3 days, 1800 miles and an insect massacre...

WE MADE IT! 3 days later, and 1800 more miles on Bernie the car and we are here in Fargo, North Dakota! :) We were both pleasantly surprised by the drive, it was nowhere near as boring as we had previously feared it would be, even the desolate stretch through Nevada had some cool looking rocks to entertain us!

In driving across half of the US, we learned 2 big things:
      1) We are both very small in comparison to this HUGE country
      2) There is soooo much open space that is still not populated.

Our California bubble has well and truly been popped as we got to see how many other beautiful places this country has to offer!

Day 1: (San Bruno, California to Twin Falls, Idaho)

After stopping for a nice Starbucks break in Reno, Nevada we drove across the arid rocky terrain to Elko, Nevada where we stopped for some lunch. It was here that we discovered the worlds largest polar bear, hidden inside a casino! Not the most likely place for a polar bear, really, inside a casino in the middle of the Nevada desert! But it was cool, Brad tried to fight this polar bear, but then Jenni decided that just posing like the polar bear would be less likely to end in a mauling. Here are some pictures!

After lunch and polar bear visits, we continued driving until we reached Twin Falls, Idaho. We crossed the border to chants of "who da ho?, I da ho!" :) We were both really impressed with Twin Falls, and found a nice Chillis to have dinner at and spent the night at a Days Inn hotel (our new favourite hotel chain!) On our way to dinner we stopped to look at the Snake River Gorge, where Evel Knievel failed and fell down the canyon walls breaking every bone in his body. We did not try to jump the gorge, we decided that crossing the bridge was good enough for us :)

Day 2: (Twin Falls, Idaho to Billings, Montana)

We got up early Tuesday morning so we could have time to visit the Niagra Falls of the West, Shoshone Falls. Brad accidently discovered this hidden gem while looking up the population of Twin Falls on Wikipedia. We decided that this was definitely something we did not want to miss, and so made the slight detour to see the falls on our way out of Twin Falls. When we got there, we knew we had made the right decision to check it out! The falls were epic, and were even complete with a double rainbow for our photographing pleasure :)

After admiring the beauty of the waterfalls, we made our way East towards Montana making time to stop in Idaho Falls, Idaho. This place, we discovered, was the ginger (oranga) capital of the world. We have never seen as many ginger folk per square mile in all our lives, it was breathtaking :) After the overwhelming ginger experience, we made our way to the outskirts of Yellowstone. We are cheap and didn't want to pay the $30 fee to actually drive through the park, so the poor mans view of Yellowstone was all we got, but it was still amazing!! The road wound through valleys surrounded by snow capped peaks and snaking rivers. The pictures we took through the bug-smeared windows hardly do the landscape justice, but we tried, so enjoy :)

After poor-mans Yellowstone, we drove across most of the state of Montana, aka "Big Sky Country", and yes we're going to say it, the sky was pretty big! In fact, everything in Montana was pretty big: big trucks, big sky, big mountains, big freight trains. It should just be called "Big Country", things were so big we could not get any pictures, and also Jenni slept though most of it :) We stopped for the night in Billings, Montana, where we upgraded to a Holiday Inn, which apparently thinks it's the Hilton now with outrageously overpriced room service and all! After finding our room, we went into downtown Billings, where we found a pretty good Indian restaurant! Who'd have thought we could find good Indian food in Montana!?!

Day 3: (Billings, Montana to Fargo, North Dakota)

At the Holiday Inn, we missed our Days Inn breakfast (the life of luxury with waffle makers and everything) and stopped at a starbucks for breakfast instead! After a quick bug scrape off the windscreen we were off on our way again. We drove to Glendive, Montana where we stopped for lunch and ate a nice picnic in the shade of a triceratops. Yes you read that right, a triceratops. Just off the freeway is a little lake and a dinosaur known as the "Glendisaurus" which, of course we had to see and take pictures of. During our photoshoot, however, it turns out the Glendisaurus wanted lunch too and decided to snack on Brad's head!

After we got Brad's head back, we drove across the border into our new home state, North Dakota!! Which is not as flat as we had first believed! In fact, the first chunk of the state was very picturesque with some cool canyon-like rocks to the North, which we wish we had stopped at to explore a bit. We kept driving and noticed a large cow standing on a hill, said cow is actually a "landmark" known as "Salem Sue", we waved to Sue as we drove by, but sadly did not get any pictures. We stopped for starbucks (yum!) and a much need bug-scrape in Bismarck, North Dakota and Jenni got to hear her first North Dakotan person say "you betcha!" After coffee and bug-scraping activities, we were back on the road again. We pushed through making time to stop and visit the worlds largest sandhill crane. After completely missing this HUGE bird and driving through the entire town of Steele, North Dakota (don't worry it's only 5 blocks long) we turned around and found the crane right in front of the freeway. We laughed at our silliness for missing it the first time and took pictures of, possibly, the most random sight we saw on our trek along the Lewis and Clark trail (maybe they missed the crane too!)

ta-da, we found it!

After the exciting discovery of the crane, we were on the home stretch to Fargo, North Dakota! We were so close, could smell the melting snow.  All that melting snow liquid, made us need to use the bathroom, so we made a quick pit-stop on an island in the middle of the interstate and we were back on our way. Jenni was working on her math skills, counting down the miles until we arrived in our new home. We drove into the city limits, and did a drive-by viewing of our apartment building before making our way to our hotel, a Days Inn with a wafflemaker of course! This is where our story ends for now.....