Day 4-The Home Stretch

Hello, Randy here. We didn't post last night because we made it home after 16 hours and 879 miles from North Platte, Nebraska! We were exhausted and quite road weary. The sinus infection I've been fighting all week with over the counter meds finally knocked me down. I went to the doctor today and got the proper medication. A couple of days rest should have me good as new. Mindy left to go home to Michigan this afternoon. She text messaged me that she feels so low and fast in her car after four days in the beast!

We delivered the truck to the Forbes' house this morning. They were very happy to get their stuff back. Their son and daughter were going to help them unload. It was gratifying to complete the mission. Mindy and I had a good four days together in the truck. Time for good conversation and bonding. We didn't get too cranky until yesterday! HA!

Looking back, we know that God had his hand around us the whole time. There were challenges with weather and my illness, but he never promised us it would be easy, just possible. Phillipians 4:13 says "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." We give all praise to Him who saw us through. We didn't do alot of pictures yesterday as it was all about the miles. When you can smell home, nothing else gets in the way! Also, Nebraska and Iowa are not as photogenic as the western states, at least in the winter time. Thanks for following along and leaving your comments. It was encouraging to us both! God bless you all!

Randy

You can see a million miles tonight but you can't get very far

Hello everyone! We've made it to the middle of Nebraska. That means we drove through the rest of Utah, the whole state of Wyoming and half of Nebraska. We encountered some pretty crazy sights today across Wyoming. We reached our highest point along the trip at 8700 feet, we experienced crazy blowing winds and the least fun of all these things rude workers at the local Subway. Ha!

I posted a couple new pictures of the mountains on the pictures. If you scroll down the link from yesterdays blogs you can look at those. I have to hit the hay due to the fact we have about 800 miles in front of us and we want to make it home tomorrow. It's all about miles now. :-) Please continue to comment we love reading them. Thanks everyone who has been reading, we'll see you soon!

Ogden, Utah

Well blog followers I don't have as much to write tonight mainly because I am so extremly tired. Today was a long hard day of moutain snow driving. Randy likes to say "we cheated death once again as we trecked along the mountain pass through the snow covered trails." While it might have not actually been that death defying it was actually really rough. The moutains of Utah have been the worst so far and the weather has cleared for portions of the day but always starts snowing again. However, in watching the weather channel we may have a clearing after getting over the pass from Utah to Wyoming. We'll there are more pictures up today and I'll load a couple fun videos we took. This truly is amazing country!

- Melinda

P.S. Oh and quick note about Oregon - It's illegal to pump your own gas. Not sure why but Shelley, my boss, would love it!

Out West Trip

Day 2 - Melinda's Take

Out West Trip

If you click on the picture above you should be able to link to all of our pictures so far.

Anyway, hi everyone! We are safely sitting in the Best Western Hotel in La Grande, OR. We only were able to travel about 450 miles today due to several challenges. The first of these challenges lit up on the dasboard of the truck at 6:00 A.M. while we were still in Seattle. The little "Fuel Filter" light caused some uneasiness, so we contacted Budget truck rental and they routed us to an International Truck dealer for repairs. The fuel filter and a couple other parts were replaced and we took off around 9:30 A.M.

As we left Seattle, the lovely weather began to affect our trip. We drove through some beautiful country with some ugly weather. Rain was followed by snow followed by rain again. The truck, however, seems to ride pretty well in the weather. We had some fairly smooth sailing through Columbia River valley. This place is gorgeous! If you look to the south as your riding east on I-84 there are beautiful mountains with snow covered trees and waterfalls. On the left we drove right along the Columbia river which is a very large river. We saw many barges (eek I HATE big boats) cruising along the river.

The terrain begins to change about 100 miles into Oregon and it becomes a bit more desert like. There are miles and miles of sage brush (tumbleweeds) and it looks much drier. However, it was never really dry during the trip today. :-)

After the desert like setting you begin to climb up into the moutains. We drove through a pass this evening that rose to 4100 feet above sea level. The weather was a bit dicey but we made it through safely.

This brings upon our second challenge of the day - snow chains. Now we don't know too much about snow chains, however, we will be taking a lesson tomorrow morning from the folks at our favorite Western tire store Les Swabb. We need to have the knowledge of how to put these on even if we don't ever have to use the chains.

We want to thank all of your for you prayers and well-wishes. I am in good hands with Randy here. He's been traveling forever! We will travel carefully and will overcome our challenges. In the meantime, we are learning alot about patience! We look forward to continuing to read your comments and well-wishes. It's encouraging after a long hard frustrating day to read nice comments, so keep em' coming!

Melinda

P.S. Below are a couple videos from todays portion of the trip. Click the play button and come along for the ride. :-)

Melinda's Take on Day 1

Okay so day 1 of the 5 day trip is finally coming to an end.  It started very early in Indianapolis, 4:30 AM to be precise.  We woke up and headed out to the airport for our short flight to Chicago departing a little after 7.  After that we literally walked off that flight and onto our Seattle bound flight.  We were a bit concerned that our luggage wouldn't make it but we were delighted to see it slide out of the luggage shoot first.  It must have been the last on! 

After this we picked up snow chains for the truck and went on to the Budget rental car place.  We then went to the storage facility and loaded everything up.  There are pictures of all of this but I am way too sleepy to modify the size.  You can check out this site for more of our pictures.  http://picasaweb.google.com/MelindaJWhite/OutWestTrip?authkey=6dtrS8D5SHo

Seattles Best

We are safe and sound in the hotel here in lovely Seattle, WA.  It is cold and windy but no precipitation as of yet.  We just had a lovely early dinner, trying to make the conversion to the western time zone.  We are about to head out to visit the Space Needle.  I'm very excited to go up to the top.  More blog with pictures to come when we return!  Keep those comments coming! :-)

-Melinda

Goodnight All!

Hey Everyone!

Just checking in before we leave. Dad printed our boarding passes this morning. We're all set for the A group on our southwest flights. That's always a positive thing. We have to be at the airport right around 5:30 AM for our 7:15 AM flight. Weather is looking good so far we're just hoping that it continues to be sunny and not snowy. Say a prayer!

Dad and I got some new boots for the trip. Hence the picture of four boots. :-) We are just trying to live the boy scout moto of "always be prepared" I know mine are real stylish! I don't think I've worn snow boots since I was 10 but I'm just going with the flow. Anyway, it's time to try to catch some ZZZ's before hitting the road. Travel on!

- Melinda

P.S. We look forward to reading all your comments at the end of each days journey, so please click on the comments section right below the new blog entry and leave us some encouragement. I'm sure as the trip goes on we'll sure need it! :-)