10 States in 10 Days

Before you decide to drive half way across the USA give me a shout and let me tell you about our little adventure across the western half of the US. After logging 5,342 miles in 10 days I am now a firm believer in resting between long road trip days in the car. You just half to do it! While the western half of the US is beautiful scenery - when you are pushing 800 to 1,000 miles a day all you want to do is get to the next stop so you can get out of the car. With all that said we really did enjoy our time even though it was long.

We had the opportunity to see my parents, Melissa's Uncle Aunt and Cousin in Phoenix, my two beautiful nieces and Jay in Surprise Az, my friend Donnie Davis from high school in Austin, C's friend Christy from Seattle, and all of C's friends from Boise. Had we not trekked across the US we would not have been able to spend time with these guys!

I have made the drive from Medford to El Paso with my grandpa several years ago on our way to Mexico so the drive did bring back fond memories from long ago. The desert of Az and New Mexico is not the most beautiful place on earth but it was nice and warm for our trek through this portion of the country. Texas was warm and in the 80's when we arrived. The humidity had not yet started so the weather was actually very nice. I had no idea how many deer lived in the great state of Texas but if you drive on the 10 at night you will see a few hundred, some of them dead by the road side. This stretch of highway between El Paso and San Antonio is the longest most boring stretch of road I have ever traveled.

The house was a pleasant surprise and the handy man projects were not over the top or out of the ordinary. One of the realtors that I have worked with down in this area had the ability to take Melissa around the city as Peter and I worked on the house so that she could get a pulse for what the city looks like and the district areas.

My friend Donnie Davis invited us out for dinner at "Trulucks" quite possibly the swankiest restaurant in Austin. We we're very spoiled when Donnie picked up the tab at this very expensive dinner! Donnie is a wonderful friend and a very generous person. Our gratitude was communicated before we left. Melissa also told the wait staff that it was my birthday so we got the ability to celebrate my birthday in Austin!

Our trek back to Portland was fast. I have to say that Oklahoma is the ugliest state I have seen in my life. Kansas is the flattest state I have ever seen and then we hit Colorado. The Rockies are a beautiful thing. It was snowing in Wyoming and beautiful sun in Idaho. We made it back at about 5pm on Sunday evening and by the time we returned our rental car we had passed the time mark and had to pay for an extra day for our rental car =) That was the close to our road trip across the USA. The states I enjoyed looking at the most were California, Utah, Idaho, and Arizona.