We Came, We Drove, We Kicked the Alaskan Highway's Butt (Barely!)

We had a very relaxing evening in Glenallen. We ordered dinner in and then sat around and played cards all evening. The next morning, the men had bought supplies to make breakfast burritos, and we all enjoyed a great breakfast. This is pretty much the end of the niceness for awhile. When we awoke, the temperatures had dropped to -39 overnight, and both of our vehicles were literally frozen up. Neither would start! Beau had put a block heater on his before leaving Texas, so he was able to plug it in and get his car to turn over after about 30 min. We one the other hand, had no such luck. The motel had this contraption that you could rent for $25 an hour that you put up under the bottom of the car, so that it blows warm air up into the hood of the car. It took 2 hours and a jump from Beau before our car would turn over. It was not very happy with us at all. Then, the check engine light came on and wouldn't go off and when we went to drive out of the parking lot, the tires were frozen and it felt like you were driving on square tires. Not a good start for the last leg of the trip. We were finally on the road though, and today was supposed to be a short day. Of course, with all the time we had to waste getting the cars going, we could have already been to Anchorage! Hallelujah, we did actually make it early in the afternoon and the check engine light finally turned itself off!

Ben met us at the billeting office and we went in to check in and get our temporary homes for the next couple of months, until we can get a house bought. John had called ahead and made reservations and we were under the impression that we would be getting a 2 bedroom apartment like thing with a washer and dryer. Wrong! Their family housing units were all under renovation at the same time and when we walked into what we thought was going to be family housing, it was in fact a one room suite with the washer and dryer in a completely seperate unit down the street. I'm not real sure at this point how I'm going to get laundry down there with 2 small children, Molly who has to be carried most of the time because her footings not really good enough for the ice and snow, and Jensen who just refuses to get snow on his shoes. Things are not looking good at this point. Plus, how on earth am I ever going to get this kids to go to sleep. Jensen will have to sleep on the pull out sofa and I'm thinking that the mini walk-in closet in the bedroom is where I'm going to set Molly's bed up. I'm crossing my fingers that this won't cause psychological problems for her in the future! We are totally on top of each other, hungry because we haven't eaten since breakfast, and now, totally stressed out too. We decide to just deal with what we've been given (really what other choice do we have) and go get some dinner. I tell John that first thing in the morning, we will be house hunting, and putting an offer in on whatever there is, to get out of here as quickly as possible. Thankfully, Ben suggests that we come and stay with him for the next couple of weeks. He and his wife will be heading back home from Christmas for a couple of weeks, and they have a dog that they were going to have to board, so it really works for both sides. I'm pretty sure that's what we're going to do. Thank the Lord for good friends!!!!! It really would be quite difficult to have to stay in this room for up to 3 months.

We're so excited to be here and are now looking forward to finding somewhere to make our new home. It was a great trip here and we've made some great memories. Stay tuned as the house hunting and settling process begin.........

P.S. Jensen and I had made a deal that we would go shopping for special shoes that were o.k. to get snow on. After dinner, there was a Target across the parking lot, so I suggested that we go ahead and get him so snow boots. One small problem......he absolutely refused to try the boots on! This could become quite a challenge to get him walking on the snow.........

It'll Burn Off........

This post was supposed to be done last night.....but the wi-fi in our hotel was awful and I couldn't get a good connection.

We awoke this morning at 7am and got up to start another day. Funny thing was that today it was still pitch black outside. In fact, it stayed dark until almost 9:30. We got off a little bit later than usual. Beau popped the hood of his car this morning to check things out like he does every morning, only this morning it was cold enough that when he pulled the cable to pop the hood, it froze! It took a little while for Beau, Grandad and John to get it to slide back, but they finally succeded. We went and ate a good breakfast because we had heard that the roads were going to be slow going this morning and we weren't sure when we would reach somewhere we could have lunch. All during breakfast, Beau kept saying (sarcastically) it'll burn off, but that wasn't looking very likely!

At dinner the night before, we had overheard another couple talking about them and some other vehicles that were in the process of traveling to Anchorage and Fairbanks. This morning after we had ordered breakfast, we saw about 5 vehicles, one a truck pulling a trailer, pull out of the parking lot. We recognized some of the people from the evening before and knew they were getting on the road to Anchorage. We took our time eating breakfast and started loading the kids in the car. One of the guys parked next to us, said that he was with the group that had left earlier, but he had 3 small kids and had told them he would catch up later. We wished him safe travels and took off to find a gas station to top our tanks off. After filling up and finding some sunflower seeds for Beau (he's addicted) we finally got on the road. It was definetly the latest start we've had and the roads were the worst we'd traveled on so far. It was also still snowing outside. It wasn't long before we caught up to the guy with the 3 small kids that we had spoke to earlier and 2 other vehicles that we noticed from the motel parking lot. Because of the road conditions, we were pretty much stuck behind them. We were going a lot slower than we had until this point, but these people were going really slow. The guy in the lead was from Virginia and I highly doubt that he had snow tires on, so they just weren't as prepared for these conditions. After about an hour, the snow had stopped and the road conditions were getting much better. I look up in shock to see the 1st caravan of cars, including the truck pulling the trailer, coming up in front of us. Now, they had left a good hour before us, so if we were now catching on them, then they were going REALLY slow!

