Well, we and our immediate families have known for a bit, but our trip was cut short unexpectedly. We had a ton of fun and saw things that some people might never see. I hope that everyone gets to experience everything that we did. If you can, let this website and our experiences help you out. There are so many things in our amazing country! We are truly blessed to live in one of the most beautiful nations in the world. Thank you all for tuning in and sharing this trip with us. I will miss it...

we are so busy!!! i never get a chance to sit at the computer and blog. sorry guys. if i do get a moment at the computer, i have to do my taxes or check on my visa or something... but its all good.
we are having a lot of fun here in california. sherer met us in LA and Collin flew out to san fran for the weekend. so we had a full RV! we had a blast and it was really great to see some other faces! we are going to redwood today! im excited to drive my car through a hollowed out tree. there is so much that we have done since i blogged last. i cant even begin right now, but hopefully i will have a free moment where i can catch everyone up. we have just been realllllllyyy busy.

vegas was really fun. we are in san diego now and i have pretty much almost forgotten about vegas and the stuff in between here and there... we had a lot of fun in vegas... saw just about everything, ate really good food for cheap, and went to a magic show. we saw rick thomas. he picked me out of the crowd to go on stage and be a volunteer... pretty sweet. we did a lot. we left vegas and went to a small town called bullhead city on the border of nevada and arizona. they had a pretty nice campground. we went across the beautiful co. river to go into nevada to watch the game in a casino. we also went to the grand canyon. i think its a little over-rated. maybe we are just getting really spoiled on this trip. dont get me wrong the grand canyon was really amazing, but it wasnt as great as i was expecting. we went and only stayed for about and hour and a half. chris lewis got sick shortly after this. so i drove the RV from bullhead to about 60 miles east of LA (about 230 miles) this was the first time anyone has driven the RV other than him. it wasnt that bad driving it. we didnt leave until late too, so i drove from 6pm to 1am. we had to stop a few times and pull over because chris needed to get out. driving the tank wasnt bad at all really... chris talks it up to be really exhausting and such, so i was expecting it to be more difficult, but it wasnt that hard to drive. we lef the RV east of LA at a campground, and drove to san diego, we are staying with some of julia's family... awesome people! thanks so much. we went to tijuana today and the beach and all the touristy stuff. we are getting up early and driving up the PCH to LA. we will probably make a few stops at beaches and such. well... i will hopefully have a little bit more time to blog in the future.

so we left Utah... and we are in VEGAS! i love it here. everyone thinks new york is the city that never sleeps... dont know why... vegas is definitely jumping all night long. we were out last night (sunday night) and it was crazy all night long. everything is amazing here on the strip. all the buildings are beautiful and big. the lights are awesome. we have seen so much here and we havent even started yet. but we have a lot of time here. we got an awesome deal at the stratosphere! 33 dollars a night! what???!!! we found a deal online, couldnt book it, so julia called the hotel to see if they would honor the 45 dollar rate... the guys said no, but he had something cheaper! haha, so we are staying all 4 nights in the hotel. the RV is parked in a secured parking area. we were all very happy with 33 dollars a night. we are going to ride all of the rides that are at the top of the stratosphere... theres 3 i think. but i am very excited about that. they have cheap food here too... all the time. i love it here! well... needless to say, we will probably be nonexistent as far as blogs and phones go. hanlon and i want to stay up for 72 hours.... but i dont know if we really will. haha. ok gotta run. bye

Well... Utah is surprisingly nice, but before that... When we left Denver, we headed to Utah. We wanted to go to Arches National Park. after being on the road for 2 or 3 hours after denver, we stopped to get gas. when we got out of the RV, the straps that hold the car on the trailer were pretty much hanging off of the wheels. the roads were so steep and rough, that it forced the straps off. pretty crazy. my car very well could have been laying on the side of the road. but all is well, that ends well. after we saw that, we decided that we should drive the car behind the RV. so, hanlon and I drove through CO and Utah in the car too. we stopped in Vail. We really liked it. we were only there for 45 mins and pretty much decided that we would definitely be back at some point. after leaving, we headed into Utah. none of us expected Utah to be a very fun place. There are some awesome parks and places here. Arches was amazing. we hiked a ton of trails and saw some pretty amazing things. we climbed some fun rocks and of course, had a ton of fun there. they had red sand inbetween this one sectino of 300 ft. high rocks. it was just liek siesta key sand. then we left for a town called richfield. we decided, that for the price of driving the rv to salt lake city, that we could easily drive the car, arrive there hours sooner, and stay in a hotel! we got a great deal on a hotel in the city... they had temperpedic beds! going from my cardboard like mattress above the drivers seat to a very comfy bed was very nice. we saw a ton in salt lake city... we went to temple square, and learned a ton about the mormon religion (read julia's blog for more about that... lol). we werent allowed into the temple because we werent mormon, but we still got to tour a lot of the buildings, and learn a lot about them. it was a little boring! we went out, ate at a great mexican joint called cafe rio - it was awesome! such great food. we saw olympic park, and U of U as well. one night i drove chris and julia to the gateway so they could have a date night. hanlon and i thought that we would go out and have a night on the town... haha! we found a place online that said that the "port'o'call" club was the hottest place in salt lake city to meet young people. we drove by to scout it out... it was about the complete opposite of the best... there were old people in the club! so we decided to head up toward campus and see if we could go out with some college kids. nope... nothing there either. so we gave up. we went by the great salt lake the next day to check it out. nothing good about it at all. the sand was gross and the water was weird. there were dead seagulls all over their "beach". maybe we are just spoiled in FL, but man... not good. it was nice that their were mountains all around the lake. it was pretty from far away. we left salt lake and headed south to zion national park! we stayed in a nice rv park... hot tub and all! Zion natl park is amazing! it is by far the most beautiful area i have seen so far. massive rocks and mountains surround amazing grass filled valleys. streams, brooks, and rivers flow every where. god really gave utah something special there. we hiked several trails again - weeping rock, the narrows, and the emerald pools. they were all awesome. we hiked up a mountain for the emerald pools. there were 3 different bodies of water that we saw. the highest was the coolest, it was almost a 2 mile hike. the water was clear, and the bottom was green (emerald) and cold! we climbed rocks around it and convinced hanlon to jump in from a rock. didnt take too much convincing, he likes to be crazy. i dont think he was expecting it to be so cold... the video is pretty funny. we met rulan gardner's cousin (a famous gold medalist wrestler... Lee (sp). he was really cool. he told us so many things to see around california and wyoming. that pretty much catches us up. tomorrow we are going to bryce canyon... i am very jealous of anyone who will be in savannah for st patty's day! but we will be having fun in the middle of nowhere, hopefully it will be just as amazing as zion. we all were pleasantly shocked by utah. goodnight! and thank you all who read our blogs and check our site... we really appreciate it.