Eastbound

We have been meaning to write about our big trip for a while and I'm sure many of you are eager to hear more about the details and see a few pictures from our trip. To start, we made it all the way to Nashville in just 4 days of traveling! Considering our average speed on the freeway was between 65-70mph and most other traffic was in the 75-85mph range, we felt we made pretty good time! I'll break down the trip into 4 sections to make it easier to read and to write.

Day 1: Started in Walla Walla. We had our first and only glitch in our trip before we even got the truck rolling down the road! While getting all of the last-minute things packed in the truck, I (Tim) managed to lock the one and only key inside the cab. Fortunately we became AAA members before our trip and thanks in part to being in Walla Walla on a Tuesday morning, the tow trucks were standing by and arrived in just 10 minutes! If only they could get to you that fast when you're stuck on the side of the freeway! We felt very lucky to have such a quick response and before we knew it we were on our way to Adrian, OR. We made it to Adrian in time for a late lunch at the Mirage which is the only restaurant in town. After a deliciously greasy lunch, Nana and Pappy gave Heather a tour of town and their beautiful new house. After about 90 minutes in Adrian we were ready to hit the road. Our goal was to get to Twin Falls, ID for the day. We made it to Twin Falls with plenty of energy so we surged ahead hoping to make it through the high desert and into the Salt Lake area. We spent the night in Ogden, UT on Tuesday Night.

Day 2: Thanks to our extra energy the night before, we got a 3-hour head start on the day having driven past Twin Falls and into Utah. Our goal for Wednesday night was Cheyenne, WY. Let me just say now that while the goals were nice to have, we drove past every single one of them! Day 2 was the day we realized just how much road construction is going on across the country. You wouldn't believe how much of our freeway is torn up and being resurfaced/repaved right now. We saw signs that said "Road Construction Next 41 Miles". It felt like we would see one of those signs every 41 miles or so! Obviously it wasn't THAT bad, but we were amazed at how much construction there was. Normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but when you are in a moving truck with all of your stuff, you are much more aware of the extra bumpy/unsteady roads out there. Nevertheless, we made it through the construction of the day and through some of the most beautiful country of the whole trip. Eastern Utah is amazing (pictures to follow)! The red rock formations are fantastic and they seem like they never end. Of course before long we were in the western Wyoming high country and to say it is desolate is an understatement. The three words that kept coming to my mind were Wide Open Spaces. Little did I know at the time just how much I preferred this type of driving over some other environments soon to come. Not much else to say about the drive through WY. It was high, mountainous, beautiful, and boring all at the same time. We soldiered on and made it to Cheyenne in good time and with plenty of energy, so we drove on through. I had my eye on North Platte, NE but Heather was ready to stop at dinner time. We put down for the night in Sidney, NE which, I believe, is the home of Cabela's.

Day 3: Our "goal" for Thursday night was Kansas City, MO. We made our way through Nebraska which turned out to be nearly as monotonous as Wyoming. Let me tell you, we thought there would be quite a big of corn in Iowa and neighboring states like Nebraska. We could not believe how much corn there actually was! Through almost the entire state of Nebraska (and many others to come) there would be solid fields of corn lining both sides of the freeway for hundreds of miles! We were both pretty amazed at just how much corn really does grow in the Midwest. When we left Nebraska we were expecting to enter Missouri but we ended up going through Iowa for about 10 miles! Add that one to the list of states! Our next state to conquer was Missouri. It ended up being very similar to Nebraska but slightly hillier. We found Columbia, MO to be a good stopping place for the night so, like every other night on the road, we used our GPS to locate hotels in the area and called ahead to make sure they allowed pets and to make reservations. Traveling with an atlas is nice, traveling with a GPS is convenient, but traveling with both is the only way to go! Being able to look up local businesses is a huge plus on the GPS, but being able to look several states ahead of us and see detailed road maps was also invaluable.
We had one minor hiccup in Columbia that is worth mentioning. We pulled into a hotel to check in. I was planning on driving through the drive-thru/keep you out of the rain thing. Even when I got closer to it, it looked like I would have plenty of clearance for our truck. I didn't see any warning signs about the clearance height until I got my front axle under the roof. Then I saw it...I sign no bigger than a bumper sticker that said "Clearance 10'". Oh great. My truck says it is 10'6". I got out of the truck and inspected the roof to try to figure out if I could actually make it or not. It should be noted that we had received numerous warnings about backing up our truck with the tow dolly attached. Apparently it acts like a double trailer because the trailer pivots on the hitch and it also has its own pivoting piece that the actual car sits on. Our options included: trying to drive through under the "low clearance" roof, take the car off the trailer, unhook the trailer and back up the truck, or back it all up together. Our solution was to carefully and very slowly back up the whole thing. Fortunately we successfully backed the truck and trailer and drove around the poorly signed roof thing. Whew! The man in me still feels I could have made it underneath the roof! ;)

Day 4: This is where we made the biggest detour from our original goal. Our original plan was to drive to Memphis for the night and make it the rest of the way to Nashville on Saturday. What a silly idea that turned out to be! I can't believe it hadn't dawned on us to just drive towards Nashville and stay somewhere along the way. Well, the two of us eventually figured out that from Columbia MO, we could make it all the way to Nashville by about 4:00 (thanks Garmin!). We went east from St. Louis into Illinois and spent quite a while in that state. Guess what? They grow corn in Illinois too...lots of it! Thanks to a two-hour delay in traffic we made it to Nashville around 6. It was too late get into our apartment so we spent the night in a nearby hotel. We finally made it! 5 days of driving and approx. 2,500 miles later. I'll write a bit more about current events in the next post which will include pictures from the trip.