Final Destination: San Diego!

We set out on Wednesday for our longest drive yet - 10 hours! We drove through Utah, the edge of Nevada, and a tiny bit of Arizona, to arrive back in California. The smog was overwhelming! Take me back to Nebraska haha! The drive was uneventful thankfully!

We made it back to Murrieta (Ryan's hometown) last night and got a home-cooked meal. Man, we’re sick of eating out! We drove the last hour to San Diego to deliver Red Pepper to her owner this afternoon. She has treated us very well! Throughout our trip we drove 4500 miles (Ryan drove all 4500 because I can’t drive a stick - thank you Ryan!!!!), were in 22 states (including D.C.), saw the license plates from 45 states, and got 15 tanks of gas!!! Not to mention spending two wonderful weeks together and seeing amazing scenery!! I think I would have to say my favorite things were Boston and Yellowstone and seeing friends along the way. Ryan’s favorite things were Niagara Falls and the St. Louis Cardinals game. We highly recommend a cross country road trip! We want to do another...through the southern states. We’ll see when we ever have the time. :) Thanks for following our blog!

Yellowstone to Salt Lake City!

On Tuesday we made our way back into Yellowstone to enjoy the scenery - we just couldn’t get enough of it! And in the short two hours we were there, we had four animal sightings! A herd of elk across the river, a few deer and elk in another meadow, a hawk in its nest, and a huge herd of buffalo. We ate our lunch watching the buffalo mosey around eating their lunch. We departed from Yellowstone on the drive to Salt Lake City through Idaho. The drive was pretty uneventful except for one thing. We were minding our business driving south on the I-15 when a car zoomed past us swerving in the fast lane. The car almost swerved off the road, then was straddling the lanes, tailing the car in front of it - needless to say, we attempted to stay far away from the reckless driver! At one point we realized the driver was wrestling with a map. Um, just a note, that’s when you should pull over... The car being tailed by the reckless lady got out of her way, and we continued on our way down the road well behind the lady. Soon thereafter, we noticed a police officer who pulled out from the median and sped off in front of us. He joined another officer in pulling over the reckless lady. We cheered!! We think the car being tailed must have reported her.

We arrived in Salt Lake City just in time for a barbecue with the Salt Lake friends I (Jadyn) met while on rotation. We had a great time laughing, eating, and telling stories. And now we find ourselves on our last, and longest, day of driving - home to San Diego!! It’s been an incredible trip, full of adventures, beautiful scenery, wonderful visits with old friends, and amazing sights!! We’re sad to see it come to an end!

Wyoming and Yellowstone!

We drove across all of South Dakota yesterday - pretty flat, but still green. Wowwee, we sure saw a lot of billboards along the way. They must be an attempt to keep you awake. We are pretty certain we saw well over 100 signs advertising “Wall Drug”, a destination (a town, we think) that we were sorely disappointed by - still not sure what it was. We drove by the Badlands and to our destination - Mount Rushmore! Pretty amazing memorial - not quite as big as it looks in pictures, but still an amazing thing to see in person. We went on from there to see Crazy Horse, another memorial being carved into a mountain about 20 miles from Mt. Rushmore. Neither of us had heard of it before, but it is a memorial to honor American Indians that will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high - an incredible feat once it’s completed, but it is far from completion. Mt. Rushmore is in the Black Hills so we saw some pretty amazing scenery along the way (reminded me of Colorado).

We went on from there to the town of Custer where we had a delicious dinner at a local pizzeria. We stayed with our friend Jess’s parents in the nearby town of Newcastle, WY. And to our surprise we awoke to discover that our classmates Kyle (also from Newcastle) and Heidi were in town, so we got to have breakfast with them. Off to Yellowstone!

On the drive we saw a few deer right next to the road, and even a moose! Right when we got into Yellowstone, we saw a huge buffalo just grazing nearby! Then we realized as we drove further in, there are TONS of buffalo... We made our way to Old Faithful geyser and waited for it to erupt - it went on and off for about 30 mins. So cool!! We drove out of the park and on the way saw a buffalo crossing the road, several more geysers, a wolf, and a buffalo with its baby. We feel like we're in a huge wild animal park with so much to see!

