ROADTRiP! Days 10-11: Traveling Home

June 14th: Our last day

We packed up the truck, cleaned the rental house, and waved good bye to our temporary home {which we would permanently live in} and drove away. 

Again, we started the day with food by eating Fatburger for lunch

Diesel decided it was his turn to ride shotgun

Cody made a quick stop at SPROUTS To get a few more snacks for the road & a few California Avocados, Lashes waited anxiously for his return

While deciding whether or not we wanted to go to a dog park or not, I received an interesting phone call from the management company that takes care of the rental house.  The agent told me that the maids said the house was trashed.  “There are pee stains on the couch & bed, there is dirt everywhere, it’s completely trashed!”  so he was on his way to the rental to take photos and he wanted us to know that we might be charged more money on top of our pet deposit!  I told him that we were only 14 min away so we’d meet him there because I Knew it was not trashed.  When we were 3 minutes away he called us back and stated he didn’t know why the maids claimed what they did.  There was a normal amount of pet hair on the floor {but that’s why we pay a pet deposit} and it was a drool stain on the comforter {which can be washed} and the stain on the couch had been there the entire time, so everything is okay, no need to stop by.  Well, I was pissed!  What if we weren’t driving, but flying… I felt like this was a total scam to try and get more money!  After that fiasco, we decided to drive home & not stop at a dog park since we needed to make up for lost time. 

See, perfect & CLEAN!

Every vacation we go on we buy sun glasses, this is what we collect.  Cody already had his {thanks to Ian!}

but I was in dire need, yes DiRE!  So the 1^st gas station we stopped at, Cody bought me a cute pair

I was surprised at how close we actually were to Mexico's border

Once we made it through the check point in Arizona {yes, another check point, because that makes sense!} we let the dogs have their first potty break, but they did NOT want to get out of the truck, why?  BECAUSE IT WAS A DRY 104 DEGREES!

Diesel jumped out & jumped right back in, where Lashes just laid straight down on the sand/dirt, like she was pretend fainting.  After we laughed for about 5 min I got to take a close up shot of the giant windmills I’ve been obsessing over

Still in Arizona we started driving by HUGE cacti, and no, Houston does NOT have theses

So naturally, we stopped and shot a few photos

Be careful though, this was in Cody’s flip flop, OUCH!

Once back on the road we saw this {lets just say if you were playing the alphabet game, this strip of road would end it in less than 5 minutes, haha}

Once the sun set we knew we had to think of something to stay awake and motivated

and my old high school friend told us we HAD to go to Eegee's and get their slushy, which we did, here is proof:

And that thing was SHUUU-GAAA-REEE!  And it did just the trick! 

*Tip:  If your driving partner is sleeping and you start to get bored, listen to the comedy channel on Pandora, it helps A LOT!

June 15th: Home Stretch!

We barely made any stops, just for gas, potty breaks, & to feed the dogs, we were on a mission to get home!  We actually got home 2 hours earlier than expected.  Smelly & starving we drove straight to Gringo’s Mexican restaurant to pick up to-go {neither of us was going to lift a finger to prepare a meal}.  We ate dinner, slept, woke up, unload the truck, downloaded the lovely photos you’ve seen throughout these post, and slept some more!

When all was said and done, we had driven a total of 3800.6 miles and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

This trip was by far my all-time favorite vacation, the only thing I would have done differently was include a few more days in each city, but that’s about the ONLY thing I would have done differently.  We are definitely Californians at heart and there will be more trips made to the sunny city for sure, but I would like to say a special thank you to my wonderful husband:

"Cody, thank you for driving the majority of the way, thank you for trusting me to plan this trip, & thank you for being you.  You made this trip amazing, and I wouldn’t have wanted to make this journey with anyone else, I love you very much."

~Love,

Jeannie.

Enough with the sappy stuff!  If you’re interested in checking our maps, here you go:

Our Actual Route to California:

 https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=216583424838974774130.0004c509cf3373e9a35f8&msa=0&ll=35.924645,-107.006836&spn=26.853428,39.331055

Our Actual Route Home:

{Coming soon, sorry!}