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Andy and Megan arrived a little earlier than planned on the 26th because of the weather forecast. They got out of Huntingburg with no problem, but the interstate through southern Illinois was a bear. At times they were traveling only 10 miles per hour. They were relieved to get here and find no snow on the ground. Katie's plane was supposed to land at 10:30 p.m. but in fact did not arrive until 12:30 a.m. Andy volunteered to go get her, so the rest of us snuggled up here until they got back to the house. Then we stayed up talking until 2:00 a.m. It reminded me of the good old days when Jim and I would come home from work, load up the car and head up to Iowa, often arriving at our parent's house in the wee hours of the morning. It looks like I have something new to apologize for - staying up like that is hard on older folks. Yet our parents never complained.

Jim and I worked out the next morning, and then he had to run into work as a young man was coming in for a job interview. I hit the grocery store as the cupboards were pretty bare. The kids went to the Galleria to finish up some shopping since we were opening gifts that night. I made a roast in the crockpot to simplify clean-up, and then we mixed up a batch of cosmopolitans for everyone to enjoy as we exchanged gifts. Yum!

Friday we all went to the Art Museum since it had been pointed out that Megan had never been there. We were hoping to see the current exhibit of Barocci paintings, but it was sold out until late in the afternoon. Megan and Andy needed to drive back to Indiana and as more snow was predicted they wanted to get on the road before it got too late. So we walked through the museum instead, and hit Ted Drew's on our way back to the house.

Katie is still with us until Wednesday, so it is nice to have a little time to catch up with her. She is busy trying to see all of her friends before she takes off as well. After she leaves, it will be time for me to take down all the decorations. Then Christmas 2012 will be a wrap.

Yesterday was the final day of long distance driving - hallelujah! The scenery has not been as interesting as I had anticipated it would be. There were a few areas that had some great rock formations and/or mountains, but for the most part we might as well have been driving through Kansas. But with less vegetation. The exits on Interstatw 40 are few and far between, so you really need to plan your gas and potty breaks. I can't even imagine trying to make the drive with small children. And the interstate is in terrible shape, in all the states we traveled through. I won't complain about the highway conditions in Missouri again.

Around noon we began looking for a place to eat. We finally saw an exit with a Dairy Queen, so I pulled off. Everyone else had the same idea, and the parking lot was packed! Plus gas at the nearby station (the only two things at this exit) was $4.89 per gallon! It is not even that high here in LA. Fortunately I didn't need to fuel up. Everywhere else we had paid $3.69 or $3.79, with the exception of $3.99 in Sedona where they were ripping off the tourists. Anyway, we decided to try to find food elsewhere, and drove another 60 miles before finding a town with some fast food restaurants.

When we were about 70 miles from LA the traffic picked up quite a bit. By the time we got on Highway 101 it was like rush hour in St. Louis. And this was a Saturday. I cannot imagine what it is like on a weekday. We finally got off on Sunset Boulevard and crept our way to the Comfort Inn. Pulling into their lot I quickly noticed three things - the motel rooms open to the exterior of the building (which I try to avoid for safety reasons), this was not a "secure" parking lot as I had been led to believe, and if the people hanging out in the lot were any indication of the area and people staying here, I don't want a room here. After consulting the Internet we realized that their are two Comfort Inns on Sunset. Who would have thunk it? That was the good news. The bad news was that we now had to turn around and go back through all the crappy traffic again to get to the correct hotel. Ugh!

But we finally made it and checked in with no problem. We do have a secure parking garage here, which is great. The Internet does not work in our room and our room faces Sunset, which is very noisy. So we will attempt to move to a room closer to the center of the hotel, and one that is not on Sunset. Since it is Sunday I imagine a number of people will be checking out today, so hopefully it won't be an issue.

Today we are going to look at apartments. Even if the offices are closed for Easter we figured we can get the lay of the land and perhaps find some that aren't listed on rent.com. It should be an interesting day.

We left Albuquerque around 9:00 this morning heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona. Originally we had intended to go to the Grand Canyon, but logistics got in the way. There were time constraints, for one. And when we called to see if we could get reservations at one of the lodges within the national park, we were told that there was only one room left at a lodge about a half mile from the rim. Most of the other lodges are right on the rim. The lack of rooms got us thinking about crowds, and a google search provided reviews of people saying that the park was packed. Of course - it is Easter week! We also don't like to be too far from the car as we have a lot of Katie's personal items in it.

