Trip to Portland and back...

(whew. a lot happened. so this is a long post. get ready.)

the links throughout the post take you to our Flickr page, which has many, many more photos.

the view driving through utah, which is actually a very beautiful state. well, the northern part is anyway.

Jon and I went to Portland over the holidays so he could take care of some unfinished business with a client and also to spend time with family and friends. Our trip over was pretty easy, the only snow we had was from Denver to about Laramie, Wyoming. We drove to Boise and stayed with Nettie and Amy in their fantastic studio downtown. It was so great to see them and spend time in the cute little city.

While we were in Portland, Brian and Mari hosted a get together over the break. Steve and Aimee were also in town and it just so happened to be Steve's birthday, so we made him blow out candles while we sang "Happy Birthday".

The photo above is from the day it snowed in Portland unexpectedly and the city freaked out. It took Jon about an hour to pick me up from work when it should have taken 15 minutes. Once he picked me up, we went about a mile in two hours... so we decided to eat downtown and wait it out. It took almost 5 hours to get home because the city was gridlocked. We found out later that my grandparents were stranded about 10 blocks from where we were... and my uncle was also stuck in the city in the same area!

Ridiculous.

Jon and I were able to spend a few days with Uncle Danny, Aunt Shelley and Janson... it was a nice relaxing time with them and we enjoyed our favorite fondue dinner.

*bffs*

We spent New Year's Eve at Jason and Sarah's house with a few friends, eating LASAGNA (yum), listening to Bruce and Jason play music, and playing Catch-Phrase. It was the perfect way to ring in the new year.

So, I think the most eventful part of our trip was actually the drive back to Denver. We decided to bring our bed back with us, but quickly realized the mattress, box spring and frame wouldn't fit in the back of the truck. So, we had to rent a little u-haul trailer. Not that big of a deal.

Except when the hitch you have is junk and the nut falls off somewhere between Portland and Boise.

Which caused the trailer to actually FALL OFF.

We lost the trailer when we pulled off the highway in Glenns Ferry, Idaho and hit a cattle guard. We were in the middle of trying to strap it back to the hitch and tow it to the nearest gas station, when a nice young man pulled over and helped us. It turned out he worked at the local feed store, which just so happened to sell balls and hitches. He called and had the store opened for us to purchase the $6 ball and then helped us put it all back together, and we were on our way to Twin Falls - about an hour away, where we stayed the night.

this is what it looks like when you lose the trailer you are towing and the ball scrapes along the ground before you can slowly come to a complete stop. notice there is no NUT on that bolt.

Then, if that wasn't enough...

The next day, we got to Green River, Wyoming (the windiest place on earth) and as we were getting gas, Jon checked the hitch to see how it was doing. (In the middle of a very, very WINDY snowstorm.)

He nearly pulled the entire tow package off the truck.

After inspecting how the hitch was attached to the frame, he realized that a bolt was missing from the passenger side. So it was only being held onto the frame by 3 bolts and to top it off, the nuts were all loose and about to fall off. We finally found someone in town to help us (because it seemed that the missing bolt wasn't really missing... it had just sheered off and half of it was still stuck in the hole).

Below is a photo of the nice gentlemen we found to actually weld the hitch to the frame of the truck and replace all the nuts with lock-tights instead of cheap-o nuts.

And, it only cost us $20 (actually $8... but we were extremely appreciative).

You would think that would be enough excitement...

-BUT-

We ended up getting pulled over by Wyoming's finest because our lovely u-haul trailer's lights were shorting out. And we were about 70 miles from the nearest town. That just made the day so much better. Thankfully they were pretty nice and helped Jon fix it.

I begged Jon to stay the night in Laramie, even though we were only about 2.5 hours from Denver. The roads were getting icy and visibility was reduced due to the blowing snow.

The next day we awoke to beautiful blue sky and COLD weather, but at least the roads were fairly dry and clear. The last leg of the trip was uneventful.

Thank goodness.

So, now we are here in Denver and we will never, ever, EVER take a road trip in the winter, towing a u-haul, again.