Road Trip Home from Texas

As I said in my last post, I know I'm a little behind in writing about this!  But if you care to see pictures and videos of our road trip home, read on!

Day 1
On Saturday morning Aug. 10, we got our rental van and loaded it up.  We got on the road and something metal in the van screached when we used the brakes so we went back to the dealership.  By the time we got there, the problem had stopped so we took our chances and kept the van to avoid the hassle of unloading and loading everything into another van.  Lucky for us, we had no further problems!

  

Within 20 minutes of getting on the road we saw an exit for Justin, Texas.  Justin was feeling pretty proud of having a town named after him.... and that's when we passed the KT Adult Video store. I don't know who should be prouder?!  :) haha, only kidding.  It made for some good laughs!  

Dallin was rear facing in his car seat when we started out.  He occupied himself by kicking his toys, sorting puff balls, and playing with the radio.  He loved the radio on the 1st trip from Utah to Texas as well.

For the trip home we took a different route, heading north through Oklahoma and Kansas and cutting clear across Colorado (instead of through New Mexico and crossing most of Texas). It added about an hour, but we decided that was well worth it so we could see some new things!

We passed through Moore Oklahoma (the town that was hit by the tornado in May).  From the freeway, we could see parts of the town that were flattened and wiped out.  

We stopped at the Oklahoma City Temple.  Temple grounds are a beautiful place to get out and stretch and let Dallin get his wiggles out.

Then we hit the plains of Kansas.  Lots of cattle and lots of corn fields!  We thought it would be completely flat, but surprisingly there were rolling hills at times. We stayed in Salina, KS for the first night.

Day 2 
Because Dallin is so long, his legs were cramped up like a frog rear facing so we turned him forward.  The recommendation is you can turn them forward facing at 1 year and 20 lbs.  He was past the age requirement and we assumed close to 20 lbs.  It was worth it for him to enjoy seeing out the rest of the way home and enjoy the DVD player we had in the rental van. And it was worth it for me to be able to see him and hand him things he needed.  I had bought some $1 store toys and bins so he had plenty of things to play with. Balls, puzzle, and etch-a-sketch were probably his favorites. He slept a lot less forward facing.  I think because he could see me and other things and wasn't as bored to just fall asleep all the time. :)

Look at all my toy options! I'm set up pretty good, back here!

Wow, what is that?

That's right a DVD player!  Baby Einstein provided some good entertainment on the way home!

We played lots of music and Dallin enjoyed dancing to it.  He loved the song "At the Beginning" from Anastasia. Here's a great video: 

He also loved the oldies song "At the Hop" I love how he waves his arms to the beat in this video:

 

As we crossed the Colorado border we hit a HUGE rain storm!  We had a pretty big one driving to Texas in May, but this one was crazy!  Most people stopped on the side of the road with hazards, but we decided to just go slow and get through it. Notice how thick the rain is in the video below, you can't even see the other cars in the lane next to us!

Heading into the storm

Looks like a tornado cloud starting....

After we drove through the storm, I pulled up the Doppler on Janelle's phone and this is what it showed!  Notice the orange/red area is right on the interstate we were on!


We enjoyed a beautiful rainbow after the storm, and made it to Silverthorne, CO where we stayed for the  2nd night. We loved seeing mountains again!  Over 2 days of driving we went from 674 ft. elevation in Plano, TX to 9,035 in Silverthorne!

Dallin loved riding on the luggage cart on the way to Texas, but on the way home he knew how to walk so he pushed it and walked behind instead of riding on it.   

Day 3  

We got up and made it clear home today! We really enjoyed the beautiful mountains in Colorado. Dallin was a great traveler again.  He always enjoyed stops, but he slept and entertained himself pretty well for being in the car a total of 19 hours. 

Last gas stop in Price, UT. 

 "Yeah I'm an amazing traveler, it's true!" 

 Made it to our Provo Apt. (new one we moved into in May so we never really got settled here before leaving to Texas).

 Unloading the Van

We had unplugged all our appliances, so we had to get everything running again!

3 months worth of mail!  And  this doesn't even include weekly coupons and obvious junk mail that our neighbor threw away each week!

AAH!! A real bed again! Home sweet Home.

Sorry for the long post, but it was a long road trip home, so what did you expect? If you read it all, I'm impressed!  It's good to be home!