California Roadtrip: Arrival in Chico

Well after a long three days of driving across the USA we arrived in Lindsay's neck of the woods, which is actually Forest Ranch. Here is her ridiculous driveway:

She lives in the middle of a canyon in the mountains. Basically if she has an emergency, tough kitty puffs.

Lindsay also has 5 dogs total. OOC.

They clearly liked when I was visiting.

So I stayed at Lindsay's new house for a few days with mom and Dale before heading out for our next roadtrip.

Roadtrip to California - Day #3

 We left Salt Lake City ready to hit California in a few hours!  But first, breakfast! The dogs were alert and happy for the last day in the car!

One of the bazillion lame 'prisons' we saw in the middle of nowhere.

The Great Salt Lake

Salty!

Pretzel anyone?

Headed for Nevada!

Oh look! The first thing in Nevada is a casino.Weird.

Booooring

At least someone is into the deathly scenery.

Well, these are kind of pretty.

 Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us on one of our best stops. We stopped somewhere in Nevada in the mountains around dinnertime at Taco Bell. Both of our cell phones were nearly dead and we thought after going through the drive-thru that we would just run inside to eat and park by the window to watch the dogs. We were, after all, at a Taco Bell, where they specialize in the 4th meal. Well that Taco Bell closed at 9. Yes, nine. Sooo...we decided to go over to Starbucks and plug in and steal free WiFi. Well, they were closed since SEVEN! BUNK mountain people! 

So we found a Jiffy Lube'like place and parked in the parking lot. We found an outlet in the parking lot, because yes, it was closed too, and ate dinner while our phones charged. 

Finally, around 8 pm, after the moving truck was unloaded I might add, we arrived at Lindsay's House!!!

Roadtrip to California - Day #2

After a nice rest at Motel 6 in Lincoln - which was actually pretty nice! - we headed back onto the open road. If only we knew the long and boring road ahead would be so...boring. After getting plenty of rest the night before, I decided to tackle the book I had to read for my college class. This is what happened after reading the first few pages:

 

Well, at least the dogs were happy and rested!

 This my friends is what boring looks like, I mean Nebraska. After a while it actually got really hilly. Let me tell you that while it is FULL of cows, it is NOT full of 3g! Lindsay and I suffered most of day 2 WITH NO INTERNETS! It was horrible.

We did see some cool mountains once we entered Wyoming. While there are lots of farms in WY, it wasn't too bad (minus the missing 3G).

Here is Lindsay and I driving along, happy as two BFF sisters, and then BAM! All of a sudden we were in the middle of Twister! Lindsay was driving at the time and it was pouring like I've never seen and Lindsay is freaking out but NOT turning on the wipers! She was on her phone and messing with the radio when we almost went to hell in a Subaru handbasket!

Here we are in the middle of mosquito county, walking the dogs for the 187 billionth time.

 We decided part way through day 2 that we needed our summer fix of 49 cent cones from McD's. BUT their ice cream machine was...of course! Broken. BUNK! So we settled for DQ and it was delicious too.

Peekaboo!

Why are you hiding?

Pillow Hog!

We stopped after a long 2nd day of driving at a Motel 6 in Salt Lake City, which was definitely not nice. I found a long gray hair in my towel. Sick ass bats.

Roadtrip to California - Day #1

Nothing but open road ahead!

Lindsay and I left for California on Sunday at about 3:00. We had our ipods all loaded up with good music, the cooler filled with drinks, and a big bag full of delicious treats! We drove all the way to Crawfordsville before Clint called to tell me that I had both sets of his truck keys! 

Oops! We headed back to Brownsburg where he met us to give him back the keys. Then we had pretty smooth sailing for quite a while!

Happy Dogs

More Happy Dog

Happy Dogs

Seriously Passed Out Squished Nose Dog

Lindsay had received some doggy sedatives for all 5 mutts' roadtrip so that they would be OOC. At first, the big dogs had no reaction at all really. Then they both slept hardcore. Then Duke got drunk. See above. Then they started acting like weirdos, so we decided to stop for the night in good ol' Lincoln, Nebraska.

Duke wanted room service while Lindsay was in the shower. He was sick of nasty old Alpo!

This is how far we drove after one day! At the time it felt like we drove foooorevvvveeeeerrrrr but when I highlighted our distance, it was miniscule. Sidenote - when packing Lindsay found an old paper atlas. She saved it because she knew that I would totally want it for our trip! Score! I also happened to have a highlighter in my purse when we left, so I decided to highlight our trail across the USA. I only took pictures of the big atlas page. We actually highlighted the route on each state's individual pages. Lindsay obviously laughed at my activity, but LO AND BEHOLD! It soon become a highly coveted position to highlight every couple hours!

Back to School!

Today was the first day back to school although the kids don't officially start until Wednesday. Kids actually wonder in and out these two days before they have to come though...usually the nervous or anxious ones!

I am keeping my jungle themed room again...I keep wanting to change it but just didn't have the time this year with moving houses and classrooms. I did get it all set up though!

Right now I have 21 kids on my list but it has changed quite a bit since last summer so we'll see who shows up Wednesday!