Cross Country Road Trip!

Greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina!

Well guys its been awhile since Ive been here and I haven't filled you all in as to how we got here and where we went so I thought I would get as caught up as I can before heading to pictures to finally get those sent out to you all!

So I left off where? Flying from Maui? I'll start there just so we don't miss anything.

So we flew from Maui to Seattle and got into Seattle quite late! We had already booked a hotel close to the airport and Jason had dealt with travel so we had a town car to pick us up from the hotel in the morning and take up to get the truck. I'm not going to lie the morning was rough.. we were on a 3 hour time difference and had to be up first thing in the morning to get to the docks so that Jason could get to the home office in Bothell before noon.

We got to the docks in Tacoma and picked up the truck and luckily it was still there and so was all of our belongings (THANK GOD!) so we got some gas, because they make you have it on QUITE low to be on the barge.. then we head for Bothell. Tanya and Josh were in Bothell as well as Josh was working from the home office for awhile and Ashley and Nick live in Bothell so us girls got together with Miss Penelope for a visit before Jason and I headed out of town. It was soooooo great to see the girls, the last time Tanya and I saw Ashley and Penelope was in New York and P was just starting to pull herself up, not even walking and now shes walking, talking has a personality.. it was amazing to see them!

Before completely heading out of town Jason and I stopped off at the Bellevue Mall which is one of the nicest malls I have ever been to ever because I was DYING to go to Aritzia and get some new tights! Once we left there we got on the road to take advantage of the nice weather and see how far we could get!

We were a little worried about the Snoqualmie pass in Washington but we had a wonderful day for driving! Washington is a beautiful state that has so much to offer we really wished that we had more time to spend there! We drove all across Washington and into Idaho where I believe we hit our next time change which made 4 hours change for us and put us 2 hours different from the East Coast. We've been to Idaho before, but on the other side of the state which was pretty flat, this side was beautiful!

Finally that night we crossed into Montana which was a lot further than we had expected to make it. It really was a great day of driving although we were exhausted, we hit all of the mountain passes over that way and had perfect weather. We made it a lot further than we had thought but by the time we got into Missoula we knew we needed to stop. It was dark and not only did we see a trooper preparing to shoot an injured deer on the side of the road we were seeing a lot of elk on the side of the road and definitely didn't want to hit anything! Before Missoula the options of a hotel was looking dismal, they were all crap holes surrounded by casino's.. stellar right? We finally found a good hotel and settled in for the night.

Tuesday March 12 - Off to South Dakota

Yesterday Washington, Idaho, Montana.... today Northwest side of Montana down across the whole entire state, down and out the Southeast corner into Wyoming and then into South Dakota!

We felt like shit this morning, honestly 4 hour time difference and all that driving was absolutely MISERABLE! I generally don't do well with a short time change of 2 hours let alone 4.. MISERY! Thankfully the drive across Montana was absolutely gorgeous! Montana is full of mountains, rolling hills, etc. Not to mention all the cows and horses it was really incredible. Jason says that Montana is probably his favorite state to drive across and lord knows we've done the research! However he still swears that no where compares to Alaska.. and he told me to quote him on that!

We saw a ton of baby cows today.. soooo cute! Jason also saw a ton of Elk that I missed on account that I was talking to Dad on the phone and plain and simple just not paying attention! At this point we had been pretty lucky that everywhere we went had a Starbucks, but we stopped in Butte and they had run out of Grande cups and water, I was like.. WTF?!?!

Jason decided to get off of interstate 95 onto highway 212 because the GPS was telling us that it was faster and we ended up going through some Indian reserve that truth be told was a complete disaster  but it had Chief Dull Knife College which I thought was extremely comical.

Montana was also where we started seeing fields and fields of Antelope! I don't think Jason had ever seen them before because he kept saying they were deer and I knew they absolutely were not and then he wanted me to hold the wheel while he looked at them with the binoculars, obviously that wasn't happening and he wasn't impressed!

We hit the corner of Wyoming and truth be told I wasn't the least bit disappointed we didn't go any further into there on account that our last encounter wasn't oh so stellar! Through our small bout in Wyoming I did learn the art of reading a map and Jason made friends with all the truckers! Haha they all kept waving at him and he was totally taking it as a personal salute!This time we escaped unscathed right into South Dakota which is somewhere we had never been before! We went right through Sturgis where they hold the annual motorcycle rally which was pretty amazing! Jason and I both kept saying how much Dad would have loved to have been there! We went to the Harley dealership to get him a shirt but they were closed, friggin' small town everything closes at 5:00pm! I seriously considered breaking and entering until Jason said we could just order one online!

We made it to Rapid City, South Dakota and decided to stop as we had plans to head to Mount Rushmore in the morning! We had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse which was good, it was nice to have a really good hearty meal with all the traveling we've been doing! We were quite tired tonight and really just overall feeling crappy from all the driving and time changes, we decided to just head to the hotel and go to bed early tonight. I usually don't sleep in the truck because I feel like its not fair to Jason but everyday I got closer and closer!

