Across the Country....

Day #1.

Saturday, July 28th 2007, 6:00 AM!!!! And we are off... heres how we started: All of our stuff in an '8 by 16' foot trailer pulled by Garrett's dad, Brian, and riding shotgun was Grant, Garrett's brother. Us in our Honda!
This is us just leaving, we are on our way out of San Bernardino, take notice if you will at what the trailer looks like as we started our trip. Nicely covered with thick heavy duty plastic! And a few small ropes!!





This is how Ciella started the drive.. asleep! Thank goodness! A sleeping angel!






This is us just about 1 hour into our trip, we are in Barstow. Once again take notice of the trailer, we already had a huge whole in the plastic, on the very top where Garrett's tapping up the hole. Man, we thought we were smart, duck tape will fix it... so we thought!

Finally we hit Arizona...

This was Ciella in Flagstaff AZ, when we stopped due to rain that was slowly filling our stuff inside the "nicely covered, with heavy duty, thick plastic" that had huge gigantic holes, trailer!!!

Still she was super cute and still an angel! This was our solution to 'not so thick heavy duty plastic that had huge gigantic holes!' A thick heavy duty tarp! And much much more rope!!! Which took us about 2 plus hours to complete the transformation!


Then thankfully we hit New Mexico!!! Side note... bad picture taken in the car! sorry...
So into New Mexico we got and stayed... stayed in Gallup New Mexico! Which ended up being pretty cool. There was this huge storm, and as you can see I got a "kinda blurry, but you get the picture", picture. Lets just say the lightening was some of the largest I've ever seen! Side note: this picture was taken inside the car as to not damage the camera! Sorry about the glare.But check out the lightening!!!

Day #2.
Sunday July 29, 2007

After not very much of a good nights sleep, we only slept a few hours, we were back on the road. Next came Texas... One of my two favorite states in which we passed. If you already didnt notice we took the most southern route, the 40. We didnt think our vehicles would make it over the Rockies.
This is why Texas was one of my favorite places... the blue sky, huge puffy clouds, and believe it or not, it was pretty green! side note: also a bad photo taken in the car. But might I add that we did get pulled over by a very nice police officer (for speeding... Garrett!!!) who told us way to much about his personal life! Also he was missing his front top teeth! But he let us off with a warning and said "don"t speed, at least not in Texas," we were like 5 miles from Oklahoma!!! It was pretty funny!!!

Then came my other favorite state... Oklahoma! Also beautiful... look and see...Ciella didn't sleep the whole way, she played most of it, she was such an angel!

Then came Missouri!!!

This is where I decided I never wanted to move to Joplin Missouri...
Might I add that we stopped in Oklahoma only hours earlier and inside a bathroom stall I was... using... read "www.whynotgotojoplin.com Pray for the visitors there" Its not actually a website, I checked. I thought it odd at the time, but later i understood.


It was a long day for us by the time we ended up in Missouri, I think it was about 10:30 pm, Garrett's dad was leading us then and got off the freeway, I think because he saw what he thought was a hotel. But sadly it wasnt, so we keep driving, and driving and driving and driving and did I say we kept driving, we kept thinking at any moment we would run into a hotel. After at least 45 minutes, we realized or just accepted the fact that we were lost in Joplin Missouri.

great, just great!

We did find a gas station and they eventually led us to a hotel with at that point was only about 1 mile from where we were, just totally in the opposite direction we were headed. So I think it was about 2:30 AM when we finally got a hotel room! I couldnt wait until we got out of Joplin Missouri! "pray for the visitors there!!!!!"

Day #3.

As you can imagine I was thrilled the next day to leave Missouri! But we did have to add a few pieces of tape to the trailer as well as some more rope!

We crossed the Mississippi River! By the way, I was loving the trip. I have always wanted to drive across the country to see all the states! Then we came to Illinois!

The land of the... brave... NO... free... NO, The land of the CORN!!!!!

This picture was taken a a random gas station, there is corn everywhere in Illinois!

After that came Indiana... we stayed the night in Indiana!

Day #4. The last day...

Ohio was great, another beautiful state!

Then Pennsylvania...

Ciella! Happy as can be!

Then came New York...

After we saw this sign Garrett was super excited and I started freaking out, I think I had been in denial the last few months and when we entered New York I realized how real this all was. I was scared to death! I wanted to turn around!

Garrett took a picture of his dad and grant during all his excitement!!!

Here's what the trailer looked like by the time we reached NY. You cant see on this picture, but the other side of the tarp is covered in duck tape. Brian liked to call all the ropes on the trailer his spider web, cuz it did actually remind you of it. Lots of big ropes and lots of small ropes all over the trailer!

And then we were there! And all the unpacking started! Not so much fun!

So here we are in a suburb of Buffalo (north of buffalo) called Amherst! We love it! We have just learned that it is the Safest city in the USA! Check out the website! www.morganquitno.com/cit01safe.htm So here we are... About 1 hour and 15 minutes from Palmyra, 10 miles from Niagara Falls and about 6 hours from New York City... so more posts to come!!! see ya