Day 2 - Missoula, Mont. to Whitewater, South Dakota

Today was another good, albeit, uneventful day, if you don't count the jerk who passed us at over 120 km/hr and almost sideswiped us while doing so. After a good pancake breakfast at our hotel in Missoula, we got away at around 9 AM for today's adventure.

The day started off just like yesterday with showers and cool temperatures, but by noon, we were in Big Timber, Wymoming and lo and behold, the sun came out and it was warm so the top finally came down on the car. Hey, what's a convertable for anyway?

The scenery along the way was beautiful. I kept expecting to see John Wayne come charging down one of the hillsides on horseback.

We are now near Whitewater, SD, not far from Mt. Rushmore and the famous larger than life sculptures of 4 American presidents. We will take some time out from driving tomorrow to see this wonder and then carry on with our trip to Tennessee.

We did 1087 kilomerters today and may have got sunburns to boot.

I have taken some photos and hope to post some of them soon.

Day 1 Surrey to Missoula, Montanna

So the big adventure has finally started. Our cat is safely esconced at the Guildford Animal Hospital and we left this morning at about 8 AM under cool damp skies. We didn't have too bad of a wait at the border so after a short stop at the duty free store we enterred Washington state at the Pacific border crossing. Followed the I-5 to Seattle and then the 405 to the I-90 east bound. The drive was uneventful and we were under the same damp and at times rainy skies pretty well all day.

Any way, we made pretty good time and had lunch at Ellensburg, WA after a nice drive over the Snoqualimie Pass. The views would have been spectacular if only we weren't in rain and low clouds most of the way.

After almost 1000 kms, 952 to be exact, we checked into the Broadway Inn in Missoula, Mont. While we would have preferred warm sunshine, the locals here are happy to see cooler weather and showers. They have been under triple digit temperatures for some time and have a lot of forest fires burning here in western Montanna. We may see some of that activity tomorrow.

For tomorrow, we will stop briefly at Mt. Rushmore, and perhaps give Diane's cousin, Dr. David Weaver a call in Bozeman before we head south on the I-15.

Introduction

For several years now, I have been working on my family Tree, learning much about my family history along the way and climbing many new branches. As a result, I was found by a couple of formerly unknown 4th cousins. One of these, Jennifer, lives in Tennessee and has invited my wife and I to vist them there. This vacation trip is the result. I hope to post daily updates and photos along the way as we drive from our home in Surrey BC to Jennifer's in Dayton, TN. It should be quite an adventure.