Wednesday March 13th - Mount Rushmore!

Unfortunately neither of us slept last night and therefore this morning seemed miserable from the get go! We knew we had a 12 hour day ahead of us and on no sleep that is never an appealing start!

Ha! Did I mention that South Dakota has these billboards that advertise Bad Ass Rhubarb Wine! Jason joked and said it was acceptable because we were in the badlands.. LOL!

This morning our first stop was Mount Rushmore, we figured although it was an hour out of our way we really wanted to see it, especially after having been to Washington and being to all the Presidential Memorials there! It really was amazing, the detail of something with such a large scale was pretty incredible. They have a lot of educational stuff there as well which was great to see!

After our adventure we got on the road to head to Madison, Wisconsin where we would hit yet another time change making us 5 hours from where we started and one hour difference from the East Coast! Today really wasn't an exciting day, we saw a lot of turkeys and after 12 hours of driving and starting to see a TON of deer on the side of the roads we decided it was best to stop and get a hotel before hitting something!

Thursday March 14th - NORTH CAROLINA!

Today we woke up strategically planning to get through Chicago at a non-traffic time! We got up and got on the road and made it through Chicago around 9:30am which really wasn't all that bad, we barely got any traffic at all compared to what we were expecting! However we spent a million dollars in roadside tolls which as you can imagine made Jason thrilled! We made sure to stop right before Chicago though because we didn't want to get off the interstate in Chicago nor did we plan to stop in Gary, Indiana because its a hole! However we did hit out last and final time change in Indiana! 6 hours later and finally for the first time in over a year we were on East Coast time!

Next we hit Kentucky.. LOVE KENTUCKY! We went right through Louisville and across the state and it was BEAUTIFUL! I really wanted to stay there forever and buy a horse ranch, and dress up and go to the Kentucky Derby! Haha Jason wasn't so sold but it was fabulous there!

Next we hit West Virginia, then Virginia and then finally.. last but not least, the much awaited NORTH CAROLINA!!!!!!!!! It was soooooo great to get there, to see the state line, it didn't even matter to us how late it was it seemed like it was all worth it right then and there!!

We didn't get into Raleigh and into our hotel until 1:30am but we were here and had no reason to wake up early in the morning, finally!! At this point I never wanted to see the truck or the front seat ever again!!

Friday March 15th - House Hunting!

We managed to somewhat sleep in this morning, we woke up seriously not knowing where we were, when to sleep, when to eat, we just felt absolutely awful! We had drove over 3000 miles in no time and went through 6 hours of time changes.. today we felt dizzy!

We however did get up and get around the neighborhood before heading for a much needed Caribou Coffee!! Jason and I absolutely LOVE Caribou Coffee, no kidding we settle for Starbucks everywhere else. After we got coffee we headed to KB Homes to meet with one of the many many people we have been in contact with over the last year!

We had a really long day, which I wont go on about at the builder with all the details.. I will explain the final result later but it pretty much took up our whole day! We had dinner at Chili's and then headed to target to pick up a few things we had run out of before heading back to the hotel to go to bed.

Did I mention how absolutely screwed up we were with all the time changes?

Saturday March 16th - THE SEAVEY'S!!!!!!!!

This morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel before meeting with the builder at the studio to pick out custom pieces for a house! Honestly it didn't go at all like we thought it would and we left feeling a little discouraged but SUPER excited to head to Hope Mills to see the Seavey's!

We were so excited to have a visit with Evan and Brianne! We so thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them, the 80 degree weather, just having a break from all the traveling, etc!

We stayed with the Seavey's from Saturday until Tuesday March 20th which is today and had the most amazing time! We were so hoping Brianne would have had the baby but no such luck, so we have to wait until next time to meet her!!

So we got back into Raleigh today and met with the builders again today and in the end we decided that it just wasn't the right time for us to buy a house. We are pretty disappointed things didn't come together like we had hoped but it is what it is and we made the best decision for us at the time.

Tonight we had dinner and came back to the hotel and although its almost 10:00pm we are going to bed "early" because tomorrow we will get in the truck and start out trip to Maine. Truth be told I am dreading getting in that truck.. the thought makes me sick.. I'm so over traveling and I know Jason is DREADING the drive!

So that is our scoop for now, I don't think we will dig the laptop out of the truck for a couple more days but we plan to go skiing in Maine so either Saturday night or Sunday I will pull the laptop out and fill you in on our trip to Maine and how it all went.

Right now we should be in Maine probably late Thursday night and then we will head to ski on Saturday until Monday and then Monday we are going to Portland for my biometrics appointment with Immigration before heading to see Mel and Jason in Bangor! We plan to leave for Toronto on Wednesday!

We hope all is well and that reading about our adventures is less exhausting then partaking!