As the roads clear up a bit, we realize that we need to get around this caravan for 2 reasons. First, they are going way too slow and secondily, chances are they will be stopping in the same town we are for the night because there are very few towns that are even open at this time of year, meaning that there very few rooms available for people to stay in and I'm going to make dang sure that we will be able to find a room where we plan to stop as opposed to having to drive another couple of hours to the next town that's open, and I don't really need a caravan of 8 or so cars in front of us! We do get in front of the caravan and feel that we make up some really good time and pull away from the pack. We get to the halfway point of the leg of the trip and there is literally only one store open, so we stop for bathroom breaks and to get some lunch.

It turns out to be a disastrous stop though as Jensen couldn't get his pants down quick enough with this big winter coat on and ended up peeing all over his undies and jeans, and Molly ended up having 2 poopie diapers with the second one escaping out and onto her jeans. Beau was lucky enough to discover the 2nd one! With both kiddos now in fresh clothes, you'd think that we'd be ready to enjoy a nice lunch, but no such luck. Pretty much all they had to offer were premade cold cut sandwiches sold by 2 of the grumpiest ladies in all of Canada! We eat quickly and just as we finish we are amazed to see the caravan pull in. We quickly pile into our cars and take off in order to keep our lead. All of a sudden, it's like we're in one of the Cannonball Run movies, only with snow. Just a half hour down the road, we hit a major milestone and cross the border into Alaska. We have arrived!!! We now just have to make our way to Anchorage, but we'll only have 2 days of really short travel left.

When we get to our stopping point of Tok, we stop at a hotel recommended by John's best friend Ben. Ben made this trek last year, and out of all of the places he stayed, this is the only motel that he said we must stop at. All I have to say is that Ben must have one twisted sense of humor as even though this is far from the worst place we've stayed, it definetly wouldn't top the list. Just think 70's flashback. Definetly going to have to have a word with that Benjamin! Not long after we get checked in we see the caravan pull into the parking lot. Good news is there is a plethora of rooms available for all.

It was a cold day. At noon the temperature was -21, but by the end of the day, a mini heat wave hit and the temp raised to -6! All I can say is it's pretty darn cold outside!!

Today, the temperature is at -24 with the low expected to hit -30 tonight. I have never felt cold like it before. We had a good breakfast this morning, and just a short 3 hour drive to the town of Glenallen. We've called it a night here because it's still 3 hours to Anchorage, and we don't want to be on the roads after dark. There's just way too much wildlife, and it's nearly impossible to see them at night. We saw some beautiful scenery again today. As the sun was trying to break through the clouds, it would make small rainbows in the sky that looked like prisms casting rainbows in a room. It was really awesome and beautiful! Tomorrow we will make it to Anchorage, and we are all looking forward to it. I'm going to get off of this computer now, and enjoy our early evening!

4 More Days To Go.......

So, it turned out to be a rough night in the rough motel. Molly woke up 3 times which is really unusual, Jensen had a very restless night and I heard him wimpering or calling out twice in the night, and I fought to actually stay on the bed all night. Not only did the mattress angle to the side trying to dump you on the floor, but the entire motel leaned to the side. Understand, I spent many years in England and in older homes that had personalty with creaky and uneven floors, but this place could not be defined as having personality, unless that personality was crappy. The place was literally starting to fall over. It really was a bit of a dump, but the fella that ran it, Dennis, was worth the stay. He was a great guy with lots of stories, and just as nice as could be. He even made the kiddos Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast. Because of him, I will not say that the place was worthless. Also, the best thing of the stay was that Dennis has a big old German Shepard that chose Beau's car to pee all over :-) Made me laugh out loud!

