The Drive

My poor Ford Escape appears to have much space... well when you are moving across the country.. not so much. We loaded that bad boy up to the very tip top and had things shoved in every open space we had, we even ended up holding a few things on our laps! Ugh! We were so full up that we actually ran out of space and I had to play household goods survivor and had to vote a few things off the island; that and I forgot a few things to boot (like my hairdryer) But luckily there was room for myself, mom, dad and NiBo and all our essentials, oh and don't forget about Oliver! 

Oliver enjoying the views.... well sort of. He was a good little cat for the loooooong 2 day drive. He was a little meowing at first, they he realized it was no use and just sat in his carrier and chilled out, not a peep! He was a little freaked out when we stopped and probably a little overwhelmed about all the newness of the hotels, but he was a champ! 

Dad, NiBo and I all took turns driving. We'd drive and drive and drive until we got tired or needed a break. I was surprised how much of Route 66 we saw, it runs parallel to US 40 is which was carried us from Small Town to my new home. Here is what Texas looked like...

NiBo was driving as we went through Amarillo, TX. I had mentioned before that maybe we could stop and look at some roadside attractions (turns out we all just wanted to get to our destination) but I had mentioned Cadillac Ranch before our trip as a possible stop but didn't think much about it again. But as we were driving through Amarillo, NiBo noticed there was a bunch of cars pulled off along side the frontage road of US 40, then he was like "oh look, there are those cars buried in the field" ... so I demanded we stop.

Pretty random and kinda not all that interesting, but it's a piece of Americana and now I can say I've been. The sad thing is all the spray paint cans that people leave behind. It's encouraged to spray paint the cars, as you can see. But come on people, there was a garbage can on site, for the love of Pete, RECYCLE! We saw lots of people that came prepared with their own shade of paint to add to the display of Cadillac's from yesteryear, we took pictures and selfie's instead.

New Mexico is a state of pretty views, but not much else. We had like no cell service for the duration of our trek through the state, unless you were near a big city. So here is New Mexico...

Then we finally made it to Arizona! The Grand Canyon State Welcomes me! 

Oh, thanks for the warning, welcome to AZ! 

The Arizona leg of the trip was my turn to drive. Once we got to the state line we still had about three hours left until we got to the hotel for the night (which was right next door to my condo, perfect!) We made it to the downhill mountain climb of our trip after the sun went down, I'm sure it was pretty views but at night, eek! 6% down grade here, another 6% there. I didn't realize how far down we had to come, it seemed like forever! Trying to keep within the speed limit you had to pretty much ride the brakes the whole way down! Whew, that that is over.

Once we arrived we settled into our hotel room for the night. We an across a 24 hour Subway (and it delivers!) and had dinner in our room. The movers would arrive the next morning so we had to get our beauty rest. Check back tomorrow for all the unpacking details! 

I managed to make it all the way through Illinois winter without getting sick, then day 2 of living in Arizona, I'm sick! Ugh! I'm achy and have runny nose and just plain ole don't feel good, hopefully we can still get some fun things in before NiBo leaves on Saturday!