Road Trip To Cali in 11 days

Well our trip didn't start out the way we had hoped. Peter had just got propane injection in his truck to help with the soaring gas prices when we found out that it didn't work. Peter had to take it into the shop before we left. We assumed it wouldn't take long but of course it took 2 full days for them to find out what the problem was. They couldn't figure it out and charged us for the time they took to look at it when it was the manufactures fault....500 dollars. They wanted to take a look at it another day but we said no and started our trip!

We drove from Edmonton around 5pm till about 11pm and slept in BC. Woke up, left around 9 and drove till about 11 again and slept in Oregan. Kaden did soooo awesome with all the driving we did. I was soo surprised and thankful that God heard my prayers!!

Thursday we drove to Portland and quickly realized how difficult it is to drive in a big city with a big truck and trailer so we decided to skip Portland and we kept on driving to Newport, Oregan. Newport was beautiful with the Ocean on one side and the docks/marina at the other side. The ocean was great cold but great. Kaden LOVES water so he had a blast!! We stayed in Newport for about a day and a half. Went to the Wax museum, Ripley's believe it or not and an underground aquarium...these place were definitely not worth the 43.80...I much rather spent that time at the beach..oh well we had to be tourists! We met an older woman that was sooo cute and sweet!! We went bike riding with Kaden and could here a voice saying "isn't that precious" and she came out of her trailer and had to see Kaden. We talked to her a bit and asked us if we were teaching Kaden about Jesus and she was sooo excited to know that we were Christians. She was telling us that she was praying and writing about us in her journal. She even baked us some bread! To think that someone in the next campsite could be praying for your family is soo inspiring and encouraging!!!

From Newport we took off to the Redwoods (Saturday)...very beautiful trees...sooo huge! God's creation is awesome! So creative! The end of Saturday we drove just outside San Fransisco and slept. Sunday..we were in San Fransisco and we saw the Golden Gate Bridge! Again the city was to difficult to drive through so we kept going till we got to Santa Barbara, California!! Another Beautiful place to be! We stayed there for two days! Shopped, rode our bikes on the designated bike lane..so cool!, hung out at the beach and got to see some dolphins swim by!

Tuesday we drove to LA. Took about 4 hours just to find a campsite. Found one on Long beach had to pay 65 bucks..ridiculous but all we could find. Then we drove back to check out all the tourist stuff. We didn't have a map so this was difficult and ended up having to miss the Chinese theatre and no chance to walk around. We did get to see the Hollywood sign and Rodeo Drive. Crazy how many lanes they need in LA there were 14 lanes altogether!!

Wednesday we drove to San Diego and went to the zoo! It wasn't has great has i had thought it to be. Maybe because Kaden didn't really understand that there were animals to look at or maybe because he couldn't get close to them. The petting zoo was the highlight for me because Kaden had the most fun there. He always had to bend over to see there faces when he was talking to them so cute! After we were done that we drove just outside Las Vegas. Peter was really hoping that we could drive through Las Vegas when it was dark so I could see the lights but it was getting to late. It would have been 2 in the morning by the time we would have got there. We didn't want Kaden to stay up that late.

Thursday we made our long trip back! Drove to Great falls and shopped on Saturday morning and was in Cold Lake by 11. It was a good experience but i probably wouldn't do it again. I would just fly next time!