For Jeff

Guess where these are from... stories to follow later...

The Road to Oregon

Northern California was beautiful but a bit scary. We took another scenic byway through the historic redwood forest. After meeting Paul Bunyon and his ox, we drove down a gravel road for about 7 miles. If you know me, I was a bit nervous because I was driving. (I'm not the most secure in a large car on back roads)... [please don't worry Corey and Danielle] but, Matt had confidence in me and kept pushing us to go forward. This was not the first of many tiffs we have had along the journey...

Even though we may disagree about things there always seems to be something that brings us back together through laughter or in this case FEAR!!

We stumbled upon a Northern CA State Prison in the middle of the woods. Matt wanted to take a picture, but I didn't stay long enought to even catch the name of it. But, about a two miles down the road we found a beautiful overlook with a view of a river. Unforunately there were three hawks swirling over our heads... what were they searching for??? Then, we met a man carrying several big rocks walking toward us... I darted to the car and we drove off back to the safety of Highway 1.

Trindad in California

Matt and I just finished relishing our final romantic dinner on the road. We stopped in Chicago for dinner before driving to Merrilville, IN. We will soon be in Roanoke and then back to Raleigh. There is a part of me that can't wait get to get out of the car and have a "normal" workout/eating schedule, but then the rest of me is still cherishing the breathtaking views we have had along our journey and wants to only keep driving and experiencing.

Check out these pictures from Trindad, CA.

Fabulous Breakfast :) Watch out Rachel Ray and Giada... I am on my way to the Food Network. This is one of those places that need to be featured on the show "Rowe's on the Road". My eggs benedict had avacado and tomoatoe and was topped with the most delicious hollendaise sauce I have ever had.

Beautiful ocean scenery! A little foggy, but the rock formations were very cool and kept Matt busy exploring for almost an hour.

A little more fun in Napa

Matt asked me last night as we were driving if my Napa post was funny... I had to admit that it the previous one captured the more sophisticated aspects of our journey (yes, Matt pretending to eat grapes off the vine is considered sophisticated). So, I have included a couple of other pics that help you understand our adventure more completely.

We ate at an authentic mexican cafe for lunch, had some fun with large yard art, and enjoyed tasting at several vinyards (which left me a bit tired).

I am writing this post from a grocery store parking lot in Albert Lea, MN. We slept in the van last night after almost 1000 miles of driving across South Dakota. It was a surprisingly pleasent nights sleep. Today we are off to try some cheese and beer and possibly make it in to Chicago, so we probably need to get on the road.

P.S. God's beauty is everywhere on this journey! We are constantly in awe.

Napa Valley to Eugene, CA

It amazes me that it is already Monday and I am still trying to catch up on posting from last week. I am going to share our Napa Valley adventure in this blog. This is one of my personal favorites... partly because I love wine and partly because we met some great people who we will hopefully keep up with.

We are not big fans of highly touristy places and often search for obscure locations when looking for eating and actiities. I found Goosecross on the internet and we actually ended up getting our own personal tour of the winery. It lasted about 2 hours and we learned about everything from planting the vines, to testing the grapes for sugar, to what you do to keep them from freezing before they are supposed to, to the crushing and barrelling process, and to tasting and describing flavors.


We were very impressed and enjoyed the tour and the wine. I was glad that we liked it because if we didn't I would have felt badly not purchasing any wine. But, that wasn't the case! We loved 6 different varieties and ended up joining a wine club so will get regular shipments and updates from the wine maker.

I think this is pretty amazing.

Pictures not attached on previous blog

Our friends pics....


More photos by matt...

More fun in San Fran

More to come soon

For those of you who are holding your breath for further updates from our journey... there are more to come soon! We are running out of batteries and hitting some technical difficulties uploading pictures. But, we are having a fabulous time and currently sitting at a bar in Portland, OR! Hopefully our hotel will have WiFi!

Hope all of our friends and family are well. Prayers and hugs are with you. I hope they are with us too. We will start picking up the pace ASAP.