Silver Falls State Park... 30 mins

Another Reason to Visit....

Lincoln City... Hour From Home

The Coast... Neskowin

Here are some pics from the coast in the town of Neskowin about an hour from our apartment...

Another reason to come visit... hint hint....

Love,

Connor and Alyssa

OR at last settled at Fur Villa Apartments

Hey everyone. Connor and I have finally gotten the apartment together and looking decent enough to take pictures. We do not have much furnature to fill the place but it is nice to have room. There is an extra bedroom for anyone who wants to come visit... (hint).

So far so good. Connor is going to his second interview today with a company called K Designers. They do home remodeling. I had a Serve Safe class yesterday and learned how to avoid poisening others while preparing food. Other than that I think we have the rest of the week to check out our surroundings. Yesterday evening we drove around downtown Salem and checked out the Salem Hospital where I will be spending my first 4 weeks of internship. It looked really nice, and we saw signs claiming that it is the best hospital in OR.

Until next time...

Alyss and Connor

We Have Arrived

We made it folks. We have been in Oregon for a few days now. Stopped off in Bend, OR Friday before making it to Salem on Saturday at 11a.m. pacific standard time. Bend was great we went to an amazing mexican restaurant and went climbing at Smith Rock (pictured below). Our apartment was pleasantly supprising. We feel like we have to much space for how little stuff we have. So we went to good will yesterday to try and find some furniture and found an awesome picture of a group of owls instead, which now sits in our bathroom. Anyways, we are here and safe and are trying to put everything away. Come visit us becuase we have a full extra bedroom where you may sleep comfortably. We will post some more pics of the apartment soon sorry it's sort of a shambles still.

Love,

Alyssa and Connor

Buffalo, Bears, Elk and Trout

So, we made it to the rockies, over the river and through the woods. Against all odds we made it through not one but two nights of camping in Yellowstone National Park. Now we are sitting back in the hustle and bustle of the "civilized world" in a Comfort Inn and Suites in Boise, Idaho. I know in our previous posts we mentioned that the drive through South Dakota on highway 90 was boring. Dear God, did I ever wish I was back on highway 90 after driving highway 84/86 through southern Idaho. I guess we did decide on the drive because it was less hilly than going north to Coeur d'Alene and hence better on our vehicles. Little did we know how flat and treeless the world could get and still not be desert.

Before we got into Yellowstone we were blown away by the beauty of the Big Horn Mountains. There was also the stop off at Connor Battlefield, oh thats right and I messed some people up.

On a brighter note we were fresh off two perfect days of 70 degree weather and cloudless skies in Yellowstone where we saw Buffalo and Elk galore. We did see a grizzly (from our car) at dusk on our first night walking back into the woods about 10 miles from our campsite. Along with the bear we listened to Elk calls that were close enough to wake us out of a deep sleep. But my personal favorite were the trout. I was able to catch a few brown and a rainbow on the Firehole River the most unique river in the park and one of the most unique trout streams in the world. This is because along its path a high number of gysers pour over its banks and heats the river beyond typical trout stream temperatures (take a look at the river here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehole_River ). If you look close at the picture below you can see I am fishing it in my sandals and shorts mid-day wadding through the perfect mountain stream. Alyss and I took some amazing pictures and saw some great sites in the park spending a full day driving and stopping and driving and stopping. One of our favorites was the battling buffalo which we have a video of but I can't seem to upload it so I will have to do that soon for you.

Alyssa wants you to know how scared of bears she was, very.

-Alyssa&Connor

So Long: The Current, Southern Minnesota, South Dakota

Southern Minnesota Windmill

The Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD

Rolling Hills of Western SD

Campsite Night 1 aka Howard Johnson

Bouldering Just Before I Hit the Stream

Well the first day has come and is nearly gone. We woke up and the tender hour of 5 am and were off after a tear filled goodbye with Laurie and Gordy. On our way I texted my great friend VJ as we ventured down his daily route south to Shakopee on highway 169. He texted me back "I consider you a brother... I will miss you dearly." With that we were on our way south to Mankato. While on our way I phoned up 89.3 The Current's morning show and asked them to play something that would remind Alyssa and I off Minnesota. Instead, over the airways, they mentioned every radio station we could hear them on from Minneapolis to Sioux City and played a memorable and unique set of three songs to "wake up too."

Southern Minnesota, an area I very rarely frequent surprised me with its beauty. The first picture above is of a windmill I caught along the highway 60 area just south of St. Peter. It was a beautiful crisp morning and after a detour around some construction and with coffee in hand we reached highway 90 and headed for the long and arduous eastern 3/4 of South Dakota.

If you have ever driven along highway 90 through the flat expanse that is South Dakota you may have the names Wall Drug, Corn Palace, 1880 Town, and Pioneer Auto forever ingrained in you're cerebral cortex. Also don't forget that Jesus died for you're sins and that abortion is baby murder. Just as we were about to lose it and after about 6 pit stops to merely keep our sanity, we began to enter the gorgeous Black Hills of western South Dakota on our way to our first nights camp in Spearfish Canyon. For all of you who see the picture above of the beautiful valley and the bubbling brooke that was where we planned to camp. Fortunately for you the Howard Johnson won out and you now have this beautifully constructed blog update to keep you entertained (ask me what happened later). Got to do a little bouldering in the canyon thus far and also got to do some swimming when I fell in the river off the boulder as a piece of the limestone flaked loose on me, see above photo of said river.

All in all, both of us had a long days drive but our vehicles held up to the challenge, knock on wood, please. We are heading for Yellowstone tomorrow and there is potential fly fishing and geyser watching that should occur. Hope all is well and we will keep you posted.

Love,

Connor & Alyssa

1 DAY LEFT....

It is Sunday. Alyssa and I are currently scrambling to put some finishing touches on the planning. We are leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn to venture into the great unknown. Well sorta unknown. We still semi-don't have an apartment (scary) and it is 2:30 and we still only have 1/2 the truck loaded. Sweet GOD.

But we are both super excited and can't wait until our feet hit the ground in Oregon. Plans are up in the air a little bit about what to do after Yellowstone but we are thinking the Black Hills of Boise, ID rather than city of rocks. We will see how the cookie crumbles.

Cross you're fingers say a prayer and wish us luck.

-Alyss and Connor

Devils Lake

Went to Devil's Lake and climbed for a day. Meant to climb for two days but rained all Thursday and climbed about half of Friday. Made it a great time but was muddy and wet through most of it.

Obey my Blog

OBEY MY BLOG

Stopping along the way... @

Spearfish Canyon

Yellowstone

Jackson Hole

City of Rocks

Our Road to Adventure

View Larger Map

Here is the route we plan to take. Our adventure will follow this trail. We will be traveling by chuck wagon and should only have to ford the river a few times with our oxen.