So just as Zach had requested here is my final post:)
We got home quite early Wednesday around five am. Chris drove and I did my very best to stay up and talk to him and though be said I did talk the whole time most of the time my eyes were glazed or closed haha

This trip was amazing… I loved every minute of it. We got to see eleven states four time zones and over 2800 miles of our country…
We saw license plates from 32 states and 4 provinces
We saw the Mississippi the missouri and the pacific ocean
We saw the cascades the Rockies and the prairies
We saw art history and inspiration, we saw the highest building in the western hemisphere and the largest silver mine in the nation.
We saw family and friends, cities and plains, we racked up felonies and misdemeanors 🙂 we sang we fainted we laughed we climbed we posed we smiled we worshiped we drove.

There were good sites and one bad one, and tons of memories. All in all we had the best trip I could have asked for and I miss it sorta. Maybe sometime again maybe not but def the best it could be…..thanks to you our devoted readers, Joseph, signing out….

It was still dark this morning when we left Des Moines. I’m glad to report that we made it through the night without any “close encounters” with our room ghost. So we began the 5ish hour drive to Chicagoland. During that trek we finally crossed the 2000 mile mark:

Chris and Joseph were unimpressed with our accomplishment:

remember you can click on our pics to zoom to embarrassing detail

Finally we arrived and the Willis (Sears) Tower was pretty obvious. We knew that we wanted to go to the top but we had no idea what was in store for us (more of that later).

And I guess stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, cause it looked like we ran into the mob after being in Chicago for all of 10 minutes:

As we turned a corner, we realized the scope of the tower

But Willis would have to wait because we were STARVING. And what do you eat when you’re in downtown Chicago? Duh:

So after stuffing ourselves we grab our tix for The Sky Deck.

So we make our way through the exhibits where we were almost by ourselves and into the intro movie before boarding the elevator. The video gave a quick history of the building and its newest addition…THE SKY LEDGE. So we walk through security and pose in front of a green screen before rocketing upward:

we didn't want to pay $30 so I "borrowed" this from their website.

We also ran into our idols…

not really…

As we got in the elevator there was a cool little movie, but what was most impressive was how fast we reached the 103rd floor. It couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes:

And, of course, the views were fantastic.

Okay, just for the record, Steven was okay with me posting these next pictures. Unbeknownst to us, on the sky deck they installed glass boxes that extend about 4 feet BEYOND THE BUILDING. If you’re an Indian Jones fan it was a little like this:

because you knew you weren’t going to die but it was against every natural instinct in your body to step out. Here’s Steven’s initial reaction:

not a fan of heights

But Steven was determined to have the full experience, so baby steps were taken:

taking his time

if you only do one more thing for the rest of your life...make sure it's clicking on this picture and looking at Steven's face, lol

But he rallies and ventures out

So watching Steven (and having a tingling feeling myself) I decided to go with the immersion method. So I backed up with my eyes closed quoting GOB from Arrested Development, “I’ve made a huge mistake” over and over.

Of course Chris, the brave one, just walks right out.

But eventually, we all get acclaimated and start having fun.

again, rather than paying $30, i command+c & command+v

So we toured the sky deck for about an hour seeing the sights and reading the history of the tower and Chicago we decided to head back down the 103 floors to the bottom.

After the crazy elevator ride to the bottom we looked up to see where we had just been. It was a looooong way up there.

Then the spaceship landed…

and it was shiny

So after we saw the aliens we headed back to the car to run up to north Chicago to see my buddy Eric and his sweet apartment.

So that was our Chicago trip. We got on the road and had plans to stop in Louisville to spend the night but Chris and Joseph were rockstars and said let’s go for it tonight. Knowing that it’s at least 10 hours to Huntsville from Chicago we pulled and I found the coffee deal of a lifetime…64oz for $4.99!

So I just knew that I was gonna be totally wired for the trip home…

but alas, as soon as put my head down i was out, lol. But Chris and Robby were AMAZING. All I know is I stirred twice and they had brought us home. Hopefully, they’ll write and fill in those last 8 hours I was completely unconscious.

