Kate and Tracey yesterday at the Continental Divide in New Mexico. Forgive Tracey's sad road hair!
The snowy path leading to the Grand Canyon lookout point
Me and Alex at the Grand Canyon!
Kate conquering her fear of heights at the Canyon!
and...it speaks for itself...whew. we are EXHAUSTED! Today was pretty brutal as far as driving goes. It appears that each county in each state maintains their section of I-40. So, some counties tend to do a better job than others. I'm sure that when this trip is over, I will need some new tires and a serious alignment.
BUT, we got to see the freaking Grand Canyon today! It was pretty amazing. We only had about an hour, but we did get to take a few peeks. We wound up parking the car and, with Alex in tow, walked the 1/4 mile over the snow packed path to a scenic viewpoint. It was slippery (Kate and Alex fared better than yours truly...) but completly worth it. I assume that in the summer, the trails are packed with people jockeying for photo op position. But we had the little trail all to ourselves. We were able to take a moment, take a deep breath, and take it all in.
After the Grand Canyon, we headed out through the rest of Arizona and into California. This portion of the trip was not what either of us expected. We thought we would get out into flat desert and see nothing but miles and miles of the big cactus and sand. But, since neither of us apparently listened during our American geography classes, we encountered very different landscape. There are huge mountains, with rather steep inclines and twists and turns. The driving is interesting, but rather tiring after many miles. And we went for 50 mile stretches without any service stations or rest stops - just nothing for miles and miles. And, to Kates HUGE disappointment, we did not see the big fork-like cactus. We firmly believe they only exist in Bugs Bunny cartoons.
We made it into Bakersfield a little before 8pm and were met by Jeff and Kevin! They drove 2.5 hours from LA to have dinner with us. We went to a yummy buffet, which made Kate and I giggle. We were talking today about how it has really only been the two of us for almost a week, and we are probably like cowboys out in the wild now. We joked that we have lost all sense of civilized manners, and the only place Kevin and Jeff could take us to dinner was the Golden Corral. So, when we pulled up to the buffet, we could only laugh that maybe Jeff and Kevin were on to our lack of manners...
We had a good dinner and lots of fun conversations and laughs. Jeff commented that 2 years ago today, he and I were probably sitting together at work, lamenting our latest tasker or life rut. We never would have guessed that two years later we would be meeting in Bakersfield for dinner - he from LA, me going to Portland. Its amazing to think where just 730 days can take you.
Tomorrow we are heading up to Sacramento and meeting my cousin Leanna and her husband, Jairo, for lunch. Then we are spending the night in Redding, CA. On Sunday, we pack up the car and are off to PORTLAND!!!!!!
oh - and one final word about Bakersfield. Everyone said that Bakersfield would be terrible. But we have gone over 5 days without a Starbucks, and there is one 3 blocks away from our hotel. I'm declaring Bakersfield a WIN!
We will check in soon!!!!
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