Our travels so far...

Well, we haven't had much wireless internet access until now, so here goes the condensed version of our last two and a half weeks.
Our first day we left SF at 5:30 am and drove a long day all the way to Seattle. Our trailer is overweight for our underpowered truck, so we ended up going 35 miles per hour over mountain passes, but we made it and saw some beautiful scenery on the way.

We spent five days in Seattle with my (Kelly's) brother and sister in law and nephews. We had planned to leave on Sunday but had to wait out a snowstorm in the eastern WA mountains so we stayed until Tuesday.

Kelly and Nate at botanical gardens, Jon and Nate roll Ryan at the tot lot, Nate just chilling, and baby Dexter Troy

Next we stopped off in Wenatchee, WA and spent a day and night with a college friend, Amy, who is a nurse there. She showed off the nightlife of Wenatchee.

snow in the eastern WA passes

Kelly and Amy at McGlinn's in Wenatchee

The day before Thanksgiving we drove the rest of the way to Montana and made it late that night. When we got there they had gotten 8 inches of snow in the storm that we waited out and the temperature was -9F. We got an abrupt introduction to winter. We had Thanksgiving with Ryan's extended family at his cousin Justin's new house.

cousin Justin, his wife Kim and baby Austin

We stayed a week and a day in MT and got to do some farm chores (feed cows, move chickens, collect eggs, shovel grain) and had a great time. We stayed with Ryan's aunt and uncle Connie and Pete. We were completely spoiled with the fresh food and home cooking for every meal! We waited out another storm in MT and left on Friday to head Chicago way.

Ryan's b-day, shoveling hay for cows, feeding Petri the cow an apple, and the chicken coop

We drove a long long day trying to outrun a storm but gave up the chase in Sioux Falls, SD which is where we now sit. I've never seen a forecast for 100% chance of ice pellets before. If you're wondering, they're not pleasant. Hopefully this will clear up tomorrow and we can make it to Chicago.