We made it to California! This whole thing is still pretty surreal. I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that we are now living here. It's just nuts. We've already found Starbucks (there really is one of every corner it seems and one with walking distance from our place) and have spent an exorbent amount of money at Target twice. Whenever I move form some reason I have to go for the Target/Walmart run to get things. The POD doesn't arrive for another few days so we needed some stuff to keep us going until then. We found two grocery stores, one being Ralph's which is essentially west coast Kroger so that is comforting. Today we went to the building where we are going to be working and wondered around trying to find the loading dock. We have to meet the building manager there tomorrow and then the movers to get stuff into the lab. We think we sorta kinda know where it is but aren't super sure. Crossing my fingers that things will work out tomorrow.
The rest of the trip went well. I'll include pics some other time but we went from Albuquerque
to Flagstaff passing through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest Park. The Painted Desert was just great. The Petrified Forest was somewhat sad since there isn't a lot of "forest" left but it was still really cool to see rocks that look like trees :) We then took some time driving on Route 66. It is kind of sad the amount of towns that are just disappearing because Route 66 is not being used. It is especially sad that parts of Route 66 aren't even there anymore because it is now fused with I-40. There are even parts of the route that have been torn up which makes no sense to me whatsoever. I mean if the road isn't good enough for cars/trucks/rvs/etc then have sections of it remain for bicyclists or hikers. I can see interest in people being able to just go down the Mother Road in some way even if it isn't in car. We stopped in Gallup for lunch which if you stop and you think "hey I want to eat on Route 66. Well look there, its a Mexican restaurant named El Sombrero maybe that will be good" run away. The place was recommended by the AAA book but it was highly overpriced and I started my how many national parks can Dawn throw up in list. Not good by any level. Anyway, we made it to Flagstaff being extremely weary and cranky (and somewhat queasy). We went out and I had a fantastic black bean burger at the Flagstaff Brewery and then we crashed into uneasy rest.
Day 4 led us to the Grand Canyon. There is no way to explain how big it is or awe-inspiring. It is a really, really, really big ditch. Go see it yourself to completely understand how massive it is. BTW, if you are from the Georgia area and have only been to the Grand Canyon of the east coast ie Tallulah Gorge, it doesn't even come close to the one on the west coast :)
After seeing all of the beauty and wonder of the natural greatness on our trip, we slipped off to Sin City to see Sara. This was John's first venture to Vegas and it was just as jaw dropping as it was for me. We walked up and down the strip without gambling because there is just so much to look at. Oh we were there on Halloween so there were quite a few more semi-naked people then on your normal Vegas night (or at least I would think). It was great to hang out with Sara and see Vegas. We thought we would be tired and end early but we ended up staying out until past 2 am. We were on the Vegas high :)
Day 6 and final day of the road trip-we headed out of Vegas after stopping off at Einstein's Bagels to see Sara. Then it was a straight, don't stop for the potty drive through the Mojave Desert, LA and finally ended up in San Diego. It is still amazing to me that we made it here without one of us killing the other. I think the whole adventure was fun and tiring and exciting all at the same time. Our place in San Diego is smaller than I thought it would be (I know I had the measurements but when seeing for real makes it so much smaller). I think we're going to have to downsize our stuff a little more but we'll make it work.
So now I'm tired and tomorrow is going to be an early, busy and crazy day. Pictures and more later.
PS Vicky the chinchilla made it through the trip great. We've even had her running around the apartment a few times. She typed this on my keyboard as I was trying to blog "gt 3te623". She might be smart but I won't get any shakespeare out of her yet :)
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