All and all we lived a charmed week. Every hotel was amazing and cheap thanks to Dunner. Somehow, we got to do every single thing we wanted to and still got back early. It honestly seems like a lifetime ago we left for Seattle but it’s only been 6 days. But none of it would be possible if it hadn’t been for the overwhelming generosity of Mr. Dunne. Not only did he bless Steven with a new car but with me one as well (I’ll be getting Steven’s old Maxima). We’re so grateful for the kind words and comments and hope you enjoyed the pics and laughs as much as we did.

Hey y’all. Sorry no Chicago update yet…it’s a long one. We drove (by “we” I mean Chris and Joseph) all night last night from Chicago and got home around 4 this morning. I’m about halfway through the Chicago update and I’ll try to get the guys to all do a summary of the trip (maybe even Christopher). But we are home safe and I’ll let everyone know via Twitter and Facebook when the Chicago and drive home post is up.

Thanks so much!

So we’d driven forever through the boringness that is South Dakota to finally arrive in Des Moines pretty exhausted but excited for the concert. Since Steven booked us in a historic downtown hotel I was pumped when I saw that they had a huge hot tub!!! My scoliosis was so excited! It was even more excited after a 3 hour stand-a-thon that is a United Concert. The deal was it closed at 11pm, so when the concert ended about 10 I couldn’t wait to unwind. Walking to the concert I commented on how this hotel reminded me of the one in The Shinning.

actual picture of the hot tub!

So we get back and I race to the room to find this:

Somehow, either  the door latch had closed itself…OR WAS THERE SOMEONE IN OUR ROOM?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Steven and I start to do what I call “giggle-panic”. So I start to try and jimmy the lock while saying, “Hey! Is someone in there?!?!” ’cause all our stuff was!

So after listening intently, I decided that there was no one in our room and we made our way to the lobby. When we got there we asked, “Does this happen a lot?” and the doorman said he’d never heard of it before…

They call engineering and Jonathan comes to our rescue

but it takes him FOREVER to get the door open. Remember…the clock is ticking on Zach’s Hot Tub Time.

I'm almost in tears over the shrinking Hot Tub Time

So we start chatting him up and found out that this lady that used to work in the hotel (which is over 100 years old) always told him that it was haunted and that back in the day when the windows opened some dude jumped out of the window! Great, now we’re in a haunted room and apparently they don’t want to share. Joseph had wanted to stop in a ghost town…well this is as good as it gets in that department.

So we did eventually get Hot Tub Time and my back was so happy. And of course we giggled ourselves to sleep making ghost noises and going “what was that”, etc. We were basically 8th graders on our first night at camp.

Well Des Moines has come and gone. We were really impressed with the city which at one point boasted the tallest building west of the Mississippi. The city was large and well laid out. We had really done a mammoth drive from rapid city all day albeit with one nice scenic overlook where snakes abounded

and Zach raced his camera timer for our standard group pic!

So when we arrived in Des Moines it was relieving to see that our priceline ninja Steven had secured us a super nice hotel right downtown. We had a suite that was on the corner with a nice view (though not as nice as what the doorman had promised, but then again he IS the doorman) the nicest part of this hotel was the skywalk it was a part of. This allowed for a completely enclosed walkway from our hotel all the way to the wells Fargo arena. Interestingly enough besides our flights the only set in stone date we had for our entire trip had been this night in Des Moines. Tonight we had floor tickets to see hillsong united!

We were quite stoked and breezed our way through ticket taking with three tickets not four.(I had bought 4 and was mailed 3 and 1 without a barcode) thanks negotiation skills not to mention motivation!
The arena was large but had been curtained off at the higher levels and as such was quite an intimate venue. The four of us were on the floor for the while concert.

While all along we had been anticipating a great concert Joel Houston reminded us at the beginning (as you hillsong lovers know already) that this was not to be a concert nor an event but an encounter with God. Boy was he right. After our long trip (Iowa is now our seventh state and third time zone) after our face to face with natures splendor repeated so many numerous times and all the great time for reflecting and prayer this trip has allowed for we needed an outlet, a release for our praise. Who better to praise then the sculptor of the mountains the instigator of the mighty magnum pushing devils tower into the heights, the painter of the badlands, the artisan responsible for snow capped peaks and the framer of the world? All the magnificent sights seen made of man from the heights of the space needle to the metal horses running free to the majestic hills embracing and commemorating custers men to the craggy cliffs framing our famed presidents each were works of man accentuated by our god who made the various landscapes surrounding each.
As we sang I felt a surge of worship. A God this big demands, deserves my worship and I was ready to give it….

