New Bed

Today, my bed arrived! It's my first new bed, and I love it! Here's my room, cleaned up a little, with space for the bed:

And heeeere's the bed! Yay!

It's starting to feel a little more like home here now.

Settling In

Here's my new room, with most of my stuff in it:

And after a little unpacking and a million trips to Target, here's the bathroom:

There's my door!:

This is the courtyard of my building:

And the view from the street:

Californ-I-A (at last)

After a mediocre night near Reno, NV, we took a small detour through the Lake Tahoe area. Our little, overfilled car had some trouble on all the hills, but we finally made it to the (freezing cold) shore to take some early morning pictures:

We stopped in Davis to have lunch and visit with Mom's college friend Mebs, then went on to Carmel to see Mimi and Pete! The visit was much too short, but we got to relax a little, and meet Lola (who I didn't get any pictures of, oops)! We hit a bunch of traffic starting around Santa Barbara, but finally got to San Diego around 7 pm.

Near-Death Experiences and Flower Beds

Day Four started with a few hours of driving (surprise surprise), then a stop in Salt Lake City, UT. It was muy hot, even though it was early, but the city is so clean and pretty! Lots of construction too, so I bet it will be even prettier in a few months. Here is Mom right after we almost got hit by a car:
We were crossing at a crosswalk just like we were supposed to, but this girl didn't see us and barrelled right through. Traumatic!

We walked around a bit, then went to check out the Mormon Temple (when in Salt Lake...). It was gorgeous and there were about a million people working on the flower beds.

Here is a street sign left over from the 2002 Olympics:

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building:

This is the trolley:

The Beehive House:

Recycling This Way?:

The Public Library:

Later that afternoon, we pulled off the highway in Delle, UT to get some gas and snacks. Instead of being a real rest stop with food, gas, and lodging as the sign said, Delle turned out to have just one grungy gas station, and the only "lodging" we saw was a trailer in he back. We also met a nice guy trying to beg gas money to get to San Francisco with his U-Haul full of hippies. The littlest hippie had a pet pig! They were nice enough, but we still got out of there as soon as possible!

Road Trip: Day Boring

The next day we started out by crossing the border into Nebraska, and staying there for the next 6 hours. While looking for a quick midmorning stop, we came across an original Pony Express station in Gothenburg, NE. A cute little place, and you could tell we were in the midwest because there was a woman there offering us tea and snickerdoodles, and a tour bus of older people who seemed to have stopped there on purpose. Adorable.

After that it was hours of farmland with a few windmills, then hours of slightly rockier terrain and more windmills.

We stopped for the night in Green River, Wyoming, which was actually awesome, a cute little town set right in the buttes (?). We stayed at a super-new hotel with lots of free food- soooo much better than the previous nights.

Road Trip: Day Two

This morning we made the two hour trip from Elkhart, Indiana to Chicago. The plan was to spend a couple hours in the city, just because it was sort of on our route and I'd never been there. We saw Chicago-y things like the El:

Of COURSE, literally the moment we started walking down the street from the garage, it started pouring. We ducked into a conveniently located Starbucks (is there any other kind?) and waited out the mini-monsoon. The rain didn't last long, but it was still cloudy and hazy when we got to the Willis- Sears Tower Skydeck for a view of the city. On a good day, you can see four different states from the Skydeck, but we weren't so lucky. It was still pretty cool to stand on the glass and look out over the city. The levels below had interesting facts about Chicago and the Tower too.


Flags on the wall of the Sears Tower lobby, part of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics:

After we left Chicago, most of the scenery looked like this:

Illinois and Iowa were basically just a blur of farmland with the occasional rest stop or small town for punctuation. Of course, there was also an "Oasis" that I'm sure was mind-blowingly special:

We didn't stop at the "Oasis," but we DID stop at this Iowa 80 truck stop. It was just as cheesy/lame/gross as it looks:
We got into Council Bluffs, Iowa fairly early, and we're planning to head out early tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a LONG day, with no stops planned aside from rest stops/gas. The plan is to get to Green River, Wyoming, about 11 hours away. Whew!

Cleveland Rocks!

After a rainy morning, the skies cleared just in time for our arrival in Cleveland, Ohio. It was lovely right on the edge of Lake Erie.


We couldn't stay long (ok, we didn't really go into the city at all), but we got to walk around a little and check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was so much fun! They have great info, awesome music, and lots of really cool artifacts. Some of the outfits were completely insane, I can't believe what rock stars can get away with. Unfortunately, they didn't allow photos inside, so I can't share those with you.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We stopped for the night in a pretty gross hotel in Elkhart, Indiana. Apparently this town has a 22% unemployment rate, so Obama was on his way there to speak to the people. It was a sad place, but we didn't stay long.

Next up: a stop in Chicago and a tour of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa!