Ps- everything is fine now. Mom even got her buenchilada. All is right in the world.

Leaving Plano after eating lots of good food, seeing lots of good friends, and even a visit to the er. Worst migraine i've had yet, couldn't hold down any meds.

Eating a shipley's maple frosted donut. This is what i remember from plano.

Just got to help Mom pick out margarita makings. She vetoed the mango mix i wanted.

Back in Texas! Long time, no see. Also, Mom is a driving machine today

Fyi- Mom got the first speeding ticket of the trip. Let's give her a nice round of applause. (donations to the stop Mom's lead foot fund are now being accepted)

Eww. Smelly cows in Arizona. Staying at one of Mom's friend's house tonight.

Good thing this thunder storm came after the scary intestine driving section. Thanks Dad for driving through this, i couldn't.

The Gps totally just looked like someone's digestive track. I may be over driving through mountains.

Off to the Grand Canyon today! Hopefully the last day of mountain driving too. I like looking at them, just not driving through them.

Dropping Nancy and Karen off at the airport today. Goodbye to the last of the hitch-hikers. We're going to have to rough it on our own now.

More random photos with lots and lots of different relatives

Random pictures - Jim & Marcela's, July 24th

Before Karen leaves and takes her computer with her... :-( These are pictures from Jim & Marcela's, Karen stalked a jackrabbit to get some photos

Old Photos

Omaha: Mom and Dad hanging out with their friends

The original plan was that I would go back to the bar and pick up the parents at the end of the night, but Mike and Sandy said they could just ride with them...in the jump seats in the back of their pick up truck...

Lunch at Don & Millie's and Iowa state line photos:

Salt Lake City: The rest of the family went to a diner while I hung out with one of my friends from high school. We went to a taco stand in a Sears parking lot. We know how to have a good time. Then we went to a park and I remembered to take some photos.

Hanging out in the desert

California:

We stopped at Joshua Tree National Park and learned that just because it's called a park doesn't mean it's green. But we did get to take pictures and visit the gift shop.

Then we went to a tiny town and its tiny post office!

We were a little excited about the tiny post office and took lots of pictures in it...

And into Arizona!

Berkeley Photos

So this is us "escaping" the Berkeley hotel... :-)

(and I'm going to be lazy and not flip that photo. Turn your head!)

In Mesa! They have gravel yards here, Florida needs to get on that.

Driving through the california desert, it's 111 degrees out.

Starting the southern branch of our trip, the last branch :-(

Won $2 in the oregon lotto! Maybe that'll buy us an in n out burger to split... :-)

Made it to the hotel in Riverside after a fun night with the cousins!

Berkeley update

We stayed at a La Quinta last night in Berkeley and the room Karen, Nancy and I shared had a tiny tiny balcony overlooking the parking lot where the car was parked. Since we were only on the first floor (about a half of flight of stairs up) we decided it would be easier to just pass all the luggage out over the balcony to the car. So Mom and Karen caught and loaded the car while Dad and Nancy passed bags over the railing. I uploaded pictures and laughed at them. Didn't really have time to add to many captions or explanations and I'll try to work on that tonight from LA.
Now it's time to drive down to the LA area, we don't think we'll have time for much sightseeing today though (yesterday we took a side trek to Lake Tahoe and almost killed the breaks getting down the mountain). Got lots of family to see in the LA area so we want to make good time.
Also, for anyone every planning a large road trip, don't forget to include time for vehicle maintenance! We need an oil change and a tire rotation by now and we're struggling to figure out when to fit it in! And laundry time!

Leaving Idaho for California, July 20th

To get to the Sacramento/San Francisco we drove through Oregon and Nevada on some little highways instead of the interstate. We got to go through some tiny towns and take our pictures next to more state signs!



















This is the little highway we were on.









And into Nevada!









Hanging out in the car, making sandwiches.







Karen used our break to check her email (NYC finally got its act together without her)








Karen with Mark Twain








Heading into Lake Tahoe







Look at those crazy turns! I thought it looked like someone dropped a piece of string and decided that's where the road would be.






Dad playing the penny slots.










Mom's turn. We lost about a total of $10 in 5 minutes and moved on to the lake.








Lake Tahoe!
















Karen's feet.






A lady saw us taking pictures and offered to take a group photo for us so we finally got one of all five of us! (That's Karen, Dad, Mom, me and my aunt Nancy)