day 27 and 28

utah, nevada, idaho and oregon.  amazing.  the drastic changes in terrain were astounding.  prairies, canyons, mountains, rolling hills, snow, rain, blinding sun...the whole bit.  by the way, idaho is way nicer than it gets credit for.  just for the record.

allie really wanted to make sure she got a close up of all of it.

and more history.  baker city, oregon.

any trip to the midwest would not be complete without a trip to cracker barrel.  which is like abc restaurant...on crack.  we also continued our tradition of keeping the kids occupied by making cutlery alphabet.  all i'm gonna say is that the gift shop sold gaither "promise tea" with a quote from one of their uplifting songs on each teabag. 

cliff also put in some time teaching our kids to be parkour specialists.  we plan to take our act on the road someday.

day 25 and 26

um...wha?  i guess we should start listening to weather reports.

we woke up to the sound of the crazed snowplow guy careening through the parking lot madly honking at us and pushing a huge pile of snow into the side, causing our rv to rock back and forth.  apparently we were parked in the wrong place.  oops.

so we have our very first snow!  we drove into park city, utah to check out main street.  the home of the sundance film festival.  it was their first snow of the year, so it was kind of bizarre seeing leaves still on the trees that were in mid-color change.  park city has tons of history, so the buildings were all old and beautiful, but the shops were kind of bizarre.  super ritzy jewelry store next to shop that sells t-shirts with fart jokes on them.  high end leather and knitted goods next to cows ice cream.  i could just picture gwyneth paltrow strolling down this street during the festival, ice cream in hand, buying a "may the forest be with you" t-shirt for her daughter apple.  oh yeah.

the kids were in heaven, especially josiah. every five seconds he would ask, "is it still winter?"  he and cliff spent all afternoon outside making snowmen and having snowball fights.

we stayed at an uber-classy campsite (no rvs older than 10 years allowed) and watched the cowboys/giants game while the kids "played" (i use that word loosely) pacman and a racing game in the mini arcade.  usually they got bored halfway through the game and i ended up finishing it for them.  it was a good system actually.  i dominated pacman.  cliff fell deeper in love with me in our early years when we would go to castle fun park and i would kick his butt in the fighting games.  when we were first married, we used to stay up until 3am playing "road rash" on the n64 we got as a wedding gift (thank you phil riley).

in the morning, we headed into salt lake city.  for any of you who have ever been there, you can testify to how amazing it is as you drive around the bend and the mountains suddenly appear in front of you like one of those two dimensional kids pop-up books.  they look fake, to be honest.  brigham young had some good taste, people.  it's gorgeous.

simon fell asleep, so i took allie into temple square while cliff stayed back with the boys.  two lovely ladies, one from korea and one from sweden who are in the us on their mission, toured me through some of the buildings.  i got to go into the tabernacle where they gave an acoustics demonstration.  they dropped straight pins on the podium and you could hear the "ping" all the way to the back of the room.  brigham young had hired a bridge builder to design the building to sound like it does when you're under a bridge.  knowing that it was built in the 1800s makes it even more spectacular.

you can't go into the temple, but they have a miniature replica of what the interior looks like.  there are also several other buildings on the complex which house interactive exhibits and a detailed history of how mormonism came to be.

further west of salt lake city are the bonneville salt flats.  cliff was starting to fall asleep at the wheel, so i got to drive this stretch.

it's where they set land speed records.  some guy drove over 600 mph out there.  have you ever seen "world's fastest indian" with anthony hopkins?  you should.  i love anthony hopkins.  but i've never seen silence of the lambs, so maybe that's why.

photo op with my boy?  yes please.

day 23 and 24

oh nebraska.  the one thing i will say about you is that you're...consistent.  which is a good thing...unless you're driving through you.  this is the first time we drove into the dark.  we kind of felt like we had experienced enough of nebraska's "consistency" and wouldn't miss too much. 

after driving past the birthplace of john wayne and buffalo bill's ranch, i figured we had to have at least one true cowboy experience while we were in the wild west.  

we found a little town called ogallala where boot hill is.  if you know me well, you know of my strange fascination with cemeteries.  apparently a bunch of outlaws were buried here…their bodies thrown in a burlap sack with their boots on.

cliff and the kids had fun playing cowboy shooting games.  this trip has included a lot of shooting.  nerf, wii, sticks, two fingers in the air...not quite sure how i feel about it.  but then, i do have two boys so i should probably get used to it.

i'm going to make a bold statement.  many of you may think i'm crazy.  you need to know that this is only my opinion and not necessarily fact.  here goes: wyoming may be the most breathtaking place we've seen on this whole trip up until now.  well, southeastern wyoming (southwestern wyoming was not so inviting).  i think the thing that was so shocking about its beauty was how unexpected it was.  dead flat prairies to rock formations rising from red dirt  and the sky...the sky was so big.  the bigness of the sky hit me the most these days, even more than the canadian prairies.  and something about this area just made me want to sing "home on the range".  or "country roads".  i listened to country music on the radio voluntarily (no an alien hadn't taken over my body) because it just felt necessary,  and it wasn't all bad.  kind of bad, but not all.

