Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Heading West

In case you missed the "We Don't Live Here Anymore" post, we recently moved cross-country from Virginia to Washington. In June we packed up for the move and sent the twins to stay with family in Georgia while Peter and I headed west with Riley and Sasha. The trip from Charlottesville to Poulsbo took us four days. We drove through a total of 11 states: Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington. We drove along the border of Nebraska for a long time, but we never entered the state. Here are some pictures from our road trip.

Our first stop at the Welcome Center in West Virginia
The first day of travel was not that eventful. We made progress but I don't have many pictures to show of it. While the landscapes changed, I guess it was not that different from things I have seen before and I didn't take pictures. We really focused on getting as many miles in that first day as possible since we left a little later than planned. After getting the old house empty and clean, we felt we didn't have steam or time left to start driving, so we spent the first night in Charlottesville. We left the next morning and drove through Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and then spent the night in Peoria, Illinois. 

Traveling with the dogs affected our options for hotels. There's a website www.gopetfriendly.com that was a great resource for us. You can plan your trip out on a map and see all the pet friendly hotels. We used it on the road and would search for a hotel an hour or so before we wanted to stop and that worked well. Peoria was easy enough, but once we really got into the mid-west I had to call around for options. We managed to find some cool places to stay. Peoria was nice but nothing special - the place was by the mall and several other hotels. There was a Chipotle there. I think that was the last time I've eaten at Chipotle! I just realized Peoria was a lot more special than I thought. The next day we drove through the rest of Illinois, through Iowa and into South Dakota.


Scenic view off I-680 in Iowa



This is what I climbed up to see the scenic view.
We ended up staying the night in Murdo, South Dakota, at the Sioux Hotel. It was a last resort after calling the few places I could find on the Pet Friendly site. I remembered seeing a sign for it and called, and the lady agreed that our dogs could stay. After checking in, we found a pizza place that we could walk to and sit outside. The special thing about the pizza is that it includes its own dessert. They fill the pizza crust with cinnamon sugar and give you icing to eat with it. It was not the greatest pizza in the world but good and with the best idea for stuffed crust ever. Walking around Murdo we spotted a sign that says that the city was named after Murdo Mackenzie for herding cattle through there in 1880. 

Riley, Sasha and Peter at Prairie Pizza in Murdo, SD

The longest part of the trip was driving through South Dakota. Planning our trip, I remember thinking that driving through there will be so boring. You look on a map and it's just a big rectangle with two interstates going through it. Other states had their beauty, but we agreed that driving through South Dakota was actually the most interesting part of the trip. I was not able to capture it in photos. But the sky was so blue, the green prairie was so green, the rolling hills with the changing textures, and there were these ponds of water that didn't look like water I'd ever seen before - they were a dark, dark blue, almost black. I wonder how deep they were. We saw lots of cows but didn't see any buffalo. Of course, most of our views were from the interstate, but still. It is vast.

We took a slight detour on our third day to visit Mount Rushmore. Then a slighter detour to visit Wall Drug. There were signs for a lot of other places I wanted to visit, but I couldn't go through without stopping at Wall Drug. And now I have the bumper sticker. Peter balked at stopping there, but I think he enjoyed it. He got some South Dakota socks with buffalo on them.



Mount Rushmore selfie
Wall Drug
On the third day we drove through the rest of South Dakota, Wyoming, into Montana and stayed the night in Butte, Montana at Eddy's Motel. The motel had a fenced in area for dogs. I thought that was cool. Peter would later comment that it confused the dogs and made them think we were staying there for good. They were not as motivated to leave as usual in the morning. The motel rooms each had garages that were not being used (there was probably something in there but I didn't ask). Inside the room there was a small room with a closed off door that would have gone into the garage. The sink and tub seemed original to the place, which was built sometime in the '30's. I thought it was cute. Peter thought it was eerie and creepy. But he seemed to go along with it as part of the adventure.


Wyoming
Sasha and Riley at Eddy's Motel in Butte
The final day we finished driving through Montana, then through the top skinny part of Idaho and into Washington. We reached the Seattle ferry terminal before sunset, took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and drove to our new home in Poulsbo. 


Peter and a scenic view in Eastern Washington
The last leg of our journey - Seattle Ferry Terminal

After a few days, I flew to Atlanta, spent a couple nights in Georgia and came back with the girls. There is a lot to explore here, and we are all enjoying our new home.

Mary and Sophie at American Legion Park in Poulsbo

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