2300 Miles in the Car Together and We are Still Married

Hi All,

On Wednesday, September 26 we left Chicago heading for California. Mike drove the whole way. I was the navigator. I know that it was mainly one highway but navigation is an important part of the process too. Besides, my driving makes Mike nervous.

The first day we only made it as far as Counsel Bluffs, IA. We got kind of a late start. Iowa was mostly corn fields so not a lot of exciting stuff along the way. Thursday we were in 4 states: Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. We drove about 15.5 hours that day. Iowa and Nebraska seemed like one big corn field. Wyoming was a little more interesting it with mountains and large open spaces.

On Thursday night we stopped in Park City, UT. We definately want to go back there and try skiing. Park City was home to the Winter Olympics. Although with my skiing skills hopefully they have a few runs that are less then Olympic caliber. There did seem to be plenty of places to Chalet in the area.

Friday we decided to drive as far as Lake Tahoe. So we drove the rest of the way threw Utah. We stopped at the salt flats in Utah. It was pretty cool and looked like Snow.

We got to Tahoe City, CA around 5:00pm. It was pretty chilly when we got up there. It was only in the 40's. We got to see the lake and walk around the town. We are definately going back to Tahoe. It is about a 3.5 to 4 hour drive from San Francisco and is awesome. It will be a lot of fun to see some snow and ski. The temp continued to drop over night and when we woke up in the morning it had snowed. Yep, I said snow. I couldn't believe it. Snow is september. Even Minnesota doesn't have snow that early.

We arrived in the San Francisco area around 10:00am on Saturday morning. I found a temporary place to live in Pacifica, CA. I'm renting a room for a couple of months until Mike finds a new job and moves out. The place is great and is very close to the beach . . . 3 houses from it to be exact. This is the view at the end of my street.

Mike flew home on Sunday, Sept. 30. I started my new job on Oct. 1. It's been good so far. I spent most of my first week training. So far so good.

I really like the area and the weather has been great. It will be even better when Mike gets here.

Thank you to all of you who kept us company along the way. The IMing, text messages and phone calls made the drive go by a lot quicker. Hope things are going well for everyone.