Daniel Family Road Trip 2015-Wednesday and Thursday

Last fall we learned of a mini-family reunion in Delaware for this August.  We wanted to go because we had not seen members of the Daniel family for quite some time.  We looked at the option of flying, however it was too much money.  So, what do you do when you want to go see family, but the cost of flying is prohibitive?  YOU DRIVE...Our adventure began on Wednesday August 5th!

The girls ready for the road trip

I drove the first leg of the trip.  We departed our house on Wednesday at 5:40 pm and headed to Wendy's for a quick dinner.  We put in the address for our hotel in Kearney, Nebraska.  It said we would arrive on Thursday at approximately 5:30 (Kearney is two hours ahead of Newberg).  We left Wendy's and headed towards I-84 which would take us out of Oregon.

At about exit 147 we spotted wildfires across from us in Washington.

We stopped for our first tank of gas/bathroom break in Pendleton, Oregon.  We continued driving and saw signs saying I-84 was closed a head and to take an alternate route.  We were not sure what route that was, so we kept driving.  At exit 216 all traffic was diverted off I-84. We got off and went inside the truck stop to come up with a game plan.  We spoke with a person who worked there and she told us that five wildfires had merged into one big fire and that was why I-84 was closed.  We could have waited around to see what would happen but instead we back tracked seven miles and went the alternate route which took us down 395 to 26.  Our house to Ontario via I-84 is approx six and a half hours.  The detour route added nearly three hours to our travel time.  The route was very dark and you go up and down a lot of hills/mountains and twists and turns.  We arrived in Ontario, Oregon at 4:15 am.  We filled the car up with gas and spoke to the gas attendant.  He said they had reopened I-84 two hours before we arrived in Ontario.  So had we waited for them to reopen I-84 we would have added another hour on top of the three we already had added.  We would have lost four hours of travel time.  Scott took over driving in Ontario.  At 4:30 am we crossed into Idaho.

Sunrise in Idaho

At 8:15 am we crossed into Utah.  We stopped and grabbed breakfast and gas.  At this point our estimated time of arrival (eta) was 9:37 pm.

We crossed into Wyoming at 11:08 am.  

We stopped at Little America Travel Center for ice cream.  We saw billboards advertising their 75cent ice cream for miles and miles before the stop.

 

 We made it!

In Rock Springs, Wyoming I took over driving again and drove until Sidney Nebraska.

In 2004 when Scott, and the girls and I moved back to the West Coast we stopped at a Conoco.  We saw this car and thought it was rather silly and so we stopped and took a picture of it.  We decided to see if we came anywhere near it on our trip East and low and behold, it was right off the interstate.  

2004-Look at those gas prices compared to today.

Current-they gave the car a little face lift in 2010 for their 50th anniversary.

Love how they spelled "celebrating"

At 5:25 pm we entered Nebraska.  

In Sidney we stopped for dinner and gas.  There was not much around to choose from, so Emily and I got cheese and crackers from Wal-Mart and Scott and Lauren got a hoagie sandwich to share.

In 2004 we also drove through both Sidney and Kearney, Nebraska.  We tried to recreated some photos from that day.

                                           2004                                                    2015
It was a little hard to recreate this picture because the changed the front of the store and Lauren is much bigger than last time.

There was so much construction on the trip.  We got a little sick of seeing this sign and knowing that we were going into one lane roads.  Not much fun to navigate.  

Wind Turbines are everywhere!  When we drove back to Oregon in 2004 none of these were here.  We noticed that nearly every state had some.

There were sunflowers planted all along the highway.  It was very pretty to look at.

 At this point Scott took over driving and drove us to the motel in Kearney.  We watched the sun set in Nebraska.

Thunder clouds in the distance

Corn

The sunset in the side view mirror

We arrived to our hotel hours later than we had planned.  We all showered and went to bed.  We woke up the next morning and had breakfast.  This hotel has an omelette bar that is included with their continental breakfast.  We had hope to get in to the hotel at a decent time so we could go swimming in their pool.  However, it did not work out because of our late arrival.  

Before leaving Kearney, we visited the Cabela's to recreate that photo.

 2004

 2015-They had completely redone their entrance.