Month: July 2005

“We ate the food… we drank the wine… everybody having a good time…”
-U2

Wow… what a great wedding. While we’ve had a great adventure coming out here – it’s important for us to remember the reason behind it all. Tracy and Tobias’ wedding was a beautiful event. Pardon us for a second to get a little deep. Weddings are a great thing. Especially in this case, where people from all over the world (literally) came together and embraced an incredible occasion. We’ve met some fantastic people and made some good friends through this celebration. The bride was beautiful. The wedding was amazing. It truly brought things into perspective.

We’re posting a picture of the “Fab Four” at the pre-nuptial gathering as well as a picture at the wedding.

We motor off tomorrow towards Olympic National Park and then off to Boise, ID. We’ll check in again on Tuesday night.

Love to all,

Jeff & Amy

P.S. Sorry to those of you in the Midwest. Sunny and 75 out here… 🙂

2,480 miles!!! We made it! We’re safe and sound in Seattle, WA. Just checked into our hotel room. We’re sad that our trip is exactly at its halfway point. However, we’re excited to see the things on the upcoming agenda – including Tracy’s wedding!

Just one picture today. It’s another one of those “looks like its fake” shots. We visited the Grand Coolee Dam and camped on Lake Roosevelt last night. Kind of a funny place – the whole area is trapped in the 1950’s. The visitor center shows the oldest information film I’ve ever seen. Reminds me of Mr. Hays’ social studies class in 8th grade. The area has all of those cheesy drive-in motels/restaurants. Even the campground was uniquely “antiquated.” It felt like we were in a time warp.

The geography of eastern Washington is fascinating. First of all – the drive from Missoula, MT to C’oeur D’Alene is amazing. Absolutely beautiful. Then you hit eastern Washington and it’s as flat as a pancake – almost like being back in southern Minnesota. However, if you drive a little bit north and hit the Columbia River area – it’s back to being breathtaking. We followed Highway 2 all the way to Seattle. The Cascades are amazing and there is still some snow up in the peaks – just like the Rockies in WY.

It’s very odd driving around in a major city. We’re used to dodging bison and climbing 7-8% grades in the mountains.

We’re off to see some sights and find a cold beer or two. (Speaking of which – Pat or Dennis: Have you guys ever heard of “Moose Drool” beer before? UNREAL! Very good.)

To the New Buffalo bunch – Hope “Shore House” is going well. We miss you guys.

Mark – glad you’re back from Minnesota. Hope everything went well. I’ll give you a call later this week…

Jen & Andy – welcome back from Paris. Sounds like it was an incredible trip. We’re looking forward to an evening of grilling, cocktails & trip stories when we get back. We’ll host – I’m itching to cook again in a real kitchen…

Love you all – we’ll be “on-line” until Monday morning.

Jeff & Amy

Okay – we’re now settled in our hotel in Missoula, MT. It’s actually a pretty big city (compared to Green Bay). I made friends with the front desk clerk who recommended a great steak joint for supper tonight. Love it…

Monday, we drove through the Bighorn Mountains where we’ve been up and down from 4500 to 9500 feet above sea level, but we haven’t cracked the 10,000 ft. mark yet. We were planning to stay at a campsite that we reserved but the afternoon just couldn’t go right after not getting our credit card back at a gas station and not realizing it until 150 miles later, and then driving 20 minutes past the campground we reserved. So we got a site that actually had a better view and a gas station and a “sub shop” that served hamburgers and beer. The showers there left a little to be desired, but you can’t have everything! Amy also got bitten by some odd bug while we were setting up the tent. More to come on that below…

We left early in the morning on Tuesday (our 8-year anniversary) so we could grab one of the first-come, first served sites at Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons National Park. They were not kidding when they said that the sites all fill by 8 a.m., but a nice lady from Wisconsin let us grab her spot as she was leaving. We got our tent set up then began our day of hiking. We took a ferry across Jenny Lake and began hiking up the Cascade Canyon. Even though the flies were swarming around us, it was very beautiful. Lots of waterfalls, and scenic views at every turn. We didn’t see any bears, bighorn sheep, or moose while hiking, but did see ground squirrels everywhere, in fact one wanted our peanut butter sandwiches so much it would have crawled up our legs if we didn’t keep trying to scare it off. We ended up hiking up all the way to the back of the canyon (“The Forks”), before the flies and our sore feet sent us back down. We ended up with nine miles hiked (and over 1,000 feet in elevation change) in the end. Sorry to Dad (and Uncle Doug) who did this plus another 5 miles (and another 1,000 feet of elevation) when he was SIX YEARS OLD!!! (By the way gentlemen, the ranger was VERY impressed with that tidbit…)

We rose early Wednesday morning (6:00 a.m.) to get on the road up to Yellowstone. Beautiful drive. Yellowstone is a zoo. Imagine Door County on the 4^th of July weekend… The trick is to get up there early and hit the big things… We got a decent campsite, but small. We took a TON of pictures and video. Amy’s “bug sting” from camp two nights ago worsened and her leg was pretty swollen and red. We spent some time in the medical clinic (with an attractive young, male doctor from Yale) having Amy’s leg looked at. Nothing too serious – but he did prescribe some antibiotics. Old Faithful is still relatively faithful… wasted some video time waiting for the “big show.” Pretty neat though. This morning we were surrounded at “Mud Volcano” by a herd of bison. A little nerve-wracking, but we made it out of there intact.

That’s about it – we’ve rambled enough. We’re heading through Idaho tomorrow (VOTE FOR PEDRO) and into WA. We’re camping near Grand Coulee and then completing our journey to Seattle for the wedding of Tracy and Tobias – which promises to be a grand affair.

We’ll check in again from Seattle.

P.S. By the way…cheapest gas so far was $2.18 in South Dakota…most expensive was $2.49 in Yellowstone Park. Tourist effect? We think so!

Responses to comments:

Ginger – yep, I finally changed my shirt. Had to show off the city of Green Bay a bit though… [grins]

Thanks for the anniversary wishes. Couldn’t imagine a better place to spend it…

Mama Lapinskas – thanks for the prayers. Amy thinks it was those prayers that helped us survive my driving in the Rockies…

Glad you guys like the blog. We promise to not do this for our weekend trips to Iola though! LOL “Jeff caught a bluegill….” “Amy went to garage sales…” “Jeff drank a beer…” snooze….

Austin – Have fun on your adventure to Blackhawk Island. We’ll talk about Kastle Karts when we get back. Remember – you’re our favorite nephew…!

Amy E. – You’ll always be #1!

Nope… the feet don’t stick out of the tent. Who says Jeff is allowed to sleep in the tent? [grins]

Morse – I knew you’d pick up on the Dreyfus bit. One sci-fi nerd to another…