It makes sense to devote my life to him. It clicks to realize his mercy and grace by reaching out to me. Its real that others need desperately to know him also. And so we worshiped at the one scheduled event for us but also perhaps more importantly the one that was prescheduled by god.
Be encouraged today!

Just wanted to throw up a quick post for those waking up this morning about our “plans” for the day.

We’re about 5 hours from Chicago where my buddy Eric lives. He doesn’t get off work till 4, but we’re hoping that he might be available for lunch so that we can make it home late tonight. If not we’ll be home Wednesday afternoon.

Okay! We’re arriving in Des Moines now. Steven got us a hotel downtown within walking distance of the concert so that’ll be nice. Iowa is pretty much what you’d expect, gentle rolling hills and corn.

Tomorrow we will get up early and head to see my friend Eric in the Windy City.

Also, we wanna thank everyone for following. We’re almost to 700 hits which is more than I (Zach) ever imagined. Please continue to pray for us as we travel.

I’ll be honest…I wasn’t sure if the 50ish miles out of our way was going to be worth it. As we were getting closer I realized that Devil’s Tower was the big thing in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So Chris and I spent the time on the winding road trying to figure out the tune they used to talk to the aliens…Chris says he was doing it right but I thought he changed it every time he did it, lol. Here’s the tune:

Close Encounters

So finally we see this thing and we’re blown away.

It looks like a giant tree trunk! But at this distance we still didn’t understand how giant this beast was. Even in the parking lot you don’t grasp the scope.

As we got closer we spotted a climber on the rock…That dude was crazy. Click on the pic to make it bigger and look for the idiot in the red shirt.

Here’s a zoomed in look from Joseph’s camera, again click to zoom it. This really puts this thing in perspective:

So we decided to go up for a closer look. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. Here’s a pic from the trail that goes around:

So it’s obvious what’s going to happen at this point. We’re going to climb this bugger. And climb we do

higher and higher.

Keep in mind that the elevation of Huntsville is 600′. At the ranger station below we were already over 4200′! I don’t know if it’s enough to make a difference but we’re gonna go ahead and say this was difficult because of the elevation and not because we’re wimps. So we get to the place we get together for a group pic…

Chris couldn’t stand the prospect of touching this thing so with little to no discussion we just looked up and started climbing with Chris flying ahead (he’s the shrinking white dot).

So I took off after him as fast as I could carrying my camera and tripod. After a while (for reflection and not because I was sucking air) I shot some pics of what was behind me.

In this pic you can play "Where's Steven?"

Quickly, we turn to continue pursuing Chris and we caught up:

The terrain rapid was becoming more and more difficult. Between carrying my camera and tripod, Chris with his hole-ridden shoes, and Joseph being in flip-flops it was becoming super hard to keep climbing. So unfortunately Joseph (for no other reason than his flip-flops) found his limit:

same pic from the opposite direction

But you turn around for a second and Chris ends up 100 feet past you. This boy was motivated…

It wasn’t too much longer before I found my limit also. I was fine climbing up 45-50 degree rocks as long as there was stuff around me to grab…but I ran out of that and heard either the Holy Spirit or my wife (probably both) telling me that my ascent was done, lol. But from where I was there was some amazing pics to be taken:

Undeterred, Chris pressed on and eventually made it all the way to the base of the tower!

Chris becomes my new hero….

So here’s a breakdown of our progress (Joseph and I are in yellow because we’re chicken)

So freshly out of breath we descend and get our token group picture

On the way back we found out we became felons (an offense that Joseph and Chris would repeat before the night was over, but that’s on the Rushmore post)

So exhausted (again, because of the altitude and not our physique) we hop in the car and head back down. But as we go down we see wild turkey about to cross the road and Chris yells out, “Oh look! She’s got her BABIES with her!”

