Today was mostly meant to be a driving day – but as always – we had some great opportunities to stop and do some cool and unplanned sightseeing.

As we ventured north from Tucson, the dramatic high mountain desert got even higher (I think we peaked around 7000 feet a couple hours north of Phoenix) and as we left the land of Saguaro Cactus, we entered the land of ponderosa pine and canyons as far as the eye could see.

A particular highlight of my day was our unexpected stop at Horseshoe Bend in northern Arizona near Lake Powell. We paid our $10 to park, hiked in the half mile (approx.) and were greeted with such an amazing view that we just sat there in awe for a LONG time.

The perspective is so hard to relate in these pictures – and I was trying to relay this to Char – finally, at the base of the bend on the far left, she spotted a stone house structure and realized just how deep Horseshoe Bend canyon really was (about 1000 feet). The scale is so immense that it is hard to reason it in your mind – words cannot describe how stunning this was to see in person and up close!

Shortly after we left Horseshoe Bend, we crossed the border into Utah (Char is getting sassy in her pictures:) and the landscaped changed once again – not so much the canyon-type features, but the land itself. We went from the adobe rust colored soil/sand in northern Arizona to a pasty white granular blend in Utah. I wish I knew more about geology and the WHY behind this color change, but I sure did appreciate it!

As the sun was fading, we finally made it to the east entrance to Zion National Park. I got a few great pictures on our way to our hotel for the evening – and again, any words I choose would be doing this landscape a disservice. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Total Miles = 504

States = Arizona and Utah

Hours on the road = 10 (including an hour at Horseshoe Bend and countless minutes for me to stop and take pictures of the amazing landscape)

Average Temperature = 46

Coffees = 3

Playlist = My Book (Dawn on a Distant Shore) since Char did school for most of the day on line and then Hamilton when she was done.

Major Landmarks = Phoenix, Flagstaff, Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, Glen Canyon Dam, Lake Powell, Zion National Park

Speed Traps passed = 4 – Arizona is really stepping up their game.

Gas bought = $50.00

Extras = $8.00 – postcards and a sticker for Char’s water bottle

Hotel = $96.00 – Holiday Inn Zion – Springdale, UT – GORGEOUS setting just outside the South Entrance to Zion National Park. The hotel is very nicely appointed with craggy mountain peaks as the backdrop. They also sport three large fire pits for outdoor evening enjoyment! It was a GREAT stop over!

Even though today was our shortest day distance wise, I feel like we crammed 3 days of touring into the ONE day!!!!! Holy Smokes!

We stared out early (Char had school) in Monterey and HAD to take a quick jaunt down to the Bay for some early morning rays of sun (after the raining cats and dogs of the day before).

Then we hit the road! We took the Pacific Coast Highway 1 from Carmel to San Simeon-ish and enjoyed every single inch of this stunning drive. It reminds me so much of driving along the Amalfi Coast and the breathtaking views and vistas are indescribable!!! Please – if you ever have a chance to take this drive, you will NOT regret it!

Near San Simeon, we stopped along the road at a pull off so Char could go in the water, but we got a special surprise when we reached the burm….ELEPHANT SEALS – whole families of them!!!!!

We continued onward towards Hollywood (after a quick stop so Char could go in the ocean without disturbing the seals) and popped into Fox Studios for a quick picture, then we stalked Johnny Depp’s house (Char is VERY certain this is his house location), then we drove up to the Griffith Observatory for some sunset pictures and to see the “Hollywood” sign. We drove to Anaheim – where we went to Downtown Disney!!!!

See what I mean – it was a DAY!!!!!

Total Miles = 378 miles

States = California

Hours on the road = 12 including SO many stops!!!!

Average Temperature = 65

Coffees = not enough

Playlist = Hamilton and Switchfoot

Major Landmarks = Monterey Bay, Carmel-By-The-Sea, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, HOLLYWOOD & DISNEY!!!!!!

Gas bought = $78.00

Extras = Let’s skip this part (Downtown Disney – LOL)

Hotel = $88.14 – our cheapest stay so far – Holiday Inn Express in Garden Grove – it was okie dokie – but it was clean and safe and that is what matters – oh and the location was great!!!!

We departed northern Washington early – 5:41am – and started our journey south! We have a big trip ahead of us – 14 days of driving, sightseeing, and enjoying each other’s company.

On our way, we made a three hour pit stop at the Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR – we had a great drive through safari – then enjoyed some time with the animals in their small walk through park. It is really cute and they have a ton of cool animals!

We arrived in California just before dusk and drove through some massive Redwoods as the sun went down behind the rain clouds – and that road – Route 199 – harrowing in the dark and the rain – twisty and turny – but I bet it is gorgeous during the daylight!!!

Total Miles = 643

States = Washington, Oregon and California

Hours on the road = 13 (including 3 hours at the Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR)

Average Temperature = 48

Coffees = 3

Playlist = Hamilton (this is a given), The Beatles, Paul Simon to include Sion and Garfunkel, Don Henley, Fleetwood Mac and Twilight, the book.

