We have had a wonderful few days here with family and friends. My mom surprised me with a visit from Aunt Suzie! She told some whoppers to get us to the airport (we had some suspicions, believe me!), where Aunt Suzie was waiting to be picked up. What a treat to see her (thanks so much for coming!!). The graduation party was so much fun! My mom put tons of work into making a lovely graduation party/sendoff to Kenya. The party had a Kenya theme to it and yummy food. Tony's Dad and his family were there (along with Tony's little [View Full Entry]

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I wanted to post an update that we have arrived back in Nashville (our final leg of the US journey before Kenya). We left Knoxville yeterday and said goodbye to little Tucker *sniff*. Thanks ever so much to my mom-in-law Cheryl, who is caring for him and our little garden seedlings which we hope will have sprouted when we come back from Kenya. We have started taking our malaria pills, which as Tony says, means "there's no turning back":). We still have a few things to do before we leave for Kenya on Monday, and are busy getting things done and [View Full Entry]

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I just wanted to post a quick update: The court threw out my ticket yesterday! Apparently, the policemen in TN require insurance coverage for the SPECIFIC VEHICLE the person is driving, whereas the court does not care. For example, my insurance covers me in any car I may be driving, but if I were to be pulled over by a cop in another vehicle, they would give me a ticket which would be immediately dismissed by the courts. It's a big hole in the system, and such a hassle! However, the main thing is that the ticket was dismissed. I have [View Full Entry]

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We safely arrived in Knoxville yesterday after getting up very early in the morning on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, we had a car accident after unloading it from the truck. I was pulling in behind Tony at the storage place, and as I was about to turn in, the car behind me ran right into my bumper while I was just sitting still. What a bummer, to have made it all this way, and at the last minute get into an accident! The police came, and helped us to sort it out. However, my insurance card had the wrong VIN number on [View Full Entry]

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Well, we have safely arrived in Gallatin, TN! Such a long drive here. Last night we stayed with my "Gramzy" (my dad's mom) in Cotter, Arkansas. We enjoyed a visit with them and my family living there. Gramzy had beans and cornbread waiting for us for lunch as we pulled in to town:). Today we drove in to Gallatin, TN and crossed the Mississippi River to get here. The water level is very high because of recent rains. Tonight we enjoyed a homemade dinner of my mom's famous "goolash", although she substituted ground turkey for the ground beef to make it [View Full Entry]

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Well, we arrived safely in Flagstaff tonight after a relatively easy drive from Vegas. We stayed in Las Vegas until the early afternoon for Tony to finish writing his FINAL PAPER for his Master's Degree! Once here, we attempted to check in to our hotel, but we were unable to do so, since the hotel we had a reservation for did not allow pets. They had already spotted Tucker jumping around in the truck. So, we were able to check in to another hotel, and are planning to head out in the morning to Amarillo, our next stop. It'll be a [View Full Entry]

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We made it to Las Vegas! We had a wonderful Easter morning, and actually managed to get up early enough for an amazing sunrise service at Bryce Canyon. It was, beyond a doubt, the most unique and freezing cold sunrise service either of us has attended. It was about 16 degrees out, with chilling wind gusts throughout the service. I must admit, I started to be completely unable to focus on the "devotion" part of it, as my legs were beginning to freeze! However, we thoroughly enjoyed it. After the sunrise service, we drove to Las Vegas. We descended from about [View Full Entry]

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What an amazing day today! Bryce Canyon is absolutely amazing, and we are both so very glad we decided to make this small detour. I've had to refrain from posting many many pics, so as to not overwhelm the site. We started today with a 2 hour drive down to Bryce. Once here, we did a small hike outside of the boundaries of the park, so little Tucker could be included. Following the small hike, we checked in to Ruby's Inn (great place!), and unhooked the car from the truck. Then we headed out to explore the canyon. We saw Bryce [View Full Entry]

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We arrived safely in Beaver, UT late tonight after 12 hours of travelling. Of course, one hour of that included an enjoyable breakfast at our favorite home-cookin' restaraunt, Cracker Barrell (thanks Rich and JoAnn!). The scenery in southern Idaho and Utah has become more desolate: We saw a tumble weed, and many snow-capped mountains. And thanks to a nice tailwind, our gas milage incresed from 9.5 mpg to 11.5 mpg. Wind power is a good thing! About 7 pm we arrived in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately we didn't have time to stop and explore the area, but we could make out [View Full Entry]

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Our first leg of the trip is complete. Tony and I set out this morning from Seattle on a beautiful day (the 1st day of Spring). We headed over Snoqualmie Pass, and said goodbye to the snow and ski area. Then we drove south-east for awhile until we arrived in Oregon. Most of the drive today was in Oregon, and we saw some beautiful and desolate land there. Much of our trip was over the original Oregon trail, which made it very intersting, imagining crossing that land on a covered wagon, rather than a temperature controlled truck! Also, Tony said the [View Full Entry]

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