Thursday, August 29, 2013

Arizona and California...

Dear (Insert YOUR NAME here), 

So we made it out of Texas and onto Arizona, I don't know how I didn't get a photo of the sign but I can't find it anywhere! 

It was pretty late by the time we made it into Arizona, but we were on a mission to make it into Tucson so that we could eat at this restaurant it was Vegan but we all were going to try it, the name was Sinbad's the food was pretty good it was on the campus of the college kids but it was pretty nice tho!! 

We got motel rooms in Tucson cause it was so late and everyone was so tired and we needed a good night of rest so we could make it to California on Monday!! 

Arizona is very hot with a lot of just mountains, not much to look at but we made it to Phoenix Monday morning and we went to this Vegan restaurant to eat, there the food was really good and beside of it was a Vegan Ice Cream shop which was good also! 


We saw a bit of cool stuff on the ride some airports, a lot of planes taking off and landing once we hit Arizona!! 


Steven rode with Carl about the whole ride and was supposed to be staying awake to give Carl someone to talk with and to keep in touch with our car since the Uhaul was so bad that Carl had to drive with both hands at all time but Steven fell asleep a few times on him and Carl was able to capture some good photos!! 



Even at one point this nap was so good he even was drooling!! 


Half of the trip Steven had a hard time with his tongue he decided he wanted to eat Cinnamon chewing gum knowing that it makes his tongue swell up, so he couldn't hardly eat, drink, talk or anything much at all... We finally stopped at a Walgreens to see about some Meds for moms legs and things and the lady working told him try some Orgel and that kinda helped him out some!! 



Finally we made it into California, in the afternoon hours! 


You might can tell by this photo but if not we were all VERY TIRED even Carl who took this awesome photo of us!! :) 

Now that we were in California it felt pretty nice but it was still hours away from the house, we drove and drove trying not to stop since we wanted to get there as early as possible! We took one bathroom break and then we were mindset no more stopping until we were in front of the house!! 

We went through this city called Indio I don't know much about that city or anything at all but what I can tell you by seeing it at night it's a Huge place there was city lights for miles it seemed like!! We also passed once again those big wind mills here in California if it would of been day light those pictures would of been awesome, they were way closer then those we passed out in Texas!! 

After we got through this city Indio I could tell the highways were getting wider and mountain roads were picking up, it was a mountain like ride with a lot of other cars and big 18 wheelers in which I can't stand so the best for me was to fall asleep! So that's just what I did I woke up a few times in between but for the most part I slept with the kids!! 

Lynn and Braxton both was really awesome on this road trip I tell you we had a little bit of ups and downs but not as many as I planned for, they did really good with no melt downs much at all but being a small child in a car seat for 6 days and not having a lot of big fits is truly awesome!! I am so blessed and thankful to have good kids! Although they do get wild at times, that's what four and two year olds are supposed to be doing!! 

We pulled into the driveway around 11:00pm California times Monday night, North Carolina your 3 hours ahead of us! 

When we finally reached the house it was such a great feeling to be out of the car and be able to sit or stand whatever we felt like doing instead of being in the car in a seat belt feeling strapped down!! 

We were also warmly welcomed by Carls mom Donna, his twin brothers Terry and Lenny also Violet (Cat) and Parker (Dog) they are all very sweet and it's nice getting to know each and everyone of them!! 

Well this sums up our move across the country, I really hope that all of the readers have enjoyed this move with us and thanks so much for keeping up with what we were getting into and how we were doing! I hope you all will continue reading as I post new things as we spend time here in California  and get to know the area!! 


This Beef Jerky picture was taking in a truck stop out in Arizona, it reminded me of my brother Chris McLaurin!! I love and miss you so much and hope that all is well!! I should of bought this and mailed it out to you but this darn thing was $7.99 and that's a little crazy! But I will mail you something just give me a little time :)

I don't have a lot of photos in these two states because there wasn't much to take them of since it was dark most of the ride!! 

 Until next time..... Good Night Readers!! 








Monday, August 26, 2013

Texas and New Mexico!!


Dear (Insert YOUR NAME here), 

We made it to Texas, was early in the morning around 4:45am or so, and we were pretty excited, we saw the Texas sign and just so happen it was at the rest stop area so we could get out and walk around a bit, also while at the sign getting our pictures made, we heard something messing around in the wood area so we stood real still to see what it was, when it came out we could see it was a Armadillo, that was awesome none of us had ever saw one other then a few hours before when we saw one dead on the road, we were taking some pictures when it ran off from hearing us, then soon it came back and I was able to get a real good picture on the camera!