Major Landmarks = Grant’s Pass

Speed Traps passed = 0

Gas bought = $67.00

Extras = $25.25 for food and CA postcards (dinner for the next 8 days – we hit Chester Chicken as it was closing and they gave us about 4 pounds of chicken fingers). Wildlife Safari – $48.00 – entrance and postcards

Hotel = Holiday Inn Express, Klamath, CA – $101.14

Well, you read about the whole trip west – and I’m hoping you will read about the trip back east – but I wanted to tell you what we did for our two weeks in Washington!

But first – here are a few pictures I took on the way TO Bellingham, through the mountains and down the other side into a land of green wonder! Really, the pictures cannot do this justice – just the moss COVERING the trees alone was spectacular!

Vacation – I did a lot of sitting around (it is not in my nature to just sit around!!!! It is hard to be bored for those of us always on the move), eating, visiting, eating, interspersed with a few fun outings!!

To start out with, when we arrived – the same day and just about the same time as the boys arrived, we brought with us the snow! They rarely have a white Christmas in the coastal northwest – but this year, we shared the love!

We saw some gorgeous sunrises!!!

We exercised our Second Amendment rights.

Along with those granted in the First Amendment (what could be more peaceful than $600 worth of fireworks to ring in the New Year?)

We enjoyed tubing at Mount Baker as well as Axe throwing!!! Super fun for all!!!!

We met new friends/furry family members – Lucy the Bernesedoodle puppy, and Griffey the German Shepard puppy.

We kept some old traditions alive (the kids lining up to peek in the door seeing what Santa left….)

Remember I said I ate a lot? This is Rio – I feel like she looks!

The past two weeks flew by – between the food, playing cards, visiting, cooking, grocery shopping and sitting around and playing on my phone, it was a fabulous vacation with family. We are so blessed to be able to spend precious time with our loved ones knowing that, in our eyes, the quality of time we get to spend together outweighs the quantity of time. Live life to the fullest! Words to live by (and love by) in this New Year! May it bring you health, happiness, joy, and adventure!

Some folks think that domestic travel is inexpensive. I can tell you that it is not. There are certainly ways to cut costs, and the money and language do not create a comfort zone barrier as they can in other countries, but US travel is expensive.

I have been sharing our costs and daily details not only to provide a bit of Jeopardy trivia, but also to give you and idea of what it might cost for YOU to make a similar trip (which I am fully equipped to help you do).

We decided to take the more expensive of our two vehicles (we took the RAV4 which has all-wheel/4-wheel drive instead of our Prius) for comfort but moreso for safety – the Prius is not known to do well in snow and we did have plenty of opportunity to drive in snow during our northern westbound trip.

I packed TONS of snacks and a cooler full of breakfast options for us and every day we either packed our lunch or Char made it for us while I was driving, with the exception of our lunch in Leavenworth. We paid for two breakfasts (at Yellowstone) and had three provided for us at the B&Bs we stayed in and for dinner, one night we ate at Olive Garden, four nights we ate in and cooked, one night (our expensive meal) we ate at Yellowstone, one night we got McDonalds and one night we did takeout. Dinner was by far our most expensive meal since it always required us to get some type of food – but the other meals we really saved.

We did purchase some travel trinkets on the road, but our other non-essential expenditures were our cross country ski trip ($117), the reindeer farm ($42), and a number of gifts we bought for family for Christmas here in Washington.

All told, here is our trip by the numbers.

Total miles driven = 3876

Total hours on the road = 71.5

Total States driven through/in = 16

Gas total = $360.33

Total food purchased = $433.64

Hotel and B&B stays = $1335.07

Trinkets and non-essential expenditures = $608

TOTAL for 10 days of cross country travel for two people = $2,737.04

I know this is not an insignificant sum, but compared to some other expenses we have happily accepted for recent trips, this one is WAY worth it (we loved our stay in Charleston – the Governor’s House Inn was a HUGE splurge for us because our original trip was to Europe, so we stuck with the same budget – and those four nights in Charleston were approximately $2000.00)

This was about $137/per day/per person – FAR less expensive than a nice all inclusive AND the best part?

70.5 hours in the car with my teen age daughter – priceless! (I write about this in another blog coming shortly…)

Take the road trip. LIVE your life. And this has absolutely nothing to do with COVID and convincing people to not be afraid – this is a LIFE thing! How many opportunities do we miss out on because of fear? I will not live that way and I truly hope to instill a sense of responsible adventurism in my kids. One of my all time favorite movie lines is from Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufresne tells his buddy Red that folks should, “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin'”. I will live.

PS – my sister has a 3 year old and 5 year old and for her, the thought of being STUCK in a car with her little angels for this amount of time is paramount to purgatory – someday, Becks – the road trip will be for you, too. Love you!

