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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Back to San Diego!

Gray and I got on the road toward San Diego a few days after the new year began. I don't know about him, but I was glad to be almost home. It is great to spend time with family and friends at home, but in a lot of ways it's nicer to be in your own bed with all of your own stuff and not imposing on anyone. Also, heading home meant Josh would be back soon! 

We were set to meet two friends (three kids and three dogs) in two separate cars, but plans changed and Gray and I made the trip back to California with one friend in her car and her two dogs. It was nice knowing someone else was right there with us if we had major car trouble in the middle of west Texas, but the company was almost more awesome! 

We met Casey in Texas, near Houston. Naturally before we met up with her, we had a MAJOR flat tire in the middle of nowhere. I was lucky enough to stop to check it before it was totally flat (10lbs remaining) at a gas station AND be within 100 yards of a tire place. If that doesn't tell you that God was watching over us, I'm pretty sure nothing can! The guys must have felt sorry for me, because they patched the flat within 15 minutes and didn't charge me anything for the repair. Totally blessed. 

Fletch stayed in the car while the men went to work. 
Our first official stop was Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. I have always wanted to see these caverns, so I was pretty excited that Casey was into the extra miles to see it.  It was worth the trip because the caverns are huge! I'm not sure it was the best cave experience I've ever had, but it was pretty fantastic. 




I think Gray enjoyed the caverns too! 
We took 4 days to get home, but didn't make any other really exciting stops. I only took a handful of photos, so I'll share a few from the coolest rest stop ever. They had tons of random stuff to buy, but Gray LOVED the metal sculptures that were out to one side of the gas station. Fletch was also interested in them, which was kind of funny.
The horse was the first thing Fletch noticed. 

Gray loved climbing on the lizard, but wouldn't even get close to these snakes!
Now that we are back in San Diego, I wanted to count up the states we visited and miles we drove in the last 6 months. It seems that we went to 26 different states and traveled over 12,600 miles (that's over 9 days of driving time by Google's calculations). I'm not counting air travel (that would be another 2,800 miles or so) or water travel to Mexico. :) I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but we saw countless things that our great nation has to offer and made too many memories to count. 

I think my favorite things in all of that travel were Yellowstone NP, The Battle of Little Big Horn NP, Mt. Rushmore NP, Yosemite NP, Sequoia NP, Muir Woods NP, and the Four Corners Monument. Yellowstone was hands down the most amazing. If you are ever considering a trip to Yellowstone, just go. You will love every minute of it! The landscape in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota alone is worth a trip because it's breathtaking in that part of America. BUT in the end, there is no place like home. :) 

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