But as we got closer we realized that “she” wasn’t with her babies but HE was making babies, bwahahahaha..

and he was not happy we interrupted

So we don’t go 100 feet more and I scream out DEER!!!! And as we turn the corner we see dozens of praire dogs and deer just walking around. So of course we got out shot a ton of pics:

It was an amazing place and probably my favorite to date. Again, all of the photos can be seen on the sidebar on the right to access our flickr account.

We are COMPLETELY up to date on our photos. Every photo we’ve taken up to this point is now in that account! Go check it out now!

We’re pulling up to the corn palace now so more pics to come!

So We are on I-90 about 104 miles away from Sioux Falls.  We still have a pretty long way to go.  Today has been pretty awesome so far.  We left Rapid City early this morning and our first stop was Wall Drug in Wall South Dakota.

I LOVED IT.  So much really cool and random stuff there.

We even saw a Giant T-Rex which made me laugh a lot.

I was so happy about the cheap coffee and home made donuts.

I won’t lie I love donuts and they were very good.  We are about to be at the corn palace so I will update more after that stop.

Ok so we stopped at the corn palace…..

And it was by far the worst part of the trip so far.  We found Mitchell found the corn palace and were totally underwhelmed.

I would say that I will never go back there.  When we walked into the corn palace it was just a big basketball arena.  It made no sense.  Oh well I guess if that’s the worst part of the trip no big deal.

I’m uploading every single photo we’ve taken to our flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49381215@N07/

PT…this is for you.

I only gotten through about the first day and uploaded about 300 photos.

That being said we’re on our way for Day 3 on the road. Steven knocked it out of the park again on hotels. We stayed at another Fairfield (this one with a waterpark, lol) and everyone slept very soundly. We’re going to be a little more motivated today. We’ve got to make Des Moines by 7pm tonight for Hillsong United. What we’re going to try to do before here and there:

Wall Drug (might not be open when we pass it)

The Badlands

The Corn Palace

United

Not to beat a dead horse, but we’re seeing some amazing terrain. Finally, we got to the point where we had to stop and pose for another pic. So we went up the hill…no, Joseph did not run up there lol.

And the views did not disappoint

They thought about going over but we didn’t.

Country boys…

The tiny highway below

It wasn’t long until we saw another scenic view and we couldn’t pass up the view (again) especially because of the rain clouds moving in.

So after a long day in Montana, we said hello to Wyoming

We stopping in Sheridan for lunch and I really needed to eat…

The place was amazing with an 8 page menu that had every variety of food imaginable

This is Joseph’s “Chunks of Meat in a Circle” (actual name) You know you’re getting a lot when they bring your food on server platters.

Mount Rushmore.

How we have said ur name so often in reference to our trip. Always the discussion was “oh well see Mt. Rushmore and some other cool sites”… We centered most of our trip knowing that we would be enjoying this most majestic of monuments and it was truly a highlight.
As our day progressed we began to realize that due to our incredible enjoyments of General Custer’s last stand and the spectacular devil’s tower, and a roadtrip necessity, a speeding ticket (actually a warning!) we were hard pressed for time.
We did some quick planning and found that we could make it to rapid city around two hours drive from devils tower this put us there at just about 8PM meaning a faint glimpse of hope for some remaining light! To be sure we called the office for the figurehead monument and were assured the title of this post.
With this new hope we set on our way. As we went we found that rapid city was actually thirty mind south of the park and the speed limit was a strict 25 up the windy roads.
Nothing daunted we persevered and found to our delight that the lights were still on though we were quite the only visitors. Very eerie as the friendly lady on the phone had also stated that “technically the park does not close”…. And as we walked by silent flags and empty visitor centers we were struck with awe for the silent regality of this place.

The carvings were gorgrous and simply elegant. The park was very well laid out and had a giant ampitheatre to view the mountain…
As it was so silent Chris and I decided to go around the nature trail. This wound right around directly to the base of the gravel stones that tumbled gracefully down the mountain like a complimenting setting for a brilliant gemset.

As we saw just how close the trail was to the base it was overwhelmingly tempting to see a little more!
Now, in our defense we found no signs prohibiting any “extended tourism” and that nice lady had promised the lights to be on much later(its only 9 at this time) AND the park doesn’t close…. So needless to say Chris and I hopped the fence and headed up.
The going was surprisingly easy and the brilliant lights helped tremendously (though giving an ominous and thrilling feeling at the same time) we soon passed the trees and were climbing right up. We were less than twenty five feet from touching their faces

and then BOOM….. The lights were gone. Just like that the entire mountain was pitch dark!

