2600 miles in a car....

We had the opportunity to travel to the Seattle WA area in April to be present for Jordan and Lindsey's wedding. It's been 7 months in the planning.
We left on Sunday April 15 and drove to Orem. There we crashed on Uncle K and Aunt N's floor. We got up on Monday, grabbed a bite to eat and hit the road again. 12ish hours later we made it to Uncle E and Aunt M's house in Vancouver WA where we again crashed for a night.
We got in the car again on Tuesday and drove to Pacific City, OR and spent 24 hours at the beach, where a very cool beach house(separate post) had been rented for the night. On Wednesday we sadly left the beach behind and drove 5 hours up to Bellevue, WA. There were a couple of stops on the way to collect the goods for the wedding luncheon we were hosting after the sealing and before the reception, before we got to our hotel. Thanks to Uncle E we were about 1/4-1/2 mile from the temple!
Thursday we only drove as far as the temple, the church for the dinner and the yacht club for the reception, which were pretty close, relatively speaking. 15 min max! Almost a day of rest. Our goal was to get up early on Friday the 19th and drive like mad to get home that night since Curtis and Nina had a track meet on Saturday in Blanding. Unfortunately we didn't get up and going when we would have liked and the weather was not cooperative. I think we hit snow 3 times and got rained on most of the way, most heavily in Boise. We got to Orem about 2 am after 17 hours on the road and dropped Ford off. Curtis and I looked at each other and said, 'That's it. We're done.' It just didn't seem wise to try to get home when we were so tired and the road over the summit was likely to be bad. So we found a hotel and crashed for 8 hours. Saturday we leisurely drove the remaining 4 hours home. We had a wonderful time but spending almost a week straight sitting in a car is a bit crazy. The kids were mostly awesome. It could have been a nightmare but it was not, thanks to them being patient and getting along.
Here are some pictures I took from my seat in the car:

Look! We haven't even left town yet and they're miserable.

This is the weather that greeted us Monday morning when we left Orem for WA. Fun!

And even more FUN! (Near Willard Bay)

Ipods and Ipads for music, games and audio books. Sure helped us pass the time.

The big kids were pretty helpful (and entertaining) with the little kids. We have some awesome kids.

It was tight quarters in the Suburban. We are thankful to have a 9 seater!

Probably one of our first sightings of the Snake River. It seems big til you see the Columbia!

The Snake River gorge near Twin Falls. You have no idea that this big crack in the earth is there until you come up to the edge of it. Wow! (Sorry for the finger in the way. Maybe I'll edit it out, maybe not.)

More snow falling as we drove through the mountains from LeGrande to Pendleton OR

There are lots of bridges between Portland OR and Vancouver WA....this is one of them.

Heading south through Portland to the beach.

Lots of overpasses in Portland. The blue van in front of us is Uncle Erin!

Heading into a tunnel. We thought it was interesting that there were buildings and houses above the tunnel. 

Inside the tunnel. Interestingly, on the other side of it there wasn't as much 'civilization', just lots of green.

Just out of the canyons into the valley where Tillamook is. Wondered why Grandpa couldn't have inherited fertile land like this to raise his cows on. Those looked like some happy cows! The green was intoxicating.

More happy cows.

The private community where the beach house was located. All the landscaping was natural. No mowed grass etc. Just a very windswept look, including the sand all over the roads.

Just crossing a portion of the Columbia River on our way back to WA. Lots of yachts and sailboats here.

Leaving Seattle and heading home this is what we encountered almost the entire way. Rain. In WA? haha

Thankfully we had replaced our windshield before our trip. It has had a leak and it would rain in the car when it rained outside. No inside rainstorms on our trip!~

This was near Snoqualmie Pass. Still quite a bit of snow up there. Wishing I could load some up and bring it home for our mt.

Just a lake we passed on our way home. I thought the low lying clouds, tree-covered mountains and lake were pretty. Probably out to edit out the road, but since most of my pictures were taken from the car, it accurately records our trip.

Eastern WA?? Seriously I wondered if we had already gotten to San Juan County. Just sage brush and rock and bits of grass. Soil is a different color, but the vegetation is pretty much the same.

apparently, that dry landscape can be transformed into productive farmland. Amazing what a good source of water can do. I kept thinking of the phrase, "the desert shall blossom as the rose."  Grape vines in front and fruit trees in the rear. Near Richland and Yakima WA

Just showing the contrast of the natural vegetation and the irrigated crops.