The Canfield Cross Country Road Trip 2015
Day 1:
On July 2nd, Andrew and I set out on our first annual cross country road trip! We ventured across the United States from Louisiana to Portland, and even took a day trip up to Seattle!
After 33 hours on the road, we were so excited to visit an area of the country neither of us had ever explored. Portland is a land in its' own, with a style, culture, and way of life that makes you rethink how to live.
Our first stop was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. When we arrived, it was pouring down rain, enough to where we almost had to pull over. Definitely the middle of a summer storm.
Day 2:
on July 3rd, when we woke up, we got right on the road, and headed into Kansas. Complete with A.LOT.OF.COFFEE in the middle of nowhere.
The drive was relatively uneventful, but seeing the wind turbines, and rolling hills with the big, beautiful clouds was so beautiful!
We arrived in Colorado after a long day's drive, happy to be off the road.
Hello, Boulder, how are you? Margaritas were delicious at a little cafe in Downtown Boulder. It was nice to have a few days to relax too.
We stayed in a neighborhood right off of a private lake, that's right: a private lake. The mountains framed the lake, and the sunset created the most breathtaking views!!!
Day 3:
July Fourth, Andrew and I woke up bright and early and headed to the local farmer's market. It was huge, and so crowded! How cool to have so many local people buying local goods. We bought some local coffee and breakfast, and relaxed next to the river on the cool, cut grass.
We spent much of July 4th exploring the city, walking and riding bikes around the town...and also getting lost....We ate lunch at a cute empanada restaurant.
Andrew wanted to go for a run in the afternoon, and I wanted a margarita, so we stopped at a restaurant where I relaxed in the air conditioning, and he ran. It was called Rueben's, so I thought it was a fitting place to stop. margaritas were pretty good too!
We wanted to explore the area some more, and ended up grabbing some drinks at another local restaurant, where we wanted to kill some time before heading to the stadium to see the fireworks!
We got to the University of Colorado, and when it was time to head into the stadium, it started drizzling :-( We went to a pavilion to wait it out, and then headed back to the house... we actually ended up getting REALLY lost on the bike paths, in the dark without GPS because my phone died.
An amazing thing happened though! We found an opening on the paths when we were about to give up finding our way back, and there was a taxi at the end! We hailed it down, got a ride back, and found out that there were very few taxis out that night in Boulder. Thank God we made it back safely. Now, we can look back and laugh.
DAY 4:
We woke up ridiculously early the next morning, and headed on. Look at the picture I snapped before we left though! Those mountains, ahhhh.
Wyoming was right up the road, and we ventured further into the US than either of us had ever been!
The mountains were surrounding us the entire day, trains were passing us, and the weather was in and out of rain and shine.
And we arrived in Utah sometime in the early afternoon. I can't believe we hit three states in one day. It was exhausting, but we looked forward to arriving in Salt Lake City.
The clouds, and the scenic views were enough to make me hold my breath. I took so many pictures of the rolling hills, the mountains, the clouds. It was SO.BEAUTIFUL!
God really knows how to paint a canvas.
We got to Salt Lake City just in time to check into the hotel and explore the city.
We went to the LDS temple museum, read about Mormon history, and when Jesus arrived in North America........... I had no idea!
After eating dinner, we decided to walk to the capital building, and saw this "Missionary Package" on the way back down the hill. This particular package includes everything except the bicycle.
We ate dessert at a sidewalk restaurant, wish I had taken a picture. CHOCOLATE!
DAY 5:
The next morning, bright and early, day four of our trip, and the very last leg! We drove into Idaho, beautiful, but bare. We were in the middle of no where most of the day, and the scenic drive made it so worth it.
We stopped in Boise, Idaho for lunch. What a cool city! They had colorful bike lanes throughout the downtown area, cute little shops to eat at, and seemingly a lot of culture. I wish we could have spent more time there, but we
We stopped at a sandwich deli, and remembered that we forgot to take pictures together. With just the two of us, it was hard to remember that we needed to include ourselves for the memories.
We drove by the 'blue football field' on the way out of town, and drove by the capital building too. Two capital cities in one day, yay!
Around 1pm, we made our way across the border to OREGON! Unfortunately, the only picture I took was on my other camera, and it is sideways, so deal.
What to even say about this state. It was like we were on a different planet with the strange sandy landscape. Until we were 60 miles outside of Portland, we were in complete desert, and then it transformed to a green, and beautiful landscape. There were so many trees, and the river was on our right the entire time.
We could see Mount Hood in the distance as we drove closer and closer to our final destination!
Around 4pm, we arrived in Portland, Oregon! Before heading to our awesome AirBNB house, we stopped at Kay's Bar for a margarita and some food. YUM. I think we ended up going there three or four times. We were exhausted, but we had so much energy for the trip ahead!
Our AirBNB hosts walked us through the city, gave us maps, and laid out how to maneuver without getting lost (like we did in Boulder). They were so patient and made everything so easy to understand. As someone who loves organization, it was a breath of fresh air to hear how easy the streets were laid out.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early to go explore the city.
Breakfast at a cute coffee shop around the corner. A little hole in the wall with delicious breakfast, and every trashcan imaginable. We took the bike paths and rode all the way to downtown Portland from SE Portland.