We started out our drive at -6 degrees this morning, and I swear it took an hour for the car to warm up inside. It was cold!!! Of course, I've been told by Beau that this morning in Eagle River, which is just north of Anchorage and where we are considering living, that they awoke to
-20 degrees. I seriously need to buy some long underwear! Once again, we really had good driving conditions. There was snow on the sides of the road and a bit of a covering on the roads, but nothing too slick at all. We made it to Whitehorse for lunch and also were glad to find that it was a big enough town to have a Walmart. We were getting seriously low on snack food for the kiddos, and that would be a MAJOR catastrophy to run out of. We reloaded on some supplies, got Jensen a McDonald's cheeseburger, which he inhaled and was to date the best meal he has eaten since this adventure started, saw a Starbucks across the parking lot and refueled John and Beau with that, almost got rear-ended by Beau when we originally pulled into town because the back of our car was soooo filthy he couldn't see our brake lights, washed the car off so that that wouldn't happen again, and headed out of town for our next destination for the evening.

On the way to Haines Junction, our stop of the night, we saw a red fox, which was the first one of those that we had seen. He was really cute, from a distance obviously. The road did seem to get a little bit more packed with snow and ice as we pulled into town, and we found one of the two hotels available at this time of the year and got checked in. We have a great suite tonight, and it totally makes up for the crummy room last night. After dinner, we noticed that the no vacancy sign was lit up, so we were thankful that we had gotten into town when we did. Tomorrow will be our final day in Canada and then we will be in Alaska on US soil. We still aren't planning on getting into Anchorage until sometime Friday, but it's nice to know that we're getting close to the end of the journey. The kids are loving spending time with Grandad and have adopted Beau as one of their favs. It's probably a good thing because Grandad let slip today that the "Hutch and Beau Show" were dicussing recipes last night........just let the wierdness of that sink in for a moment! Good thing this trip is almost over, I think they've spent too much time together :-)

Lions & Tigers & Bears.....or is it Deer & Moose & Goats....

We stayed in Fort St. John in British Columbia two nights ago. When we awoke in the morning, the sky was grey and it wasn't long before huge snow flakes started falling. Once we got on the road, the snow didn't really last too long. It sure helped make the roads a filthy, slushy mess though. Our cars are absolutely trashed! Jensen also informed us yesterday that he was ready to go home. Bad luck for him! From here on out, we'll be on the Alaskan Highway and about an hour into yesterday's trip, the scenery became quite breath-taking. The road conditions were constantly changing from the slush mess, to completely clear, to just a bit of snow, with a few icy places. It's really been quite an easy drive, especially considering that we're so far into the mountains at this phase. Even though the road conditions really aren't that bad, for some reason they don't seem to have heard of guard rails as there are very few of them. This makes us even more thankful for the road conditions.

We saw so much wildlife just chillin' on the side of the road, or in the road itself, it was unbelievable. Of course, there were countless bucks and deers, we saw several goats on the side of a mountain, several herds of caribou and a couple of moose. At one point, John decided to pull over and check out one of the moose. Grandad and Beau followed and the kids and I thought it best to stay put in the car. I hear this ridiculous noise and it turns out to be Grandad trying to "call" the moose back. Shockingly, it didn't work.

Just as it started getting dark outside, we pulled into the "town" where we had planned to stay the night. It's a place called Muncho Lake. As we pull in, we only notice one motel to the right and it looks like one of those motel's that if you stay the night, you may not live to see morning! Our GPS wasn't showing that there were any other lodgings, so we pulled over to consult with the "Hutch and Beau Show." Their GPS showed that a few miles further up, there should be another place and thankfully, it turned out to be a really charming log cabin type hotel with most importantly, vacancies! I wasn't able to blog last night because being as we're in literally the middle of nowhere, they didn't have wi-fi and they only had one computer for guests to use that not only was it super slow, but you also had to pay every several minutes that you were on it. We all went to bed exhausted, but were unable to get much sleep. Sometime right after we had gone to bed, another family must have checked in. They were given the room above ours and we knew for sure that there were at least 2 children who were currently letting off A LOT of steam. They sounded as if they were going to crash through our ceiling at any moment! It went on and on and on and on. Needless to say, John and I are pretty wiped out this morning. When we went out for breakfast this morning, it was immediately obvious who our upstairs neighbors had been. There was a family of 2 heftier parents and 4 small kids. But here's the kicker, those dang kids made not one peep during breakfast. You would have thought them to be completely mute. I was ready to start throwing my french toast at them!! It was so irritating, especially in my sleep deprived state, to watch them sit there so calm and good.

