Rewind

We've been in California for over two weeks now, but I told myself I was going to actually use my blog more this summer. So I'm going to rewind to the front end of our journey out here, and then hopefully eventually catch up to where we are now.

Here we are at my parents' house. We headed out at about 7am, with the truck packed and Zach's homemade bike rack strapped to the back :)

Here are some random pictures of scenery along the way. We drove through everything from intense heat to blizzard conditions. Guess that's what happens when you drive cross country!

This place was beautiful. Zach and I both agreed we could live in this valley :)

The Salt Lakes....Zach and I were not too impressed. It was kind of stinky and salty.

One of the many spectacular view from the dash.

I drove through mini-blizzard #1....Maybe in Nevada?

Landscape just past the mini-blizzard.

At the tail end of our journey we had to cross the Sierra Nevada. We thought we were going to easily make the home stretch--but no. A few miles up the mountain we hit terrible traffic, then there was one single sign that said "All traffic turning around 5 miles ahead." No explanation, nothing. At this point traffic was completely stopped, the highway radio wasn't telling us anything, no more signs of info, so we called my Dad. Eventually he found out online that there were turning back all cars that didn't have 4 wheel drive and snow tires OR have chains on their tires. Since turning back wasn't an option (We were two hours from our destination and about 30 from Missouri) we headed into a little town to buy some.

Long story short: Zach and I in shorts (me in sandals), buying snow chains (which we've never used before) in a random town at the top of a mountain--with snow POURING onto us. Eventually we paid a guy in the parking lot to help us get them on. We finally got over the mountain and below is a picture of Zach taking off the chains, glad the snow had let off and that we were through with the ordeal.

After getting down the mountain we were only about 35 minutes from Davis, CA. We arrived, got our keys, unloaded the car and went to find us some Mexican food. We had promised ourselves a month before we wouldn't eat Mexican til the night we arrived in Davis. Here is a happy Zach, eating some Fajitas after our long, lovely adventure :)

We've already gone on several adventures since--so I will try top post those pics/stories soon :)

Have a wonderful day!