Road Trip Recap

I thought since we are now back home, I should give a recap of all the places we were over the last nine weeks.  7,900 miles and many places visited!  Fortunately for you all (or not so fortunately if pictures aren't your thing), I love Instagram and took plenty of photos to document our travels (if you don't know what Instagram is, it's a photo sharing site that has cool filters).  So, from the top - here we go!

We left on Saturday, May 19th from Prosser and drove through

Oregon

and Idaho...

and finally ended up in Utah where we stayed the night in Salt Lake City!

Saturday we got up and visited

Arches National Park!

With all this driving, we needed some entertainment.  Before we left we ordered Focus on Family's Radio Theater of the Chronicles of Narnia.  It made those 10 hour days feel a lot shorter!

 and then...

Colorado!  A little hard to see...you only get once chance to snap the state welcome signs.

We stayed in Colorado for about five weeks and made lots of new friends.  Several of our adventures in Colorado consisted of trips to

Pikes Peak!  14,110 feet of fun. 

At the top of Pikes Peak

We visited Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park, CO

The views were gorgeous!

Also in Colorado we celebrated my birthday.  I love birthdays (and any reason to celebrate).  I got a new pair of TOMS and the ESV journaling Bible.  So exciting!

We then celebrated with friends.  I have a great hubby. :-)

One of our last stops in Colorado was a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens.  So beautiful! 

After Colorado it was on to...

Nebraska!  Where we got to visit some very special friends (to which, I regret I do not have a picture).

Have some s'mores...

And see the official car of Miss Nebraska!  Parked just a few houses down the street from our friends.  Exciting, right?

And then, we hit high temperatures on our way to Texas.

113F in Kansas!!  Are you kidding...the worst is that it actually hit 117F at one point.  Crazy.  

We stayed the night in Wichita and then drove through Oklahoma to get to Texas!

We had so much fun in Texas. 

We went to the zoo!

With David! (Below - not the gator, I don't know his name)

We bought true Texan snacks...the Peach tea was amazing!

And we spent a few days in Houston with Steven's brother and his wife.  They just got a new puppy, the cutest little puppy.

Meet Harlow!

After Texas (and the scorpion sting which can be read in this post), we took to the road again and made our way through...

New Mexico

We're getting road weary here...

All the way to

Arizona!

We took a day and visited the Grand Canyon.  It really is beyond description.  You should go there.  Even in 90 degree heat it was worth it. 

What a view!

After the Grand Canyon we headed north!  After a detour through Nevada...

We entered the Sunshine state.  You know, California should really work on their sign placement. 

Sad thing is, I googled it to see if I could steal someone else's - yeah, everyone had the same picture!  

We stopped in Oregon (no state line picture, see the first one above!) and visited family and met up with some friends in Salem before heading home.  

And finally...

Washington! 

It has been so great to be back in the Northwest and with family.   We have a long list of things to do before we move to China, it's kind of overwhelming!  There's packing to do, goodbyes to say and loose ends to tie up with our condo in Richland.  But we are ready to take an even longer trip across the Pacific! :-)