Week Six, In the Sticks

By sticks, I mean we headed to the lovely northwest, where green is an actual color. And amazingly, we did not see the other prevalent color; grey. It was beautiful the whole week. But sadly we didn't just materialize in Washington. We road tripped it like normal. (And yes, this just weeks after the big CA road trip.)

Lucky you, this means more interesting road side attractions. I wonder if you look forward to the random things Tyler finds for us to discover. I know I do. In fact, I told Tyler that although many of the things are strange, I gave his track record 90%.

He asked, "What haven't you liked so far?"

"Oh, I've liked everything so far. I just can't give you 100%."

Tyler came up with a new strategy this trip. He figured we should get up super early and drive for a few hours and let the kids sleep in the car. And since he volunteered for that shift, I agreed. So I was dead to the world when he took this picture of a lovely Montana sunrise.

The kids were sleeping too.

But overall it worked really well. We made excellent time and four less hours with kids awake and potentially arguing is four hours well spent.

Our weird thing this leg of the trip was the Wild Horses Monument on the Columbia River. Someone placed a row of steel wild stallions along the ridge. It was pretty cool. (Raging stallions for the Raging Stallion.)

The view from the other side wasn't too bad either. (Seriously. Click on that picture.)

Here is a picture of our trusty steed. Tyler purposely got the van in the picture. He said the van deserved to be in the group photo since it takes us everywhere we go. It is a great vehicle.

There is a trail that leads up to the horses, but it is pretty steep, and all the kids had flip flops on, so I nixed the added elevation. Instead, we went across the river and found another weird thing. A TWO-FER!!!

There is a gem shop located near the Ginko Petrified Forest in Washington. In order to get more business they put large, colorful dinosaurs outside their store. The dinosaurs have nothing to do with the petrified forest. In fact, no dinosaur fossils have ever been found in Washington. And actually, I'm not sure they have done much for business either, but they were fun to check out. Look how authentic. (And they might be. Who knows what color the dinosaurs were?)

Then we pretended to run away from the dinosaur.

Tyler thought it looked like so much fun, he wanted to try too. (We would be great extras in a movie.)

The gem shop was actually pretty cool. There were all kinds of fun petrified wood pieces. There were crystals, and shells, and jewelry. I found something that needed a home. I am pleased with my purchase. (And I used it several times on the trip. Dice are the perfect things for choosing kids at random.)

We made it to the Dargan's before dinner time. It was great to be out of the car and with family.

We have plenty of adventures to document in the sticks. Stay tuned for:

* The Sound
* The Mini Golf
* The Zoo
* The Children's Museum (and The Glass Studio)...and The Parking
* The Neilsen's and The Seattle