Our life: Starting where we left off.... in Eureka!

I had these big plans to make a post each day of our cross country drive. Small problem with that though- since we didn't make and hotel reservations in advance each night Alex was on the computer finding us a place to stay for the next night! That and we never managed to get to our destination till dinner time so by the time we settled in at the hotel & put the bambino to bed I was plum tuckered out and went to bed myself!
So instead of detailed posts here's the down & dirty of our trip...
We left Eureka- both cars loaded! Alex had the mutts in his jeep and it was me & Aidan in the other! First night we made it just outside of Crater Lake in Oregon. Good old Humboldt weather gave us a nice foggy goodbye.

Aidan had his first of many hotel sink baths!

After a quick drive around the rim of the lake, much quicker then Alex would have liked, we headed to Bend where we met up with our good friends the Placido's- well 2 of them at least.

After a nice evening with Elaine & Katheryn we headed to Boise where we would be getting Gina in the morning.

Alex had a leak in his tire so while he was getting that fixed Gina & I found a great deli & managed to get a parking ticket! for the past 4 years in Eureka I never needed to park at a meter- you'd think the one who lives in the city would have reminded me! After a lunch stop at a park (and a swim in the lake for the pups-they didn't have air conditioning!) where we witnessed some poor lady get rear-ended, squishing her bike, on her way to drop it at the staging area for some triathlon that was going to be happening the next day- we headed over the mountains to Jackson Hole! We went though some crazy weather- the temperature plummeted & there was a ton of Gina's favorite- lightning! While going over the pass Alex 'claims' he saw a moose... I'm still skeptical! We woke up the next morning to clear sky's & gorgeous views of the mountains!

We made our way into the resort area of Jackson Hole, took a ride up to the top (Aidan's first time summiting a 10K+ mountain), had some lunch & Gina, Alex & Ned took a mountain bike ride wile I snoozed in the grass with Aidan & Hana.

There was some more crazy weather on our way up into The Grand Tetons but thankfully it was all off in the distance- so it made for some great views & pictures! We camped in the Tetons that night (Aidan's first night camping in a tent!!!) and then made our way into Yellowstone.

We did all the standard Yellowstone stuff... saw the sulfur pots, Old Faithful, tons of elk & buffalo (but no moose! I really wanted to see a moose!) Alex's jeep started acting up & Hana pooped in the car!

There is no internet service in Yellowstone, this kind of put a kink in our 'book a place to stay at the last minute'. After a few days in the park we made our way to Cody Wyoming. It is a small cowboy town that apparently is packed all the time! Because it is so close to the park people who can't get a place to stay inside the park stay there. Needless to say that the middle of summer there was nowhere to stay- especially somewhere that had room for 3 adults, a baby & 2 dogs! Gina and I found the last room at a bed and breakfast and Alex took the pups to the KOA! From here we made our way to Mt. Rushmore & the Crazy Horse Monument and intended on driving though The Badlands National Park. If you look at the map- highway 90 runs right through it, but it doesn't show that there's nothing to see from the highway! So on to Chicago where we met up with Heather, Lindsay & Mikael and had some authentic Chicago style pizza (it was OK but I'm not a huge fan).

Our last stop before home was to drop Gina off in Pittsburgh! We stayed with Matt & his family and he cooked up a nice spread for dinner with some of their friends!