Five states in one day!

Today was our first big day of driving. We went through West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and now we are in Wisconsin, Racine, Wisconsin to be exact.  Originally our plan was to stop at this State Park right outside of Indianapolis, but we decided to keep driving to Gary, Indiana to another state park.  However, the park in Gary, Indiana seemed to be a little weird so we tried to go to Chicago.  Chicago however, ended up to be a bust, and so we kept on truckin' all the way up to Racine, Wisconsin. We decided to stay at a nice hotel La Quinta in Racine.  The room was kinda pricey, but they are dog friendly and will let Chica stay here with no additional charge. Tomorrow we plan on going up Milwaukee and hopefully maybe going to a brewery (we want to try and check PBR for all you Richmond folk out there.)  Here are also some pictures from the last couple of days that we promised you last time. Poor Chica has to deal with sleeping in the back with everything, but she is a good sport and deals with it.

Gap Mills, West Virginia

I know it has been a while since we posted anything, but it has been a busy couple of weeks.  The yard sale was a huge success!!!! Thank you to everyone that came out, hung out, bought our stuff, drank our lemonade, and ate our muffins.  We also sold both our cars and bought a used Subaru Outback Station Wagon for the drive out west.  Plus it has all wheel drive so that we can get through all that snow we are going to encounter in Montana.  The cookout was a lot of fun.  It was nice seeing everyone before we left, thank you to all our friends and family that came out and shared this special time with us.

Well, we made it through the first day of our trip with no drama...well almost no drama.  There was a huge storm that we drove through and we had to pull over at a rest stop to wait it out, but no harm and our bikes made it through.  We are currently in Gap Mills, West Virginia on Evie's farm.  It is absolutely gorgeous out here.  We will be heading out around dinner time to Charleston, West Virginia to spend the night with Paul's Granddad.  We will post some pictures when we get a better connection.

Yard Sale!

Paul and I are having a yard sale on Saturday July 17th, to sell all the stuff that won't fit in the car! We will be out as early as 7:30 in the morning and plan on going until all the stuff is gone, even if that means we have to go into Sunday! So come out to 710 Holly St. in Oregon Hill and say what's up and check it out.   Oh my gosh! It's real, this yard sale is a huge reality that we are leaving.  AHHH!!!! SO EXCITING!

The Adventure

Paul and I mapped out our route to our new home!  We are taking about two weeks to drive out west visiting family and friends along the way.  Here are some pictures of us and our itinerary for the trip.

Here is a link to a map of where we will be going and some stops along the way.

This is our itinerary:
July 29: Our Journey Begins and we Depart from Richmond, VA
-We will drive to Gap Mills, WV and then move onto Charleston, WV visiting Paul's Grandparents
July 30: Leave Charleston, WV
July 30 - August 1: Chicago, IL
August 1-August 4: Minnesota/Canada, hanging with Paul's Dad and Ginger
August 5 - August 8: Badlands of North Dakota @ Theodore Roosevelt National Park
August 8 - August 9: Limbo, we plan on camping and hanging out in Lewis and Clark National Forest
August 10 - August 13: Glacier National Park (in Montana)
August 13 - August 15: Flathead Lake
August 16: ARRIVE IN MISSOULA!

Here are also some pictures of us planning and mapping our trip...

The First One

It was in May when Paul and I decided that we wanted to move outside of Richmond.  We were at a bar and I turned to him and blurted out, "I wanna move," and he said OK.  At first I thought I wanted to move to New Orleans and help with the post Katrina clean-up, so we wrote a contract out on a bar napkin that said,"I Jeffrey Paul Hansbarger and I Jessica Dawn Noe promise one another that we will move to New Orleans, Louisiana on August 1, 2010."  It was not until June when Paul and I decided that we were going to go to Montana.

When I tell people we are moving to Montana their first response usually is,"Why Montana?"  If you know anything about Paul you have heard his obsession with the word "Mon" and all things that are "Mon" related.  So, naturally the funny response is because it is MON-tana.  But, in all seriousness that is not the reason why.  Paul had always talked about moving out west, even before we met he signed up to do Americorps in Montana, but never went through with it (mainly because he met me).  So, one night when we were talking about New Orleans he just brought up Missoula.  I had no objections to Montana, I had gone out there when I went to Yellowstone, so I knew it was a beautiful state.  However, I was nervous because I still wanted to be around people, and I was scared that we were going to be woods people, and I felt like I am still too young to retire into the wilderness.  It was not until I talked to my dad that he told me Missoula was a small college town.  My dad had gone through Missoula on a fly fishing trip, and said it was like a small city.

Missoula, Montana is actually a city inside of Missoula County with the population of about 65,000 people.  It is the location of the largest media market in the state, and has the International Missoula Airport, so you can fly in and out of the town.  It was also ranked number 10 in CNNMoney's list of best places to launch a small business.  Missoula is also home to the University of Montana.  Paul and I always said we both wanted to go back to school, and the UMT has both wild life conservation for Paul, and a special education degree for me.  So, Missoula, Montana was the perfect compromise.