Trip across the country! ~ Our Green Life in Blue

Warning...really long post. With lots of pictures.

Sometimes I can't even believe our life still. We live in Washington...what?? Never saw that one coming. We LOVE it here! We had heard so many amazing things from our friends and family, we were worried we would build it up so high and then be disappointed...nope! I am sure this is definitely where we are supposed to be right now, even if it wasn't where we thought we would end up. I mean even four years ago we had no idea if Mitch would get a pilot slot, so our plan consisted of him doing his four year commitment, hopefully at WPAFB, and then we would move on with civilian life. I never imagined that the AF would impact us this much, but it is such a blessing. I can't imagine if our original "plan" would have happened... The places we have visited, people we have met, and experiences we have been privileged enough to have...there are no words for how blessed I feel when I try to take the past few years in. As much as I miss home, I'm sure that leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to open my mind and heart to all kinds of new things. I think it is funny now when I think back to high school and the requirement to take different electives and get involved so that you are "well-rounded". I still do not feel "well-rounded", but I am a million times closer to it than I was by taking a class in my suburban high school in the midwest.

Anyway, Mitch's training finally came to an end in Oklahoma and we got set to hit the road across the country! We planned out our trip so that we could visit with friends along the way, but also take the most direct route possible to WA. We were blessed with halfway decent weather for our trip, but did hit a few snags along the way...like mountain passes and all their winter driving horror. ;)

Leaving Altus AFB for the last time!

See ya AAFB!

Loading it up!

Goodbye F78!

Dex ready to go :)

Unfortunately we got delayed leaving and then had to deal with car issues during this leg, so we got into Albuquerque really late. We stayed with our friends Rachel and Evan who are currently stationed there for training, but didn't get to spend much time with them because we were so late. :( We were still so glad to get to see them on our way out west! We met up with our friend Aaron while we waited for new tires to get put on the trailer and he took us on a Breaking Bad tour! :)

Visiting the Breaking Bad house :)

The car wash!

Looks different inside than on the show

So happy for warm sun and great driving weather!

Almost ready to go :)

Our original plan was to drive to the Four Corners monument, then just see how far we could go after that. We got a late start because of the tire change, which led to a huge disappointment at the monument. :(

We got there at 5:14pm :(

You could see forever

Dex watching the horses across from the gas station :)

Beautiful Utah mountain sunset

Dex cat in the hotel :)

Fortunately we were only planning on going to Salt Lake City the next day so we decided to spend a few hours experiencing beautiful Moab and Arches National Park! We definitely want to go back and spend more time there! :)

The Moab fault

Being silly :)

Balanced Rock!

Mitch wanted to run up the trail to the viewpoint

I was tired by the time we made it to the top ;)

Delicate Arch in the background :)

Pups ready to be done with the park they weren't allowed to walk around ;)

The park was so amazing, even with the short driving trip we took! The drive to Salt Lake City from Moab was pretty horrible. If I never had to drive through mountains during the winter again in my life, it would be too soon. Luckily we were safe and it went quickly because were so excited to visit with our friends there!

The snowy mountains

They missed each other ;)

Dinner at Cafe Rio was this good!

We found Mitch's first gray hair ;)

We went to a breakfast at a delicious waffle place called Bruges

Love these beautiful ladies :)

After we went to breakfast, Shaylee and Alex took us to beautiful Park City where they grew up! It was so beautiful and it was awesome to see the Olympic Center. :)

Downtown Park City

Delicious pizza place downtown!!

Sad pups having to leave Utah and their pup buddy Roscoe!

When we left Salt Lake City, we intended to just drive as far as we could toward home since we didn't have anyone else to visit along the way. We ended up going to Kennewick that night, after driving the most terrifying leg of the trip. The mountains in Oregon were snowy and there was such dense fog that we literally couldn't see anything in front of us. We went like 25 mph through the mountains and eventually stumbled upon a semi who was also going slow, according to the lights I could make out just barely. We started a caravan with the semi and that was honestly the only way that we made it as safely as we did. I just followed it closely and trusted that we needed to be going whichever direction it was. We followed it about 15-20 mph for another hour before we got out of the fog. By the time we go out of it, we saw that there were a few other cars behind Mitch for our caravan through the mountains. Crazy!

Eventually we made it through the final mountain pass and to our new home! Wooo!