Monday's Drive

This is a picture of our room at the Columbia Gorge Hotel. It really doesn't do the place justice. It is a gorgeous hotel and the rooms were definately old and classic. Not a place I would recommend for little ones though. But perfect for a romantic getaway.

All I can say is thank goodness for electronic toys and that we were able to set up our laptop as a DVD player. Otherwise this would have been an even longer trip than it was.

We woke up pretty early Saturday morning because I was anxious to get on the road. It had snowed overnight in Hood River but it was just a dusting and not too bad. Most of this day was pretty uneventful. We had all our toys ready to go and since it was the first day the kids were pretty good. We still had a few moments of them fighting over a toy or hitting each other but this is normal everyday stuff whether we were in a car or not. My goal was to make it to Boise the first day and I'm happy to say we made it. This was even with an hour stop at a McDonalds PlayPlace for lunch so the kids could burn off some of their pent up energy. We also made sure the hotel we stayed at had a pool so we could take them swimming in the evening to help with that too.

Now lest you think this is a picture of nothing, let me assure you it is something. In a portion of Eastern Oregon before we hit the last mountain range before hitting Idaho we hit a patch of fog that was incredibly thick. I've never driven in fog that thick before and Dwayne and I were debating on if we were actually driving through low lying clouds since we were in high enough elevation for that. Needless to say, I'm glad it was daytime and it only lasted about 10 minutes but it was a bit scary to go through and not see anything around you.

If you look right in the middle of this picture you can see the clouds/fog we had driven through.

This is a small video of Evie rockin out to some music we were playing. She was boppin and dancing but, of course every time she noticed Daddy taking a picture she would stop. She was also chomping on a mouthful of jerky which is why her mouth is so full.

We made it to Boise at about 4pm in the afternoon after a full day of driving. I decided I wanted to get to the far side of Boise to avoid any kind of work traffic congestion in the morning. It was about perfect timing since the kids' fighting was escalating from being in the van all day. We found a decent Best Western, went to dinner, threw the kids in the hotel pool for 45 min or so, took our baths/showers, and all of us went to bed. Unfortunately, the kids wouldn't go to sleep unless we did too since the lights and TV were on. Even though I wasn't ready I went to bed early so they could go to sleep. I must say it was probably a good thing for me to get a good night's sleep but I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at about 5 am just waiting for some signs of life in my family so we could get up and get on the road.