Our 5 day drive to California

Finally! I get to sit down and work on our blog. It's been a transition getting all settled in, trying to unpack, going back and forth to storage, and just trying to recuperate from our journey home. 

We had so much fun driving home! It was not as bad as what people would make it out to be. We stopped about every 2 to 3 hours, so that helped tons. A couple posts back I made a sightseeing route, which we went to most of them but some of them we decided it would be dumb AND a wast of time to go to. 

DAY 1

We left Minnesota on Saturday, May 1, 2010. The first day took up of about 9 hours of driving, this was a great idea because we had no idea what we were in for, so to get that big chunk of driving out of the way was awesome. 

This is the last of the beautiful Minnesota skies, so sad to know we were headed back to the smoggy land.

  

Our first sightseeing stop was a silly little retro pharmacy that gave out free root beer. We have never really been tourist before so it was awkward going in asking for it. The pharmacists acted like they don't get too many people in for the root beer so they looked at us funny.  But oh well, we'll never see them again.

On our way out of Minnesota there was the tiniest, littlest church about a mile off the road. We could not believe how small it was.

 We had lots of fun checking it out and snooping around. Ironically we saw a teeny, tiny church mouse running underneath the building, it was too fast so I  couldn't snap a picture.

Inside it seats 6 people. One person on the left and two people on the right. SOOOO funny! I could not stop laughing.

Probably because this goon was preaching to an empty congregation! LOL

On the stand is a notepad with visitor's names and where they were from. If you ever stop by the church check out our names!

 This was our first place to stop in South Dakota. It was kinda a waist of time but it was a nice way to get out of the car. This is the corn palace. The outside of the building is made out of corn.

Were were a couple of hours away from our hotel and decided to take a detour through the Bad Lands.

It was pretty cool, but we were so tired that we zipped through and did not pay attention to the GPS and ran into these guys.




DAY 2
When we woke up the next morning it was nice to know we were only going to be in the car for 4 hours or so. We stayed close to Mt. Rushmore that night so that was our next stop. I never thought I would EVER find myself there. It is worth going! I have heard it's not all that cool, but I thought it was.

There was a cafeteria where we ate lunch and enjoy eating with the presidents. 

In the cafeteria they sold hand made Indian item. This baby carrier beats a bugaboo any day.

 We drove down through the Black Hills and stopped by a dinosaur museum. It was pretty amazing!

As we left to the highway we ran into Bedrock. It was closed for the season so we just snapped a picture as we drove by.

 We made our way to our hotel for the night in a town called Casper, Wyoming. I feel SO sorry for anyone that lives there!! It's so flat and covered with cows.



DAY 3
Lucky there was at least one sightseeing stop in that silly state, The Mormon Handcart Trail. So we have a GPS right? Well we put in the address and this is where it was telling us to go,okay so we follow...

BUT this is where we had to stop. If we would've kept going we would be in a river! HaHaHa. We had find someone and ask which direction to go and found we where an hour off track! BOOOOO....

And when we got there...

We were where blown away, no really! 

 
I know you can't hear me, I just thought it was a funny video.

My grandmother told me we had a family member who was serving a mission at the center, I could not remember who she said it was so when we went there it was such a surprise, he is my mom's cousin John Fenn!!! What a small world!

It was so great to see family to help break up our ever long journey through Wyoming. After learning about the pioneers that traveled through there, I got back in the car and felt SOOO grateful that we had a car and that we where only 5 hours away from Salt Lake and not 3 months!  Did you know for the amount of work and travel the Martin Hand Cart Company did they needed 3,000 calories a day? But food was so scarce that they only had 300 hundred calories a day!!! It is such a miracle how many pioneers made it to Salt Lake. I am very grateful for everything I have.
 Tanner got to play with a baby bunny that was found out by the shed. SO CUTE! My camera lost batteries during the video so it just cuts out, sorry...
 

We finally reached Salt Lake 5 hours later and stayed with our cute niece and two nephews.

 

Tanner was so curious about his new baby cousin! 

So, who goes to Salt Lake City and not go to the temple? 

Well, last December when we were there we were too tired to go, but we made it up this time and went.

Tanner checkin' out Nana, HE loves her! Papa on the other hand, he was scared for some reason. I think he was so tired from our travels.

DAY 4

The next day we drove 4 hours to my favorite brother's and sister-in-law's house. We were so STOKED to see how much Conner has grown. We all realized that when we left to go to Minnesota, Tanner was 5 months old and now coming back, Conner is 5 months old!! They just LOVE each other. We spent our time: fine dinning at restaurants, buying CASES of tampons, seeing ugly pet ducks in a neighbor's front yard. lol (sigh) Good memories.

DAY 5
We then had to say goodbye we dropped a few tears. Then off we where to good ol California! We did not stop much, just to get something to eat and fill the car up with gas, although we did stop by the first built Del Taco in Barstow. And let me tell you, I think it is worth the drive for a good chicken casadilla! It was the BEST I have ever had. After that I felt like we were home in a hop, skip and a jump from there. We finally pull in to my parent's drive way and knew we were home when we felt that warm California sun hit our skin. So if you where EVER wondering how many miles it is from Minnesota to California, well... here you go...