We start to load up and it is BRRRR cold this morning. Definetly the coldest it's been so far. We see huge buffalo feeding on the side of snow covered mountains. It's so awesome to see them standing there. I don't know how they don't slide down. Further up, there's a huge herd of them feeding at the side of the road. Amazing! We had been told that there are some natural hot springs that we would be passing today and that we must stop at them. So, this morning I put bathing suits on the kids and myself, under our clothes, before knowing how frigid it actually was outside. When we get to where the springs are, you must walk down this trail to even get to them. Molly is sound asleep and Jensen says that he doesn't want to get out of the car. I end up sitting with the kids in the car, all of us in swimsuits, while John goes down to check it out. Realizing that there is no one around (everyone else must have more common sense than us) and not particularly wanting to wear a swimsuit top around all day, I figure what the heck, and change then and there in the car. Mike did come and trade off with me so that I could go down and see the springs. It was about a 10 minute walk down a trail and once I got there, there were several people in the water including John and Beau. I opted not to get in, but did put my hands in it and it was really nice and warm. It was really cool to experience the hot springs in the middle of all the snow and one degree temperature.

Our next stop was at a place where there is supposed to be a naturally forming whirpool. When we pulled off at the exit, we should have been clued in that this was going to be a lost cause as we couldn't even get down the exit road because of all the snow. Did this stop us though, oh no. We all get out of our nice warm vehicles and decide to walk to where you can see the whirlpool. Now, as hard as this may be to believe, there was no whirlpool. When it's only 3 degrees outside, water freezes! We could actually tell where the whirlpool was supposed to be had it not been frozen. It wasn't a totally wasted stop though as Molly had a yucky diaper that I was able to get changed. I put her on the heated front seat and had had her diaper bag on the floor so the wipes were actually really warm from the car heat. The funniest thing was when I pulled her yucky diaper off, there was actually steam rising from it because of how cold it was outside. I know it's kind of gross, but it cracked me up nonetheless.

We decided that it was now time to try and get some miles behind us. We have officially entered the Yukon Territory. John and I did have our first road kill. We had a bird fly straight into our windshield, and according to the "Hutch and Beau Show" it just looked like a cloud of black feathers dispersing as we drove through. Then, not 10 minutes later, we hit another bird. Couldn't believe it! We had a hotel plugged into the GPS in a village called Rancheria and as we entered the town, we passed a rather rough looking motel, but out GPS said that the one we had programed was still 2 miles ahead. Next thing we know, the GPS says that we're arriving at our destination on the right. Funny thing is, there is absolutely NOTHING to our right or left of anywhere, except for trees. We drive a little furter, and then pull over to consult with Beau and Grandad. They say that their GPS says that we still have a few more miles to go before we reach the hotel (that the Mile Post had suggested) that we were planning on staying at, so we tell them to take the lead and head off again. What do you know, there also is no hotel at their GPS destination. Bummer, because now we have to turn around and head back to the rough looking motel that we passed earlier because it's about another 2 hours before we would get to another village, it's already getting dark, and we have no idea if that village would even have a hotel or be open at this time in the season. So here I am, sitting in a rather rough motel (though it does have wi-fi), actually thankful that we have somewhere to stay tonight. Sorry for such a long blog, but in 2 days, a lot has happened. Until next time.......

Wildlife and the Alaskan Highway

I only have a short post today as we had a great day driving without many mishaps. We actually were able to make it further than we had originally planned as we have still been blessed with clear roads. We saw so much wildlife today on either side of the road. There were countless bucks and does, 2 moose and even a little mink scurrying around. Thankfully, they all stayed off to the sides and none made any mad dashes in front of us! We also officially made it onto the "Alaskan Highway." Mile 0 officially starts in a small town in British Columbia called Dawson Creek, and I was incredibly disappointed not to run into Pacey or Joey (I realize that only some of you will get my lame joke, but it had to be done). The temperatures aren't so bad, but the wind is horrible, and I hate wind! It really makes the cold cut right through you. John finally decided to "take a break" and let me drive. Of course, he spent roughly an hour and at least 15 min. of the finally 2 hour drive turned around backward trying to figure out what it is that the kids want, or handing things to them. I also heard a few sighs that I think might have been directed towards my driving, or maybe I was just imagining them (yeah right lol). In all honesty, we really are having a fantastic journey with the kids and each other up to this point. It really has been nothing but enjoyable and we're hopeful that the next 5 or 6 days continue that way. Hard to believe that we are only halfway through this trek! We had a really early night tonight and are looking forward to what tomorrow holds. We are hoping for the weather to stay on our side as we really are making great time with all of the clear roads.

The Great Stamp Capade and the Beauty of Banff!

Oh what a beautiful morning! We all got a great nights rest and are ready to head to the beauty of Banff. There's snow at the tops of the mountains, but the roads seem to be nice and clear. Just as we get out of Calgary and start heading towards the mountains, we pass a gas station on the right with just a few vehicles, but a rather large bus that is just joining the highway. As we breeze past it, I look out the window and am dumbstruck as I realize that it's Gene Simmons (KISS) Family Jewels tour bus for his A&E show. So silly that I was so excited to see it, but I was.

