Living on Pacific Coast Time

Lots of pictures to share... it's probably best to break it down by day:

Monday-

We woke up early and finished packing up the car...


The finished product


We made our way out of Oklahoma and into Texas



Along the way, we must have passed about one million windmills... We thought this was neat because it was an "old fashioned" windmill in the front with the new ones behind it, seriously as far as the eye could see...


On our way through Amarillo, we made it a point to stop by The Big Texan, which if you are a fan of the Food Network's Man Vs. Food, you've heard of...



Though I didn't eat the 72 oz. steak, I did make it a point to sit in the giant rocking chair--how could I not?



We finally made our way onto New Mexico and into Albuquerque...


Stopped at the Visitor's Center for a little break...




Tuesday-

Got up bright and early to hit the road and made it to Arizona...


We could see this mountain range probably up to 150 miles away--we had no idea it was basically smackdab in the middle of Flagstaff...



Flagstaff TOTALLY shocked me- I had no idea what a precious little town it was... and it was covered in tons of snow...


After eating in Flagstaff, we hit the road for another hour or so to make it to Grand Canyon, AZ to spend the night. Of course we got there after the sunset... so we grabbed a bite to eat with Pete and Emily and then hit the sack (separate from Pete and Emily :) )

Speaking of Emily, here she is bringing up the rear of the caravan...



Wednesday-

We got up early enough to spend some time at the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking... literally huge and made me feel dizzy (of course... I practically got motion sick just standing along the railing)


Self portrait at the Canyon...



Then we had a bit of a haul to make it to Vegas, but we pushed hard. We stopped at the Hoover Dam because it's the Hoover Dam. Had to get a little snapshot. Sweet moment happened when we had to stop at the checkpoint to go over the dam--which makes sense. Pete and Emily were behind us and as we came through the checkpoint, because we had the car filled to the rafters, they asked us to pull aside. We were both dreading having to unpack everything to assure them we didn't pose any danger and as Aaron showed them his drivers' license, the policeman noticed his military i.d. He asked to see that and through the course of conversation, discovered that Aaron's a pilot. He then proceeded to thank Aaron profusely (seriously...PROFUSELY) for what he does for our country and sent us on our way. We were SO GLAD we didn't have to unpack it all... thank goodness for that military i.d... ANYway, picture at the dam... (you might call this "a dam picture" and that behind us is "the dam road", etc, etc, etc... ha.......ha.......sigh)



This one is pretty self explanatory...


This was cool- they're building a new bridge there and it is REDICULOUSLY high and huge. There's not enough money in the world to get me to work on something like that... but that's because I'm afraid of heights. I wouldn't even want to drive over that thing...but it was neat to look at from below.


So we had been pretty excited that we'd gotten pictures of every state sign while we were driving past... then we passed the Nevada sign:

Of course now we have a picture of THIS lady... but that's okay... that was just to wet our appetite for the people we would run into in Vegas on New Year's. But that's for another post.... Happy New Year!