Road Trippin' (in the USA)

Jack and I made the long trip to New Mexico this past week. We left Raleigh, NC on Sunday, November 28th and trucked down I-40 to Winston Salem in order for Jack to meet his precious niece, KyLee. The car was stuffed to the gills and riding low but it made the trip more interesting :)!

This was the back tire loaded down with all the stuff!

This was the front tire, notice the difference in the suspension! HA!

Wowzas! We were cram packed!

Jack with KyLee! Almost a month old in this picture.

 After a brief visit in WS we were south bound to Atlanta to spend the night with my parents. We enjoyed some Sunday night football and a biscuit breakfast the next morning. We hit the road on Monday morning around 6:30 am (just in time for rush hour traffic in Atlanta!) and sat on GA-400 for an hour before we made it to I-20 east bound towards Dallas. Jack was able to sleep through all of AL and some of MS.

Yes I took this picture while driving because Jack was...

doing this :) And...I took this while driving as well.

Then we made it to Mississippi (that's fun to type) and it started raining.

We stopped at the MS welcome center in order to grab us a free coke...bad news, only serving coffee! Bummer. We changed drivers just over the LA border and we continued our trek to Dallas.

Thankful Jack was driving at this point! I think he was happy, too.

Our little travel mate, Jade. Had a nice, comfy spot next to the driver almost the whole time. She handled the trip so well.

I kept myself busy working on these while Jack drove. He helped out quite a bit.

Finally made it to Texas!!

We sure were happy about that!

After arriving in the city and attempting to use our Google map directions we discovered we were lost and that the directions were not sufficient. We stopped at a gas station and bought a map of the city and found our own route to our hotel. We got to the hotel and ran inside asking about our reservation for Galloway. The lady was nice but told us she had no reservation for us. Hmmm. Jack hopped on the computer and realized our reservation was for Comfort Inn, not Fairfield Inn where we were standing. Oops! We drove down the street a bit further and ran inside and asked about a reservation for Galloway. Again, the lady was nice and smiled but said she had no such reservation. HUH? We discovered Comfort Suites is indeed different from Comfort Inn. If you've never visited Texas before it's something to note that it has these feeder roads that only go one direction on either side of the highways and we noticed that the Comfort Inn we were looking for was up the feeder road behind us in the wrong direction. Navigating our way down the feeder road, looping around in 1 of gazillion "spaghetti junctions" of Dallas,we were able to find our way to the Comfort Inn. Thankfully this one did, indeed, have our reservation. Shew!

We also got to enjoy a beautiful sunset as we headed into Dallas...before we got lost, hehe.

No wonder we got lost in this crazy city!! Look at all those roads!

After a restful night we hopped up Tuesday morning and headed out of Dallas towards Santa Fe! The best route across Texas was using a state highway, which was actually pretty fun because it put us out in some very rural areas where we were passing farm upon farm and small town after small town. It was quite enjoyable. We didn't even mind having to slow down to go through each small town. Thankfully the speed limits on Texas highways are comparable to interstates so I was cruising along at about 78 in a 70mph zone.

notice how low the car is sitting, ha!

There were numerous tractor trailers travelings the same route so we were passing them like nobodies business. After rounding one particular trailer I noticed a  cop driving in front of the big rig. I slowed down to 70 and passed the cop. Next thing I know blue lights are in my rearview side mirrors so I pulled over. As the policeman approached the car we saw him inspecting all the stuff crammed into the back of the car and as he came up to the window I smiled sweetly as he told me it appeared to him that I was going a little fast as I came out around the tractor trailer. Woops! He then proceeded to have quite an extensive conversation with Jack and me about the age of the car, the great condition it was in and was wondering where we were headed. We filled him in on our "story" and off he went to run my license. He came back with a warning and told us if we make it to Santa Fe then we deserve to be in a Toyota commercial. For those that don't know, we were driving a 1989 Toyota Camry with only 106,000 miles on it. The cop even asked us if the odometer had rolled over already. NOPE!! :)

we raced a speeding train. we won.

we passed The Big Texan.

But didn't stop to take on the challenge.

 Anyways, we got back on the road and made it to Santa Fe without much of a hitch. There were some pretty awesome views and we even had some left over snow on the ground for part of the drive. It was nice to make it home before nightfall and we even got to enjoy a home cooked meal together! We've been settling in here in Santa Fe. My father-in-law did an amazing job of organizing our kitchen...if only all the other rooms here were organized!! :)

yummy dum dums for the road trip. Jack would surprise me with the flavor and I would have to guess which he had given me. It was fun, anything to keep you occupied on a long drive, right?

We made it to NM!! :)

 

Yet another game we played, we looked for state license plates. We found 36, I think this pic shows 35. We started the game on Monday and it took us until we were in NM to see an NC plate (besides our own). Crazy!

The gorgeous drive up towards Santa Fe.

Home sweet home. 773 Viento Circle. Santa Fe, NM 87501. That's our balcony up top and our two garage doors.