We wouldn't have really been there if we hadn't gone to Powell's Books. The huge bookstore had cute little notes on the shelves showing different interesting things about different areas. I bought a new journal, and a DIY book by my favorite blogger, Suzanne! She is the reason I decided to sew my wedding dress, and the book is so interesting and informative!
We stopped for lunch at one of the famous food cart areas of downtown Portland. There were so many to choose from, we ended up getting Gyros. You can never go wrong with a Gyro.
We spent the afternoon walking through Portland's Museum of Art. How incredibly beautiful everything was. I got to look at Monet's art, which was so amazing! They had some really inventive art as well, such as the one above, made with broken pottery.
Before heading back to the house, we stopped at a cute little coffee shop for some refreshing iced coffee. YUM.
DAY 7:
Breakfast at Voodoo Donuts soooo early! Seriously, we were making the most of our time in Oregon by waking up two hours earlier than everyone else. Not to mention we were still functioning on the central time schedule. It was so good. I got an apple fritter, and Andrew got a chocolate, and a maple bacon. MMMM!
We went to the Cathedral park to see what the big deal was: it was beautiful, that's what the big deal was! Then we decided to take a spontaneous road trip up to Seattle! After all, 2 and a half hours for us was typical and no biggie :-)
Stuck in traffic on a bridge, yay!
aAt least we had an awesome view of Downtown Seattle!
As baseball fans, we had to take part of the trip to go to a Mariner's game. We arrived just in time to see the first pitch!!!
Baseball and beer in the summer time.
We got some outfield seats, and enjoyed some delicious stadium food and beer. Seriously, it was fabulous. By far the best stadium food yet.
After the game, we went to Downtown Seattle, and decided to visit Pike Place Market. It was so colorful, and though we didn't get to see any fish being thrown, it was such a cool market!
We got to see the pacific bay. It was so pretty!
Though we didn't stop at the Original Starbucks, was pretty cool to see. Who wants to wait in a line that long just so say they got coffee there? Not me!
Rainbow sidewalks on Capital Hill! We walked all the way to the top
(it was steep, hot, and really long).
We learned our lesson to take the bus system back down.
We had to visit the awesome book store while in Seattle! Elliott Bay was huge, and Andrew was in his zone. I love how he loves books.
We ate sushi at a local restaurant, recommended by a local guy, then made our way to the bus stop.
We wanted to stop and see the space needle, but didn't want to find parking, so we drove by it instead. It was so tall, and the glass museum around it was really cool! I wish we had more time to stop and look around.
Day 8:
On our last morning in Portland, our hosts made us a delicious breakfast, complete with the Portland logo.
We took a drive up the hill to the Japanese Rose Gardens, where there were so many beautiful flowers. It was so colorful and sitting high on a hill overlooking Portland.
We drove through Downtown Portland again, and after our second stop at Powell's Bookstore (yes, we went there twice), we drove to the Northeast area, the only area we had left to visit. The artwork in the downtown area was so creative and colorful!
We ate lunch at a food cart corner, where they had built this whole picnic area between a circle of food carts. Our plan was to walk to a local farmer's market after lunch, but the one we ended up finding was not quite what we were looking for. I did find a local fabric store, however, and spent entirely too much money on some beautiful linen fabric, some colorful fabric, and a cute shirt pattern! How rare it is for me to find a local fabric store, and it was such a win.
Andrew spent our last night in Portland visiting this amazing restaurant called Jade. It was so amazingly tasty. My mouth waters just thinking about it.
We decided to go by the huge local park and take a walk before going to the Northwest side for some ice cream. That park was so green and refreshing. Though I did not dress for a hike, and we didn't venture too far in, having a gem like that right in the middle of such a big city was really cool to see. How rare to find such a huge forest just sitting next to a city.
Northwest Portland was really cultured, cute, and defined. It had twinkle lights everywhere, and there were so many people eating and hanging out at all these awesome little shops!
Day 9:
We woke up super early and after visiting VooDoo Donuts one last time, made our way out of Portland, out of Oregon, and back through Idaho.
We stopped at a sandwich shop in Boise again, this time loving the artwork, and the food!
Day 10:
Double rainbows in Salt Lake City! Wow, I was completely amazed while we were heading out of Salt Lake City towards New Mexico, I saw the fullest, most brilliant rainbow I had ever seen.
I prayed to God shortly before seeing this rainbow, and was completely taken aback when I saw it. It was overwhelming.
Many more wind turbines to see in Utah. They were so overpowering as we drove next to them.
The summer storms in Utah were so incredible. They had these beautiful rolling clouds, and you could see the rain in the distance.
One of my favorite things about this trip was the changing landscape. Every few hours, we would see completely different landscape than before. It was such an incredible tour of the United States, seeing all of that majestic geography.
We saw more rainbows in New Mexico, the second time in my life, and in that day that I saw a complete and full rainbow. There were double rainbows there too, but I didn't get a good picture. I loved the afternoon thunderstorms.
Andrew and I arrived in Amarillo aka middle of nowhere and stopped at a hotel around 2am. Smelled like cigarettes, yuck.
Day 11:
I didn't take very many pictures this day, and as we drove through Texas to head home, we were quite sad to realize we were heading away from such an incredible trip, and back to our regular lives. 
Though we crossed the Louisiana border with heavy hearts, we had our little cat to look forward to!
Our first annual cross country road trip was so completely incredible. I couldn't have asked for it to go so well, and we are so blessed to have been able to take it.
Andrew and I are travelers at heart, that is for sure.
