Hello all! This post will be the first in a series of catch-up posts; hopefully by the end of these you will all be caught up on our adventures!
Catch-up #1: The Cross-country Trip
Let's pick up where we left off; Newport, Rhode Island. We were there until Doug graduated from Naval Justice School on April 1st. After the graduation ceremony, we raced back to our room and packed up the Jeep as quickly as we could. It was cold and rainy, which only made us more anxious to get out of there. We hit the road around 10am with the game plan that we would drive for as long as we could before we got tired, then pull off and find a place to sleep before making the rest of the trip to MI the next day. We ended up making really good time through New York and Canada, so we decided to push on all the way to Doug's parents' house in Grandville, MI. I think we were just anxious to get home and didn't want to spend another night in a hotel. We made it to Grandville by 1am and went to bed happy to be back in MI.
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| Doug happy to be driving to MI |
We only stayed in Michigan from Friday night until Monday morning, but we did a lot of visiting and prepping for our trip during those three days. We had dinner with my grandparents and my family at my parent's house on Saturday; my sister made an amazing cake with a replica of one of Doug's covers (hat) on top that was beautiful and delicious! On Sunday, Doug's family and some friends gathered at his mom and step-dad's house for a fun get-together. Then it was time to get ready for our long drive; we had to get a new GPS for Doug and an update for mine, and we had to get a cat carrier for kitty as well. (We ended up getting one with a pheromone diffuser, which did a great job sedating her for the ride!) We also ended up trading in Doug's Jeep for a more fuel-efficient Chevy Impala, which turned out to be a wonderful investment now that gas is over $4 a gallon.
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| Meghan's amazing cake! |
We planned on leaving Michigan Monday morning, but after finishing up with buying the car, getting all our road trip necessities, picking up our cat from my parent's house in Holland, and forgetting part of Doug's uniform in Grandville and having to turn around to get it, we didn't actually get going until around 3pm. The best laid plans...however, we did still make it to our planned destination that night - just a lot later than we had expected.
Thus began four days full of driving, driving, and more driving. Keep in mind that we were driving two cars, so neither of us really got a break. Luckily we made it through with no issues, and I was even able to fit in a brief stop for a phone interview along the way. The cat stayed in my car and handled the ride pretty well, considering how she usually is on car rides. We stayed just outside St. Louis the first night; the second night we were in some tiny town in the panhandle of Texas. On the third night we were treated to the deluxe guest accommodations of the Boeve household (my aunt and uncle who live in Arizona), which felt like heaven after so many nights in hotels. We got to eat home-cooked food, visit with family, and sleep in a non-hotel bed! We were so grateful for their hospitality, especially since we had driven through two time zones that day and were a little thrown off by having to add two hours to our day.
After leaving my aunt and uncles' home, we had one final day of driving. It was definitely the hardest driving for me, since it was all through mountains and my car has a hard time accelerating up anything higher than a speed bump. We made it through without many issues, though, and arrived in San Diego around 5pm. We were so excited to finally be in California and to not be on the road any more!
Here's some pictures of the trip:
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| St. Louis arch at night |
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| Best rest stop of the trip! It's in New Mexico and it's HUGE. It's also clean, which was surprisingly rare on our trip. |
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| What I always pictured the Southwest would look like. |
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| Beautiful rock formations |
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| Actual desert; I felt like we should be seeing people riding camels at every turn. |
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| Interesting mountains in CA - they looked like mounds of large boulders piled together. |
Overall, we had relatively few problems on the trip out here The driving was smooth, our hotels were adequate, and we found decent food along the way. Our only real issue was that every night our cat would find someway to hide herself where were couldn't find her.She can sure squeeze into some tiny places, like between a bed frame and box spring! Trying to find her to leave each morning was an adventure in itself.
That's it for now. Next edition: house hunting in San Diego!
