We recently spent the night inside of the World’s Largest Beagle, Sweet Willy, atDog Bark Park in Idaho! As we most often do when we encounter large things, we ran around Sweet Willy and made a song.

You shall hear more about Dog Bark Park on Monday… in the evening!

This is Morgan, who we met in Seattle. I suspect her husband’s enthusiasm was the main impetus behind meeting up with us, but unfortunately he had a business trip in Asia that prevented us from seeing him past the one night we met up in town for Luke’s birthday. However, Morgan (perhaps at the encouragement of her enthusiastic husband) extended the most gracious good will to us over the next couple of days. First she hooked us up with a tour of the Microsoft Campus, which was so cool.  Then she opened her home to us and let us stay the night.  Then she let us relax on her couch for a rare moment of down time and watch Ice Road Truckers, and then she sent us off with a giant bag of the most wonderful goodies! Thanks to Morgan we have been devouring gourmet chocolate, sipping fancy peppermint tea and noshing on local snacks for the past three days! We might even get the chance to meet up with her (and hopefully her husband Scott and dog Sam) when we head back to Seattle before the cruise. Oh, and she also introduced Luke to his favourite Indian food on the whole trip! So for all of these reasons and more, Morgan (originally from Deep River Ontario!!!!) is our favourite follower of the week!

Thank you to everyone who voted – its so good to see such passionate voters! This was one of the most exhilerating votes in the history of alexandluke.com, and it had us on the edge of our seats all the way to the Utah border. Idaho – we really do regret that we didn’t have the opportunity to see more of you – but you have certainly left a very very good impression on us, and I suspect both of us will return one day. Utah – looks like we’ll be spending a little quality time together this weekend – hope you can handle it!

a&l

*There was some difficulty closing the vote properly at the Utah sign. If anyone is questioning the validity of the victory we have complete photo evidence of the vote being closed with Utah being victorious at the Utah border. What’s crazy is that in the short period of time from when we drove from the ‘Welcome to Utah’ sign to an area where we could update the website with the victory. Idaho received enough votes after the poll closing which would have made it victorious. It’s crazy to think that had we stopped at the Dairy Queen to get blizzards we would be driving back to Idaho right now. Instead? Off to Salt Lake City.

1. Utah has been put up for vote numerous times and has always lost, and maybe that’s a sign that it should stay that way.
2. We have never been closer to Salt Lake City before, and never will be this close again.
3. If you vote against us going to Salt Lake City, we will drive to just over the border of Utah so that we can tick it off the list, but we will not see or do anything there.
4. If number 3 happens, Utah will never be put up for vote again.
5. It is a heck of a long drive from Salt Lake City to Seattle, but if you vote us there, we will be making the trip early next week.
6. If you don’t vote us to Salt Lake City, we will inevitably be spending more time in Idaho.
7. More time in Idaho means more time to take suggestions that we might not be able to fit in if we book it for Utah (and more consumption of potatoes too).

Give this one a little thought – then vote for our fate below:
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

THE VOTE CLOSES WHEN WE CROSS THE IDAHO-UTAH BORDER

Click here to encourage people on Twitter to vote for us to visit Utah
Click here to encourage people on Twitter to make Utah walk the plank

But just this week, Carnival heard about our problem and offered us a solution. They have a very small amount of availability left on the Carnival Spirit and they offered us a cabin on the vessel! When we read the e-mail containing this offer we were such a mess of emotions that we were jumping on our beds, crying, and typing a thank you letter all at the same time!

We can’t possibly thank Carnival enough for helping the alexandluke.com project achieve our goal of visiting every province, state, and territory in Canada and the United States. A small gesture that you could do that would mean a lot to us is to also thank them on Twitter on our behalf! If you click here, a Tweet will be automatically generated to do so!.

We depart from Seattle on September 7th – that’s next Tuesday! If you have been to any of the Alaskan cities mentioned above and have any suggestions for us, leave them below. And if you have ever been on a Carnival cruise (maybe you have even voyaged on the Spirit before) let us know your favorite thing to do whilst on board. If you have never been on a cruise (like Luke), look forward to the content we will be making on the Spirit to help give you a sense of what life on a cruise is like!

Alaska!!!!!

a&l

The results of this vote might not send us in the winner’s direction just yet, but it will matter eventually – let me explain.

We are currently in Washington State, which directly borders two regions we have yet to visit – Idaho and British Columbia. However, Seattle is also a prime location for departures to Alaska via cruise ship and Hawaii via airplane.  We have always hoped to visit both of these American states, but getting to them with Burt Reynolds (our car) may not be entirely feasible (we would need a barge for Hawaii, and we could drive to Alaska, but by the time we get there, the roads might be too treacherous for poor Burt). So, we have reached out to the Hawaii and Alaska tourism communities to see if anyone could help to get us there (unfortunately Burt will have to stay behind this time).

If we don’t find ourselves on a cruise ship or an airplane this week, we will head to the winning region you vote for instead.  If we do manage to get to Hawaii or Alaska, we will be returning to Seattle in about a week, where we will then head to the winning region and start exploring.

Make sense?

Basically – vote on where you want us to drive next, and if  we end up on an airplane or a cruise ship in the mean time, the winning region will simply be pushed back a week or so.

One more thing to consider… as you may know, British Columbia is a Canadian Province, while Idaho is a State. We are required to complete our tour of the United States by mid/end October (as stated on our Visa’s), so if we are voted to Canada now, it might severely limit the amount of time we are able to explore the remaining states (unless customs is nice and re-issues us new visas). That said – British Columbia has plenty of Tim Hortons and Swiss Chalets and people who sound like us so we won’t turn it down, eh!

Vote Now:
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Click #Idaho to let people know you vote for Idaho on Twitter.
Click #British Columbia to let people know you voted for British Columbia on Twitter.

This vote closes tonight (Tuesday August 31) at 8pm ET so tell your friends!