For 2 days now, the "Hutch and Beau Show" have been on a hunt for Canadian stamps. Now you wouldn't expect this to be a very difficult thing to come across, but let me tell you, they were. Stamps could not be found at our hotel in Calgary, the gas station in Calgary, the gas station in Banff, some little store that we randomly stopped at in Banff, a store called Mac's in Banff that Beau was sent to by the people in the before mentioned random store, but hallelujah, success at the local Safeway. Now we can get back on the main road and continue covering miles for the day.

Jensen keeps repeating over and over again that he wants to stop and play in the snow. We keep telling him that as soon as we stop for lunch, he can play in the snow. Not more than 20 min. on the road and Jensen is complaining that he has to go potty and can't hold it. Luckily, there is a rest stop right up the road and we pull over. As soon as Jensen is done peeing, we tell him to go play in th snow while we wait for anyone else who is taking advantage of this stop. After, literally a few seconds of standing in the snow, Jensen starts whining that there is now snow on his shoes. If only he knew what his mom and dad had in store for his new life in Alaska!

We decide to have lunch at the Chateau at Lake Louise. Fancy would be an understatement and after trapping kids in the car for 5 straight days, when we stop, that tends to be their rowdy time. They managed to control themselves pretty well though and we had a very nice lunch with a great view. We spent a bit longer goofing around than we normally do, but thought nothing of it, as we had had such easy traveling so far. Also, at the visitors pull off before you get to the Chateau, what do we see, but the Gene Simmon's bus. Yes, I took a picture of it this time, but I have no idea if he was really on it or not. Doesn't really matter, I still thought it was awesome!

I must fill you in with a bit of history now. Before this trip even started, there was much debate about the way that we should go. Pretty much, all of the men wanted to go through the mountains of Banff (because they know of people with this destination on their bucket lists). I on the other hand, said that we would have to wait until we got to Canada to see what the weather and road conditions were at the time. Going through Banff means that you're in the mountains the entire leg of the trip, or we could go on the highway to Edmonton. Not as scenic, true, but a nice, clear highway where you can do 75 mph. Last night at dinner, I vetoed the Banff idea, as I just didn't think that it seemed the obvious choice. For some reason, I let the men convince me that they had spoken with several people and checked websites that said that the roads through Banff were clear and good. Supposedly, there was snow and ice on the shoulder's, but the roads were clear. Back to the present, the roads were all clear through Banff and Lake Louise. After lunch, we all load up ready to make some tracks. After about 5 min. of driving, we need to exit to start heading north to get out of the park and to our final destination in Hinton for the night. It's about 100 miles just to get out of the park. Just after the exit, we turn a bend that has a sign with flashing lights. The sign warns of road conditions: good, fair, poor and closed with a gate to put down for when the road is completely closed. Well don't ya know that the lights are flashing on poor and the road ahead of us in now COVERED in snow and ice. So much for trusting the websites that said all roads were clear! The worst part is, we are now so far into the park, that realistically because of time, we have no choice but to continue on this road. So instead of being on a nice, clear highway going 75, we are on snow and ice packed mountain roads going no more than 45. Let it be known now that his will be the last decision made by John and the "Hutch and Beau Show!" The good news, the snow tires are finally coming in handy and because of the roads being bumpy, Molly and Jensen both fell asleep for 3 hours of this part of the journey!

In all honesty, the roads turned out to be not that terribly bad, but we did suffer our first casualty when a truck through up what could only be considered a small boulder, and took a huge chunk out of the front windshield. Then not long after we turned onto the main road after making it through the mountains, we were behind another truck and something fell off of the bed of his truck right in front of us. I don't know if it was a battery or some sort of work box or what, but it bounced and shattered right in front of us. Luckily, we didn't really suffer any collateral damage from that, but I have yet to figure out how we missed all of the flying pieces! John is now "relaxing" with Molly in the pool (they even have a waterslide) and Jensen and I are chilling in the room about to get ready for bed. It's been a day full of the most beautiful scenery and the most amazingly huge mountains that I have ever seen and I can only look forward to what tomorrow holds. Goodnight from Canada!

Let It Snow.........Sort Of

Oh yes, we woke up fully refreshed from having an early and relaxing evening. It's also the first morning with snow. We got off to a great start, but after driving for about 30 min, we had already passed 2 trucks pulled over on the side of the road with men standing outside of the trucks peeing. I'm not so sure about these Montanian men! The snow was rather short lived and we had a really, really easy drive today. We crossed into Canada and have made it to Calgary for the night. Very excited about having another early night! I've got to say though.....so far there is a whole bunch of nothing and you can see for miles on end (feels like I'm traveling in New Mexico again). There really isn't much to report for this evening, so I'm not going to bore you with a whole lot of nothing. I'll try to have some humorous stories for the next blog, eh (Just a little bit of Canadian that I've already picked up).

