& away we go...

So here it is. We hit the road at 6:30 am on Wednesday, June 16th - the start of a roughly two month long road trip of West Coast, bottom to top. With our stuff in storage, the car is our new home. And since we live in the middle of the country, it takes a bit to actually get to the coast.

No hard feelings, Iowa and Nebraska - but we drove straight through you. It could be a while before we come back. This may or may not be because much of Nebraska smells like pig manure. Even from the car. With the windows up. Just saying.

So, partly due to the less than pleasant aroma and partly because our first real destination was my aunt's place near Colorado Springs, we pushed through to Colorado on the first day. The smell disappeared as we crossed the border (and I felt a little better about sleeping outside and breathing the mountain air). However, night one was spent at the Pepper Pod campground, a deceivingly cute name for a somewhat less than cute campground. Though after 14 hours of driving, you find yourself less than picky. Pepper Pod was conveniently nestled between the highway and the train tracks - with a bar completing the triangle of noise that surrounded our first night in the tent. It wasn't terrible, but let's just say we're making it a goal for that to be the low point of our camping experiences.

On our way to Colorado Springs, we took a trip up a mountain to visit the tucked away little community of Nederland. It's certainly not the most convenient place to visit, but the drive is beautiful, and the people of Nederland seem to really appreciate that you made the trip all the way up there. Their dogs (who are resident greeters at nearly all the local businesses) are just as welcoming. It's a town that would be a perfect place to spend some time and recharge. One car we passed had a bumper sticker that said 'Neditate,' which pretty much sums it up.

Night two was genuinely cute, not deceiving so, as it was spent with family (including my cousin's two adorable daughters - the younger of the two who couldn't pronounce Curt's name and spent much of the evening saying, 'Excuse me, Turtis, but could you please watch me do ___?')

It was so great to see my aunt and cousins (the kind of family who you never see very often, but every time you do, it's like no time at all has passed). And the timing was perfect, as it coincided with one of the cousin's 2-day layovers in Colorado - between scuba training in Panama and heading back to Hawaii where she's currently living and being her fearless, amazing self.

After just one night with the family, we pushed on toward the Grand Canyon, with a stop at the famed tourist trap Four Corners on the way. Out of luck, though - it was closed when we got there. I'm still trying to figure out how a geographical point where four states meet can be closed for construction...

But we managed to take a cheesy tourist pic anyway...

The disappointment of the Four Corners was followed by the breathtaking sight of the Grand Canyon. Travel tip: If you want to get away from the congestion of the snapshot happy crowd at the top of the Grand Canyon, take one of the hikes a little ways down it. Apparently only 10% of the people who visit the Grand Canyon do this. Plus, the view gets more and more spectacular as you venture down into it. Curt and I took the trail that led to Ooh Ah point (or, as Curt referred to it when talking to a fellow hiker along the way, Ooh La La Point). Either way, it was appropriately named.

Before getting out of the mountains, we had our first shock of the trip - a tipped over semi up against a guard rail on a windy mountain road. It was enough to make a person slow her roll, that's for sure.

I didn't necessarily want to give Arizona any more of our money after paying to see the Grand Canyon and a stop for gas, and the coast was feeling closer all the time, so we drove until the light was nearly gone and - just before dark - found a beautiful camping area a few steps across the border in Utah. There were a few stray dogs in the area, but nothing to worry about, and rather than being awoken by the sounds of trains, highways and bars, we woke to the sound of a horse neighing and some little chirpy bird above our heads. A certain improvement in the camping situation.

The following day was nearly all driving - California or bust! - so there's nothing much to say except that driving that long does something funny to your verbal abilities. When trying to say 'jibberish' I said 'jibberiss' and then when laughing at me, Curt said 'examble' rather than 'example' and the whole mess led to a good few minutes of laughing at ourselves and realizing we needed to find a place to camp. We were losing light again and there was only one camping area in about a hundred mile radius, so even though the Mojave National Preserve camping spot was 20 miles out of the way, it was pretty much the only option. You know you're in the middle of nowhere, by the way, when your GPS tells you to 'turn onto Unpaved Road' for 11 miles and then 'turn off of Unpaved Road' for 9 miles. We didn't pass one car down that 20 mile stretch through the desert and we started giving each other that look that said, "Is 1/2 a tank of gas enough way out here?" But when we did arrive and got settled, we realized this place was so quiet and natural and empty, it was bliss.

We even saw wild cows! (Gotta admit I wasn't sure wild cows still existed...) There were only a couple other campers and far enough away we couldn't see or hear them, and there was absolutely no light pollution so the big open sky was filled with stars. We left the rain fly off the tent so we could stare up at them all night like cowboys on the range. No trains, highways, bars, or horses to wake us up that night - but instead, a desert wind storm. In a groggy, half asleep state of consciousness, I looked up to see the tent swaying side to side above me. Feeling like Dorothy, I waited for the tent to be picked up off the ground and fly me to another land with strange people who unexpectedly break into song and dance (LA maybe?) But I fell back asleep and awoke later to find myself in the same beautiful desert, tent intact. If you're a cowboy or cowgirl at heart and want the real experience, go to the Mojave Preserve. You won't see or hear any signs of modern life... except for the out houses... but that's okay because we weren't cowboy enough to manage without one of those anyway :)