Road trip to Cali

-2000+ Miles in the car

-7 tanks of gas (at an average of $3.80 per gallon)

-Over 393 pictures

-Crossing the border of 5 states in 3 days

-Going from seeing the most boring landscape for miles to the most gorgeous scenery I've ever laid eyes on.

-Listening to a fantastic book on tape for over 12 hours

-My beloved camera falling to its death from a second floor staircase.

-Bonding with your best friend while driving with her to her new home in San Diego.....

PRICELESS

Lets just say last week turned into a lasting memory for me. A couple of weeks ago Meg and I were talking and see was telling me that she had excepted a position in San Diego. When I realized that she would be driving alone it just broke my heart to imagine that long of a trip alone so I told her it was too bad she had to do it herself.. At the time, jokingly, she said "Can you come along?" We laughed and kind of left it at that.. Lets just say we both got off the phone and realized that is exactly what needed to happen. With my job it is easy for me to conduct business over the phone so I said.... Lets do it. I'll go with you.

So within hours we were making plans and decided that we both wanted to take advantage of checking out the areas we have never seen before so we decided to add one day to the trip so we could check out the Grand Canyon and see Arizona on our way.

You need to take notice that I did not mention Oklahoma or New Mexico being a place we spent much time. Unfortunetly we did not find either state much to look at... But when we reached Flagstaff, Arizona everything seemed to change. Gorgeous.... Gorgeous scenery.

I will let most of the pictures do the talking but lets just say I hope that I get to return to the area again so I can spend more time.

To make a long story short Meg picked me up on Wednesday afternoon in Fayetteville with a floor to ceiling car backed to the rim. Literally I had room for my small bag and computer and that was it. We decided to travel as far as we could on our first day so that we could have plenty of time to tour take our time on the rest of the days.

We made our way into Tucumcari, New Mexico around 11:00 pm which put us on the road for about 10 hours. We stopped for the night... got a good night sleep and awoke the next morning to do it again. After showering and eating breakfast we hit the road again which took us to Flagstaff, Arizona which was about a 7 hour drive. We found a hotel.... freshened up and decided to drive about 1 hour south to Sedona. Wow... this was pretty. We drove around taking pictures and tried to soak in as much beauty as possible.

After awhile we decided to grab a bite to eat...and then do some window shopping around the town. We ran into a local and asked where the best spot would be to view the sunsets. He sent us up the mountain in which we found was a great spot.... but it seems he told about 200 other people about this location. It was filled with tourist. (which we understand that is exactly who we were) but it just took the coolness away from the whole experience. But it still was pretty.

The following day, Friday, we drove up to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. It was pretty cool and we took a bunch of pictures there too.

At that point we drove south to Prescott where several of Meg's family members live. We met them for dinner and got to visit and relax a bit. That evening we stayed with Meg's grandmother.

Then Saturday we headed out for Cali. We drove about 6-7 hours and then arrived in San Diego. Yadda Yadda...... Meg is moved in. Situated and settled for the time being. We checked out the hospital where she will be working, the jam packed beaches (Labor Day weekend crowds) and everything in between.

Monday morning I jumped on a plane and headed back to Arkansas.

Meg is going to have a great time and I am really proud of her for making such a big move. I'm real excited to hear about her experiences in California and curious to see where this takes her.

EDIT*** The pictures are all out of order and for the life of me I can't figure out how to fix the problem... Hopefully you have the imagination to figure out what I was trying to show you..

:)

-Kelly