Wow. These last few days have been such a whirlwind. So far we have spent about 62 hours in the car driving across the country and back.
For years my dad has discussed flying out to Nevada to visit
his friend from high school who moved to middle of nowhere, hours to the next
closest town, Nevada. After figuring out plane tickets would cost way more than
we thought we figured, why not drive? So that is where we are today. We drove
all the way from Pennsylvania, through Nashville, to Oklahoma City, Santa Fe,
saw the Grand Canyon, drove through Las Vegas, up to Winnemucca, NV, to Salt Lake City and now we are in Fort Collins, CO. This is
our 12th day away from home, we just left Winnemucca yesterday after spending
3 nights there (the longest we stayed anywhere yet on our journey) and we are
now in Fort Collins after we went to Salt Lake City. I was going to try to blog everyday about my
experience of road tripping with my family
but obviously have not done that. So here is a breakdown of my experience thus
far.
Day 1 July 22
Today we drove from Pennsylvania to Nashville, TN. Probably one of my favorite stops on our trip seeing as I want to (and will) someday move to this glorious multicultural, music saturated city. What most people don’t know is that Nashville isn’t all about the country music. The indie rock scene in Nashville is pretty great and that is what pulls me so much into that glorious city!
Once in Nashville we met up with my friend Aimee who just recently moved there. She is probably one of the most chill people I have ever met, and I am excited to get back there to spend some more time with her. After a drink in the touristy section of downtown at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville we walked a little more through downtown Nashville, over the foot bridge but after an exhausting day of traveling I opted to go back to the hotel and go to bed!
Day 2 July 23
Day 3 July 24
Today we drove from Oklahoma City to Santa Fe. Like I said
above we saw the damage from the Oklahoma City Tornado while driving down I-40.
Today we also stopped at the Cadillac Ranch in Texas. I thought this was a
pretty cool pit stop on our trip. In the 70’s Stanly Marsh 3 funded a project
where buried 10 old Cadillac’s in the ground at an 80 degree angle. Now it is a
place to come and leave your mark. With spray-painting legal on the property
the 10 cars were covered with graffiti, probably hundreds of gallons of spray
paint were used. It has been used in music videos, commercials ,etc.
Day 4 July 25
Today we spent the morning driving around Santa Fe, NM.
Definitely another city I’d love to spend some more time in. There were a lot
of cute galleries and shops that due to time we were not able to stop in. From Santa
Fe we drove to our hotel about an hour outside of the Grand Canyon. We stopped for a tour through the petrified forest as well. The pieces of petrified wood is over 200 million years old! (Pictured is a log of petrified wood, it is crazy how this piece of wood probably saw dinosaurs!)
Day 5 July 26
Wow. The Grand Canyon in real life looks like a painting. My
brain refused to believe that what my eyes were seeing was real. It was
magnificent, beautiful, breath taking, the adjectives could go on and on. It was
just amazing! We got to spend about an hour at the canyon before omnibus clouds
rolled our way. Fortunately we made it to the car just in time as hail and rain
poured of the sky like I have never seen before!
Day 6 July 27
Today we left our hotel at the Grand Canyon and left to
start making our way North. Our first stop was the Hoover Dam, it wasn't super exciting but it was a part of American history so now I can say I have seen it. We then went to Las Vegas, not my favorite thing we saw on our trip, but I saw Caesars Palace which prompted me to watch the Hangover- one of my favorite movies for sure! We then found a
tiny little town called Tonopah, which must have been amazing to see in its
prime. It was an old mining town with a lot of historical buildings and
museums. We ate dinner at the Mizpah. A hotel built in the early 1900’s to
accommodate businessmen in the town to discuss deals with the mining companies
it was renovated a few times and most recently renovated and reopened in 2011.
The dinner we had was great and afterwards we walked up to the 5th
floor to where a woman was said to be murdered by a jealous lover, I wish a had a few photos of the hotel but my phone died during dinner so I was unable to get any photos!
Day 7 July 28
We decided to add Lake Tahoe to our stops today. We drove up
to the lake with no hotel or place to stay and ended up finding a cute little
resort with 1 room available. It was
obviously not meant for a family of 4. It had one Murphy bed and a sofa bed,
but we all fit. We got to do our first load of laundry after we were settled in
too, which was nice. With a tiny little kitchen in our cabin like room we got
to actually make dinner instead of eating out. I don’t think I have been so
excited for my moms spaghetti in all my life!
Day 8 July 29
This morning Ben and I rented jet skis and adventured out
onto the lake. I have never seen such blue, clear water it must have been a
good 40-50 feet deep in one of the spots I stopped at and I could see clear
down to the bottom. I probably went out a good 4-5 miles out on the lake and it
was so deep I couldn’t see the bottom but the water was so incredibly blue I
couldn’t stop looking down at it and wondering what was below me. (check out
this article to read about the Mafia dumping bodies in the lake http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Mysteries-of-the-deep-at-Lake-Tahoe-2738671.php)
After spending an hour or so out in the water and relaxing by the beach we left
for Winnemucca, NV.
Day 9 July 30
Today my mom and I spent the day relaxing around Hoody and
Cathy’s house while the boys went out on 4 wheeler/dune buggy vehicles. We met them later for dinner at Woodward
Ranch about an hour and half outside of town. There I met Dehlia, her and her
husband run the ranch as a bed and breakfast to a lot of hunters and
travelers. Dehlia is into photography as
well and she showed me a lot of her work. Her stuff is pretty awesome, a lot of
horses and sceneries from around the Nevada desert and mountains. Her food was
also incredible, I have never tasted such delicious cheesy potatoes and after
thanking her and complimenting her on her potatoes she gave me a cookbook
filled with all of her recipes! I can’t wait to cook up some cheesy potatoes
when I get home!
Day 10 July 31
On the 10th day of our trip Hoody took us out of
town to see foundations of buildings in the middle of the desert that was once
buildings that homesteaders lived in. Ben and Hoody’s youngest son Dalton went
on a lizard hunt to catch lizards while I roamed around and took photos of
pretty much everything I saw. We also went Geocaching today and found 2 geocaches around Winnemucca!
Day 11- August 1
We left
Winnemucca this morning and drove out to Salt Lake City today. Nothing too exciting happened today. We woke up, drove, got to Salt Lake, watched a few episodes of New Girl then went to bed.
Day 12- August 2
Today we drove out to Antelope Island State Park to put our feet in the Salt Lake. We not only got to put our feet in the lake but we also saw buffalo! After that we drove to the ranch near Walden, Colorado where my dad spent a few summers after high school working on the ranch. After that we drove through the canyons of the Rocky Mountains. It was probably the most beautiful site on our trip by far. Absolutely gorgeous! With a creek flowing beside the road I was expecting to see a bear catching fish in the stream but I did not. But we did see a few Moose (Mooses, Meese?) along the drive. After about 5 hours through the Rocky's of not having any cell service we ended up in Fort Collins, Co. |
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