Thanksgiving Trip

So my roommate Erin decided that I needed a new blog and that I actually had to use this one and I tried to explain to her that my life is EXTREMELY boring and that nothing of importance ever happens to me but she made me do it anyway so here goes! ps: I'm terrible at figuring out how stuff like this works so bear with me!

For Thanksgiving this year my Dad's side of the family all decided to head up to Olympia, Washington to visit my Dad's Aunt Diana. What a trip it was...

You would think that after sitting on the freeway for 3 hours without even making it to Twin Falls we would have been smart and decide to just stay home....but no....we talked ourselves into continuing on this little journey convinced that the roads wouldn't be this bad for much longer. How wrong we were.

Our original plan had been to go to Seattle and see the Space Needle and whatever else there is to do in Seattle and then continue on to Olympia for Thanksgiving...well...that plan only lasted about 4 hours into the trip (barely getting to Twin Falls). So we switched it up a bit and decided that we would just travel to Portland, OR that night and then head straight to Aunt Diana's. What was supposed to be a 10 hour drive turned into a 15 hour drive. We finally got to our Hotel where I found out that I would have to share one of those ridiculously small beds with...Nathan. TORTURE! Not only did the kid still have his cast on one arm but he also liked to swing the darn thing around in his sleep...its amazing I survived the night.

We continued the rest of the way to Olympia where I met cousins that I didn't even know I had. Most of them were my parent's age and had kids that were Megan's age but it was still fun getting to know everyone. We went to my Uncle Thom's RC Hobbie shop (Remote Control) and it is TOTALLY SWEET! Ginormous airplanes and speedy cars....it was legit.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and lets just say that the food was pretty much amazing. But of course, food is always pretty much amazing so...yeah haha

Friday they took us to the Salmon Run but...we were late....so all that was left for us to see...and smell....were the dead fish. it STANK! But it was still beautiful up there!

I was determined to find a banana slug for my Grandma so I spend most of the time out in the forest looking under logs and such trying to find one. Diana just laughed at me and told me that I would never find one but guess what...I DID! It was a lil guy but still...I found it! i also found a newt which scared me to death until i realized what it was haha. t was so darn cute! It was brown with a bright orange tummy and all of the little kids thought it was just great.

We left Friday night to head back and planned to get as far as Pendleton that night but of course, our plans never seem to work out like we want them to and as we came around a bend in the road just outside of a lovely little town called Rufus, we see the road covered in flames. 3 semis had gotten tangled up and started on fire. We saw/heard/felt 3 of the explosions and had to just sit there and watch it. About an hour after we had stopped the emergency vehicles finally arrived and told us to just sit for a while until they decided what they wanted us to do. Every once in a while someone would come back and let us know what was going on and the last we heard everyone had been able to escape and there were no fatalities, just injuries. Once we made it back home we found out that one of the drivers actually had died :'( NEways... 3 1/2 hours later they formed a party line and took us all back to a town where we tried to find a place to stay...we finally found a hotel on the Washington side of the river at 2:30 in the morning....needless to say we all pretty much passed out asap

We finally made it back to Rupert around 11:00 Saturday night and let me just say that I was never so happy to come home before in my life! It snowed practically the whole way there and back and we probably averaged a speed of 40 mph the whole trip. It was not fun at all! I don't plan on EVER traveling in the winter ever again!