Road Triiiip!!!

I'd like to start this post off by giving a shout out to a very important entity in our lives - our car.  Sure she is old, and tired, and has some very suspicious rattles and squeaks, but we love her.  And without her constant tireless loyalty this trip would never have been possible.  That said, she absolutely terrified us at every bump in the road...

Let's talk about her shocks.  They stink.  Now, in all fairness, it is a sedan (an old one) and was clearly not designed for the weight we put in it.  We loaded her down with so much crap, that by the time we left we had to throw away a pair of socks for lack of space.  The trunk? Forget about it.  We had stuff under the seats, behind our legs, in the back window.   Maggie (our loyal and endlessly patient pooch) had to sleep with her head jammed up against a laser jet printer for five days.

We were riding so low that even the smallest of bumps would cause the car to bottom out in a metal grinding, sparks flying, heart stopping, mechanical cry of dissent that would make any mechanic queasy...   And yet we made it.  Thanks goodness that most of this country is so flat that shocks (or a steering wheel for that matter) are apparently needless accessories (I'm lookin' at you Kansas...).

At first we saw mountains.  The road swerved with such ferocity that just reaching the speed limit was a challenge (one I accepted with vigor!).  Eventually the mountains gave way to rolling hills - still quite scenic really...  but then the hills just gave up.   Soon even the trees couldn't take it anymore and succumed to the the relentless flatness of the prairies.  And yet we continued our quest westward, plundering headlong into the Heartland.  And then there was Kansas.  See that picture of the road?  That was the best we could come up with!

We drove... and drove.  We drank coffee.  We ate jerky.  We played road games.  We pet Maggie.

Maggie was a trooper.  A 60 lb Goldendoodle with the personality of a diva, jammed into the backseat with a printer, an iMac and bag of snacks she could smell but never eat.  The highlight of her day was a stop here or there to take a quick run, sniff out a prairie dog hole, and then it was back in the car.  At night we treated her to her own bed in the hotel room.

Eventually we reached Boulder, Colorado - our first real stop.

It was a great town.  Very chill, very laid back vibe.  The sort of place where the hippies are looking at the stoners, who are ignoring the tourists, who are just hoping that they can find a cheeseburger somewhere - or at least a meal that isn't vegan.   The whole place is an odd blend of wheat grass smoothies, micro-brews, and Birkenstock outlets.  We parked the car.  We slept.  We hiked.  We sampled the micro-brews.  We perused the Birkenstocks.  We didn't try the wheat grass smoothies.

... and then Utah... a whole different world from Colorado.  Deserts, canyons, big open sky.  This is what we were looking for.  Our first stop?  Moab.

Moab is a bit touristy.  Not at all what we had expected.  But it was also in the middle of one of the most dramatic, crazy, alien landscapes anywhere on the planet.  How had we never been there before?!   It was crazy cool.   If I lived there I would cater to tourists too!

The big draw of Moab is undoubtedly Arches National Park - an experience that will require it's own post... and while we will certainly give it our best shot, be warned, I'm afraid that our photos and my meager writing skills simply cannot do it justice... but we will try.

There is also incredible mountain biking... and so while our skills were not quite up to the levels required to attempt the infamous "Slick Rock Trail" (The website reads: "You will crash.  You will bleed.") we did rent some bikes and head out of town to test our skills.  Test them we did.  Stephanie decided to try a mouthful of dirt and earned herself a nasty gash on one arm and a limp.  I have never been more proud!

Up next... Arches.

In the beginning...

We're a little behind.  And so over the next week or so, we are all going to play catch up.  OK?  Good. Let's get on with it then.

This entire escapade started just under five months ago.  It was on April 29th (our anniversary and therefore a date I had best remember) when - on the way home from a particularly delicious lunch of sushi at 'eeZ' in Birkdale - we passed a Winnebago while driving home on I-77.

It amazes me how such a tiny thing can have such a huge impact on your life.

Stephanie (and I will make a careful note here that she started this...) suddenly piped up and said "I think we should sell the house and live in a Winnebago."

Now in most relationships, one person is the dreamer and one person is the realist.  It is the job of the dreamer to suggest ridiculous things like selling your house and living in a Winnebago.  It is then the job of the realist to tell the dreamer that a) selling your house at the bottom of the worst housing market in 50 years is a bad idea, b) that living in a Winnebago is a worse idea, and c) let's just all have a nice bowl of ice cream, take a long nap and call it a day.

When you have two dreamers, like we do, it doesn't go like that.  So instead, my answer was: "Sure!"

Now fortunately we have good friends who upon hearing of our ridiculous plans carefully pointed out that a) we don't particularly like Winnebagos, b) we don't particularly like RV parks, and c) we don't (how do we put this nicely...) "share common interests" with most RV park people, and so, after some soul searching we decided living in a Winnebago in an RV park with RV park neighbors was probably not our cup of tea.

But the hook had already been set.  There was no going back - we had to at least meet half way...  And so it was decided.  We would still sell the house, but instead of living in an RV, we would just move somewhere silly - somewhere we had never been, like Utah for example, and rent a place for a while.

And so we sold our house.  It took a month to finish all of our projects, a month to stage it and get it on the market, a month to get an offer and a month to close.  And so, on August 24th, almost exactly 4 months later, we were homeless.

On August 25th we started driving.  To Utah.