Minnesota...

Does anyone else find this photo hilarious? I'm still not sure what they were advertising for. I guess that's Minnesota for you.

One word to describe Mall of America...HUGE! Four stories with a full amusement park in the middle! We had so much fun. Riding a roller coaster in a mall was just cool...no other word to describe it! The mall also had any shop or food stand you can think of. We enjoyed walking around and seeing the shops. One game store had a chess set that was 15,000 dollars! After we left the mall, we headed for our hotel in Fargo, North Dakota. Everything is so green here! It's beautiful! Tomorrow we will leave for Yellowstone...yes mom..be jealous :-)

A couple of notes... the first picture is a wedding chapel where you can actually be married inside the mall. Also, the dinosaurs and space station in the bottom pictures are all made completely out of Legos!

Day 3: Mile 1645

Here is the trip so far... We decided to save some time by skipping Mt. Rushmore on the way to Yellowstone. So, we are currently in Fargo, North Dakota (which is actually a lot bigger than we expected).

Mall of America Roller Coaster

Hello all! Just to let you know...we have discovered that we LOVE Lexington! Where else could you get amazing donuts (with the worlds best orange juice)...smoothies made on a bike...and a huge natural stone bridge in one day? The day began when Dakota and Katherine took us to Maggie's bakery. The line was extremely long and once we ate the food we understood why. The donuts were incredible...and they had chocolate icing :-)! The fresh squeezed orange juice was also amazing. We then went to the farmers market which was equally great. They had a smoothie stand where this man would blend smoothies in a blender powered by pedaling a bicycle. We didn't order one...(we had just had donuts and orange juice)...but it was still cool. We then visited "the natural bridge". It's a huge stone bridge about an hour outside of Lexington. The park is filled with hiking trails and lookouts. The view was beautiful and the bridge was really cool. This visit has been so nice and the company was even nicer!




We are leaving Lexington tonight (after what sounds like will be an amazing feast prepared by Jack) and will drive through the night to Minneapolis and Mall of America. We'll be in a hotel Sunday night and we should be able to post again then.

Day 1

And we're off! We drove from Boone to Lexington, Kentucky today. Our wonderful friends Robbie and Amber allowed us to stay with them the past two nights in the midst of their moving. Reilly and Maggie loved waking us up in the morning... why not wake up their parents...I have no clue! It was cute though! Then Dustin got jealous that I had a cute picture with the girls and decided to take a picture of him sleeping with Braeden. We can't wait to see the Skene family again and we miss you guys already! The drive today was beautiful...we drove through highways in the mountains pretty much the whole way and the scenery was gorgeous. Now we are going to Dustin's uncle Jack's house and will be there till late tomorrow night when we'll leave for Minneapolis and....MALL OF AMERICA!!!! ~Dustin and Ashley~

Road trip lesson number one...Do Not Forget Suitcase (learned on 7/26/09) :-)

The Journey

Here is a tentative schedule of our trip:

Boone
Lexington, Kentucky
Chicago, Illinois
Minneapolis, Minnesota (Mall of America)
Mt. Rushmore
Yellowstone National Park
Lava Springs, Idaho
Seattle and The San Juan Islands
Portland, Oregon
Crater Lake
Redwood National Park
San Francisco, California
Los Angeles, California
Las Vegas, Nevada
Grand Canyon National Park
Four Corners
Mesa Verde
Arches National Park
Boulder, Colorado
Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico
Roswell, New Mexico
Omaha, Nebraska
St. Louis, Missouri
Home!

Feel free to make suggestions... We'd love to know if we're missing something we should really see.

We're going where exactly?!?

Hello friends and family! Many of you have heard about our planned road trip and have asked many questions about the places we are going and the things we will be doing. Our answer in one sentence...we are making a huge circle around the United States, 10,000 miles huge. We have many planned trips and cannot wait to start our journey. Along the way we will update our blog with pictures and stories for you all to see. We know this will be an incredible trip and are so excited that we can share it with everyone.