Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

Alright, folks, this is the last post in the first series. This once-a-day business was easy to sustain during the constantly-evolving chaos of driving across country but now, thankfully, we're in Minnesota for roughly two months. I expect we'll post more to Instagram on a daily basis than we will here on the blog. So, we made it. I have lots of positive things to say about Clubhouse Inn and Suites in Fargo, ND. The rooms were very nice, the breakfast was acceptable and the pool was terrific! We got on the road a little after 11, having picked up sandwiches from Jimmy Johns. We arrived at our destination at approximately 4pm. There was A LOT of screaming. Henry didn't stop moving for about four hours and he was delighted by a walk with Papa to a nearby creek/park. We unloaded the car, rearranged furniture, unpacked the kids' bags, etc., etc., etc. It was fun to watch Elise get more and more excited as we got nearer to Duluth. The drive from Fargo to Duluth is only a...

1. We crossed North Dakota 2. We visited Makoshita State Park before leaving Glendive, MT this morning and it was extremely photogenic. Also, it was thrilling for our aspiring paleontologist(s). 3. We stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the highlights of which were seeing prairie dogs, turning around and a "road closed" sign, and eating a good lunch with live music in the town square. 4. We crossed North Dakota 5. Sleeping in Fargo, we are less than six hours from our destination.  Here is some photographic evidence.

We left Missoula (milepost 99) at 9:18 a.m.. We ate lunch in Bozeman at a terrific local joint called Naked Noodles. Acting on some passing advice from a dad who noticed my Mariners t-shirt because his family had just moved from Seattle, we enjoyed Bogert Park. This gave Henry the opportunity to fall into a creek just after I told him to step in but keep his shorts dry. Whoops. We reached Glendive at 6:30. The car was beeping because our "distance to empty" had reached zero. We had driven 567 miles. But none of that mattered because we were one short costume change away from being in a swimming pool. By 8:00 we had been swimming, showered, received pizza delivered from a local shop and spread out over our hotel room to watch a new episode of American Ninja Warrier, one of our favorite shows. Lily had a Skype chat with a friend, Elise prepared to use the gym and now, at 9:30, the lights are off and there's a guided meditation playing. There's about 11 hours of ...

Let's start with pictures today. Merry-go-round fun  Ali loving the carousel Happy Henry Grabbing the ring for a free ride AC and Library time  Love the eyebrow Still smiling If you skipped the captions, the recap is that we woke up AND went to sleep in Missoula today. There was terrible hotel breakfast. There were hours in the in-house waterpark, at the end of which the kids were literally dragging themselves out by their elbows. For Lily/Jon, there was going to church with our beloved former nanny, Corie, whose birthday we were here to celebrate. Corie's father is the Pastor and it was special to feel so welcomed by the community. There was picnic lunch in the riverfront park, followed by four rides on the original/authentic carousel. There was shopping and then a visit to the public library. Then there was Corie's birthday party, which was overwhelmingly celebrated by the families Corie has nurtured over the years. Then there was mor...

By all measures, today was easy. We ate breakfast in the hotel. Henry got to buy the book he tantrummed about in Coupeville at an adorable local bookstore, where I was also able to add to our sticker collection. We paid less than $50 for lunch and ate it in a beautiful park near an amazing playground adjacent to the lake in downtown Coeur d'Alene. That's right, we classed it up at a public park in our underwear. Look out world! Our driving was less than four hours and the kids watched movies the entire time. We crossed the Clark Fork dozens of times because that's what I-90 does on its way into Missoula. We got to our hotel, ate an acceptable dinner at a local Mexican restaurant (under $100), and got back in time to spend an hour in the water park. This was just long enough for Ali to build up the courage to go down a waterslide by herself. It's 10:30 and the kids are probably asleep. I wouldn't know, though, because we've put them in an adjacent (not ad...

Today was our first big day of driving. Mostly, it went very well. We were on the road around 10am, on a ferry at 11 but not at lunch until after 1. (As usual, lunch cost $150 and about half of what we ordered went uneaten.) Another accomplishment: there was zero screen time. The credit for this goes to the miracle of audiobooks. We previously stumbled across a title called, "Mystery of the Third Lucretia," which features a 14 year old heroine. So on this trip we started the sequel, "Rescuing Seneca [something]." It's obviously captivating for the kids! I had been looking forward to this drive because it significantly retraced the route that Elise and I biked in 2001. We had independently signed up for a tour run by a group called Cycle America. The first week was from Everett, WA to Missoula, MT, which are the origin and destination of these first two days of driving. We got to see a lot of familiar scenery, including some specific sites (and sights) that w...

Somebody's mother, possibly everybody's mother, said that if you don't have anything nice to say then you should say nothing at all. So this will be a short blog tonight. On the up side, Elise built her first cairn (which I'm teaching her is a one-syllable word and not two) and it is MAGNIFICENT! In other news, Elise is getting really good at using portrait mode on her new phone/camera. On the up side for me, I had a haircut today. This isn't a likely highlight but I'm excited to get my head shaved in barber shops all over the world. Today was exceptional. Hot towels, great conversation and a very quiet, very calm hour. My barber was C'Bo, or Charles III, and his father, Charles Jr., was hanging out in the shop for most of the time I was there. Here's the after shot: We had a great lunch in historic downtown Coupeville at a place called Front Street Grille. Their specialty is mussels and the preparation Elise had with a saffron broth was incr...