Moving Westward

It has been a crazy whirlwind since I wrote last, but I am now in California and reunited with J*. A few of you have been asking for pictures and updates, but we do not have the internet at our house yet, so it is a little more difficult to get things posted. Give me a few more days and I should be up to date! However, before I jump into what it is like here and what we have been doing, I wanted to write about the drive getting here, and put up some cool pictures I took along the way.
The drive took me three days and I covered Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. Before I left Minnesota I was dreading this 31-hour drive with no one to keep my company but Gus, but once I was on the road I actually had fun driving across country. I have never really been a big fan of the road trip (although I like traveling) but it was interesting to see each state in its glory and experience something different.

The first day I covered Minnesota and South Dakota, stopping just inside the Wyoming border. This day was the easiest, and my favorite part was driving through all the windmills in Southwest Minnesota. I also drove through Wall, SD (I still don’t understand the reason it is such a big tourist attraction, but maybe you have to actually go to understand). 

The second day I traveled Wyoming and the top portion of Utah. Here I stopped on the border of Utah and Nevada for the night. Starting out in Wyoming went well, and I loved the rolling hills and heading towards the mountains. The town I stayed in also had a Starbucks which was a fabulous start to the drive! I found myself wishing that I could share this with someone, and it was here I decided that everyone MUST take a road trip at some point like this one. Driving into and through the mountains was beautiful, but after that I found myself wishing I would hurry up and get to Utah! When I finally did get to Utah I was amazed at how quickly the landscape changed and I entered into the mountains again. (There was also green again!) This part of the trip was a little challenging, and I was glad for my father-in-law refusing to let me drive a U-haul and trailer to California! I drove past the Great Salt Lake, and was super bummed when I realized I passed the ONLY viewing turnoff because I was busy taking pictures from the car! L I was surprised by the almost turquoise color of the water after such a long time of seeing brown and red. The Salt Flats were also really cool (Thanks Kile for warning me about those!), and went on for miles! This is was another time I wished I had been able to make this trip with someone, because I wanted to get out of the car to touch the salt, and write a message in the black stones like all the others passing through. Once in Nevada, I stopped in a casino town for the evening (stopping in Nevada definitely confirmed my suspicions about what Nevada is really like!).

Hills of Wyoming

Entering Utah

The Great Salt Lake

Salt Flats

Salt Flats

The last day was the longest and the best because it had a fantastic ending – I covered Nevada and California, getting to our new house just in time for J* to finish with class and meet Gus and I after our extremely long drive and two months since I had seen him last! Nevada was horribly long and boring, not to mention that I left very early and I had no such luck of finding a Starbucks anywhere near where I was. When I say I left early…I left the hotel at 5:30 AM to start driving, and lo and behold, ten minutes later I crossed that time zone line that I had been wondering about all evening. So, in reality I really started driving at 4:30 AM!! Nevada was probably the worst state that I drove through, nothing but, well…a lot of nothingness. All the towns were extremely far apart, and there were not many signs to tell me if I was getting any closer to my destination. After I finally made it to Reno, I allowed myself a longer break to gear up for the remainder of my trip. Before I knew it I was in California driving up and down in the mountains as others zoomed past my overly cautious driving. As I finally made it out and into the city of Sacramento, I reached the foothills and a good deal of traffic which slowed me down. It was during this time that I realized that, apparently, in California it is not important to drive the speed limit; you must either drive 15mph over the limit or 10 mph under! It was only when I saw a sign for Salinas that I cheered up a bit, knowing I was finally almost to my destination after 3 days of driving. I was also cheered by the fact that I was in the land that I had read about so many times in the books of John Steinbeck, and I let myself imagine the stories taking place as I drove closer. 

When I finally made it to the house, I had to wait about 20 minutes before J* could get there. I let myself into the backyard once I was convinced I was at the right place, and let Gus run free for the first time in 3 or 4 days! He had so much fun leaping around, and I was thankful for this new house and the backyard even though I had not seen the inside yet.