Seattle, WA to Boise, ID to Reno, NV

Casino right past the state line!

Say When!

Jamie gambling...she won $2:-)

Gambling in Nevada

Stephanie Beck Williams on the CMT stage

Boise State cheerleaders

Boise State cheerleaders and dancers

Apparently this place sells fruit....hmm???

Matt and Jamie at the market

Please don't squeeze my peaches!

Matt, Jamie and Jessica hanging out at the market

Pigs are a theme in this city...not sure why, but ride em' cowgirl!

The market!

View of Seattle at night

Looking down from the top of the Space Needle

Sharing CMT bliss via green and yellow donuts at KMPS

Jamie and I sporting CMT at KMPS in Seattle

Who-dey baby!

Boo Brownies!

This pose was Matt's idea

The crazy banker gang with Jamie and I

Jamie and this random banker guy "just broke up"

Jamie hanging out in the DHL truck

Matt and Jamie in front of Qwest Stadium

Jamie, Matt and I in front of Safeco Field

Jamie and I

Me at the top of the Space Needle

Matt and Jamie

View of the bay from the SN

View of downtown Seattle from the Space Needle

Me trying to sing like Jennifer Nettles:-)

Matt singing karaoke

View from a pier in Seattle

The Space Needle

After our event in Kennewick, we booked it to Seattle the very next day to play in the city. Our first day in Seattle was on August 26th. We stayed in a cute little condo in Belltown, near downtown Seattle. When we arrived we walked around the area near our condo and went to a neat little restaurant/bar for dinner. It was called Ohana and we were pleasantly surprised to find out that they had karaoke there that evening. So, of course we stayed to do a little karaoke. Matt sang Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" and had everyone in the bar pumped up. I unfortunately had to follow Matt and sang none other then a Sugarland tune, "Everyday America". Gotta love Sugarland. It was a sad attempt, but I had fun. Jamie decided not to sing, although Matt and I were trying to convince her to do so.

On August 27th, we had the whole day to play in Seattle. One of our first stops was the Space Needle. On our walk to the SN, we saw a DHL truck parked on the side of the street. This was exciting for us, due to the fact that our expense reports needed to go out that day via DHL. Matt quickly ran back to the truck to retrieve them while Jamie and I stalled the DHL man, and snuck in a quick picture on the truck!

When we went to buy tickets at the SN, we found out that if we paid $4 extra we could go up twice in one day. We thought that it would be neat to see the view at night as well so we bought the 2-trip ticket. The view from the top of the Space Needle was really beautiful.

After reaching the ground once again, we headed over to Seattle's Music Museum - Experience Music Project. We spent several hours inside checking out all of the displays. After the museum, we took the monorail to downtown Seattle and went shopping. There are so many Starbucks in Seattle it is ridiculous! It felt like everywhere you were, you would see at least one. There are a total of 170 Starbucks in Seattle!!!

After a semi-unsuccessful day of shopping we jumped a bus to Safeco Field in an attempt to get cheap tickets for the Mariners game. Safeco Field is just across the street from Qwest Stadium, where the Seahawks play so we got to see both stadiums. Upon arriving at Safeco, we were unable to find cheap tickets, so the plan was to scalp tickets after the third inning or so and in the meantime we would have a few drinks at the martini bar across the street. After sitting and chatting at the bar for awhile we decided not to go to the game at all and watched it from the bar. At the end of the game, the bar got much more crowded and we met a whole group of people that were in Seattle for a banker's conference (or something along those lines). They were a rowdy group and a lot of fun so we made friends and hung out for a bit before they moved to the next bar and before we headed back to the Space Needle for the second time of the day.

We got to the Space Needle just in time to go up (around 11pm). We stayed at the top until about midnight, stopped at a little pizza place next to our condo and then headed to bed.

On Tuesday, August 28th, we bought donuts (with country fresh icing - green and yellow) and brought them to a loyal radio station of ours, KMPS. They were excited to see us and we hung out for a bit. Joe Nichols happended to be in the radio station while we were there so we got to see him briefly while chatting with the folks there.

After leaving the radio station, we headed to the Public Market by the water for lunch. Jamie's high school friend, Jessica, met up with us for lunch as well. After lunch we walked around the market a bit and then parted ways with Jessica. We had a long drive ahead of us. We made a pit stop in Kennewick to pick up the trailer from the hotel we stayed at while we were there and then drove to Nampa, Idaho to the Hampton Inn we stayed at for the Caldwell Night Rodeo.

On August 30th, we dropped Matt off at the airport so he could fly back to Nashville and join John on truck 2 for the Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival in Winchester, Kentucky. Jamie and I spent that evening working at the Boise State season opener football game. It was a small crowd for us due to location, but the radio station was great to work with (it was the same one we worked with at the Caldwell Night Rodeo). Stephanie Beck Williams - winner of Music City Madness - joined us for a short performance as well.

After closing up for the evening, Jamie and grabbed a quick dinner and then began our drive to Nevada. Nevada would be our stopping point for the night before eventually reaching San Francisco. Jamie and I had a long night of driving ahead of us. As soon as we passed the Nevada state line, we came upon a casino and decided it would be a good idea to stop and gamble for the sake of being in Nevada! We only stayed for about a half hour and then continued on our way. Originally, we planned on stopping in Winnemucca, but upon arrival decided to continue on and ended up driving all the way to Reno, Nevada.

Once we got to the hotel in Reno, they were a little puzzled that we only wanted rooms for approximately nine hours! By the time I got up to my room it was already 5:08am. I was able to get some decent sleep before checking out at 1:00 and continuing on to San Francisco.