So we regrouped and decided to go to Sedona instead. Oak Creek Canyon, on the way from Flagstaff to Sedona, comes highly recommended as a scenic route, and Sedona is supposed to be nice to visit. I thought we would fill up the gas tank in Flagstaff, where you turn off to head south. But that particular exit had no stations or places to eat. Do you know that there are no stations on the canyon drive? I will definitely be alerting others to that fact on Tripadvisor. We coasted into Sedona on fumes! Besides the twisting, steep, drop off the edge of the earth road, fear of running out of gas had me gripping the steering wheel the whole way. Luckily it is downhill to Sedona, so I was able to coast most of the way.



The scenery was quite beautiful, and Sedona is in a fantastic location. But the town itself reminded me of Branson with round abouts. There were tourists everywhere and the traffic was horrific. We only stopped in town long enough to gas up and grab a sandwich. After getting our fill of photographs in the national forest, we headed back north to Flagstaff and trusty Interstate 40. So weird that you only take two interstates (44 & 40) all the way from St. Louis to Los Angeles. We wanted to put some more miles behind us so that we wouldn't be facing 7 plus hours of driving tomorrow, so we drove on to Kingman, Arizona to spend the night. We should have about 320 more miles to go tomorrow. That is easy compared to what we have been doing. The end is in sight!

We left Oklahoma City about 9:30 this morning. The biggest difference I see between this trip and ones I take with Jim is timing. He and I wake up so early that we would have been on the road no later than 8:00. But I have decided not to let the later start bother me. Just outside of Amarillo, TX is the Cadillac Ranch. Ten Cadillacs have been buried nose down in a field. It is not only allowed but encouraged for you to spray paint graffiti on the cars. So they never look the same for very long. We took a short detour off I-40 to see the Cadillacs. Unfortunately there were three school buses and numerous other vehicles parked at the ranch entrance. It made it difficult to take photos, but it was a fun stop.





We traveled to Albuquerque, NM today. It was a fairly boring drive like yesterday, until we arrived here and you could see the mountains. Hopefully the rest of the trip will be more scenic. We were going to go to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, but Katie is a little concerned about leaving her stuff in the car. Even if we got a motel room in the park, the timing is off a little. It is about 6 hours to the park from here so we wouldn't arrive there until mid afternoon. Then we still have 7 and a half hours from the park to Los Angeles on Saturday. So I think instead we will drive down to Sedona and do a cavern drive there before continuing west. I'd like to only have around 5 hours of driving left to do on Saturday if possible. We'll see how that works out.

We got a little bit later start today than I would have liked, but we still made it to my goal location of Oklahoma City while it was light out. I wanted to be able to go to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and take some photos. You will probably remember the bombing that took place at the federal building here on April 19, 1995. Twin gates mark the entrances to the memorial grounds, with a reflecting pool between them. Off to the side of the pool are 168 chairs, representing the lives ended on that day. Included are 19 smaller chairs for the children who died. It is a beautiful memorial to a tragic event that affected so many in this area.







We decided to spend the night here in Oklahoma, but I did at least continue on to the west side of town so hopefully we won't be dealing with much traffic in the morning. Now I just need to look at the route and see where we want to end up tomorrow.

So far so good with the trip - we had a little rain on the drive but mostly the overcast day allowed us to go without the air conditioner, which definitely helps with the gas mileage. Speaking of gas, we haven't paid above $3.69.9 yet. I know that will change when we hit California, but for now I will enjoy the savings.

Katie and I were out running errands today and I noticed a spider on the windshield of the car as I was driving. At first I thought it was on the outside of the car, but no such luck. It traveled up the windshield to my sun visor. Now, if you think people who text and drive are dangerous, you haven't seen me trying to capture a spider before it lands on my lap! Fortunately the stoplight turned red, and Katie handed me a wipe to squish it. The spider was having none of that and instead dropped onto the seat beside me. As I was squealing with disgust I noticed the man in the next car smirking at me. If I could have gotten my hand on the spider, it would have ended up flying out my window and into his car.

By now the light had turned green, so I crossed the intersection into the restaurant where we had planned to eat lunch. Opening both the car doors on my side of the car, I could not spy the spider. I did see the single strand of a web in the back seat and brushed at it. All of a sudden a spider came sliding quickly down a different strand and out of the car. An escape artist! But at least he was gone.

On the drive to our next destination I saw a tiny spider crawling up my side window. I could almost hear it saying, "Momma, momma". Guess our "he" spider was probably a "she" spider. How many eggs do they lay anyhow?