Eastward Bound

On December 10 we left Weimar, CA, and headed south for a week with family heading back to Gary's parents' place in Missouri. I shared our little Christmas tour with you already, so next I want to share about our trip East.

Clockwise from top left: Our car and trailer all packed and ready to leave Weimar. LA. 210 in the carpool lane. The CA desert. Blue mountains. Sunset.

Here are some travel shots of our first day that I posted on Instagram.

We stayed the night in Williams, AZ, tentatively planning to drive a couple hours out of our way the next morning to see the Grand Canyon. I've seen it before, but Gary and the boys haven't. Unfortunately that area of the country was expecting snow later in the day, so after a delicious breakfast at a local restaurant, we decided to continue east.

 This series is completely out of order, so I'll just summarize a few things! The scenery digressed in beauty the further we went. At least in our opinion! It got flatter with less and less color, but we managed to stay ahead of the storm in Arizona and had great weather all the way through New Mexico too. The big orange mountain is the setting sun reflecting on the hills behind Albuquerque. We continued a couple more hours after dark before stopping for the night in Tucumcari, NM. 

The third day was our longest, but our boys are such good travelers that it wasn't bad. I think we were in the car over 14 hours! We drove through the Texas panhandle and through the whole state of Oklahoma. See? Flatter and flatter with less color... No wonder I kept taking pictures!

We finally changed freeways in Oklahoma City. I had to catch that sweet moment of my oldest son tracing the hand of his youngest brother. Cute kids! Our middle son had wanted to stop at Taco Bell the whole time, so we finally made his little wish come true. Funny how the simple things make our kids so happy!

Our drive continued for several hours that night, crossing into Missouri, driving through Joplin and on to my in-law's small town west of St. Louis. We were curious about the tornado recovery in Joplin, having followed the story of the May 23, 2011, disaster, but saw nothing. We did stop at a big truck stop where there was a Caribou Coffee with the tastiest seasonal drinks!

We got to Gary's parents' place safe and sound, though road weary. They had lots of hugs for us and warm beds to sleep in, and that's where I'm headed right now!

Hope you enjoyed the journey with us!