Our Journey Across America

We left on a Thursday evening and drove late into the night making it somewhere past Chicago. We stopped about every 2 hours so Dan could stretch his legs and I could use the restroom.  By this point I was about 17 weeks along and the baby was already making less room for my bladder.  Dan joked that we would have to stop on the side of the road every 20 minutes...luckily that never happened.

Iowa

The second day we made it all the way through Iowa and stayed in the western half of Nebraska.  Of all the states we went through to get here I thought Iowa was one of the most unexpectedly beautiful.  I loved the rolling hills of trees and farmland.

Western Nebraska

Day three we went the rest of the way through Nebraska, all the way through Wyoming, and all the way through Utah after dark.  Nebraska was so flat you could see for miles and the sky in Wyoming was definitely it's highlight.  Utah was the only state I didn't get to see. 

Southern Wyoming

We stayed in Wells, Nevada that night.  When we stopped we noticed one of our tires was making a squeaking noise.  We decided to check it in the morning.

When we got in the truck the next day the squeaking had transformed into screeching.  Dan pulled into a gravel parking lot and took off the front passenger tire to see what the problem was.  The bearings in the wheel hub were completely shot.  Great.  It was Sunday and the only place open wanted to charge $80 just to tell us what was wrong with it, which we already knew the answer to.  We couldn't find a car parts store and the next town was 50 miles away.  We weren't sure if we would make it that far without launching the tire off the truck.  We didn't think we had a choice but to try and make it.  About 20 seconds after we got on the highway I spotted the parts store.  We made an illegal U-turn and went back to Wells.  The store had the part we needed, but we still had the problem of no one to put it on the truck.  We made an appointment for the next morning and found another hotel, this time with a pool.

The next morning the truck was fixed in an hour and we were on our way again.  That was a huge relief.  We were beginning to think the truck had a vendetta against us.  I was more than ready to get out of Wells.  For awhile I was afraid we were going to be stranded there and be forced to find jobs and stay.  The people there had been amazing and there was a pretty mountain nearby, but overall I was sick of the flat, dry, rocky landscape.  It was a small town in such a vast landscape that it felt weirdly claustrophobic.

The pretty part of Wells, NV

That day we made it the rest of the way through Nevada and into California near sunset.  As soon as we crossed the border from Nevada to California the landscape began to change from plain rocky hills to forest covered mountains.

California

Finally, after 5 days on the road, we had made it to California.  We made it to the farm around 9pm, were reunited with Naomi and David, had a quick dinner, and settled into our lodgings for the night.