Calibrarian: goodbye illinois, hello california

A little more than a week ago, we packed up our Jeep (dog and all), said goodbye to our little house, made a few last stops (including the library, of course), and struck out for California. It was 2pm by the time we finally got out of town, and we were pretty exhausted from the packing and cleaning that had taken place in just a few short days, so we didn't make it far that first day. We ended up driving all day the next day (almost 17 hours) and then finished up on the third day. Altogether, the trip took us 33.5 hours of driving. Poor Yuki was beside himself. He hates to miss anything in the car, so he basically never lies down, although we think he did a couple of times on that long day. By the end of the trip, I honestly think he wanted to get out of the car for the first time in his little doggie life.

We drove through St. Louis and Oklahoma into Texas, places we had been before. But once we hit New Mexico, it was new territory for us. A few places I would have liked to stop if I hadn't needed to get to California asap for the job: the cowboy museum, along the side of the road to take pictures of Western-style retro billboards (including one that said "Ride the Rabbit!" with a picture of a giant jackrabbit), a restaurant selling fried pies (probably better that we didn't stop there), a meteor crater, and most especially, Flagstaff. It looked so nice from the freeway, that I almost felt like forgetting about California and moving there instead. Then again, we were pretty sick of driving by that point. We almost didn't make it through the California desert since there were no gas stations. But we finally arrived in LA, got stuck in traffic (on a Saturday afternoon?? oh dear....), and then ended up in Santa Monica in the late afternoon. Less than an hour later, we were walking to the beach, breathing salty ocean air, and feeling pretty happy to have finally arrived.