Seattle and Home

Minnesota

North Dakota

Seattle

Otters

We arrive into Seattle and they are in a heat wave which of course doesn't worry us much, but they are all dying, its 38 degrees and they are saying please make sure you keep your pets inside. Anyway its getting hard to get the kids interested in anything anymore so we take a day then decide what to do. We head off to the Museum of Flight which is very cool, we see all these Air Force Planes, Kevin and James have a go on a flight simulator which they say is very cool, we also get to look through the old Air Force One Plane and a Concord. We then see the Blue Angels plane land and its good to see the kids excited about something, they really want to get home and have had enough.

I loved Seattle it really reminded me of Sydney a big beautiful harbour very clean (we see no rain or fog) very cosmopolitan, pretty, cruise ships moored and ferries in the harbour, I could have spent longer there. We have a few nice dinners out in Seattle I am impressed by how adventurous the kids are getting at choosing meals and they enjoy having a night out. We visit their Aquarium much to my amazement but Kevin is intent we of course are rather disappointed but we see these gorgeous little otters and watched them for ages soooo cute.

We have a great shopping day here at the Factory outlets everything is so cheap we really pay through the nose for clothes in Aus its digusting, we get lots of designer clothes for 1/4 the price you would pay in Aus. That night we head of on the Ferry to have dinner on Bainbridge Island with our friends from Grafton, Gaye and Toni and kids, its wonderful to see more Aussies and hear about their experiences, we have a lovely dinner with them very sorry we couldn't spend more time with them.

We leave Seattle and decide that we will just drive till its dark we get to a place called Butte in Montana, we have driven today through Washington, Idaho and into Montana which is very mountainous and quite deserty, we are again driving over the Rockies but the amazing thing that in the US they have these dual carriageway roads and the speed limit is 75 miles, very fast so we cover about 1000km a day on the way home. Of course its freezing in Butte being up in the Rockies, we camp for the last time on our trip and get up early for another big travel day. We drive through Montana, into North Dakota very pretty but at times straight road and all farmland, we see rice, wheat, corn, soy bean and hay being farmed very rich farm country looked to us. We decide to camp in Jamestown we arrive about 830pm and get some dinner and head of to our camp ground well wouldn't you know it the GPS has been great all along but here its lost and it takes us 40 miles out of town into this corn field, no campground, its getting dark the kids are bit panicked and of course no mobile phone coverage. So we head back into town slowly because by now deer are everywhere on the road, very dangerous, we finally find a Hotel to stay in all head of to bed. 4.30pm Steph is awake with the a raging ear ache she is in so much pain we finally get up and take her to the hospital, ends up the pool in Butte has given her an ear infection, great, anyway easily fixed but I had no idea where the Travel insurance stuff was luckily I did as I was told and put the card in my wallet before we left and there it still was. Phew.

Anyway we head back onto the road and head into Minnesota through more cropland but getting near lakes again, then on into Wisconsin and Illinois, we stay our last night on the road in a place just outside Chicago called Rockford we have a good rest here and get back on the road the next day to head home, Today we drive through Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, then into Ontario and are greeted at home by the biggest Canadian flag I have ever seen and a lovely party, everyone has missed us, and we are gald to back home.