California Trip July 2012: Part 1 The Drives

  July we also spent time going to California for my brother's wedding in San Francisco. Boy was it a blast, but it was a long long trip there and back. My biological dad, my biological mom, Joel, and I went together. I was so proud of my parents for getting along on the trip and while we were there, because they are divorced, but they agreed to put differences aside for a week, and put up with one another for my brother as well as for my son, and me. We traveled through several states: Iowa (of course we live here), Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and into California. 

  We met up with a friend of mine and her children in Stuart, Iowa as we traveled most of the way together, because she was going almost the same way as us in California. We thought it would be better for her and her children to travel with us in a group instead of by herself. That way we felt she was safe, and if she needed any help we could help her. All the children did surprisingly well. Joel had a good time because their was other children to play with when we stopped. I think our favorite time we stop was in right after we crossed into Wyoming in a little rest area. The kids were able to play on a little playground and run some steam out. That is where we got the good picture of all four of them together that is above.

You really never knew who was going to be in the backseat with my son. Most of the time my mom rode back there. I got back there off and on. My dad did some of the driving. Driving out to California I drove a lot through the night unless we went through a major city like Salt Lake, Utah when I let my dad drive. Crazy us drove straight through to California. My dad ended up getting sick early the second morning of driving. Thank God my mom was there to help my friend with driving off and on. We were all getting tired. The kids did all the sleeping for us. I think each of us adults had only one to two hours each of rest. I think I had the least sleep. Joel had a hard time resting starting about 4am the second morning which was good because he talked to me as I drove.

Mountains in Wyoming

Ames Monuent

Some of the scenes we saw on the way was so beautiful while others were left to be desired. It was so neat to watch as we went from flat land to little bit of mountains off and on. We even made a few stops to see some things on the way out there if we had time. Our first stop we decided to really check out was this roadside monuments that looked like a pyramid with  plaque of Lincoln called Ames Monument. When they talked about it they said that it was right off of I-80. Well, needless to say it was right off my rear end. We had to take this bad red gravel road that was rough on the car. Needless to say it was something that I will only see once. We really didn't not see Utah at all. Little bit of Nevada on the way out California. We saw more of them on our way home.

Mountains in California

San Francisco and Golden Gate Bridge

 One of my favorite pictures I took of the mountain country was in California. The yellow of the land the few trees just was wonderful. Every once in a while you could see the bay mixed as we got closer to San Francisco.  When we got closer to San Francisco we saw the sign for it. Joel only 4 yrs old at the time looked up and said, "Mommy we are almost to Uncle Matthew's I see the words." Joel knows that San Francisco has two words with the first part beginning with S. I knew I was in San Francisco when I was able to see bits of the famous Golden Gate Bridge.