Georgia to California

We left early Thursday morning to move out to California!  A more thorough update with real camera pictures will probably come later, but for now, the version via Instagram photos...

We were in 9 states (4 of which I'd never been to) over the course of 4 days.  This took us across 4 time zones, from 200-7000 feet in elevation, 61-111 degrees, trees, plateaus, mountains, desert, & ocean.

Driving (mostly riding...I probably drove a tenth of what Grayson did) across the country was not something I was looking forward to, but it was actually fun.  It always sounds fun, but doing so with a loaded down car, a cat, a limited budget, & a schedule would probably not have been my first choice.

The first day we went from Woodstock, Georgia to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  Until we got to Oklahoma, everything pretty much still looked like Georgia.  And Oklahoma was only slightly more exciting.  My stormchaser-at-heart husband had his eyes peeled for a tornado, but I was thankful to not see anything of the sort.  I got a lot of reading done that day because the landscape was really nothing new!

We left Oklahoma City early Friday morning (in the middle of a flash flood) & made it to Flagstaff, Arizona that night.  I never really thought about it raining in the desert, but we actually went through a few big storms that day.  That was a much more interesting day.  I loved seeing how quickly the landscape around us could change.  That night in Flagstaff it POURED for a long time.  We ate a quick dinner &, after driving through an entire time zone in one day, went to bed around 9:30!

We planned a few detours for Saturday.  It was 61 degrees (though felt cooler than that) when we left Flagstaff that morning & headed towards the Grand Canyon.  Grayson went as a kid, but I had never been.  Just the drive up there was beautiful.

Pictures really can only capture so much.  It's overwhelming standing on the edge of such beauty.

[Also, a squirrel nibbled at me.]

From there, we drove down to Sedona, Arizona, & had lunch.  It was a beautiful little town, but HOT.  It was only about 86 when we were there, but felt much warmer than that.  We really only stayed there for lunch & to look in a few shops because it was pretty crowded & I didn't want Seeley being in the car that long in the heat.  I'd love to go back there sometime during a cooler season.

From Sedona, we drove a few hours & crossed the California state line (& thus begun our Cali portion of the roadtrip playlist)!  We went to Palm Desert, where we stayed Saturday night.  That hotel was the only one we stayed in that we really liked (& it was on Frank Sinatra Dr. & I liked that), but by the end of the trip, we knew exactly how much we could spend on one, & picked one outside of a major city so it wasn't as expensive.  It was nice sleeping in a comfy bed before our 3 weeks of an air mattress waiting for our furniture to arrive.

We left Palm Desert Sunday morning, & went to Los Angeles to drive around for a little bit before heading up towards San Jose.  

Oh...I almost forgot!  We were eating breakfast at this little hole-in-the-wall donut place & in walked Peter Krause (Adam Braverman to you Parenthood lovers).  We made eye contact.  Grayson says I scared him away because my eyes got so big when I recognized him.

Moving on...

Miracle of miracles, we somehow never hit any major traffic until about the last 30 minutes of the drive.  And I thought I was going to go insane during those 30 minutes.  Grayson's energy drink had clearly kicked in..  Sitting in traffic, he was just spouting off things that didn't even make sense...guess that's what happens after driving for 4 days in a row!  [Have I mentioned how much I hate driving?  I offered many times to drive, but he drove the vast majority by himself & I was so thankful.  Which is why it was perfectly fine to deal with a little delirium!]

We finally made it to San Jose where we're staying with one of Grayson's friends (our best man from our wedding moved out here just 2 months ago!) for a few days until we can move into our new apartment.  We had dinner, drove by our apartment to scope it out in real life, ran a few errands, & went to bed!

After the last few months of anticipation over the unknown, many decisions & logistics to take care of, & 2,451 miles, it's good to be here & to begin making this new place a home.