We're Off and Rolling!

So far, so good! The kids are really doing good and have discovered that the best thing about hotels is that Grandad will push them around on the luggage carts! When we first decided to make this journey, we thought it'd be a clever idea to find something to do with the kids in the morning so that they could run and play and get some energy out of their systems before we got into the car and started the days driving. During yesterday's leg, we thought that it would be fun to stop at Mesa Verde in the morning to check out the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. I was really looking forward to this because growing up in New Mexico, we pretty much studied them every year in school and I always found them to be interesting and mysterious. What we didn't know and didn't work into our travel time, is that once you enter the National Park, it's still a 45 min. drive to where the cliff dwellings are. This means that on top of the hour or so that we were planning on sight seeing, we now have another 2 hours of travel time. OOPS! Also, the kids had no interest what so ever in walking anywhere. Molly wanted to sit in the stroller and be pushed and Jensen wanted to be carried. Somehow, he suckered Grandad into this on the way down to the dwellings. Poor Grandad! On the way out of the dwelling, which oh by the way is uphill, Jensen weaseled his way into the stroller which John was pushing and I was carrying Molly. I only made it about halfway with Molly when Beau had to take over carrying her because I was about to die. Of course, this has nothing to do with being out of shape, but more to do with the increase in altitude, obviously! All I have to say is, way to go Beau. We really thought that the kids would be all about running around and burning off some energy, but we were wrong! We really enjoyed the dwellings though. They were awesome and I'm glad that we added the extra 3 hours to our day.

Driving through Colorado and Utah, Jensen has been fascinated by all of the mountains. He is completely convinced that a "really big tractor" made them all and gets incredibly irritated if you try to tell him differently. We had a beautiful drive yesterday though and thoroughly enjoyed the landscape. We were going to see my sister Jenna in Salt Lake City (SLC from now on) yesterday evening, but because of all the extra time we spent in Mesa Verde, we got into SLC a lot later than originally planned and were all pretty wiped. I programmed the GPS for the first Hampton Inn (we're collecting points) and we were so relieved when we pulled up to it. Poor Molly had been completely over being in the car for the last 20 min. Imagine our shock when John came out of the lobby and said that they were completely full. I asked what was going on in SLC and he said that the receptionist said nothing, that they and all the other hotels were always completely booked up during the week. Now come on......really......what on earth is going on in SLC everyday of every week. I have my own theory..........it's a conspiracy by the Mormons! We didn't look Mormon, so there was no room at the inn lol. Just my own little theory though. Thank the lord for GPS because I just started calling EVERY Hampton Inn going further and further out of SLC. Finally, we found one with some rooms in Layton, which as it turned out, was only 2 exits from Jenna's house. Of course, it also added another 40 min. of driving for the poor kids, but we all made it and turned in soon after arriving.

This morning we all got up, I'd like to say fully refreshed but I don't think any of us has slept that well, had some breakfast and headed to see Jenna. Best news of the morning is that Molly and Jensen are both warming up to Beau and they went with him and Grandad down to have breakfast while John and I finished getting things packed. We had a nice, though short, visit with Jenna and Jeramey and loaded back up to start our trek for the day. Let me insert here, that while we were at Aunt Jenna's, she so kindly gave Jensen a Capri Sun to drink. Before we left, I kept telling Jensen that he needed to go potty, but he absolutely refused and John sided with him, saying that he had already gone earlier. Shocker, not 20 min. down the road, we hear Jensen saying that he's got to go potty. Luckily, we found a place to stop pretty quickly, but Molly, who had just fallen asleep, was now up. So we begin our trek again. No lie, not more than 20 min. down the road, Jensen has to potty again! This time though, there is nowhere in sight for him to go. We find the safest place that we can and let him go on the side of the road in Idaho. Will have to admit that he did actually pee quite a lot, so we definetly needed to make that stop. Who knew that a Capri Sun could cause so much chaos!

