Summer Vacation 2009: California and Driving

On July 9, we woke up, finished last minute packing, and started driving back to Arizona. Our first day in the car was the longest driving leg we had. The girls did pretty well, but the traffic in Portland was crazy!!! I almost missed the turnoff to stay on I-5, but fortunately saw it before it was too late. The trucks between Portland and Eugene were crazy. There were so many of them!! I couldn't believe it! There were so many times that we were going along driving the speed limit when suddently we had to slow WAY down so that we could wait for one truck to pass another one. Ah well. That is the driving life for you! Lydia LOVED her puzzle and I can't say enough good things about it (see previous post if you have no clue what I am talking about). It totally kept her entertained that first day driving again. We drove to the Sacramento area and stayed with Jeff's cousin, Jon. Thank you so much!

We woke up the next morning and went to breakfast and then headed off to my aunt and uncle's place in the LA area. It was nice to know that we didn't have that long of a drive ahead of us. We got there in time to go out to eat and leave the girl's with my cousin Julie. I wish we had gotten a picture of them, but Julie loved having both girls there, and Lydia and Claire really liked all the attention that they got from her. The next morning we had a leisurely morning and got up and went to the park. Sadly for us the water wasn't turned on, but they still had fun running around. It was a pretty warm day for them, and we were glad to be gradually warming up from the cool weather in WA. We are definitely going to have to visit Dave and Andrea again when we have more time to visit and go to the beach! After lunch we then hit the road for our final leg of driving. Yay!!

Here are some goofy pictures of us while driving. (These were actually taken while driving up to UT.) Below is Lydia, deciding that she is going to hide under her blanket.

Claire wasn't quite sure what to think of what I was doing!

The girls were pretty good this whole time, although towards the end you could tell that they really wanted to be out of the car. When we were only 7 miles from home though, we were suddenly stopped on the freeway with a police officer holding off all traffic. My first thought was "WHAT?! Are you KIDDING me?! We are SO close!" Fortuantely for us, the little hold up only lasted 5 minutes and we were quickly on our way (we actually don't know why all of us were stopped, but oh well). We arrived home tired, but glad to be home.

Overall we had a wonderful trip. Thank you to everyone who let us stay with them, fed us, watched our kids, and overall made it a wonderful experience!!

THE END (of our trip!)