Road Trip to Cali

A road trip from MD to Cali is something I've always wanted to do and now I can finally say I've done it. Driving cross country really gives me an appreciation for just how big and diverse this country is. I loved experiencing all the different climates and cultures/people/accents (if you haven't already noticed, I have a thing for accents!). I also realized that I need to brush up on my U.S. geography!

Day 1 (Sunday):
We jam-packed all of our things into Vi's little car and headed out on I-70W on Sunday morning. As we hit the C&O Canal and surrounding area, I was fondly reminded of that crazy 50 mile race I did back in November on those paths. Good times! We sliced into a tiny piece of Virginia before going into West Virginia for a short period of time and then it was back into Virginia coasting along 81 for what seemed like a very long time (perhaps because I've seen Virginia enough times and had no interest in it). I was very excited to reach Tennessee, as it was the first of the four states (TN, AR, OK, NM) on this trip that I'd never been to before. We stopped in Nashville for the night. We drove down Broadway St. and I was surprised to see/hear how happening this street was on a Sunday night with all the live music (no wonder they call Nashville "Music City").

Day 2 (Monday):
We stopped at The Parthenon in Centennial Park before heading out. It was a very pretty park, I saw a group of runners and was very jealous of where they got to run. We passed right by Memphis and I could see St. Jude Children's Research Hospital from the highway. Ever since volunteering in the Pediatric Care Research Unit at Hopkins in 2004, I have always wanted to work at St. Jude's, although 1) I don't want to live in Memphis and 2) that would be an extremely depressing job. I don't remember much about Arkansas except a lot of open fields and cows. Sadly, I did not even know that AR neighbored TN and OK. Next up was Oklahoma! We stayed for the night in Oklahoma City with Amy and John (thanks guys!). It was nice to see their place and meet Holly. She liked me (Amy said she likes pink) and I wasn't even wearing any pink! Must've been her pink intuition! The only thing I know about Oklahoma is the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I did not know that they made a memorial at the bomb sight, but that was very cool to see.

Day 3 (Tuesday):
On the road again with the next state being Texas. Technically, I have been in the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport for layovers, but I guess you can't really count that as a visit. The highlight of our brief encounter with this state was seeing tumbleweeds rolling across the roads, it was just like in the cartoons! Next, we hit New Mexico. There are a lot of Indian reservations in NM. We reached Arizona and stopped in Flagstaff for the night. It was colder than I had expected and I was surprised to see a good amount of snow still on the ground.

Day 4 (Wednesday):
We took the day off from driving and went to see the Grand Canyon. This is definitely something worth seeing in person, as pictures cannot even begin to do this place any justice. It was also nice to take a break from 11 to 13-hour days of driving, although the driving did not seem as bad as I expected it to be. It had been a full week since the last time I had run or done any form of exercise, so I was really anxious to do some form of physical activity. Vi and I were really excited to use the hotel's "fitness center" until we turned on the treadmill and realized that the speed would not go pass 3.6 mph. WTF?! By this time, I was beginning to lose track of dates and times altogether, especially with crossing all those time zones.

Day 5 (Thursday):
We decided to spend another day playing by visiting the parks in Sedona, AZ. We visited Slide Rock State Park, the downtown district of Sedona, and Red Rock State Park before deciding we had had enough of red rocks and continued onward with our road trip. No wonder why Arizona is always symbolized with a cactus, there were cacti everywhere and they were huge! We decided that if we headed to Phoenix, it would be too early in the day to want to stop driving, but if we tried to make it all the way to San Diego, we wouldn't get there til past midnight. So we chose a random city in between: Blythe, CA. Just over the border between Arizona and California, Blythe was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and basically seemed like a "pitstop" kind of town. Also, why does California make you stop at their border for inspection and make you throw away all your produce?

Day 6 (Friday):
Just a couple more hours before we reach our final destination. The drive out there seemed to happen so fast, that I didn't expect it to be over already. Everything went so smoothly, the weather was sunny the whole way, and we only hit traffic once for about a half an hour in Tennessee. The first place we hit up upon reaching San Diego was apartment complex choice #1. This place looked very appealing and almost seemed like a resort. We checked out a few more places and then checked into our hotel on base at Camp Pendleton.

Days 7-13 (Saturday - Friday):
We spent the weekend in the hotel and then moved to the beach cottage on San Onofre Beach during the week. Saturday was spent doing more apartment hunting before Vi ultimately decided to go with choice #1. We then proceeded with the moving process by going furniture shopping over the next two days. We also took multiple trips to Super Walmart (or as Vi's GPS calls it, "Wooooowwwmart") for numerous exchanges, returns, and forgotten items. There was hardly any free time with all the chores to do and waiting around for furniture, the cable guy, and the Navy movers to arrive. Vi unfortunately had to report to work right away on Monday, but was lucky enough to get Thursday and Friday off. I was able to get in one run on the beach and one around her neighborhood (life without humidity is so great!). We also went to Mission Beach, Coronado Island, and Santa Ana. I really like the place that Vi chose to live, Oceanside. It's so close to plenty of stores and a lot of good food! Avocados are cheap there, only 50 cents each!

Day 14 (Saturday):
The end of the trip =(. Let's just say I was glad to be riding a 4 1/2 hour plane back to MD rather than driving all that way back!