Road Trip!

Or should I say The Mother Of All Road Trips. 2,000 miles. A U-haul. A 3 year old. Here we go!

Our amazing, amazing, amazing neighbors made us a special breakfast on Moving Day. What a treat! (Don't worry - the house we lived in was furnished so I didn't forget to pack up that kitchen stuff in the background!)

Claire and Jenny, aka my guardian angel in Salt Lake. Jenny is a SLC native and anything I needed, she knew how to get. She shared the best places to take Rivers, the best hikes, the best skiing, the best food...How lucky we were to have them as our neighbors!

Goodbye little house! By the way, Rivers still calls this "his house." Our actual house in Greenville he calls "his new house." 

We left our offering to the beloved "Truck park" The dump truck in the front was a little piece of Rivers left behind :)

First stop...Moab! This was on our Utah bucket list for a whole year and we barely squeaked it in before we left! It was totally worth it and we would love to come back and stay longer. The highlight was Arches National Park

On the way to our next stop, in a little town in the middle of nowhere, we did a double take and saw none other than Mater on the side of the road! Fun little detour!

After Mater, we were headed to Santa Fe and stopped at the Four Corners monument, where Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico all meet. And I know I said before that the road to Jackson Hole was barren but holy cow - this leg of the trip was insane. Getting from Moab to this spot involved seeing nothing and no one for MILES, 110-degree weather, two lane, dusty roads in the DESERT and a very nervous Laurie hoping we didn't get a flat tire or have a problem with the U-haul :)

We made it to Santa Fe! It was a beautiful town with all the adobe buildings, and a charming town square. We were there less than 24 hours, but it was lovely.

Side note: this is what the inside of our car looked like. Claustrophobic much? He was watching a movie on the iPad in the picture, which is what he did 99% of the time in the car. Thank goodness he loves movies so much!

After Santa Fe, we stopped in Amarillo Texas. The best thing about Amarillo Texas (besides reminding us Friday Night Lights fans of what Dillon Texas must be like) was the Cadillac Ranch. We had seen this featured on specials on TV, but it was so cool in person. Right beside I40 in a field there are about a dozen old timey Cadillacs half buried and full of graffiti. The man who buried them like this doesn't really have a reason that he did it other than he thought it would be cool, and he welcomes all the graffiti! So, we hit up the local Home Depot and got some spray paint!

The next stop was my favorite...

Because we got to see and stay with this sweet girl...

And her sweet mama (and baby brother)!

We had missed the Bennetts so much and it was a great chance to see them and their beautiful new house in Conway, Arkansas. We took a much needed break from the road trip and stayed two nights, which seemed like such a luxury! We enjoyed their pool, checked out the town, ate lots of yummy food and somehow Meg's wedding dress made an appearance...wish I had a picture of that!

Believe it or not, we decided to just power through to Greenville in one day. Seeing Meg and her family settled in their new home made us just want to get there! So we made it to Memphis by 9 am:

Tupelo Mississippi by lunchtime (not pictured but we enjoyed the cracker barrel :) )

Then Birmingham, Alabama

Where THIS happened.

Yes, that is NOT a highway! Our GPS routes us around traffic, and somehow we ended up on a one lane, dirt/gravel road that was surely private property in someone's hunting land. Again, about 20-30 tense minutes went by as we prayed that the Uhaul would make it over all this bumpy terrain and get us back to the highway!

The next site was this beautiful one:

That's right, Atlanta! And finally the one we were waiting for... Home Sweet Home!!!!

That last day took about 13 hours and we were re-ady to get OUT of the car by the end! But the way we felt as driving up the familiar roads in Greenville in the final minutes of the trip is something I will never forget. I'm glad we got to do it as a family - it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience (at least it had better be!)