I Survived the Flight!!

I made it through our flight to California. It wasn't pretty, trust me but I survived and I didn't drive my husband too crazy. I sat by a window, near the wing. I was fine while waiting for takeoff. I made jokes about which person I thought might be the Air Marshall. I asked Rob if it could be a woman, he said he didn't know. I think our plane didn't have one, there sure didn't look like there was one on our plane! I was freaking out pretty bad when the plane took off in Nashville, it seemed so slow and I thought we were all going to die! I might have cried, a little. There was some turbulence above the plains, because of the storms and when that happened I might have screamed (very quietly)!

I also didn't like when the plane would turn! We made it to Denver, Colorado pretty quickly. We got on the plane from Denver to Ontario, California and I was fine during takeoff. I was even okay during the turning. We had a small amount of turbulence on that flight and I still might have said "Oh my GOD!" but, it wasn't very loudly. I was really tired but I didn't get much sleep since the lady behind me spent the ENTIRE flight talking the ear off of her seat neighbor! Rob got a little bit of sleep. Our flight to Ontario took forever, it was just about as long as the flight to Denver. Rob's best friend from high school, Mike picked us up!

flying over the Rockies

Our first stop was In-N-Out where I stuffed myself, I ate a cheeseburger AND animal fries!! Oh, those animal fries were so delicious!! After that we picked up the U-Haul and drove to our storage unit. Mike and Rob loaded the U-Haul pretty fast. Mike's girlfriend and I helped a little, I think she might have helped even more than I did. I prefer to call myself the supervisor and just watch! We got rid of so much before starting the RV trip that there weren't too many heavy things in storage for them to lift. After the storage unit was loaded Mike and his girlfriend went home. We drove the U-Haul around the corner to the other storage unit we had, which was where the van was parked. We unlocked the storage unit and Rob reconnected the battery to the van. He tried to start it but it wouldn't start. We ended up wasting a good hour trying to find someone with jumper cables at the storage place before driving the U-Haul to the Camping World and buying jumper cables. Rob got the van started and loaded it up on the tow dolly. He left the van running while strapping it down, trying to charge the van's battery. We were ready to leave so Rob walked up the ramp to turn off the van, the van was locked...WITH THE CAR RUNNING! Rob started to panic a little. I suggested we drive over to Mike's house (he lives about 10 minutes away) and see if he could open the car or call a tow truck from his house. So, that's what we did. We had a tow truck guy come out, he opened that door in about two seconds. It was pretty amazing!
We wanted to be on the road as early as possible. We stayed at Mike's house for a few minutes before deciding to get the show on the road. Before we got on the freeway we stopped at Miguel's and bought nine, that's right, nine, burritos! We bought six of our favorite burritos and three for the girls. We bought a cheapie ice chest and a bunch of ice to keep the burritos cool. We ate one each, each day of driving. We reheated the burritos at truck stops. By Sunday the burritos were disgusting, too wet and soggy. The girls didn't get to eat theirs, too gross.We also bought a few 12-packs of Cactus Cooler soda. Apparently that is something else that is only a west-coast thing!

Rob's Double-Double

The best burrito, EVER

We left for Nashville at about 4:30PM California time. Rob's mom lives and works in Laughlin, Nevada so we wanted to stop and see her while we had the chance. We stopped in Needles, California for the night. We stayed at the WORST hotel I have EVER stayed at in my life!! If you are ever in Needles NEVER, EVER stay at the Days Inn and Suites!! It was awful, holes with wires exposed in the wall and the tub, oh my gosh, the tub was so disgusting. Not to mention that the door didn't really seem very secure. If weren't already so exhausted we would have demanded our money back and left! We got to the hotel around 9PM local time, we set an alarm for 4:30AM and got the heck out of there!! Rob's mom got to work at 5:30AM so we stopped at her job and visited for a little bit. We left her place at 6:30AM local time.

apparently a lot of other travelers stayed at this gross hotel

We didn't get another hotel room for the rest of the drive. We pushed through as much as we could. We stopped at rest stops for naps! Rob drove most of the time. I drove for a short time on Saturday and a short time on Sunday. The rest was Rob!! I didn't take pictures since we have already been though Arizona (read about it here), New Mexico (read about that here), Texas (here, here, here, here and here) and Arkansas (read here). Oklahoma was the only state I've never been to.

We drove through Oklahoma without knowing just how bad the tornadoes were on Friday. We drove though El Rio and it was the saddest thing I've ever seen!! I was blown away at the destruction on both sides of the freeway. I tried to take a few pictures with my phone but they don't do justice to the devastation there. After driving through we heard about just how bad that tornado was! It broke my heart, I wanted to pull over and help people clean up and find things. It made me want to get home to my babies that much faster. Oklahoma is a beautiful state, I can understand why people live there, but I could never do it! Too scary for me!! If you haven't already, PLEASE donate to the Red Cross (or some other organization you trust)!

Destruction in Oklahoma

We made it home at 10:30PM local time on Sunday! We were so happy to be home and see the girls! I thought going home would make me homesick and I'd want to leave Tennessee. The opposite happened, after sitting in traffic and looking at all the brown ground and brown skies I was ready to get back home to Tennessee. It was so smoggy I couldn't even see the mountain we used to live on! Rob said he felt like he couldn't breathe. It was hot and dirty. I am glad we made the decision to live in Tennessee!!