Monday, October 17, 2016

Our drive home

After spending some time with friends and family in Oklahoma, we headed back to OUR home in Florida!  We've gone from wearing jeans, tennis shoes, jackets and freezing to our normal wardrobe at home which consists of shorts and flip flops!  Woo Hoo!  Bring It On!




You know you're living in Florida when you instantly look for alligators when you see a body of water.


I always love seeing the USS Alabama when we pass through Mobile.  My grandpa was on that ship in World War II, he was an officer's cook.  I'm very proud of him.

We made it home, safe and sound.  This trip was wonderful, eye opening, and I loved seeing parts of the country I've never seen before.











Drive Drive Drive

As soon as day break and the wind / sand storm broke, we headed south and east!  We knew it was going to take us a couple days of straight driving to get to Oklahoma when we needed.

While we didn't "stop" to see any sites on the way to Oklahoma, the scenery we passed was amazing!

























This trip changed my life, and I am thankful.



Carson City, here we come!!!

Big pieces of my heart are in Carson City, Nevada!  J and I both have huge families. One of my closest cousins lives there and runs a food truck called Tahoe Tenderloins!

If you're ever in the Reno / Carson City area and see a food truck that says "Eat or We'll Both Starve!" and goes by the name of Tahoe Tenderloins, stop by, say HI and get a sandwich!  You'll be glad you did!

The weather was perfect for a drive over the mountain! We can never tell what its going to be like in Truckee, CA to get to Carson City since its at such a high elevation, but this time, it was sunny & 70!













Its a very beautiful drive into Nevada

And we were super stoked to see our family!!


Went and saw Suzanne with Tahoe Tenderloins at a food truck event and got one of her amazing sandwiches!!

Went back to the RV park after visiting with Suzanne a bit to get some work done.  We were only going to be in Carson City for a couple of days and we had big plans for the seeing my aunt and the gun range the next day!








they say cousins are created because God knew one mom couldn't handle both of you at the same time. :)

We had a great visit with my aunt and then headed out to the rifle range with Suzanne and Owen!


Owen was geared up ready for gun safety


Lessons from Mom on gun safety


Ready, aim, fire!


D gearing Owen up to shoot some targets


Mom's turn taking a shot!


I couldn't be left out!

Fun day of fresh air, gun powder and family! <3 Doesn't get any better than this!







Such a beautiful area in Nevada!

Made one last stop by Tahoe Tenderloins to get some for the road


We told our fam see ya next time and headed out in the morning!

We left early, and as luck would have it, we hit a wind storm in the middle of the desert, which equals .... that's right, a sand storm!




I call it sand storm at sunset.

So we found a safe place to stop, worked and waited until morning.






Giant Redwoods

As much as we absolutely loved the Oregon beaches and lighthouses, our schedule called. We headed south to see the giant Redwood trees and some incredible mountainous and lake areas.

The road less traveled can bring sights you would not have otherwise seen.

We had driven the entire day in fog











This was our view through most of the day :(

That afternoon/evening we caught up on work so the next morning we could head up to the giant redwoods, even though it was still a bit foggy.








each of these guys are 6 foot or taller, that gives you an idea of how tall these trees are












we could park our truck lengthwise on this and not cover the whole stump

This is what we had been driving through all day - we were up above  it for now








something this west coast area has is logging business.  We saw so many of these trucks in the few days we were there.


Something funny our dogs do while traveling is, if we slow down because of traffic or stop to get fuel, they'll stir up a little, but if I don't take my seat belt off, they lie back down and go back to sleep.  But if they hear the click of my seat belt, Katy bar the door, they're ready to get out!!

Tomorrow, we're heading to Carson City!