Cross-Country Road Trip: Missoula to Seattle

Finally we have made it to the last recap of our cross-country road trip.  Our last leg was from Missoula, MT to Seattle, WA.  The drive was a little shorter (9 hours) than some of the other drives (12-14 hours), but we still wanted to be on the road early so that we could get to Seattle at a "decent" hour.

No one wanted to wake up early

It was very pretty in the morning and we got to see a little bit of the sunrise outside of our hotel.

We were all business though - just enough time for a quick breakfast and then we were back on the road.  You can tell the breakfast was quick because Claudius is all blurry!

We got Eddie settled into his spot in the car (passenger side backseat, on top of many other boxes and whatnot but securely settled in with no danger of slipping.  The poor guy had to make the trip stuck in this little travel cage, which is about a quarter of the size of his normal cage.  He didn't seem to mind too much though.

The rest of Montana was all right from what I remember - definitely not as breathtaking as the previous day.  Still pretty though.  It was really great to see such a different part of the country.  There are mountains in New England, but not a lot of big sprawling beautiful landscapes like we saw in "Big Sky" country.

Claudius was sedated, as usual.  He enjoyed the sun. :)

After awhile, we reached Idaho.  We'd never been there before, and we would not be passing through very long - we were driving through the skinny part up at the top of the state.  Our initial hope was to stay in Coeur d'Alene, but I could not find any pet friendly hotels there, so that's how we ended up in Missoula.  We hope to make it to Coeur d'Alene before we leave the west coast though.

Idaho was pretty - more mountains and green trees.  I seem to remember it being very windy as we drove through the mountains (at least I think that was in Idaho...maybe not).

After a quick sprint through Idaho, we finally made it to Washington state!  We did it - we'd made it from Massachusetts to Washington!

We were very surprised to find that the eastern part of Washington state is all flat fields.  So many boring, flat fields with nothing to look at.  We had no idea - not entirely sure what we were expecting, but Montana and Idaho had been so pretty that I think we were expecting the same out of eastern Washington.

After a few hours, the mountains finally started coming into view.

See them there, on the other side of the field?  This is why we moved here.  For the mountains (seriously).

Claudius was so ready for this drive to be over.  What a little trooper. :)

As we got closer and closer to our destination, the mountains were even more and more dominant.  They were really just amazing!  The views out here are just beautiful (and on clear days they are spectacular)!

We made a quick stop at our friend's office to pick up our keys.  We were SO lucky to have some good friends who already lived in Seattle and were so kind as to meet our moving truck (when it showed up a week early (because the guy didn't feel like holding onto our stuff (even though he was supposed to))) and oversee the movers while they moved all of our stuff into our apartment.  I'm not sure what we would have done without them, but we totally owed them!  Then we headed over to our apartment.  All of our stuff was already inside and it was just time to unpack and settle in.

And that's that!  Our trip from Massachusetts to Washington!  Most of it was probably pretty boring to read about it but it was quite an adventure for us.  We loved getting to see so many friends and family along the way and see so many different parts of the US (even if only for a little while).  I'll do one final post about the trip, but this officially finishes up the recaps of each leg of our trip.  FINALLY!