Haha we decided our journey had gone far enough and we slowly and tediously made our way back down though st a much slower pace than before haha…thanks mysterious park lady for your misinformation. That is now the adventure that never was…..

lots of pics and stories, lol.

Today started out with beautiful views of the scenery and the remnants of the rockys. Absolutely breath taking and just big.

We can’t get over the breadth of the panarama of natures ampitheatre….truly marvelous.
As we neared the end of Montana we arrived at custers last stand. Of course as this a national park. And as you our avid readers already know, this is national park free week, we entered with no charge! The park is laid out in the rolling hills with the spectacular mountains just faintly in the distance.
The park is large and serene. Though the highway exit had boasted casinos wedding chapels and other gaudy tourist traps this picturesque memorial had an altogether different feel.

This was a memorial, not a tourist attraction, a site set apart for honor and not profit.
Its hard to describe the calm and the reverence that this park held for the fallen dead both native American and from the 7th Calvary.

This memorial was desgined to honor and remember both as it claimed rightfully so that “history belongs to all people.”
The hill was marked with small markers where the dead had fallen, dusty red for the sioux land other tribesmen and white for soldier. Near the top of.the bill a very large nunber of headstones marked the final stage of the battle.

The bodies had been excavsted a long time ago to prevent erosion and possible damage and were placed in a single vault while the officers were scattered accross the east and. General custer himself buried at west point.

All in all a very well done historical park and each of us greatly enjoyed visiting….

Alright! Steven did amazing with our hotel last night…it was awesome! We all slept really soundly. We traveled 699.2 miles yesterday and still can’t believe what we’re seeing in the terrain. It continues to seem more and more ridiculous. Some things we’re going to try and see today are:

Little Big Horn

Devil’s Tower

Mount Rushmore

And a whole heck of a lot of more Montana.

The strangest thing for me has been fighting one of my most hardcore, natural idiosyncrasies: having a detailed itinerary. Flying by the seat of my pants always feels incredibly unnatural but on this trip has been awesome.

We had been in the car a while so when we saw a sign for a historical ranger post we decided to check it out. It was a little off the beaten path but eventually we knew we were getting close when we ran out of paved road.

Pulling up we saw old buildings with new equipment…but not a human to be found. It was sorta creepy.

So we explored it! It didn’t take long for the single guys in the group to find some company…

And Chris even got a kiss…

Then we made it to Butte, Montana for dinner. But as we approached the city we were confused by this glowing orb on the mountain.

Using Joseph’s handy-dandy wi-fi we found that it was a 90 foot Virgin Mary!…random doesn’t come close. Unfortunately, the gondala is only open in the summer so we couldn’t get a closer look so you’ll have to google it if you haven’t already.

Now we’re closing in on the Fairfield Inn of Bozeman, Montana which our priceline ninja (dunner) got us into for $11/person. It’ll probably be closer to midnight MST before we see any pics posted but we promise they’re worth the wait.

So as I am sitting in the backseat of the car I must admit I have been blown away by the vastness of what we’ve seen today. We are surrounded by hundreds of mountains that Just keep getting bigger. One of the reoccurring quotes from today has been “I just don’t understand” That has been said in the context of just how amazing everything is we are seeing.

As I have been reflecting on Gods glory through His creation today one question keeps coming to mind: “who preaches the gospel to the people who live here?” I asked this question so many times. I have been troubled by this all day but then I was reminded by this verse in Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

God Is not silent. No He is shouting His love from every aspect of the creation. So tonight I am overwhelmed by his Glory and Love for me. So thankful that the creator of all I have seen today came to this small blue planent and Died for me!

I will end with the words of Paul from Phil 2:5-11

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

So we realized earlier that we desperately needed to get our pictures in order so that you our devoted reader would be able to more fully enjoy the beauty we are seeing. With that in mind we googled a mcdonalds with wifi for lunch. We were going to enjoy lunch while using the wifi to load the pictures from my computer. Unfortunately we found only one plug and decided it was a helath code violation for us to plug in there….
So we went to Walmart got a memory card reader which was a huge lifesaver…. As we drove we got to load them up including our new banner pic yep, were cool…..