We drove into Texas until Jeffrey and Carl could rest up some, we all slept in the car, then headed back out!! 

I never thought we would get out of Texas it took us forever, that darn state is HUGE!! 



Finally after forever in Texas we finally hit Dallas, that was pretty cool that city is really nice and beautiful, here is some photos of Dallas 



We even passed by the Cowboys Stadium but I couldn't get a good picture!! It was really cool when we passed Six Flags over Texas!! 



Miles and miles after Dallas we drove through a lot of country and mountains, we got to see these really cool wind mills I really enjoyed those a whole lot, 



Heading to El Paso you get really close to the borader of the US and Mecixo that was pretty neat ill never seen anything like that at all.. 


Well Finally after a long long ride in Texas we made it into New Mexico.. 


When we entered New Mexico it was very hot and you could tell you was in the  desert area! Our very first stop was at the rest area not far into the state so we all could use the bathroom and be ready to drive through there isn't a bunch of places to stop out in desert area, so we all get out to walk around and all the first sign we see is this... 


That's right "BEWARE" of "RATTLESNAKES" so I was freaked out and everywhere I stepped I was looking for dang snakes!

New Mexico is a little bit of a boring state all we see is mountains and roads with trains, I promise I think the West Coast has the Longest Trains I've ever seen in my life. 


We made a stop at this little store out in the middle of New Mexico, so everyone could walk around, or just get out for a bit and we came along these Grass Hoppers they were wild and would scare ya cause they were just big and EVERYWHERE! 



They don't mess with you or anything but there was just a lot of them and they are really big lol... 

We also in this shop ran across a lot of hats and things like that and our babies ESP. Braxton fell in love with the hat he hasn't harder taken it off since we got it for him, he loves to put it on for a picture to be made.. 



They also had this Tee Pee looking thing we went over to check out while we let the dogs walk some and exirsce their legs and all.. Carl had me freaked out that there might be Rattlesnakes under there so I was tripping trying to hurry up and get away from it.. 


While on this little trip over to the Tee Pee Steven found him a little friend he wanted to scare us all with lol.. Once we knew what it was we were fine tho.. :) 



After all of this little adventure it was time to head back into the car and Arizona here we come!! That will be in the next blog along with Califonia... 

Until next time... Good Night Readers!! 


I love and miss all of you back home I hope that you all are doing good, and enjoying my blog.. Lynn and Braxton is doing really good and have handled this ride amazingly,  everyone that said they felt bad for the babies in the car this long know they have done really good and we have only had a few melt downs! 

















Saturday, August 24, 2013

Mississippi and Louisiana!!


So we made it to Mississippi, after that long travel through Alabama!! We had a good time driving through Mississippi it didn't seem to take as long as other states did but it was still long! We was looking forward to seeing the Mississippi River the whole ride, we got into a real bad rain storm that we had to drive real slow for a bit then it passed on by and we made it to the river! 

At the Mississippi River there was this over view look thing we went up to and it was awesome, we were able to see the bridge really good, and another bridge that had a train track on it, they also have this little walk up thing so you kinda feel to be on a small mountain and you can see better and also see the big Casino that's at the Mississippi River!! 





Also they had this really cool bridge we could walk across and like different things that was pretty amazing! This bridge made me a bit scared because Braxton is so small it was like he could slip through there so I hurried him on down the other side!! 



We also let our dogs out to walk about every single stop we make and even at some stops Jeffrey or someone will run the dogs around the truck in circles to exercise their legs and the babies chase behind getting tired out so they can go to sleep, Lynn hasn't been napping as much as Braxton and let me tell you we can feel it lol, Jeffrey and I both had headaches yesterday from her not having a nap or anything else! 



Jeffrey was talking about all the history of this bridge and its pretty cool, makes it be cooler, than just a really long bridge over water!! 😄 

After all the cool site seeing it was finally time to cross it, which means that we would be crossing into Louisiana!!  


Which we do have a welcome to Louisiana picture but I don't have it on my phone, this was the scariest stop for me, because people were flying off the bridge crossing in and the traffic was
Really heavy at the time we went in, so we hurried up as fast as possible!  

