Honeymoon Road Trip: Day 2

Even though Vince and I got married almost a year ago in September, we are just now taking our honeymoon. Between school full time and work full time, it just hasn't been able to happen until now! To celebrate, we are taking a 15 day road trip from Flagstaff up to Seattle, then slowly down the coast. I will post about each day, though not necessarily on that day! I feel like breaking it up will be the only way I'll actually post about the trip because it's a lot less daunting. Some pictures are taken with the iPhone and the other with my Canon Rebel T2i. To read previous days, click here and scroll down.

Day 2 was one heck of a day. We were due to drive 12.5 hours, but with all the stops we needed to take along the way, it was about a 16 hour drive. We woke up around 7:30am at the Hitch & Post and quickly packed up the tent. 

We wanted to hit the road as soon as we could. I took a shower before we left, as well as toasted a bagel. What, not everyone bring  toaster with them on a road trip?


Well, I must say it is SO much easier for me to eat gluten free when I bring a toaster. My gluten free bread is kept frozen (or on ice) to keep it tasting good and it tastes odd if it's not toasted. By bringing a toaster, I know that I'll have a filling breakfast/snack wherever I am. I highly recommend it if you are gluten free! The toaster is small and was $7 at Target.

So once we got on the road, we stopped many places, most of which I didn't take pictures of because they weren't exciting...mainly gas stations! 




One of the gas stations was strange, though, because it had a dentists office and a chiropractor above it. We're guessing it was mainly for truck drivers on the road that needed an easy stop.

Another strange thing to see was an area where a fire burned. At first we thought they did a prescribed burn until I realized they have no reason to do prescribed burns in the middle of a desert. So we assumed there was a fire because it went on for miles and over a couple hills. It was crazy to see where it stopped at the road! Some parts it crossed over, though. 

One place that I was excited to stop at was Salt Lake City. We ate at In & Out and it was amazing. I was so hungry and I knew there was one there so I was holding out for it. Despite only being 3 hours into the drive that day, we wanted to take a little walk break so we walked around the mall for 15 minutes before eating. While there, we took silly photos in the photo booth! They're somewhere in the car a few block away so I'll have to post the photo later.

When we were driving through town again, I noticed the train/public transport and was in awe of it. 

I've never been on that kind of transportation and it's so cool that it goes on the main roads! We were stopped at a red light and one pulled up super fast and stopped next to us and it scared me so bad I thought I was going to throw up. I didn't know what it was! If I had time in Salt Lake City, I'd totally ride it though.

The next big city we stopped in was Boise, Idaho. Neither Vince nor I had any opinions on Idaho because we've never been there and never think about it, so it was interesting to see what was actually there. I did learn that it should be known as the cow state instead of the potato state because holy heck, there were so many cows and the entire 5 hour drive through there smelled like cow dung. Seriously. 

The downtown area was great though and reminded us of a clean Tempe, and they have a huge football stadium so they definitely take pride in their college team! 

We got PF Chang's to go because I was about to have a major hunger meltdown and the hostess told us it was a 45 minute wait time, which we didn't have. Fortunately the coffee shop catty corner to us let us eat on their patio since we were getting coffee, which was nice because it was perfect outside and we didn't want to eat in the car.




One thing that really threw us off was how late the sun set. We left Boise around 10pm and it was still bright! This was taken before we got in the car, around 9:50pm.

The sun finally set around 10:30, which was so weird. It was nice for driving though because it meant less time in the dark.

Finally, around 1am, we arrived at our campsite at Hat Rock Campground in Hermiston, OR. We were meeting a friend named Charlie there who lives in Montana who was also going to Hood River with us, so it was good seeing him. I wasn't feeling very well, I think from the coffee since I never drink it, so I went to lay down early. Vince and Charlie ended up going down to Hat Rock Lake and watching the thunder and lightning while I watched it from the tent. I have never seen so much lightning before and it was so bright! I wish I was feeling well and could have taken photos of it, but with the rain pitter pattering on our tent, I stayed in my sleeping bag and went to sleep.