So as we left Washington and entered Idaho we continued to see more and more snowcapped mointains and were driving right into them so seeing a historical site we decided to stop. Definitely the best idea. Our random stop put us at the largest silver producer for north and south America states- over $5 billion!

We followed a tiny trail and as evergreen branches brushes our faces on either side the ground became more and more covered in snow.

Did we make snow balls? Oh yes.

Did we take pictures yes indeed. Have we uploaded them? Nope.

Tonights the night ladies and pt so it will be worth it all I promise!

Maybe it was the high altitude and hiking but I’m starting to get super sleepy. We haven’t eaten yet so that’ll help. We’re not too far from Spokane and we’re going to find a place to eat with wi-fi so you guys can enjoy the pics we’re taking. Basically, all of us forgot our cords to connect to our computers and so we’ll add photos to our blog sites at night.

Hey guys-

So I love outdoors.

I spend every waking moment in them, nature and I are so close we could be considered identical twins. My very life is consumed with the next opportunity that I will be able to soak up the sun in a natural environment. I simply am most at home outdoors and all who know me agree. (ok so if you still believe this, lets go to lunch someday so you can really know me…. ooh eating!) So with that background in mind as we are driving to the city of Spokane we saw a beautiful scenic overlook and decided it was absoultely nessecary for us to be up on top seeing the world from that angle.

The view was magnificent, mountains all around a large body of water opening below, the tiniest ribbon of an interstate, I thought to myself, it’s just so soothin’….

After the car was parked we began the trek up, at the top we could see beautiful iron statues of wild horses manes flowing in the wind.

They were so beautiful I could not wait to see them, to run my hand down their smooth bodies and pat their free faces. the thought was so overwhelmingly attractive I decided to run up the hill!

And oh run I did.

I beat all the other guys up, mine to enjoy the immenisty of the nature landscape spread before me. As the others joined me at the top they also began to enjoy the view, taking pictures and posing next to the mighty horses.

I felt slightly off as I surveyed the beauty before me, and decided to sit.

It had been a steep climb by the way. As i rested I tried to focus on chris posing on magneficient stallion but could not focus on him. Why is Chris so blurry? He usually isnt. I hear Steven and Chris begin to call for us to get a group picture, faint they sound. Why can’t I hear? Zach is setting up the tripod…..ill get up in a minute….. why are my ears buzzing….. why can’t I move? its very apparent now, I am moments away from blacking out.

I wanted to black out, but I desperately knew I was about to puke, and all I could think about was blacking out and then puking and dying from all the puke stuck in my throat. I summoned all my strength and stayed conscious. “COME ON! Get in the picture! We’re all waiting for you!!!!!’ I heard Chris and Zach and Steven calling, but I said, nope, go ahead, im about to pass out. With that I laid down in those rocks and just waited. How embarassing.

I heard the cameras clicking around me and weakly gave a thumbs up, inwardly vowing not to be the “heavy one” ever again…

Im better. I am fully enjoying walking down to the car, way behind the others, enjoying breathing and walking and knowing gatorade was awaiting me in the trunk, missing from the group picture,

but completely at one in nature. I had visited, suffered and recovered. The breeze hits my face, the view opens again, the trunk is open…. so soothin’…..

We left at 8:17 pst and just drove through The Cascade Mountain Range. The pictures will never do justice to what we just saw.

I completely understand why people are so “green” here. If I lived here, I’d be passionate about conserving this place as well. There was a “wow” and “whoa” about every 1/4 mile as we twisted and turned and climbed. It was a real quiet and worshipful time.

So now we’re on our way! We are going to tentatively head to Spokane for lunch with Coeur d’Alene shortly after that for a photo op. Pray for us that we have an awesome trip and we’ll be fixing the photos when we get to the hotel tonight. We’re thinking Billings, MT…but we’ll see how that works out. 🙂

Our second half in Seattle.

After Pikes Place market we walked 6 blocks to the Seattle Underground. None of us were quite sure if it was a “real underground” or just figurative…we were very happy to find out that it was indeed and underground city below Pioneer Square.

