Four Days of Driving, Ten States, 2,400 Miles, and 4,240 Pounds of Stuff!

A photo-journal of our trip west!

We began in Mississippi.  This is what our house/lawn looked like when someone from housing came to do the final walk-through.  She took one look and said, “Uh, are you guys ready for your walk through or do you need me to come back?”  We said, “Oh, no, we’re ready!  The house is all clean!”  You see, at one point we just looked around and said, we’re not going to have time to load everything and then clean the house.  So we just got everything out so we could clean in time for the walk through.  Ha ha.  

Last time we had the same size truck and it was about half this full!  My inner nerd wants to keep detailed charts of the sizes of trucks we’ll require over the years and how much all our stuff weighs, so I can make a line graph:  "Pounds of Stuff Over Years”.

State line number one:

In our many trips over the Tennessee line and back in the past year we've instigated the tradition of singing “Rocky Top”.  I even started getting the notes right after the first five times.  I had to include this video if only for the comical moment where Caleb realized he’s being video-taped. 

Next state: Arkansas.  This one totally threw me because I knew we were getting close to the state line and I was looking for a sign along the side of the road when Caleb spotted it on top of this bridge over the Mississippi River, I believe.

A couple hundred miles later:

Sadly this was the best shot I could get of Kansas.  Dark and rainy and being in a moving vehicle and all.  But it is forever recorded!

At the end of our first day of driving, we had a lovely stay at Aunt Susie’s Bed and Breakfast!

  I think I got some rain spots on my camera lens and didn’t realize it until I uploaded the pictures.    So, sorry for the rain spot on your face, Aunt Susie!

We first saw windmills in Kansas and I got kind of excited, even though I’ve seen them before.  Then we ended up seeing them in practically every other state after that. Still pretty sky, though.

A couple hundred miles later:

Let’s just pretend I was trying to be arty by putting the antenna in focus and blurring the sign.  Shooting from a moving vehicle is tricky.

About an hour out of Colorado Springs:

We stayed at the Reiner Suites for two nights.

Heading further west:

Caleb ordered some soupy enchilada thing from Taco Bell and they forgot to give him a fork. 

 Heading west of I-25 was uncharted territory for me.  Utah was more beautiful and mountainous than I expected.  Not terribly evident in this picture.

Our third stop-n-stay was in Salt Lake City with one of my Hillsdale friends, Mark.  Believe it or not, I’m wearing very high heels in this picture. 

We saw some beautiful scenery west of Salt Lake.  I think the salt makes the water more reflective? 

Miles and miles of salt flats.  Weird and new and exciting.

Nevada: the classy state.  Also the windy and dusty state.

I wanted to actually get out of the truck and take a picture with the California state line sign but there was no shoulder.  Ironically it was the coldest, rainiest, snowiest, and foggiest part of our trip.  Until we made it down into the valley.  Not “The Valley” valley, just the central valley, I believe it’s called.

Eleven days later, or sixteen days after we left Mississippi, after waiting around, thinking each tomorrow would be our closing date, we made it into our next home:

We’ve been very busy cleaning and painting and installing new carpet, making many repairs, singlehandedly stimulating California’s sad economy, etc.  We’ll show you some more “befores” when we have some “afters”. 

Not Allergic to Palm Trees!

Well, readers, I took many neat pictures during our road trip across the country but they are trapped on my camera and I have happened upon an abundance of free time, so I’ve decided to update now and upload later.

In the week before we left Mississippi, the Bradford Pear trees and a host of other plants were starting to release their deathly array of pollen that coateth the houses, the cars, the runways, the planes: everything.  I had never seen anything like it, nor had such a time with allergies.  Caleb was unaffected. Sigh.

Also, an aside on Bradford Pears, if you’re not familiar: they are the great irony of the South.  These trees are beautifully shaped, the blooms are gorgeous, fluffy, white flowers(I suppose they come in other colors but on base they are white), and they line the streets and grace every other front lawn there!  The irony is that they have this horrible, horrible, odor to them!  Think rotten eggs mixed with sewage.  Last year I thought there was a feedlot next to the base that we just hadn’t smelled all winter.

Anyway, I have pictures to summarize most of the trip, except the last ninety minutes. We started at 8000 feet, surrounded by snow, some sort of undefinable precipitation, and heavy fog, and descended to--get this--sixty feet!  The experience felt somewhat akin to the Reader’s Digest condensed Narnia; there we were, winding down through this dark, cloudy, snowy, foggy forest, knowing there had to be a clearing eventually and then suddenly the clouds lifted and there was a beautiful sunlit valley full of fruit trees and horses and baby cows.  Of course there were adult cows, too, but I wasn’t nearly as excited about them.  So for the last forty-five minutes or so of our trip, we drove on gentle curves around these green pastures and orchards and, of course, palm trees!  I had never seen a cow and a palm tree in such close proximity; that really cracked me up.

Our GPS guided us to a base gate that is closed on the weekend and then we realized we had four more gates to try covering an extensive area, no idea what the hours were on any of them, and a limited supply of gas, but we got lucky on our second attempt. Whew.

So we’ve been staying in a nice hotel while some contractors finish a tiny bit of work on our house--work that we and our realtor thought would be done last week and technically doesn’t have to be completed until the week after next.  We’re hoping for sooner rather than later so we can limit the number of times we have to go digging in our truck for supplies we weren’t counting on needing.  Also it gets complicated with extending the lease on our truck or moving stuff into storage, blah blah blah.

In the meantime, there are the wonders of the modern world all around to distract us from this annoying situation! I’ve been squealing a lot every time we go drive around looking for a place to eat and realize that this area has pretty much every retail establishment you could wish for!  I won’t list all of the places with which I’m happily reunited.

Caleb has been in-processing at the base, and our little plan of he drive motorcycle she drive new car has been foiled by the rain, so for now it’s he drive new car she sit in hotel room or walk around mall.  Hence my abundance of free time.

Well there you have some new information and I’ll post some pictures when reunited with my camera cord.