i didn't take many pictures because i drove a lot these days, but i sure did get a lot of snuggling in.  my allie girl has been incredibly affectionate and i've been soaking it up.  we don't get a ton of one-on-one time together, so this has been pretty sweet.  love you, baby.

day 22

after driving through wheaton and visiting my old stomping grounds (have you ever been somewhere that you haven't been to since you got your drivers license?  it's kind of hard to remember how to get around), we set out for iowa.  apparently the iowans have a new subtle abstinence campaign/chastity belt promotion.  i think it's quite effective.

i had been on-line looking up "things to do on the I-80" since i knew we were going to be driving on it for several days and i found the amana colonies.  i didn't really know much about it, but it said it was a historic village and you know how i love history…

we found an rv park and got into our first "trailer trash" confrontation (we like to call ourselves that these days).  when the guy showed us to our site, there was a pile of wood lying next to it which he said we were welcome to.  so cliff and josiah set to make a fire.  an hour later, the fellow parked in the site next to us pulls up in his truck, goes to his trailer and nonchalantly says over his shoulder "how's my wood burnin for ya?".  oops.  not happy.  and he certainly wasn't interested in our apologies or our offer to get him more.  by the end of our stay we had made amends, but only after he went to complain to the staff and they sent the guy over to apologize to both of us for his error.  we'll be sure not to make that mistake again.

the next morning, we toured the area and discovered its rich history.

some persecuted christians had moved over from germany in the 1800s and settled near the iowa river.  they established these seven colonies and lived communally, sharing everything.  no one received a wage and they were all assigned jobs by the governing council.  meals were served at communal kitchens and no one had to pay for any service the town offered.

it is definitely modernized (as was evidenced by the woman who came out onto her porch in sweats to make a cell phone call and smoke a cigarette...oh, and the bacon lip balm)

and has been morphed into a popular iowan tourist destination, but it still made me stop and consider what we could learn from the simplicity of their everyday lives and faith.

p.s.  this was something else we found on the "I-80 attractions" list...not quite as historic maybe, but mildly entertaining.  especially one of the three gift shops which sported a rack of christian books/music next to the dirty bumper stickers.

day 21

i forgot to mention that last night cliff and i giggled/gagged as we gave each other the "garlic oil in the ear" home treatment our sisters suggested to fend off ear infections.  little did we know, we were going to be tasting it/smelling like the olive garden for a good 48 hours after.  good thing we weren't going to be seeing anyone we knew.  oh wait…

after a quick morning round of mini-golf we hit the road.  we had been inspired by a sign we saw on the highway

and figured we better start indoctrinating our children young.

we were going to drive in three states today.  does anyone else have an unspoken affection for gary, indiana like i do?  as i saw the signs, i couldn't help but hum the tune.  thank you music man.  what i didn't know, was that the townspeople had been right.  apparently, trouble with a capital t and that rhymes with p and that stands for pool was not so far off.  pool halls must have been the beginning of a serious slip into debauchery because as we drove through, the signage was covered with half-naked women.  according to the billboards, gary indiana is now a den of sin.  mennonite kids beware - your parents might be right about what dancing will lead to.  

thankfully, we didn't have to stop and we chugged right on through to the location i was possibly most giddy about: chicago.  when i was in high school, my dad moved our family to wheaton, illinois to finish his masters in communications.  i was so bitter.  at the time, i had no idea it was going to be the best year of my high school career.  so you can imagine how bitter i was when he moved us back to chilliwack again for tenth grade (sorry dad)!  all this to say, i've wanted to come back for awhile.  i don't really know the city well, but i just remember loving it.

we parked right downtown (yay cliff) and just walked.  and walked.  and walked. 

our kids were troopers.  there was some whining and a near "peeing in pants" episode (that was me), but they were so good.

sidenote: this is what rich white people do when they go to chicago.

i love the architecture in this city.

and the people were so generous and surprisingly kind (unlike another state which shall remain unnamed but rhymes with "spew pork").  it was dark and i was freezing and simon was screaming and the street was deserted and i was trying to feed the meter and i heard a voice from behind me say "it only takes quarters, ma'am.  or those dollar coins.  or a credit card, if you have one".  the nice man sleeping on the bench, trying to keep warm got up to help me.  thanks again sir…sorry i didn't have more to give you.

after we ate our pizza (we were in chicago - it's a must), we drove out to the suburbs to visit some friends in the wheaton area.  it's kind of a weird thing, to see people that you knew really well in high school…16 years later.  i felt kind of silly because it was such a significant time for me, but i know for them i was just the crazy girl from canada with the funny accent whose name was just like the cake maker ("nobody doesn't like….").

all that to say, it was really a lovely visit.  i got to meet sean's family and see what an amazing dad he's become and to laugh with dave and to intercessor-ally apologize for wounds of his past (just put some garlic oil on those…i hear it heals everything).  on top of that, josiah has another new best friend in logan.  thanks for a fun trip down memory lane, gentlemen.  you're welcome on my side of the border anytime, hey?