While waiting for our 2:00 tour we spotted the most specialized shop we’d ever seen. Next door to the Underground was a “Utilikilts” shop.

This was not just a kilt shop…these were UTILIkilts. To quote their business card, “American made utility kilts for everyday wear…We sell freedom.” Lol. It was hilarious

and I was curious…

But as we started the 90 min underground tour we learned a ton about the founding of Seattle. Long story short, the original town was flooded twice a day by the tides from Puget Sound…which got super annoying. But then there came a fire that destroyed all of the original downtown. So when they rebuilt they built the roads they built them between 8 and 30 feet tall, so if you wanted to cross the street downtown, you literally had to walk to the corner and go up and down a ladder! Crazy. The underground was the original first floors that became basements when they filled in the streets…30 years later, so we were walking on the original sidewalks below the current ones…confused? It’s hard to explain, but worth the price of the ticket for the history.

After the underground we took the bus back to Kent where Steven’s dad lives and met some very interesting characters. Apparently in Seattle, cigarettes are $7-8 a pack and so this guy kept trying to sell us Newports for $5, lol.

When we got back to Kent, Steven and his dad went to dinner so Joseph, Chris and I stopped at an outdoor mall (kinda mini-Bridge Street) for dinner. We weren’t hungry at first so we walked around and saw a Game Workshop in the distance. So Joseph suggested we stop by to try and get some card games for the road…it wasn’t that kind of game shop. We walked in and there were large tables set up all around with what looked like those tiny soldiers you buy your kids in a bucket.

Very quickly we realized we’d stumbled upon a sub-culture. The guy who worked there, Steve, was very passionate about these games. Basically, it was a way to replay scenes from Lord of the Rings or play out battles in the other genre called Warhammer 40,000.

Steve was amazing and very patient with us as he described the games. He actually gave us some free game pieces. I got Gandalf, Joseph got Aragon, and Chris got Frodo. Finally, knowing this was something we wanted to remember, we had Steve take a picture with Space Marine Steve (i think).

you can barely see our little game pieces...

After that we headed over to a sushi shop and it was AMAZING!

All throughout the place there was a conveyer belt that carried color-coded plates. Each color represented a different dollar amount.

It was SOOOO good.

All in all, it was the best day we could ask for in Seattle. The weather was AMAZING and stayed about 60 degrees all day. I wish we had more time but there’s too much ahead of us and we’re excited to get to it!

Wahoo! Seattle bound! We left Huntsville at 5PM and flew into Dallas! As Chris and I were being dropped off by the excellent Matt Sloma a moment of panic struck me and I exclaimed oh no! Who will be picking us up from the airport?! Chris looked at me weird and I realized oh yeah… Were driving back. DRIVING BACK. Yup were idiots! All trip long it would sink in at various times! We are driving over all four continental time zones and seeing more than a dozen states with greater than 3000 miles expected to be logged….. Jealous? Yeah u should be…..

We landed late and went to Stevens dads place. See picture below.

They were great to open up their home even giving us food for the trip!

The next morning we got up early and headed into downtown. The space needle gave some fantastic views and the mountains were just barely visible…

We then went into the coolest museum…. The science fiction museum.

This museum glorified all things sci fi and we vastly enjoyed it…. see supporting pictures for awesomeness…. Also take a look at the guitar mountain that was also housed on the same building. Logically enough the Music project was sharing space with the trekkies. Yoda and Jimi Hendrix….. Anyway. Afterwards we headed to the market of thrown fish and bright tulips. Zach dearly wanted fresh salmon and we never really found any. We did find.a magic shop a sea monster and a great piece of helpful info courtesy of Elizabeth…. Ur not ready for this same as us…. This week is national park get in free week. Yup. U can see it on their website…. So this trips pretty much destiny……p.s. Sorry if this post is weird with photos were driving and still figuring out this….check in later!

Welcome to the blog! This blog will chronicle the 3,000 mile trip that Zach Johnson, Joseph Henley, Chris Rudd, and myself(Steven Dunne) will be taking the next 5 days.

A preview for today:

Stopped at Secruity
Space needle
This is not the Sci-Fi museum
Great food
Underground Seattle

-Steven