Day 15 - 6/15/06

Departed Portland, OR 9:30am Arrived Castle Rock, WA 7pm. Travel Distance: 2040 miles since 6/11/06.
Today was so much fun..........maybe the most fun day so far. We got to relax quite a bit and soak up the coastal weather (overcast & windy...go figure). We started off by taking a walk along the beach at Netarts Bay, we even soaked our toes in the very cold Pacific Ocean. We headed up the coast to a local winery called Nehalem Winery and tried about 14 different ones (pretty much all they had to offer). They don't grow any grapes there, they have them shipped up from Salem, however the wines were pretty good....we even bought a few bottles! We drove up the coast some more on HWY 101, very beautiful road that follows the coast.....we would totally recommend it. On the way to Cannon Beach (where Haystack Rock from the "Goonies" movie is located.....see photo above) we stopped at a few beaches, one was very secluded and we walked quite a ways. We found so many pieces of sand dollars on the beach while walking....it was so cool. Amber got so excited when she found a couple of whole...totally not broken sand dollars, you would have thought she won the lottery she was so excited! It was definetly the highlight of her day. As we continued to our last destination in Oregon.....Astoria, we got to see the old jail house they used in the movie "The Goonies" and also drove past the Goonie's house. However a lady lives there now so you can't drive up to the house and she painted it purple so it doesn't even look the same, it was still cool though. We went to the Astoria Column it was 160+ winding steps up to the top. It was so high you can see over to Washington state. Afterwords we took a locals advice on a good seafood place to eat dinner. It wasn't exactly what we were expecting.....we ate Cod and Halibut, cuz thats all they offered really. It was good but we can get that in Wisconsin. We wanted lobster and calamari.....you know the FUN seafood. So we were a little disapointed. However the earlier part of our day was just AWESOME!!!!!!!

Day 14 - 6/14/06

Departed Idaho Falls, ID 11:30am and Arrived Portland, OR 10:15pm. Travel Distance: 1785 miles since 6/11/06.
Basically to sum up today.....all we did was non-stop driving...........we just wanted to get to the coast! The only cool thing we saw was "MT. Hood" well we only saw it at dusk so we didn't even get a picture and the next morning it was too cloudy and overcast to even see it....very sad. However we got a nice post card though!

Some of the State signs (continued...)

Some of the State signs

Boulder, CO - 6/11/06

Amber up in the flatirons looking out at Boulder, CO.

Grand Teton National Park - 6/13/06

The Tetons just outside of Jackson Hole, WY.

Yellowstone National Park - 6/13/06

Shawn standing in front of "Old Faithful" while it erupts!

Day 13 - 6/13/06

Departed Baggs, WY 10:30am and Arrived Idaho Springs, ID 10:30pm Travel Distance: 1050 miles since we rented the car in Denver 6/11/06.
We started our adventure today at the Southern mid section of Wyoming. The landscape of southern WY is very dull....dead and dry looking. Once we were a little south of Jackson Hole, WY the landscape was just spectacular. The Rocky Moutains in this part of WY are in the Grand Teton National Park is actually more beautiful than the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The mountains are lush, green and way more snow covered peaks.....just breathtaking! Our drive took us north into Yellowstone National Park, however we were not impressed. The Southern part of Yellowstone reminded us of northern Wisconsin....mostly pine trees! Although once we got to "Old Faithful" which was the main reason we came through Yellowstone, the park was actually beautiful. We actually thought we would arrive at the exact time the geyser was going to erupt......well we were wrong of course! We ended up waiting about 45 min. and it was totally worth it! We also got to see some wild Bison, Elk and a quite a few fly fisherman. Today was a very scenic day and we covered alot of miles, we were in 3 states: Wyoming, Montana(for like 10 min.) and Idaho.

Day 12 - 6/12/06

Departed Boulder, CO 9am and Arrived Baggs, WY 10pm. Travel Distance - 506 miles since we rented teh car in Denver on 6/11/06.
The 1st thing we did today was go to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO (this is the hotel from "The Shining" the movie). However we learned that the movie "The Shining" wasn't actually filmed here, but it was what gave them the idea for the hotel in the movie. The re make of this movie made for TV was however filmed at this actual hotel in Estes Park......pretty cool!
We continued into Rocky Mountain National Park and bought an annual pass for all the national parks for $50. We got to cross the continental divide and take lots of scenic pictures. While in Grand Lake we stopped for lunch at a local diner and had Buffalo burgers......delicious! Next stop is beautiful Brekenridge......all we did here was go to the "Brekenridge Brewery" and had a couple of pretty tasty beers. And so continuing on north west toward Wyoming we also went through...to name a few: Frisco, Vail, Avon and Steamboat Springs. It was exciting to see the various mountain landscapes of Colorado. One of the most interesting was "The Sleeping Giant" it's an actual mountain that looks like a man laying down....it's in Steamboat Springs, CO......We'll post a pic later on. In our final 30 miles we almost hit 2 mule deer, an owl and a rabbit all within about 10 minutes. Shawn even locked the breaks when trying to stop for a deer going 65mph. Needless to say we decided to call it a night at the "Drifter's Inn" in Baggs, WY.

Day 11 - 6/11/06

Arrived Denver, CO 7:30am.......Beautiful!! Travel Time: 15hrs by Amtrak. This was our first experience with Amtrak and it was enjoyable. The seats are very spacious and you can walk around the whole time, they have a scenic car and a dinner car. We even kicked back and had a few beers and wine and met some really nice people.........including a few Amish!
Upon Arrival in Denver Amber's longtime college friend picked us up at the station and took us to breakfast at a very nice 50's ish diner. We found a great deal of a motel for only $35.....we thought it was a good deal. When we got to our "Royal Palace Motel" we found otherwise, this place looked like it could be rented by the hour! After checking into our roach motel we got a cab ride to Alamo car rental at the Denver Airport, and proceeded to rent a car. We decided to take a rental car from Denver, CO to Seattle, WA and see the sights in between. Alamo Car Rental has given us a sporty silver Pontiac Grand Prix from Today until Sunday June 18th.....then it needs to arrive at the Seattle Airport by 12pm. Since we only have a week to get from Denver to Seattle we have decided to start right now.
Our first scenic stop is Red Rocks Ampitheator (see above photo)......terrible tan lines "we know". From Red Rocks we proceeded toward Boulder and stopped off at Target to buy some more clothes since we are lacking in that department. Amber has gotten to show Shawn most of the places she lived and worked in Boulder....however since its sunday the main place was closed "Liquor Mart" where she worked. Keep checking we'll have lots more interesting sights to post!!