We had a good drive and started to make good time. We stopped at Applebees to enjoy their offer for a free entree for any active duty or retired military vets for Veteran's Day. Having John, Beau, and Mike, this was definetly a lucrative offer for us! We had a great meal, the kids ate great, and we were all ready to load up and try to make some tracks. Now that the kids had their belly's full, John and I were hopeful that they would fall asleep in the car, so that we could really get some miles behind us. After about 45 min. of driving, we see Mike and Beau pulling up along side of us. This cannot be good news, and as we suspect, the "Hutch and Beau Show" (they named themselves I swear) need a potty break. Once again, like with Jensen, Molly has just gone to sleep. We write a note and hold it up to the window to tell them that Molly's asleep, we're not stopping but will slow down, and they can catch back up. Our plan works marvelously, except for the fact that John's phone rings and he answers it by yelling (though he will deny the yelling) "What's up brother!" to his best friend Ben on the other end of the phone. As you can probably already guess, this wakes our dear sleeping Molly. Plan now demolished!!! Through great mommy tricks, I get her happy and we continue to roll. Mike and Beau found out during their stop that there is snow on the way for tonight, so we decided to add an extra hour to our driving and make it to Helena, Montana. We get in at a great time, have dinner, and still have time to let the kids play in our hotel room before going to bed. We did drive through our first bit of falling snow, which wasn't bad at all, but we'll see what the morning holds. So far, so good, and everyone on the trip is hanging on exceptionally well! Until next time......................

The Last Supper.........and the First Leg of the Journey!

John and his comrades finally arrived in Clovis yesterday to officially begin this journey of ours. He arrived with his dad (Mike aka Grandad) and a work friend who is also in the process of making the move to Alaska, Beau. It's really nice to have a sort of caravan going so that we can look out for each other on this trek. Mike is riding with Beau to keep him company (and I'm sure that there is no shortage of storytelling going on :-)) and the kids and John and I are packed, literally, into the Acadia. There is not one spare inch for even an extra cheerio at this point!

Last night we had a great get together when John, Mike and Beau arrived at my brother's house. Missy, my sister-in-law, made an awesome lasagna with elk meat and my best friend Jennifer also came for all of the fun. Upon arrival, to Justin and Missy's, poor Grandad was immediately suckered into playing with all of the kids outside on the swing set, but it was such a beautiful evening, he didn't put up much of a fight. The kids all worked up an awesome appetite and ate really great before heading back to keep playing for the last few hours that they had together. Jensen was going to be spending the night with his cousins and had been talking about it all day. While the kids were playing, the adults continued to watch football and chatter about any meanless, but humorous thing that we could come up with. Not long after Grandad and Beau retired back to their hotel for the night, Jensen came out to say that his tummy wasn't feeling too well. Assuming that he was absolutely exhausted from all of the playing of the previous week, I snuggled him up and rubbed his back, and before I knew it, he was sound asleep in my lap. Love it!!!! All of sudden, he kind of stirred and sat up, and the next thing I knew, he was throwing up elk lasagna all over himself, me and the couch. GROSS! As quick as we could, we got him into the bath and rinsed off, and he seemed to almost instantly be feeling better. I washed my clothes off as best as I could, but it was an obvious party ender, to say the least. We decided not to take any chances and didn't let Jensen spend the night, but made him come back with us. Bummer all round for the cousins. As we were loading into the cars, John had the Acadia to drive back to Mom's, I had Mom's car with both the kids and her, and my friend Jennifer was also heading out. I felt bad for having to just say a quick goodbye to Jennifer, but I was really stinking. Gotta say though, she didn't seem too upset. She said that she'd just give John a hug instead and that could count for us saying goodbye. The thing is......she seemed more than willing to throw me to the side in order to say goodbye to John :-) I do believe that I'll have to have a word with her later lol!!!! On top of that, Mom got into her car with the kids and I, and started gagging from the wretching smell coming from me. This from the lady who has raised 6 kids! She jumped out, and said that she'd rather ride home with John. At this point, I'm really getting a complex. It's was a sad ending to what had been such a pleasant evening, but the good news is that Jensen seems to be completely fine.

This morning, we got up and managed to get the cars loaded and hit the road pretty much on schedule, and pretty much on schedule means gold stars all round for this motley crue. We are currently in Durango, Colorado and are staying the night here before heading to Mesa Verde tomorrow for some sight seeing and then up to Salt Lake City to see Jenna. It was actually a really great trip here today, and I am soooo proud of how well the kids behaved. As for John's behavior with this kids, that's another story. About 2 hours into the journey he decided that it'd be a "fun" idea to let Jensen and Molly have a lollipop. Now Jensen is no problem with a lolli, but Molly who is 18 months is another story. The memory that stands out the most is the lolli literally hanging from her bangs and sticky all over her mouth, hands, and clothes. Then, not long after lunch, we stopped and John told Jensen that he could have a special treat. The special treat that he chose was an ice cream bar. Not really the kind of thing that I consider road trip food for a 3 year old! I keep telling myself that one day he will learn.........I will accept all prayers that anyone has to offer!

We're all in good spirits and still enjoying each other's company, and I'm just certain that any hour now, my children will warm up to Beau and quite treating him like a leper. He's really being a good sport with all of us. I will close by saying that even with a rather unfortunate ending to last night, we all had a wonderful last supper in Clovis thanks to Justin and Missy, and a wonderful first leg of our journey today. Good night, and until next time..........

