Day 1 – June 19 - Tuesday
We woke up at 5am to get an early start on the road. Despite
thunder, lightening, & rain all through Houston, Caleb managed to sleep
until almost Dallas where we only took one wrong turn & peaced out an
entire container of donut holes.
The drive was uneventful & fast… we made it to the
Springs by 6:30pm! Our goal is to take pictures by every state line sign, but
we missed New Mexico! But we were ready for Colorado!
Who needs English music when you have Spanish???
After hitting up REI in the Springs for some last minute
supplies and dropping our stuff at Rob & Nancy’s (Caleb’s old sponsor
family), we met up with some of C-dogg’s buddies for dinner at Chilies. The day would’ve been perfect if only
the Thunder would’ve won…
Day 2 – June 20 - Wednesday
Woke up at 5:30 am due to the sun streaming in the window.
Went back to sleep until Cabe woke me up at 7:30 to go for a quick 2 mile run. My big talk the day earlier
about running 2 miles EASY came back and kicked me in the face when I couldn’t
breathe after 1.7 miles. Only a little embarrassing. There is seriously no
oxygen up here! Took a quick shower before packing up and heading to the
mountains of Colorado for a quick M9 shooting lesson.
It’s a miracle that Le-ah
didn’t fall apart on the incredibly bumpy dirt road there! I won the first
competition (consisting of shooting an empty milk carton off a log from 40 ft
& then running 20 feet away to the other side of a tree & shooting an
empty Sprite can off a branch from 20 ft away), but Caleb soon beasted it with
a 10.7 second run.
He was so busy celebrating his incredible time that he
didn’t even see the mountain lion I saved him from! He turned just in time to
see me jump in front of him, slide down the slope a bit, and majorly scrape my
arm on a rock, drawing the first blood of our trip. It will be one of those humble victories where no one saw
the real danger but me…
After that we headed on up 25 North, aiming to camp at
Yellowstone that night. Along the
way, we saw endless miles of blue Wyoming sky and rolling hills & flashing
red and blue cop lights in our rearview mirror.
Thankfully my 6 year no-ticket
streak paid off and we made out with just a warning!
We ended up stopping at
Grand Teton National Park, just a little south of Yellowstone, so that we could
set up camp and eat dinner while it was still light out.
We were able to get a
free annual interpark pass for all National Parks for FREE (thank you
UH-Merica!)! Hollaaa!! We camped at Lizard Creek campsite right off of Lake
Jackson… beautiful!
We found out right after we got there that we had just
missed a bear strolling through… bummer! Fun first night of camping… spaghetti
for dinner, roasting marshmallows, hiding EVERYTHING in our food storage bin (I
might have been a little overly cautious about the bears), and trying to warm
up in our sleeping bags (shorts might not have been the best idea). FYI – lemon
beer sucks.
Day 3 – June 21 – Thursday
Side note: hardcore bikers in
leather jackets think silly pictures by signs are ridiculous. We were happy to
entertain them.
Also, Yellowstone is HUGE! We were able to see: Old Faithful & a bunch of
different geysers, Yellowstone Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Lake & the Falls,
& all kinds of wildlife (bears, grey wolf, bison, & deer).
We hiked up
Mt. Washburn in a record 1 hr 15 min. Lots of snow on the path and still hiking
in Chacos? Of course! (Emily – this reminded me of Lake Tahoe when we did this!
Although it wasn’t THAT bad!)
Caleb’s quote of the day: “I hike like I drive, nobody passes me.” Heard dat! Also, I think half of the mountain heard him shart louder than I’ve ever heard in my life and then yell, “Oh my gosh, did you hear THAT?!?” I haven’t laughed that hard in a lonnnng time!
No blood or broken bones today… just some really sore
muscles. We have now been in 5 different states & have dubbed the trip:
“Just Drive – Tour America Twenty Twelve”
We arrived in Great Falls, Montana around 10pm to RhiRhi
cooking up some amazing lasagne! We stuffed our faces, managed a bit of
coherent conversation, took some showers, and fell into bed. My sister-in-law
should get an award for how amazingly she hosts!
Day 4 – June 22 – Friday
We are currently hanging out in our pajamas drinking coffee
and taking the morning easy. As soon as Rhi gets home from work we’re gonna hit
up the golf course and then hit up the GF tonight too see what all the fuss is
about. Ben gets here later tonight and then we head out early tomorrow morning
for Glacier National Park for some camping this weekend!
