Cross Country Journey: Day 5

Day 5: This has probably been the most interesting day so far. We spent the night last night in Layton, Utah. We couldn't resist the opportunity to eat at Cracker Barrel ONE more time, so we went back for breakfast. :-) Just a few miles from out hotel there was a park called Antelope Island. Bradley has ALWAYS wanted to see a buffalo and since they are heavily populated on this island, we decided to take a little time and drive out there. You have to drive out a 7 mile causeway across the Great Salt Lake to get to it and the views were absolutely breathtaking. If you're from back home, it was basically a Cade's Cove of Utah! I can't wait to show the pictures from there. The Great Salt Lake it just an amazing body of water. It is more salty than any ocean and has huge salt blocks all in it and on the shore. It was just awesome. That has been my favorite thing to see so far this trip. We also got to see buffalo and one was right beside the car. It was awesome. Those things are massive! We had another long day ahead of us so we had to hit the road in order to make it to our destination for tonight. We drove through Utah, then crossed into Idaho and then into Oregon where we are staying tonight. Idaho has a lot more farm land than any of the other states I've seen so far. Yummy potatoes! :-) We stopped in Boise, Idaho for dinner then crossed over into Oregon. This is where our cross country got very, very interesting. We have checked the weather religiously since day 1 to make sure that we were going to be free of any winter weather seeing as how we are moving in February. There hasn't been anything on the radar - but apparently Oregon got surprised with a freezing rain storm. Coming through the mountains of Oregon trying to get to our hotel for the night was very scary. The roads started out fine when we first started climbing into the mountains and then it started snowing. The higher in elevation we got, the harder it snowed until it just started sticking. The roads were really bad - where we had to slow down to 20-30 MPH but then would clear up. Then we hit where the freezing rain had occurred and the roads got slick, FAST. I have never seen roads quite so icy as those were tonight. We were slipping and sliding and doing everything we could to just stay on the road. For those 30 miles, we were literally scared to death. Like I've said in past posts, towns are really hard to come by up here. It's not like a hotel on every exit like it is back in SC. You can seriously drive for 50-100 miles and never see a gas station, restaurant or hotel. After we hit the bad ice, we drove until we came to the closest town and then stopped for the night. We are about 50 miles short of our anticipated destination, but we just felt it was way safer this way. I honestly don't know if we would have made it over more mountains with the way the ice way. We probably would have just been sleeping in the car! But we are now in a hotel for the night and hope to make it Seattle tomorrow! I'm tired of these 10 hour driving days!!! I'm ready for my own bed! (or an air mattress until our stuff arrives!)

So far I can tell you that:

• Buffalo are huge and cool! The literally have 3 different kinds of hair on them.
• Cracker Barrel makes the best pancakes!
• The Great Salt Lake is gigantic and absolutely breath taking.
• The mountains are gorgeous from the Utah side - maybe prettier than the Denver side. 
• We could spend an entire day on Antelope Island. In the winter of course because in the summer they get 2 in spiders!!!
• Idaho stinks, really bad. Like the strongest nursing home urine smell ever. 
• People here don't care about icy roads - they are still going to drive 80 MPH. 
• Utah requires chains on your tires in the winter - who knew! (Clearly we don't have any...haha!)
• My butt is seriously going to be  flat by the time we get there.
• People look at us like aliens when we talk and wonder where the heck we're from...Oh SC accent!
• I really have no idea what time it is. We have been through so many time zones and every clock on everything we have has a different time. 
• WE ARE ALMOST THERE!!!!

States we have been to:

1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. Mississippi
4. Tennessee
5. Arkansas
6. Oklahoma
7. Kansas
8. Colorado 
9. Wyoming
10. Utah
11. Idaho
12. Oregon

 Tomorrow we should hit WASHINGTON!!!

***Please continue to pray for my sister-in-law. She had surgery on her leg today and is on the way to recovery! Hoping she gets to go home in the next day or two!***