We began our road trip just after 5AM on Tuesday, July 18th. A cross-country road trip all the way to Lakewood, Washington. Brandon’s brother, Jeremy, is stationed in the army at JBLM, and we hadn’t seen them in almost two years.

We drove a total of 6,145 miles in 15 days and in 12 different states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, and Utah). It took us 5.5 days to get to Washington and only 4 days to get back home. During our road trip, we stayed in 8 different hotels with the majority of them being La Quinta. Two of them were AmericInn. One was Ramada. We all enjoyed the continental breakfast at most of the hotels (other hotels breakfast was questionable).

The scenery out west is incredible! We also liked how some of the states were so desolate. It has us rethinking where we would like to move one day.

The highest elevation we were at was in Wyoming at the Continental Divide at 8,600 feet. The hottest temperature was in eastern Oregon at 111 degrees.

Despite all of the road trip fighting between the kids, we had a wonderful time and we can’t wait to explore more of this country (without kids). LOL! Our kids had fun, but they are not into the whole road tripping thing right now.

7/18/22
We left our home in Mechanicsburg, PA.

7/21/22
We visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, the Badlands in Caputa, SD, and Mount Rushmore in Caputa, SD.

7/22/22
We visited Devils Tower in Wyoming. So cool! We couldn’t walk around the trail since we had Rosie. Maybe some other time! We stayed at a La Quinta in Billings, MT, and this was our favorite hotel. The pool area was fun.

7/24/22
We arrived in Washington to see Jeremy, Tabitha, Logan, and Kendal (and Oliver)!

7/25/22
We went to Seattle and visited the Space Needle, the Pier, and Pike’s Market.

7/26/22
We couldn’t wait to go to the beach to touch the Pacific Ocean! We went to Ocean Shores in Grays Harbor County, WA. The sand was dark, it was like 30 degrees cooler, and it was super foggy. The water was ice cold, but that didn’t stop us from sticking our toes in.

7/27/22
Double date night for the adults!

7/28/22
We took the 2+ hour trek to see Mt. Rainier. What a fascinating place!

7/29/22
Our last day was spent at Dash Point State Park.

7/30/22
Our time in Washington came to an end and we began our journey back home.

Enjoy browsing through a mixture of iPhone photos, photos from Tracey’s pro camera, and photos from Kipton’s camera, of our 2022 Cross Country Road Trip!