hotel was right on a river and had a great park and trail. When Blake was out doing best man sort of things I enjoyed long walks. Then came Sunday (our anniversary!) which was the day of the wedding. It was lovely and everyone had a great time.

My favorite thing I ate for the first part of the trip was in the basque region on Boise Idaho. It's called Bar Gernika.

I had an amazing pork sandwich. It was just so good I can't even begin to explain it. I've never loved pork so much. I want to go back to Boise so that I can have that sandwich.

Stay tuned for "Road Trip Part 2: Seattle"!