We left the Glacier area around 8:30 this morning to head further west. Our journey took us back through some mountains and valleys to Flathead Lake, Montana – and WOW – how beautiful!

Just off the western arm of the lake on route 28 I fell in love with a valley – I think this has to be my next home.

We hit the beautiful mountains of Idaho with the border crossing and crossing into the Pacific Time Zone. It is strange that there is a place where at the very same time it is 10am one foot to the east and 9am one foot to the west. Humans sure do try to control everything!

As we came out of the mountains we rolled into Washington (and this stinkin’ border sign was IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY – our last stinkin’ state sign of our journey west and it was in the middle – OY VEY!) and reacquainted ourselves with prairie lands. The vastness and diversity in our country’s topography has never been lost on me, but during this trip I have truly marveled at how one minute we can be cruising down a snow covered mountain pass and the next making our way through “amber fields of grain”.

We arrived in Leavenworth, Washington around 4pm Pacific Time. We checked into our Bed and Breakfast, met our hosts and boogied down into town to get a bite to eat. I don’t know if you have ever heard of Leavenworth, but it is a little Bavarian town plopped down in the middle of the Washington mountains. It is ridiculously adorable and during the Christmas season, it is ridiculously busy!!! Here are a few pictures from us walking around tonight – day pictures will be on tap for tomorrow.

Every mile that goes by I feel more and more thankful for this life I have been given and cherish each and every hour I have spent on the road with Char. We have had some pretty great conversations that I would never have had with her if we wouldn’t have been “stuck” in a car for so many hours together. I am so excited I get to drive east with her a couple weeks.

Another detail that hasn’t been lost on me is that I feel totally at home on the road. I have joked that I am a first world nomad – and I think it is true. When I am traveling I have time to search my soul – driving for hours and hours on end provides ample opportunity for such introspection. I wonder why I am so restless; always needing to be busy – why I feel underchallenged and underachieving and yet, overwhelmed in my daily life with mundane tasks. I’m not sure if these answers will become evident as I travel on, but I’ll keep an open mind and an open heart and continue to be in awe of this great country in which I live.

Total Miles = 462

States = Montana, Idaho and Washington

Hours on the road = 8

Average Temperature = 42 degrees

Coffees = 1

Playlist = Hamilton the Musical, Twilight on audiobook and Slathbog’s Gold

Major Landmarks = Flathead Lake, Montana (gorgeous), Spokane, Washington, Columbia Basin

Speed Traps passed = 0

People not wearing masks in public places = This was hard to judge mostly because of Leavenworth at night – most people I saw in crowds were wearing masks. (BTW – I am only commenting on this aspect of what I am seeing traveling because I think a lot of people are worried about how the rest of the country is handling the whole mask thing – personally – I don’t care if you wear a mask or not – let freedom ring – but I will wear mine in public – especially right now as we are traveling across country. I do not want to be exposing myself and others that we are going to visit to something I picked up along the way – but I do not have a specific personal commentary on the good, bad, and ugly of masks – I just want to be informative)

Gas bought = $52.07

Extras = $63.00 (snacks on the road, coffee and dinner in Leavenworth

Hotel = $309.88 for two nights. We are staying for two nights in Leavenworth, WA at Haus Rohrbach Pension – a quaint Bed and Breakfast style Bavarian chalet perched just outside of the downtown area of Leavenworth. Char and I are in the Windsong room – a sweet little room with a queen sized bed and a day bed for Char.

This morning we left Yellowstone to head towards Glacier National Park. It was snowing slightly and we had the cutest farewell committee as we departed!

Our drive was beautiful and thankfully uneventful.

We arrived close to 4pm and easily found our accommodations for two nights – this ADORABLE cabin I found on-line, again for $100 per night. The other benefit of traveling in the off season is affordable lodging.

Tomorrow we will explore what we can of Glacier. The East Entrance is closed as it rests on Native American lands, and many of the roads are closed towards Avalanche and beyond to cars, but we will enjoy the gorgeous cedar forests and find ourselves some huckleberry ice cream!

A surprise awaits Char for the evening…..stay tuned!

Total Miles = 417

States = Wyoming and Montana

Hours on the road = 7.5 hours

Average Temperature = 32 degrees

Coffees = 2

Playlist = Hamilton the Musical (twice), The Beatles, James Taylor and Slathbog’s Gold since we lost service often and this book is downloaded!

Major Landmarks = departing Yellowstone, arriving outside Glacier.

Speed Traps passed = 0

People not wearing masks in public places = 3 – in the market at Hungry Horse, Montana (there is a state mandate but I think the area is so remote that there isn’t much enforcement).

Gas bought = $55.00

Extras = groceries bought in Hungry Horse, MT – two night’s worth of dinner – $35.00

Hotel = Two nights at the Cozy Cabin in Coram, MT = $245.37