We're Off! 
Saturday, January 8, 2011, 09:08 AM - Friends/Family
We're starting the first leg of our long term international trip. My parents dropped us off at the Amtrak station in The Cities Thursday night. The train was over an hour late. We got a sleeper room for the trip, since it was a 23 hour trip. The train was very relaxed and fun. The meals were included (since we had a sleeper room.) Unfortunately, since the train was late, we had to wait for any other trains that were coming the other direction on one way tracks. This put us 2.5 hours late. We ended up shaving half an hour somewhere along the trip, so we arrived in Whitefish, MT 2 hours late.

We're going to stay in Kalispell, MT for a few days, then fly out on Tuesday for Hawaii. The hope is to skiing while we're here. We'll see.

-Miranda


Joe and I at the Amtrak station.

Our room. It' was super tiny.

The view of North Dakota from the train. The entire state was basically like this.

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Home and Photos 
Friday, October 15, 2010, 04:24 PM - Friends/Family
We're home! We got home yesterday, late afternoon. It's definitely nice to be home. The cats have been having a blast running all over the house.
We worked on unpacking the RV today. We still have some stuff to put away in the house, but it's mostly done any taken care of.

The blog will be pretty quiet now since we'll be home and basically just working.
Oh, and here are the photos I promised.
-Miranda


Julie and Emma in the caves at the Lava Beds.

Emma coming through one of many tight spots in the Catacombs. Unfortunately it's fuzzy because the lens was fogged up. I didn't get any decent photos of her after I cleaned off the moisture. :(

Craters of the Moon National Monument. So many cool formations. This is just a view of the landscape.

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River.

A very neat area in one of the Geyser Basins in Yellowstone.

A steamy part of Yellowstone.

An amusing sign by all the trails that go by hot springs and geysers.

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Yellowstone 
Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 09:28 AM - Driving
In the morning, we headed for Yellowstone. Our hope was to head out hwy 212 towards Billings, but it closes in mid-October. When we went into the park, they had a big sign saying it was closed, so we planned for a different route. It still took us through a part of the park we hadn't been to yet.
We stopped at most of the stops this time. We say the Norton Geyser Basin, the Lower Falls, the Mud Volcanoes and a bunch more. It was lots of fun and lots of walking, though tiring. We ended up leaving Yellowstone around 5pm and started working our way towards Billings.

We got to Billings last night and just stayed in a Walmart parking lot. This morning, we were getting up to go have breakfast with Sara (Joe's sister) and her boyfriend. It was fun to be able to sit and chat for a bit.

We are now on the road and headed for home. Our hope is to get at least partway through North Dakota today, find someplace to stay, then be home tomorrow night.

I'll get photos posted once we get home.
-Miranda

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Craters of the Moon 
Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 09:21 AM - Driving
We did check out Craters of the Moon National Monument. The most recent lava flow there was about 2000 years ago. The rock there was really neat. So many fun formations. We drove around the loop they have there to see the volcanoes and lava flow. There were also some caves. They were a lot rougher than the lava beds, and they were a lot shorter, but still very neat. The two we went into had ice and were quite cold.

We debated on staying in the campground there, but decided against it. We figured it would be better to get closer to Yellowstone. There was a state park before Yellowstone, so our hope was to stay there. I finally looked at the weather for Yellowstone though and it was supposed to be in the teens that night! We decided we would just be driving through, not camping there at all.

We started driving, but right around the time the national forest started, we started climbing a mountain. At that point we realized, it was going to be a cold night. Instead of waiting for the state park, we found a road and drove down it a short ways, then parked. We emptied our sink water and hopped into bed.

Neither of us slept very well. We kept waking up, making sure Curly and Pickles had some blanket on them to help keep them warm. In the morning, the temperature was 16, so I have no idea how cold it got, but it was pretty chilly.

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Driving 
Monday, October 11, 2010, 09:35 AM - Driving
Saturday we drove after we let the cats out for a while until we reached the Oregon/California border where Lake Goose State Park is. State parks have showers, so we stayed there for the night. In the morning, we headed out again and basically drove all day again. We stayed at a rest area near Boise last night. Our aim today is the Craters of the Moon National Monument.
-Miranda

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