Scenery along the way.

Finally here are the pictures from our trek across the country. I had planned to do this during the day but I got a call for a substitute job (more about that later).

We would have been good with a smaller truck but we wanted to go with Diesel because they get better gas mileage with that amount of weight. We weighed in at 11,??? lbs. That is what one of the many weigh stations we had to stop at said. Samson is trying to get comfortable. For the first two hours of the trip he sat on the bench seat with us. After the first rest stop he was forced to find comfort on the floor.

So, the land between Georgia and Missouri pretty much looks the same. I did not take pictures until we got to where things looked different from what I am use to. After Kansas City, MO the landscape changed to rolling farmland. The hills were small but plentiful. This is also true for Iowa. There is a lot of corn being grown in this area of the country. One thing that I noticed on billboards and on NPR (national public radio) is that Bio Diesel is huge. The pictures don't give you the best view of the corn fields but they are all I could do in a moving truck.

Then all of sudden you are in South Dakota. The landscape stayed as rolling but it looked different. More open fields but still a lot of corn.

The sunrise in SD was beautiful. The pictures below are taken looking west. In the east you had blue/yellow/brown, in the west you had light blue/white/pink/blue/brown(land). The picture does not capture the true beauty of the colors.

South Dakota also brought with it the famous Wall Drugstore. We read billboards about this place for 400 miles. We stopped and took a break when we got to the town. They had homemade donuts and thousands of other things to look at. The chapel below was nestled in the middle of everything. If you know me I have a thing for small chapels with stain glass windows so I had to take a picture. The rest of the town looked like a western town center.

Also in SD there are miles of horse ranches to look at.

We were making good time and had visions of making it to Butte, MT this day until......a high pressure oil line failed. This is what the hood of the truck looked like. The rest of the oil was on the road and dripping out under the truck once we came to a safe stop.

After driving about 200 miles in Wyoming you will find Big Horn Mountains. This is the view from the side of the road where we broke down. As you can see Samson was comfortable sleeping before oil line failed.

So we said to heck with the truck we will do the rest of the trip by bike.

Just kidding, but while Penske and everyone else dealt with the dilemma Robby and I hopped on the local trail and took Samson for a run. Below are pictures of what the trail looked like in Buffalo, WY.

We also enjoyed a delicious dinner at the Occidental Saloon. Now they say that "In the rip-roaring days of early Wyoming, the saloon at the Occidental Hotel was famous far and wide. In the barroom,the lawful and the lawless played faro and poker ... flirted with pretty ladies ... drank copious quantities of powerful spirits— and occasionally shot up the place." It has been around since 1908. Very neat place.

Once back on the road we made our way to Montana. All I have to say about Montana is that I would like to live there one day. Mountains, ranches, beauty.

Some of the mountains were very rocky and I am starting to not remember if this was MT or WA.

Below are pictures of the Cascade Mountains and

Columbia River and Mt. Rainer (lower right). Mt. Rainer is actually about 70 miles away in this picture.

So, after that we hit Seattle and I had to put down the Camera and navigate. I forgot to take pictures of the area leading up to Bellingham. Mainly because I was excited to almost be there. Hopefully soon, I will go out and about to take pictures of the local scenery.

So that is a brief recap of our trip. I have more to talk about but it has been a long day and I am ready to hit the hay.

Take Care,

Carrie