Let’s see… back to the road trip…

Picked up the van at about noon and rolled out of town shortly after. So excited to be back at it after being stuck for a little over 24 hours! But Katie was going to have to make an expensive flight change and we were going to have to find one more hotel.

We hop back on the highway and are flying along when we hit packed snow and ice. For 100 miles. Cars in ditches everywhere, tracks in ditches everywhere yet everyone is passing us. I’m still not sure how we made it up some of those hills. We trudged along between 25 – 45 mph. Hit the county line and like magic, the roads were clear. (thanks Treasure County!!) The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. Hit Butte (“Butt”, Katie called it) around 10 something pm and asked the dude in sunglasses at the gas station how the roads were to Missoula. He had heard they were pretty bad. Because I heed no warnings, we continued on, making it to Missoula around midnight. (the roads weren’t bad at all)

Crashed for 5 hours or so and drove off around 7. Once again a pretty uneventful drive though Idaho was gorgeous! It was snowing and covered in snow and completely beautiful. Once we got near a city, Katie started searching for donuts. We took a much needed pit stop in Coeur d’Alene and munched em down.

Perhaps the best part of this leg of the trip was our stop in Ellensburg to unload my mattress. I have a massive full size mattress that Ben somehow squeezed into the van. To any passerby (and there were so many!), I imagine it looked like Katie and I were trying to pull an adult from a lady’s baby hole. That’s what it seemed like to me anyway. Haha. It had to have taken a good 20 minutes of pushing and pulling, but finally the mattress was out and we were once again en route to Seattle.

This was Superbowl Sunday and I was so excited to find a local bar and watch the game with the cheering crowd. However, Murphy had been a pretty good sport the entire drive and we thought it was best to get him some exercise before settling in anywhere. We found a nice dog park where he ran around a bit and we got an awesome view of Mt. Rainier. I really wanted it to be clear so my dear sis could see the mountains and why I need to be here, and it was!

We attempted to go together to a bar near the hotel to watch the game but Murphy had other plans for us. He started whining after we left the room so Katie chose to stay back and I went to a bar for halftime and most of the 2nd half. It was definitely a happy crowd and fun to experience. After the game we went to grab some food and that’s when the real celebration began – people cheering and yelling in the streets and shooting fireworks. I understand it’s exciting but really, it’s just football. I was happy for the revelers anyway.

Katie left around 4am for the airport and so it was just me and Murphy and our new adventure.