nocureforgravity

Some 5,500 miles later, we have finally arrived in San Diego!

We spent Saturday in Fresno, hanging out with family and friends. It was great to just chill and not have to think about getting food from somewhere or driving ourselves from Point A to Point B.

This morning, we got up early, had donuts for breakfast, bid farewell to my family, and then packed up the car for the last leg of our journey.

I’m happy to report that this afternoon in Southern California was a typical one. The freeways were congested and the weather was warm and sunny. We stopped for lunch at food court at the Westminster Mall in Orange County and it was packed with the kind of diverse population you only find in California.

We were exhausted by the time we got to our apartment complex in La Jolla, but we were excited to see our apartment! It looks great – we’re very happy with it. Once we get it organized, maybe we’ll post some pictures. Right now it’s just a big pile of boxes.

We bought a few groceries, got takeout from California Pizza Kitchen, then spent the rest of the evening reading the San Diego Union-Tribune. We’re too tired after three weeks of driving to do much work on the apartment tonight. The next couple of days will be more focused.

We slept like rocks in the bed in our room at the Best Western in Carson City, and it was delightful to wake up and not feel stiff and grouchy from sleeping restlessly and uncomfortably on the round. It was also wonderful to take hot showers in a private bathroom, as opposed to the showers in the shared restroom at the KOA. Although we woke up relatively early, we took our time, watched some coverage of Hurricane Frances on CNN, had some free continental breakfast, and then got back on the road.

We drove through Carson City and headed toward Lake Tahoe. When we caught our first glimpse of it, and we could see the mountains on the other side of it, I was so thrilled – here was California! Lake Tahoe is right on the border between Nevada and California, so we were on the Nevada side of it for 20 or 30 minutes. At one point we stopped to get out and take photos. It was very chilly, though, and we were dressed for San Joaquin Valley weather, not mountain weather. We took the pictures quickly and then got back in the car.
Continue reading “The Last Border Crossing: NV to CA” →

As we fell asleep last night listening to the train horns blaring not-too-distantly, I wondered just how noisy this campground was going to be. Very noisy, as it turned out. The trains stopped sometime in the middle of the night, giving way to trucks, dogs, traffic in general… finally it was the flocks of birds chattering away in the tree just above our tent that made me give up on sleep around 6:30 this morning.

I was also ready to get up to take a shower, since we hadn’t showered since Sunday. (Too much information?) The campgrounds we stayed at in the national parks didn’t have showers directly at them, and when there were showers nearby there was a charge to use them. We did get clean-ish, though, at the Boiling River and in Jackson Lake. But we were definitely due for showers.
Continue reading “The Longest Day: UT to NV” →

I can’t believe it’s September! I guess our journey is really coming close to an end. We’ve had a hard time keeping track of what day it is – every day feels like Saturday. Today we had to keep asking ourselves, “What did we decide today was? Wednesday?”

When the alarm went off at 8 am this morning, we both got up right away, ready to get moving. Neither of us slept that great. At least it wasn’t as cold as it had been, but it was still pretty cold. And of course the ground was hard. I had expected the gravel underneath the tent to be relatively comfortable, but I guess I got it mixed up with sand. Instead of spreading a bit to conform to our bodies, the tarp and the tent did a great job of smoothing out the gravel to make it more like sleeping on asphalt. Oh, well.

We were surprised and a bit bummed to find that there was actually dew all over everything, most importantly our tent. It had been so dry here in Wyoming, we weren’t expecting any moisture. So we had to let the fly over our tent dry before we could put it away. Fortunately the sun was shining directly onto our campsite, so we maneuvered the tent around to the sunny spots to let the sun dry it out.
Continue reading “Back to (Relative) Civilization: WY to UT” →

We slept in a little this morning and awoke to a clear blue sky and a warmer morning than yesterday. We unhastily packed up our camp and ended up leaving the campground slightly about ten minutes later than checkout time.

Our main goal for today was to see Old Faithful. We drove across the park to the site, crossing the continental divide several times, and were fascinated to see how much infrastructure there was in that part of the park. The roads were like freeways, which had not been true anywhere else in the park. There was a TON of parking, and several different buildings containing shops, restaurants, museums, etc. It was obvious that this is the most visited part of Yellowstone.
Continue reading “More Natural Beauty: Yellowstone & Grand Teton” →

Last night was a long, cold night sleeping on the hard sloping ground, so I was actually glad when the alarm went off at 8 am. We got up, got dressed, took down the tent, and got going. Although we’re staying in Yellowstone for two nights, we are actually camping in two different campgrounds.

The nearest Yellowstone destination to our campground was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, seemingly referred to most of the time as simply “the canyon”. The Yellowstone River flows through this canyon and forms two major waterfalls, the Upper and Lower Falls. First we drove to the rim of the canyon and took a short boardwalk-and-stairs hike down to the Upper Falls. We were right above the falls and it was exciting to see huge amounts of water rushing down. We got out of there just in time – a tour bus was discharging its passengers as we were getting into our car.
Continue reading “The Wonders of Yellowstone” →

This morning Dave and I got up just in time to say goodbye to Heather, who was on her way to Idaho. We had french toast for breakfast then got ready for church.

I thought we’d have time to pack everything up and load the car before we left for church, so we could just leave immediately after church, but we ended up leaving earlier than I thought we would (because Dave and Dave had to get there early to get the music organized), and we weren’t even close to being packed and ready. So we all piled into the minivan and drove down the interstate to church.
Continue reading “Climbing the Rockies: MT to WY” →

We awoke in a warm dry bed to a sunny morning in Hardin, Montana after sleeping like rocks all night. I got up and showered and went into the living room to discover that our friends were all up, and getting ready to go over to Kristen’s parents’ house for breakfast. I left Dave and our friend Heather behind to finish getting ready, and rode over with Dave & Kristen and the babies. Breakfast was delicious and relaxing, and it was fun to hang out with Kristen’s parents for a while.

It took us all a while to motivate to decide what to do with ourselves that day. Heather hadn’t even yet fully decided to spend the day in Montana – she is on her own cross-country road trip (no website for her, sorry) but her itinerary is much less predictable. Kristen convinced her to stay by proposing that we all float down the Bighorn River for an hour or so. We were all excited about this idea, so we packed a picnic lunch and drove to the river in three separate cars (our Focus, the minivan, and a truck loaded with watercraft) so we could have transportation at both the put-in and the take-out.
Continue reading “Just Hanging Out in Montana” →

At about 3 am I woke up because the tent was making very loud noises. In my dream state, and not knowing what time it was, for some reason I thought it was the campers next to us walking through our campsite and tripping over the tieline holding the fly down. After it went on for what turned out to be hours, I ultimately realized it was just the wind battering our tent. Not long after that, the rain began, and continued through morning. From inside the tent it sounded like a torrential downpour, and as we slept, Dave and I both wondered what was going to become of our day in South Dakota.

I finally got up a little after 8 am to scout out the situation. When I stepped out of the tent, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually wasn’t raining as hard as it sounded from inside the tent – it was really just slightly harder than a sprinkle. After stopping in the bathroom and putting in my contacts, I went into the store/office to ask the woman who runs the campground what she knew about the forecast. All she did was look it up online to find that the forecast was cloudy and scattered showers with a 40% chance of rain. That wasn’t helpful for the moment, but it did give me hope that just because it was raining in Belvidere didn’t mean it would definitely be raining in other places… say, the Badlands.
Continue reading “National Parks & Other Prairie Sights: SD to MT” →