I never thought I'd fall in love...

4 states

71. 522 gallons of gas

2156.9 miles driven

5.649 billion bugs slaughtered

6 new cities explored

1 tiny crack in my windshield

1,000,000 memories made

Basically this picture says it all:

It all started at 12:09 MST on Friday the 17th of August...

One stop in the remote town of Glenn's Ferry ID with only one gas pump, anoter in Pendleton at a bustling gas station where I met a guy who had the most georgeous El Camino I've ever seen, around 11:11 pm I saw the greatest lights as I came over the Manastasch Peak, and then at :

~ 874 miles;

~ 2 bottles of water,  1 mountain dew, 1/3 of a DDP; 2 pb&js;

~ 12:37 min. later...

I've FINALLY arrived in Sophskiez room!

It was clearly a fantastic reunion :P

The next day while I was taking in some of the scenery with my baby Rebel, on our way into the greatest city on Earth, so really cool guys in the Subaru next to us posed for me :P

Don't worry, Sophskiez was drivin' :P

We went to Pike's Place market and saw a bunch of awesome stuff! Then we went to go by the water, and were disappointed when a juggler decided not to perform his routine. The sun came out a little bit, and there were some awesome picture taking opportunities :)

Basically it was beautiful :)

On Sunday Sophie gave an amazing talk in church! When we got home PONO CAME OVER! :D

I was contemplating all of the places in the world I'd like to visit! :)

Sister Wilson and Sister Santos are pointing to their AWESOME missions they'll be serving in for the next 18 months or so. :D

aaand I was writing down some of the driving stats/trip things/ making lists like I generally love to do.

And shortly after we took this jumping pic, I was packed up and ready to head North up to Bellingham!

Monday morning we had breakfast at the Baglery in bustling downtown Bellingham.

Then Kenz and I went down to the boardwalk and took some fun pics. :D

This girl is SO amazing!! :D

Then I took a 'lil trip down to Sammamish to see muh fro Pono! ... I mean muh girl Pono! :P And I STILL have issues saying Sammamish... but my phone, Gina, cannot pronounce Issaquah, soooo I'm not feelin' too bad about it :P

Those bandaids are in the pic like Elise would be if she wasn't in the MTC.

Pono and I feasted on some Mickey-Mouse-Head shaped chicken nuggets, and I got my first taste of Seattle traffic on my way south to Longview! But I still made it to Kara's house before she was done with work. Fueled up on coconut water, AMAZING leftovers, and bran muffins for dessert; home girl took me around town, and to the beautiful Columbia river in her janxy (but AWESOME) off-road vehicle--fully equipped with about 5 different handholds for me to grab on to. :D

We jumped off this cool lookin' stump.

and this was the only normal picture where both of us weren't lookin' too weirdsauce :P

Fueling up one more time in Vancouver, I said goodbye to Kara and to Washington, slept in Portland for a few hours and headed back to Provo on Tuesday.

This was the sunrise in OR! (also, you can see just a few of the bugs that  littered my windshield)

And now here I am, back in Provo, my new (and as of now, empty) apartment, anxiously awaiting school to start. I'm a little bit poorer, but my whirlwind tour of the BEAUTIFUL state of Washington was life changing. I never thought I'd fall in love, especially not with a city, or a little bit of countryside, but oh how my heart is singing, calling me back there.