St. Louis to Omaha

Yesterday we experienced the awefulness of humidity! It was 90 degrees, with 60% humidity in St. Louis. Talk about sweating before you’re actually sweating! And we decided to spend time outdoors exploring the Botanical Gardens of course. Slightly hard to enjoy when you feel like you’re in a sauna. :) It was beautiful, though, and Ryan really enjoyed making friends with the dinosaurs at the gardens. Mariah took us to the popular local custard (essentially ice cream, but creamier) shop where we got a delicious treat to cool off. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the afternoon indoors, doing what?? Watching The Bachelorette online of course!! Wowee, drama, drama! :) Last night, Ryan and I, and Ed and Mariah took in a Cardinals game. They won (because of us, I’m sure). The city sure does have some devoted fans!

This morning we left St. Louis and drove about 7 hours to Omaha, Nebraska! We arrived and met up with our friend Jessica (who we went to school with) and ate dinner at a great restaurant downtown, then met up with a couple more friends and went on a long walk on a bridge over the Missouri River into Iowa.... Fun fun fun! It's crazy because it stays light out here till well into the 9 o'clock hour. Just enough time to have some great Nebraska ice cream made with 100% Nebraska cow milk. Goodnight until tomorrow!

St. Louis

2010 NBA World Champions: Los Angeles Lakers!!!!!!!!! We just got back from watching the wonderful game 7 and were quite pleased with the results, although it was stressful yet exciting to watch...

We had a 5 hour drive from Chicago to St Louis to start out the day. The scenery is changing more dramatically now... getting into the "green flatland" look. We drove straight to the St. Louis Gateway Arch, where we took a "pod" to the very top. The arch was built in 1965 and stretches 630 feet high, making it the highest national monument in North America. It was constructed as a monument representing the western expansion of the United States. We then made our way to Mo's house (a friend of Jadyn's from college), where we are staying tonight. We had dinner at a nice sports restaurant in downtown that boast's about it's good food, but more importantly it's large selection of TV's... 63 to be precise. We focused on the biggest one for a good 3 hours to help bring in the champs! (yes, they won because we were there pulling for them to win.... every little bit helps!)

Tomorrow's agenda? Well... you'll just have to wait until tomorrow's post!

Chicago!

Sorry to our avid followers (sister K)...we didn't have wifi last night. Yesterday started off with a tour of the Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. I know, a cemetery?? It had rave reviews, so I dragged Ryan there with me. I do say it had gorgeous grounds. The self-guided tour with a cd was a challenge to follow though. We did get to see President Garfield's Memorial (amazing!) and John D. Rockefeller's memorial. We left Cleveland and made our way to Chicago!! We arrived in the midst of a downpour. We are staying with Ryan's sister's friend Corey. Dinner was at a fun pizza joint where we watched the Lakers beat the Celtics!!

This morning we enjoyed breakfast at a cute place called Milk & Honey. We introduced ourselves to the "El" public transit and got into the world of downtown Chicago. The Architectural Boat tour was took down the Chicago River was incredible! What an amazing city! Let's just say, it's a little different feel than Cleveland. Dinner was very relaxing at a cafe right next to the river in perfect sunny weather with a nice breeze. Now we find ourselves at a cute coffee shop, and will head to St. Louis tomorrow.

Niagara Falls to Cleveland

Hello from Cleveland, Ohio! We started today with a spectacular, and drenching, boat trip on the Maid of the Mist into Niagara Falls (don't worry, they gave us ponchos). Quite amazing! Just fyi, "Niagara" means "a split in the flat land." And to give you some perspective, 750,000 gallons of water fall per second from the Falls! So, needless to say, we enjoyed our experience there. We embarked west in Red Pepper from New York through Pennyslvania to Ohio. The route took us all along Lake Erie. The scenery has changed a bit from huge, green, lush trees lining the roads to green plains with a few trees. When we arrived in Cleveland, we found an interesting Bar & Grill that would be packed if there were an Indians or Cavaliers game, but tonight was rather empty. We did get a little taste of Cleveland - my sandwich had french fries and cole slaw on it! We walked by the Quicken Loans Arena so Ryan could get a picture with Lebron James. After that we headed to see the movie The A-Team. When buying our movie tickets, I asked for two tickets. The clerk rang it up at $10, and both Ryan and I thought she misunderstood and said, "No, we need two tickets." And she said, "That is for two tickets. It's 5 dollar Monday." To which Ryan responded, "Oh wow, we're from California. That's cheap!" Haha! A-Team's a good movie by the way. We finished the night with some ice cream from Scoops, a local ice cream shop. And just in case you're interested, we saw a billboard for The 7th Annual Duct Tape Festival here in Cleveland on June 18th! We like Cleveland - it's a quaint and interesting city!