Happy Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday Friends!  

Hong Kong is hands down my new favorite city.  I had the best time last week and can't wait to tell you all about it.  I hope to find some time to catch up on all of your blogs and do some blogging later this week.  Until then, I will leave you with a few pictures: 

Our double decker plane

The view of Hong Kong Island from our hotel pool

Hong Kong from the U.S.S. George Washington

The sun setting over jets on the flight deck

Hong Kong at night

Just looking at these pictures make me want to start planning a trip back!  I cannot wait to tell you all about it later this week!

Moving West - Day 5

Woo hoo it's our last day on the road!  We'd planned it out so that our last day was our shortest day and we would arrive in Everett, Washington by 5:00 p.m. to get the keys to our new apartment. 

The last leg of our journey:

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Missoula:

St. Francis Xavier Church:

I honestly cannot remember the significance of the above three pictures or why I took them, but I did, so I thought I would share.

The Blackfoot River from "A River Runs Through It"

It was my first time to road-trip through the western half of the United States and I thought the scenery was beautiful!

Fog in the mountains of Montana

We finally entered into Idaho!  It was my first time visiting the state.

The mountains of Idaho

Driving over Fourth of July Pass :)

And ... we finally made it to our last state!  

Welcome to Washington!

Does this mean we are there?!

The open road in Washington

Eastern Washington

We stopped to stretch our legs and enjoy the view

Boats on the water (I don't remember exactly where this was)

Yikes

Beautiful

Love the bridge

Close-up

Finally seeing signs for Everett!

(I know it's blurry, but it says Everett)

And then, we hit Memorial Day, rush-hour Seattle traffic.  And rain.  It was the perfect introduction to life in Washington.  And it was the first time on the entire trip that I got antsy and bored.  We were SO close, but still so far.  

We finally made it to our new apartment in Everett.  Where we promptly waited three weeks to get the remainder of our belongings.  Three weeks is quite a long time to sleep on an air mattress.  We ended up buying bar stools for the breakfast bar so we would have somewhere to sit and a small TV because our cable and internet was installed before we received our shipment.

All in all, it wasn't a bad drive.  I think everyone should drive across the country once in their lifetime.  Or, if you don't want to do that, at least take road trip through the western half of the States, it is so beautiful!

I hope you enjoyed these posts - I will be back next week with a recap of our trip to Hong Kong!

Moving West - Day 4

Day Four dawned bright and early ... we had to sight-see in Keystone before hitting the road and heading to Missoula, Montana.  J. and I technically met in Montana and, while I wanted to head back to where it all began (Big Sky), he wanted to stay in Missoula because that's where a River Runs Through It was filmed.  He's such a romantic.  Missoula was actually farther down the road and closer to Washington so, at the end of the day, it made more sense.  

Our route for the day:

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Mt. Rushmore

A close-up

Another close-up

I was slightly worried that I was going to be disappointed by Mt. Rushmore.  We visited Hoover Dam in January 2010 and I was majorly underwhelmed.  I was worried the same thing would happen with Mt. Rushmore but, I am happy to report, that that was not the case!  If you have the opportunity to see Mt. Rushmore, you should definitely take it!

One of the few pictures we took along the way

Our new home

Our old home

One last picture

And then we were off!

 The scenery was starting to get better:

 Welcome to Wyoming!

 Addy getting some fresh air:

Lucy getting some fresh air:

I love her little ears :)

We took a slight detour in Wyoming to see Devil's Tower.

Our first glimpse of the tower:

They were about ready to jump out of the car and run away:

We made it through Wyoming and into Montana!

Our first glimpse of mountains:

While we didn't stay in Big Sky or Bozeman, we did stop in Bozeman.  We definitely need to go back at some point in our lives.  Big Sky was great skiing and we've got a lot of great memories there!

We made it to Missoula - we stayed just outside of the city in a LaQuinta Inn (they are dog friendly for all you people road-tripping with dogs!).  J. was underwhelmed with Missoula.  I am sure there is more to see and we would have had more fun if we could explore the town a bit more, but we didn't see much before hitting the road for our last day of traveling!

Moving West - Day 3

Wednesday morning dawned bright and early ... and luckily, both of our cars were still outside.  Two nights before we arrived at his sister's house, her car was stolen out of the driveway(!) so we were slightly nervous about the fact that our cars (packed full of our belongings) were sitting outside all night.  

Our convoy

Our route for the day:

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We started off and made a small detour to have breakfast at Braum's!  I was happy to see that the company had expanded to Kansas since I moved out of the Southwest. 

Addy was glued to the window, watching the plains of Kansas pass by:

Or maybe she was looking at these windmills:

Eventually, everyone decided it was time for a nap.  Don't they look so comfortable?

We arrived in Nebraska:

Where they have classy restrooms:

We drove through the tip of Colorado, which was slightly out of the way, just so J. could get a picture of the Colorado state sign.  He is trying to get a picture of each state's sign that he visits and he had been to Colorado but didn't have a picture of the sign.

Now he has two!

We drove back into Nebraska and had to make one more small detour after seeing a billboard for Carhenge.  Such a bizarre little place, but isn't that what driving across the country is all about?  

Are we there yet?

We watched the sun set over Nebraska:

and finally made it into South Dakota:

And we finally made it to our destination for the evening ... Keystone, South Dakota!

Before we checked in to our hotel, we made a quick trip up to see Mt. Rushmore at night:

All in all, it was another good day on the road.