Back in Bend!

Our circuit of (most of) the US is complete! We have returned home! Let me tell you, the thunderstorms were NOT on our side during this journey. I shared about a few of them in the previous post, but NOAA kept reporting thunderstorms in our area all the way through Colorado (some of them were supposed to have hail the size of tennis balls!) But finally we made it back into the Northwest!

On our westward journey we got to stop and see my best friend from high school Kevin and his wife and son which was awesome! His parents were there too (my second mom and dad)! It was great to relax with them, hang out, play some Ticket to Ride, and just catch up on life.

From there we headed out on Hwy 34 which heads through Rocky Mountain National Park! Woohoo! We slept on the side of the highway at a nice little pullout outside the park, then headed in the next morning! It was great to be in a national park again! For those of you who don't know during high use times they only allow a certain number of people in the park per hour during peak hours. Fortunately we got there just before peak time, so we were able to get in since we didn't have a reservation! There were some beautiful views on the drive, but we didn't dally as we wanted to keep the park less crowded (since we can come back any time!) and also get to our next destination.


Our next stop was Hayden, CO to visit our friends Megan and Jeremy and their son Bailey! It was great to see them again and spend time talking about life and stuff and things. They just recently put out a music album! https://open.spotify.com/artist/6jRi2ZiRnk6AEx06wtAqc2

From there we kept driving, past Salt Lake City, through Idaho, and back into Oregon. We are spending a few days here before heading up to Big Lake Youth Camp for a week with the High Desert group.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Costa Rica!

Image
 Over the last 2 weeks Julie and I went down to Costa Rica with Livingstone Adventist Academy Seniors (and Kirk, Julie's Brother, who works at the school). It was an awesome trip that was filled with beaches, waterfalls, painting, and scaffolding! The point of the trip is to allow the students to combine their Senior class trip with a mission trip, and this year we got to go. The town we went to is called "La Mona" and is on the southern Pacific coast, very close to the border with Panama. The flight down was good, we arrived on Tuesday night in San Jose and spent the night at the local Adventist University called UNADECA (Universidad Adventista de Centro America). Then the next day (Wednesday) we went to a valcano (Volcan Poas) and then headed to the Pacific coast for the evening. The weather was hot (always) but the ocean water was just cool enough that it was perfect to be in the waves as the evening wound down. The next day (Thursday) we made the drive down to La Mona...
Read more

Hawaii is a treat!

Image
 So, it is January now, which means that I didn't blog at all in December, even though we had some amazing adventures! December started out with a journey to the state of Hawaii! Sadly Vincent Van didn't Go to Hawaii, but we had fun none the less! We flew to Honolulu, then on to Hilo, and spent 2 weeks at Hale Laule'a at Opihi Point about 15 minutes north of Hilo. It is an Airbnb that my parents stayed at several years ago, and the owners asked them to come back to take care of the property and guests when they were on vacation. Julie and I were able to join them this time to help out and enjoy the beauty of the island, and it was wonderful!   It was a place where one can just relax and enjoy the peace of living in a place where the air is warm, comfortable, and possibly raining. But even the rain is pleasant. And, there are fresh coconuts! We were both working while we were there, but we had plenty of time to go on some adventures. My three favorites were: 1) Going snorke...
Read more

Converting Vincent

Image
Today we are in Iowa, heading for Indiana. We have been doing a good amount of driving this week, starting from Oregon on Wednesday afternoon, but we are nearly to the destination and can relax now that we are cloes and take our time, which is nice! Vincent has been doing great, our months and years of planning and prep have paid off! Most things are working how we planned for them to, and the things that aren't... well, that is life. Our plan to live in a van started in early 2020 when we were reviewing where we were in life and considering our options. We lived at a youth camp in the Cascade Mountains (Big Lake Youth Camp) which was a great place to live and work for me, but it was more difficult to Julie. In the winter she had to ride a snowmobile out to the car at 5:30 a.m. and dig it out if it had snowed, then drive an hour to work. A very long commute. Because of the camp schedule it was difficult for us to go on adventures, which is something we both want to do, so we were d...
Read more