Honeymoon! (Summer Road Trip 2012)

Because we got married at the end of August we only had one week for a honeymoon before Fall semester started. At first we were tempted to drive to the North Shore and spend a week relaxing, but upon the realization that I had never seen the Pacific Ocean & the sudden urge to take a road trip we decided to take it upon ourselves to drive to California & back in that brief time frame.

me & the sea

For our 5 year (dating) anniversary I crocheted a chain of hearts for my husband. I fully intended to bring it on the honeymoon & take pictures with it at various site-seeing locations. After leaving the wedding reception I quickly realized I had no idea where the heart chain ended up. The next morning I was totally bummed that I had left the heart chain behind, probably more than I should have been, but once we were on the road I settled my losses and had the idea to put our wedding attire back on for periodic photo-ops instead. This is by far one of the best ideas I think I've ever had.

We had a list of destinations & no reservations. We wanted to hit as many National Parks/Landmarks as we could along the way to California. Our goal was to take one photo a day for our entire trip (or at least one photo at each major destination) & upload the photos onto Facebook so our friends and family at home could take part in our adventure.

1. We stopped for our first Honeymoon Photo in the Big Horn Mountains. We changed clothes on the side of the road and Will pulled the heart chain out from the trunk! I had no idea he packed it and to say I was ecstatic would be an understatement. Then waited until someone came along for us to flag down (this became a common theme. You would think people would be easy to stop when you are standing on the side of the road in wedding attire. It proved to be harder at times than I would have imagined.)

Big Horn Mountains

2. Our first true destination was Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. We decided the ultimate photo-op at Yellowstone would be a picture of us kissing in front of Old Faithful. I was worried that no one would be willing to take our picture because everyone would be watching the geyser. Luckily we found a nice couple that was more than willing to help us out. 

Old Faithful

3. The next day we made our way to Washington, the state known for its apples. Although the apples were not yet available for picking, the wonderful people at Johnson Orchards in Yakima let us go back in the orchard for some pictures. 

4. Our adventure then led us through Washington to Mount Rainier. It was disappointingly cloudy when we got to the visitor center at the top so we were not able to get a good picture with the summit in the background. However, after snapping the pic we changed into our hiking clothes and went out on the trail. I saw the most beautiful hills covered in wildflowers this day. Seriously the most beautiful hills ever. 

Mount Rainier National Park

The next morning we were able to witness the sunrise over the summit of Mount Rainier before the clouds descended from the heavens for the day.

the summit & the white river

5. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon was next. It is the deepest lake in the United States & even makes it on the list for Top 10 deepest lakes in the world! We didn't stop for long though; one loop around the park and we were off to California.

 It really is that blue!!

6. We pulled into the Redwood Forest after nightfall, and I will never forget how small I felt after seeing that first colossal trunk out my passenger side window (or how much I wished I could build a tree-house with pathways in the canopy like the Ewok Village in Star Wars).  If you've never been to see the redwoods I highly recommend adding it to your list of vacation destinations.

Can you see the top?

7. We stayed one night in California and then drove a daunting 1,000 miles straight through to Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. When we pulled in we saw a storm rolling in. We immediately attempted to get our photo-op in front of the peaks, but you couldn't see them from the parking lot and the clouds had already thickened. We drove through the park, set up camp & took a nap as it rained. After the storm lightened we went back out for photo-op #2. We waved at literally a dozen+ cars trying to get them to stop & they all just kept waving back. Finally a 16-passenger van full of adults stopped; they had seen us standing there as they passed and decided to turn around to see what we were up to. This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip. 

<3

After our stay in the mountains we headed for the hills. The Black Hills, especially around Sylvan Lake, is one of our favorite places to relax & do some camping, hiking & climbing. We didn't take any more wedding attire photos, but feel confident we already had a good variety of snapshots to document our honeymoon adventure. 

We didn't see any bears or wolves or other exciting/dangerous wildlife on our trip, but we did see a girl in a campground walking her cat on a leash.