Praise the Lord........the Packing Is Complete With No Thanks to Inertia!

I apologize for the big break in updates, but as soon as the packing was finished, I headed to Clovis with Molly and Jensen to spend some time with Mom and let the kiddos play with their cousins. I don't have a lot of access to a computer here, but I am finally able to give another update.

Our high class movers (did I mention that they are called D Lux Movers, the spelling of the name should have been a definite give away) did eventually have a driver show up for work and they arrived on Thursday to start the loading of the crates. Now, the weather forecast for last Thursday was 80% chance of rain, and yes, it was definetly raining when the movers arrived. Let me set the scene................the moving van that they rolled up in had the front grill attatched by a bungee cord, and the drivers window and passenger window were missing, yes missing, not broken or stuck, but completely MIA. So the 4 guys that came to start the loading had driven from Dallas in the pouring rain, with no windows on the cab of their truck. They were starting their day in a bit of a bad mood thanks to that! I had had the weather channel on all morning though to monitor the rain situation, and even though it was currently pouring, it showed that the storms were just about pass us and then it was clear skies from there on out. Of course, the mover's were wanting to just call it a day because they were convinced that the 80% in the forecast meant that it was going to rain 80% of the day, not that there was an 80% chance of rain! It took awhile for me to explain and get them on board with my logic and I would have assumed the rest of the world's logic as well! I finally convinced them that once they finished wrapping up what was left to be wrapped, then the storms should be past, and we could begin loading the truck without getting wet. Spoiler alert.............the rain did pass, and we were able to load the truck with even a little sunshine peeking through.

At lunch time, I had been really impressed with how efficiently they were loading the crates, and I thought that it would be a nice surprise to have some pizza delivered. When I called and placed the order, I was rather shocked to hear that it was going to be over an hour for the delivery, but what are you going to do. I went and told the guys to keep working, that it was going to awhile, and this just added to their already gloomy outlook of the day. Just as the pizza girl showed up, the mover's needed to open up one of the doors further back on the truck in order to get to some more crates to start loading. As I was signing for the pizza, I heard this huge BANG. When I looked up, they had started pulling the moving van forward without closing the door that they had been previously using to load, and it had swung into the brick mailbox. Gotta say, that is one solid mailbox though, because luckily, it just chipped off one small bit of one of the bricks. I decided to not say a word, and just finished paying for the pizza and went to set it down in the garage. I did notice out of the corner of my eye, that the moving van was now reversing up the court, and I naturally assumed that this was so that they could actually close the door that they were done using, and open the door further back, without destroying anymore of the mailbox. Wrong! I set the pizza boxes down and look up to see this huge moving van coming flying down the court, the driver had to have floored it, and then slam on the brakes as it goes skidding (let's not forget the streets are still wet from all of the rain in the morning) to a stop. I yell out what on earth is going on to a reply by the "supervisor" (I use the term loosely) that the crates in the back weren't loaded correctly, and they aren't able to get to them, so they were trying to get everything in the truck to slide forward as they slammed on the brakes. I was gobsmacked. Out of all of the ideas that their minds together came up with, they decided that inertia was the best alternative!!!!! Let's not forget, that the crates in the front of the truck have already been loaded with a lot of our belongings, and these are the crates that they are now trying to slam forward in the back of the van. I called a time out, told everyone to go inside and eat, and to think about a new plan to try after lunch. Shockingly, after lunch, they were able to use all of their god given strength together to merely push the crates forward. Why would I have thought that boys would think of that first!

I do have to say though, that I did watch over all 0f the boxing, wrapping and crating, and that they really did seem to do a good job at trying to make sure that things would be packed in tightly and well to keep them as safe for the travel as they could. They just didn't have a lot of common sense for other things, bless them. I am relieved that everything is now complete, the house has been cleaned and the keys turned over for the new owners. I felt a tinge of sadness as we finished everything up, but I was filled more with a sense of excitement about the new journey that we will be beginning and all of the new decorating that I get to do in a new house!

Mom came on Saturday and picked the kids and I up and John stayed behind to finish his last week of work on the F16. We are having a fantastic time with family here in Clovis, but I'm anxious for John to get here on Sunday so that this trek can officially begin. We will be leaving from Clovis Monday and that will begin the daily drive up north. It should take about 12 days and even though I know there are going to be trying times, I am really really excited for the trip. Hopefully while we're one the road, I will be able to update the blog every day or two, at least that is my plan, but until Monday, there probably won't be another post. I look forward to passing on our great adventures...............keep checking in!