Coming Home the Long Way

So, a while ago, Justin and I were talking about how cool it would be if we drove back to Oregon together. This worked out so well, because I was able to take home just a little bit more than I would have if I had flown home from Union. Unfortunately, it meant leaving Union earlier, which meant that I got less time to spend with Tara. So, we left on our last day; after finals were over, we packed up Justins car, and helped him get his room clean, since Jeff Peterson and I had been cleaning our room for a while already, it was already finished. So, once I was ready, Tara and I got to hang out for a couple hours while I was waiting for Justin to get ready.

Once Justin was ready, we left; it was about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so we just drove and drove and drove, till we got too tired to drive anymore. All this time, it was raining on and off, so we were kind of worried about where we would sleep. Eventually however, the rain stopped. We ended up pulling off the road around 3 in the morning, and trying to find some place to sleep. We put our sleeping pads down, and pulled out sleeping bags, and jumped in them, seeing that nights in the middle of Wyoming, in the beginning of May, are still, a little cold. Once inside, I remember Justin saying something about feeling a raindrop, and I was like, oh okay, I didn't feel anything. So, we got the rain-fly out, and set it up. Once that was up, we decided that putting up the whole tent wouldn't be a bad idea. I was zipping the rain-fly down, and crawling inside the tent, when, just like that, it started pouring rain. God is so amazing!! He held the rain off just until we got inside the tent.
The next morning, we got up, and noticed fresh snow on the mountains around us. And we realized that God was really looking for us, like He always does. After this, we got up and attempted to dry the tent out, and fold it up. This required standing in the middle of the highway, which was sort of freaky since these huge trucks kept barreling by. Once we finished that, and had shoved our stuff back into the crammed car, we drove on to Cody, Wyoming, where we stopped to visit Sierra Trading Post. From Cody, we headed west, into Yellowstone National Park. It was so crazy!! Yellowstone was still covered in a couple feet of snow. While we were driving around, I was mentioning to Justin that it sucked that we didn't have his sled. And that we should use his skimboards as sleds instead. So, thats what that video at the bottom is about.



It seems that bad weather just really enjoyed tormenting the two of us, because while Justin and I were waiting to see Old Faithful(or should I say, not so faithful) go off, it started to snowing!! We raced back to the car, and started driving out of the park. On the way out, the snow just kept falling hard and harder. It was crazy!! The whole time, we were just praying that it would stop so that we could see enough to drive. Once we got to the town of West Yellowstone, right outside the park, the snow storm began to lessen slightly in intensity. From West Yellowstone, we drove as long as we could, until the snow turned into rain, and then, finally stopped. We stopped about 5 mins or so from the Lewis and Clark caves, and put up our tent. Once again, God was so good to us!! He kept the rain off until we were inside. The funny part about this whole story, is that the next day, we drove from there, all the way to Walla Walla, and it didn't rain there until right before we left. So, it was an awesome adventure, driving all the way from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Roseburg, Oregon(the drive from Walla Walla, was pretty boring compared to the rest of it). And it was defenitely an awesome trip. I hope to do it again some time. Especially since Justin knows how to climb more than he did we did this.