Poor Steven his tongue is all messed up and kinda swelled because he ate some Trident Cinnamon Gum which he knows he isn't supposed to eat that but he is a bit hard headed... Then while we are stopped to take pictures on this scary stop into Louisiana, Steven steps down into a fire ants nest and they attack him really bad, and he is all burning up and fighting the ants off... 



We finish up at the rest stop with pictures and getting Stevens ant bites chilled out and we head on into Talulah Louisiana looking for a Vegan like Restaurant, they ask Siri where this place is and she leads up to a little city and we can't find the place no where at all we drove around for about 10 mins looking and I guess down there it's not required to have numbers on business we couldn't find the addresses for anything, so Jeffrey decided to tell mom call the place and see where they are located at, and they told us they were in New York, so you can say that was a "Siri Fail" which sucks that wasted a lot of our time but it was fine!! 

We were on to West Monroe, still looking for somewhere to eat at, google is usually a very good help but Monroe is small and doesn't have much out of the fast food restaurants, they asked me to control the looking for food while we were riding down the road since my phone was charged the most, Jeffrey said to look up Thai Food, so that's what I found a place called Bangkok Spice, so that's where we headed too, they had a good choice of food one thing on the menu was "Curry" I haven't ever had any of it but I knew that Jeffrey eats it all the time from talking to him when he was in California so that's what we all tired for the first time, it was really good food I didn't think it would taste that good!! 


Lynn and Braxton had some egg rolls and fried rice, which they didn't eat much of because we had to wake them to go eat but they had a little bit of it!! 



After dinner it was on to meet my sister Savannah, up at the truck stop off her exit to home, it was a really good feeling to get to see her again and meet 2 of my 5 nephews I wish they all could of been but the timing got crazy for a little while and it was so late before we got into Louisiana, so it was alright I will meet them tho ;) the kids played together, walked the dogs and raced back and forwards on the grass, it was a really good meet up and we all had a lot of fun and took some pictures!!



Well readers this is our trip from Mississippi to Louisiana, tomorrow we will be talking about Texas and New Mexico!! 

Until next time... Good Night Readers!! 






Friday, August 23, 2013

One the road again!!



Finally we made it into Alabama around Thursday morning!!  We drove and drove for what seemed like years, Alabama is such a long state with a lot of road work going on that its not even funny, finally after hours we made it to Birmingham Alabama!! 


Birmingham wasn't one of my favorite places it was so busy with a lot of people and it didn't look like what it's all cracked up to be, in my opinion, it was alright but not as nice as you would think when you talk about it, but Jeffrey did find this really cool restaurant called (Mellow Mushroom) that we all tried out, it was something new and a little different but the food was really good, it's a pizza place they make really good pizzas but they are a bit pricy, a large Meats pizza was $27.99 WOW!!!! But it could of been higher If we wouldn't of shared a large pizza!! 


Steven wanted some root beer and needed a picture of the bottle lol, he thought it was pretty cool! 



After dinner we were going to head onto Louisiana and stay in a motel, close to my sister but it was still pushing 9 hours away maybe 6 hours, and everyone was just SOO TIRED, then Carl rented us all motel rooms to rest up and take showers so we didn't start to stink, the only motel we could find in the area was a Motel 6, which was pretty good until Jeffrey and I at the same time tried to connect on their wifi and found out you have to pay $2.99 Per Day to use the wifi which is pretty lame since you pay so much per night to stay there! 

Morning came we all loaded up to leave Alabama, which still was taking FOREVER to get out of that darn state we had to stop like 50 times for different reason, but one of my favorite Alabama stops was at the Truck Stop TA in 


TUSCALOOSA, Home of the "BAMA FOOTBALL" "ROLL TIDE" 😄 I went to get me a t-shirt but they didn't have any there but it's all good... 

After this stop it was no stopping again until we get to Mississippi, everyone was so tired of Alabama cause it was taking so long to pass through! 

Dannielynn and Braxton are still doing great not sleeping as much in the car so it gets a little tough at times but for the most part they are being good and enjoying the ride... 

Blake and Ozzy is riding too we stop and walk them every single stop so they get to stretch out and potty!!! 

Tomorrow will blog about Mississippi and Louisiana, so stay watching to see what's good in those two states!! 


This is Blake and Ozzy in the motel being tired, they slept really good last night, riding is making them tired too 😄 


Until next time.... Good Night Readers!!