1100 Miles:

Now that my family and I are officially moved to a new state and a new home, I can officially say That will be my LAST Night trip across 4 States in one day. With a new baby my wife and I decided that we should make the drive across the states at night because that way our daughter who is now 7 weeks old would sleep in her car seat and we wouldn't mess up the sleeping schedule that we've worked so hard to achieve so far. We had spent the day at a beautiful large lake up the canyon from where we've been staying with my family, Mostly we went up there to spend some more time with them and give them a proper chance to say goodbye to Princess for a while as we'd be dragging her out here with us. Being at the lake I couldn't possibly pass up the opportunity to spend some time behind the boat being whipped around on tubes at the mercy of my Uncle who was driving the boat and trying to dump my brother in law and I off the tubes, at several points we would catch enough air to land on top of each other and still manage to hold on. I bring this up because it drained my energy but it sure was a blast! Upon staying at the lake for a while we said our emotional goodbyes knowing that it would be months before any of us make the trek to see each other again and I headed home to finish packing up and take a quick nap. We didn't get on the road until 8:00 PM and it was getting dark so instead of risk being stuck on the shortcut that is a back way we decided to take the well traveled interstate system adding about 2 1/2 hours onto our total trip time.

I've been drinking apple juice like mad to replace my Dr Pepper binge-drinking habits so when I got ahold of a few Dew's and Peppers the caffeine actually had an effect on me for the first time that I can remember in years keeping me awake enough to begin the trek across the boring desert. It all starts with miles and miles of salt, a scene that never changes until finally you're out of there.
We stopped for feedings every few hours or so and I would try to catch a cat nap to no avail because of the caffeine. It wasn't until we were about 3/4 of the way there that I got tired so we pulled over and tried to find a room in Reno again, to no avail, There was a huge rib city cook off in town and not a single room in all of town was available. So we continued our trek and eventually made it home, By the time we had reached home I was jittery because I couldn't manage to make myself eat much and all I had done was drink drink drink all night. Adding to the length of the trip was the fact that approximately every 40-50 miles I had to pull over and find a place to pee.

We are finally here and I look forward to the adventures of the next year as I attend Paramedic school and try to raise my baby girl and juggle the responsibilities of being a father and husband. Its going to be a tough year, I'm really going to miss having such great friends and family close by. I look forward to the challenges and being able to blog about the experiences that I'll be coming across in the next year.