We arrived in Seattle around 9:00pm PST, and were greeted by my sister Averi and friends. That night, we went to The Shelter Lounge in Ballard and enjoyed good food, good drink, and great company. The next day we toured around the city visiting Averi’s church/workplace – Epic Life, enjoyed lunch with friends at the Greenlake Bar and Grill, explored Gasworks Park, saw the Space Needle, and took a water taxi to Alki to wander the beach.

After taking the taxi back across the Sound, we went to the Zig Zag Café, home to Murray Stenson (one of the top 10 bartenders in the United States), and enjoyed a cocktail. For dinner, we went to Café Champagne near Pike’s Market to celebrate Averi’s birthday. To end the day, we stopped by Kerry Park and viewed the amazing skyline at night.

We then descended into the land between the Bighorns and Yellowstone, where we stopped in Greybull, WY for a hearty breakfast at the Uptown Cafe (Think small town Wyoming, Ma & Pop cafe, and cigarettes).

We passed through the Buffalo Bill State Park, and entered Yellowstone National Park around Noon through the East Entrance. Yellowstone is a land of steam and peculiarities. We saw lots of buffalo and some elk, many tourists from many states and Japan, and we missed watching Old Faithful explode by about 45 seconds (we actually saw it shooting over the trees from the parking lot). It was about 2:30pm when we were at Old Faithful, and we were just to tired, from all the driving, to wait the approximated 90 minutes until the next eruption. We took some video of it steaming though, which we’ll post at some point.

After Old Faithful, we spent some time at the Grand Prismatic Spring. We felt like we were on another planet.

After spending about 4 hours in the park, we were exhausted, and ready for food, a bath, and bed. We left through the West entrance and drove North about 2 hours to Bozeman, Montana. After we checked into the hotel, we ate some excellent, handmade pizza from Audrey’s Pizza Oven. If you are ever in Bozeman, you should check them out; their Great Northwestern Bread is fabulous. And then… we crashed.

We stopped in Blue Earth, MN to to eat, and to wave at the Jolly Green Giant.

We also stopped at the South Dakota visitor center to get a map, and take a closer look at this large, cement tepee.

This Friday, May 28th, we will begin the first leg of our trip; Our destination: Seattle, Washington. Starting in Winona, Minnesota, we’ll drive non-stop for 17 hours to Bozeman, Montana and arrive at about Noon on Saturday. If we are feeling energetic, we’ll venture into Yellowstone National Park for the afternoon. Sunday morning we’ll get back on the road towards Seattle, arriving there in the early evening. Alyson’s sister, Averi, and several of our good friends live in Seattle. We will spend all of Memorial day visiting them and sightseeing in downtown Seattle.

Tuesday, June 1st, we will start the second leg of the trip by heading to the Pacific Coast Highway which begins in California. We will drive through Portland, Oregon; camp in Redwood National Park, just inside the California border; and drive across the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco, California. From San Francisco, we will drive East to the Sierra Nevada, stopping in Yosemite National Park. We’ll then go South along the Sierras to Sequoia National Park. We’ll end this leg of the trip by driving through Los Angeles, visiting with some of our family, to Carlsbad where our friend, Paul Rohde, lives. That Saturday, June 5th, we will venture to Joshua Tree National Park, with Paul, for exploration and photography. We’ll will most likely spend the evening on a beach near Carlsbad resting up for our next jaunt.

Sunday, after we attend church with Paul, the third leg will commence with a drive along the California/Mexico border to Yuma, Arizona and then Tucson, Arizona. We’ll then drive though the southernmost part of New Mexico and El Paso, Texas to get to Big Bend National Park where we plan to camp. From Big Bend, we’ll travel on to Austin, Texas were we will spend a day, or two, exploring the city and surrounding areas. We’ll also spend some time in Corpus Christi, probably enjoying Padre Island National Seashore. Finally we will drive through the bayous to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Our final leg will begin with our departure from New Orleans towards Memphis, Tennessee. From Memphis, we will drive through St Louis, Missouri, and finally reach our home, back in Winona, Minnesota.

This trip will be very long, but Alyson and I are excited to drive through countless places we’ve never been, and see what we can see. We plan to take copious amounts photographs, and document the trip here on our blog, every day or so. Stats from the trip will be collected at Daytum.com/JordanOgren.

We invite you to follow us here at TheOgrens.com, at our Twitter feeds (@JordanOgren & @AlysonOgren), or at Facebook.

-Jordan and Alyson

Hi family and friends! Welcome to our blog. Here we are going to update this site with interesting (and probably mundane) things that happen in our lives. As you have possibly inferred from the image above, our marriage is a recent interesting thing that has occurred. We’d like to thank everyone for being a part of the celebration; we love you all.

We will have a gallery of our weddings photos available on this site on Monday (11.23.2009). So come back and visit soon!

-Jordan and Alyson