Washington to Montana {Part One of Our Cross Country Move}

Originally we had planned on leaving first thing Thursday morning and arriving at our new house on Sunday night or Monday morning... shoulda known better than to plan! We started off pretty good - we packed most of the car the day before and only had a little bit of arranging left.

If you ever have to move you have to get these giant bags - you suck the air out of them so they shrink!

Loading the car top carrier - it took 5 of us to get it up there!

Almost finished!

And we sent our last night in Washington out in style! We had dinner with my family which turned into a dance party (that may have had a little assistance from a few drinks)! We laughed, told stories, listened to music, and danced the night away - a perfect way to ignore the good-byes that were coming next. We had to say good-bye to my brother and his girlfriend that night and the tears flowed - I'll blame my sister since she is usually the one who starts it. :)

Thursday morning we said terribly sad good-byes to my family (with ugly crying and all!), and took off down the road.... only to turn back around after less than 5 miles when we realized the car top carrier was too heavy and we wouldn't make it through the first sharp turn! We did some quick unloading, sorted through what we absolutely needed and what could be shipped, and we were off again. In reality I am glad we went back because saying good-bye the second time wasn't nearly as hard as it was the first. Because we got such a late start we decided to only go as far as Spokane and stay the night with some family. It was a nice short trip over there and it was so good to see some more family before we left!

We drove from Spokane through Idaho which had some nasty wild fires which meant lots of black smoke on our drive. We decided to stop in Livingston, Montana for the night because it's one of the last stops before you drive into Yellowstone.

Livingston, Montana

I am so glad we stopped because it was the cutest little town! We grabbed dinner at a little walk up burger place called Mark's In and Out and ate dinner in the park. If you are ever near Livingston you HAVE to go to Mark's In and Out - the burgers and milkshakes were so good!