Friday, July 2, 2010

2100 miles (give or take a few)

yes, we drove to california.
drove.
in the summer.
with an almost 4 year old and a 15 month old.
and 2/3 of the trip wasn't too bad at all! ;)
we left about 2:30am the monday after father's day. we had our escape packed, as well as our small uhaul trailer. we had to bring that to put dathan's tools in, since we are taking an extra long "working vacation." we both have work while we're here, so we get to stay for an extended period of time! yay! 4 weeks? 5 weeks? 6 weeks? we're not sure yet, we're just playing it by ear. so fun!

the first thing we noticed is that we got about HALF as good of gas mileage pulling the trailer as we usually get. great. there's goes my budget for gas money. you know, cuz i'm a girl and it didn't even cross my mind that it would take more gas to get to california because we were pulling a trailer. now i know.

the boys slept most of the way. they did really good. we drove to guthrie, oklahoma where my brother & his wife are living (my sister in law's family is all there). we met up with brian at a place called braum's and got the boys some blue birthday cake ice cream.

then we went and stayed at my sister in law's grandma's house. brian & candace were kind enough to keep an eye on the boys so dathan & i could each get in a quick nap. we hung out with them, ate pizza, and watched ice age. we tried to get to bed semi-early, and we got up and left by 6:30am tuesday.

we wanted to get the majority of the driving done on tuesday and we were making good time. we didn't really make any stops besides gas... except for this place. i've seen pictures but never been, so we had to go look! dathan and nolan were asleep in the car but sean & i got out and explored cadillac ranch!

i started grabbing bottles of spray paint out of that tire and shaking them to see if any of them still had paint in them. we found one and i helped sean write his name on the tire. you'll have to excuse the random blurry pictures, my 50mm f/1.8 lens started acting up (and finally went kaput!) during the trip. RIP 50mm :(

the rest of texas mostly looked like this

new mexico... the majority of our drive on tuesday! for a state with "nothing" it sure was pretty!

taking a break to fill up, stretch our legs, and of course run to the bathroom

we wanted to get at least over the arizona border before we stopped for the night. we ended up driving a total of 14 hours before we hit holbrook, az and decided to call it a night. we got dinner at denny's (dathan's favorite lol) then got a hotel for the night.

we decided since we did so much driving the day before, and there was only about 7-8 hours left of the trip, that we would sleep in & be well rested and take our time on wednesday. oh boy, if we knew what was coming we may have stayed in bed!

i don't have many pictures of our drive on wednesday through arizona.
the stephens family and arizona are no longer friends.
and this has nothing to do with politics.

first, nolan started running a 103 degree fever. that's always fun on a car ride. in the desert. during the summer. then, you will never believe it... we RAN OUT OF GAS. not near a town, of course, but in the middle of nowhere. our car was being very spastic with how much gas it was using while we were pulling that trailer, but we averaged at least 50 miles per quarter tank. so, when dathan saw the sign that said "next services 56 miles" & saw we had in between a quarter & half a tank, he figured we had enough to get there. the sign did not warn us that there were many hills coming up which would burn up more gas. and so, our little car only made it 51 of the 56 miles before it stopped going. here is the view from where we stopped.

thank God dathan was able to pull under an overpass into the shade. we don't have AAA so we had to call a towing co. and the first one said it would be over $200! yikes! so we called a 2nd one and they said it would be $100 so we told them to come on. not that we had a "spare" $100 lying around but what else were we to do? so while we were waiting a highway patrolman pulled up and said where we were stopped was dangerous and to cancel the tow truck & he would take dathan to the gas station. so yay for saving that $100 but in the meantime i'm sitting on the side of the road (out of the car, behind a cement partition because the officer said it was too dangerous to stay in the car) trying to keep the boys out of the bushes (that the officer said more than likely had snakes in) praying that no creepy men pulled over & asked if i needed help while i waited. so dramatic, i know ;)

so then when the officer came back he said "um, your front tire is almost flat."
of course it is! so we had to stop and fix that. and then nolan's fever spiked at 103.8.
and the last 25 miles of arizona were construction.
we were happy campers. well, i was the one praying for the attitude check, because i was not thrilled. especially after the lady at the gas station tried to charge me $0.99 for a cup of ice. sorry lady, you're nuts.

so we finally got everything under control and got out of arizona... about the time we should have been pulling in my parents driveway. we had NO problems whatsoever when we were in california, thus our new dislike for the state of arizona.

we stopped in barstow for dinner- panda express- our favorite which they do not have anywhere near where we live. then headed out for the last 1.5hrs of our trip. when i saw the sun setting on the desert i knew we were "home."

now see, my parents are the directors for the local royal family kids camp, which is a camp for abused and neglected kids. so, we wanted to get to their house while they were at camp & surprise them when they got home from camp. what a cute and great idea, isn't it??? we thought so.

the neighbor, not so much. figuring he called my dad and told him we were there. thanks, buddy. it was all in the name of looking after my parents house while they were gone, which i respect, and the following reasons would be cause for alarm in my book too:
1.) i knew the password to open the garage
2.) i am a woman
3.) we had small children with us
4.) we were UNloading suitcases from our car INto the house
that would scream "ROBBERS" to you too, right? thought so.
or maybe i'm just used to southern hospitality and if that happened in the south the neighbor would have just came over & introduced himself & asked what we were doing.
oh well, it was just the icing on our wonderful arizona cake.

but my mom didn't know, so we worked really hard to keep it a secret from her until friday when they got home from camp.
you know, until she walks into the church office and someone in there tells her.
yep, there goes what was left of our surprise.
oh well, it still was a "surprise" as we were here earlier than planned.

and we are having a great time!
now, on the way back, we are tempted to drive up through nevada & utah instead of through arizona ;)

1 comment:

hanneyjo said...

wow, what an adventure! I was wondering when you posted the pics of the kids eating ice cream if it was a braum's. We ate there a couple of times on our trip to arizona. Andrew's parents LOVE that place. it is pretty good.

I'm glad y'all are okay! I would've been scared on the side of the road! geez!

I've never been to California. I'd like to visit sometime just to see what it's like.