Road-Trip Wrap-Up

36 days
2,693 miles

4 new states visited (NV, UT, AZ & CO)

8 times Cody wished aloud for his dirtbike

78 times Cody thought about having his dirtbike (ok so this isn't 'confirmed' but I'm sure I'm right!)

4 books read (in 2 weeks! Sydney Sheldon....)

1 bad sunburn = countless bad tanlines

2 new motors

1 new radiator

4 boxers (Boo, Daisy, Doc & Tanner)

2 cats (Alex & Ariel/Rapunzel--name changes daily!)

$3.17= lowest gas price (in Payson, Az)

1 game of rummy won

7 games of rummy lost

1 campfire (teeny tiny, just to say we did it!)

106 ' F average temperature

1 transmission (to come)

And in case you haven't seen it, here's the 'mobile home' Cody created for the trip.

Cody built a platform to sit atop the wheel wells giving us an elevated area for sleeping and storage underneath. When we set up camp for the night, all we needed to do was pull off the boxes you see above, as well as our clothes bags, and our bed was ready to go! Easiest camping set up ever. Tanner had full reign of the backseat while driving and also slept there...except for the nights when we had thunderstorms and used the backseat for the cooler & other boxes. He sincerely appreciated it.

Above is a close-up of just one of Cody's genius ideas. We Cody arranged the underbed storage based on what we would need most often. For example, his hair-cutting kit was put far back because he only needs to use it every two weeks or so. But it's relatively small and neither of us wanted to belly crawl our way in there to get ahold of it. Sooo he attached strings & labeled them so you could just pull the string to get what you needed! Brilliant!

And just in case you want more trip talk...here's more...

Ha! That'd be a good Srabble or Wheel of Fortune word!

It *only* took me 3 tries to get a picture of this sign (took this standing still on top of Hoover Dam, as opposed to the two failed attempts while Cody was driving)!

Got Arizona & Utah on the first try! Ohhhh yyyeaaahhhh! (Since we flew to CO, I didn't get to take a pic of the state border sign...bum...)

Sidenote: my $2 flea market bangles held up. Although the color totally bled out (not on my skin thankfully) and now they're all silver. Oh well! I'm still good with that!

So talk about cooperation here. These horses were swatting flies off eachother. Pat your back and you pat mine! Maybe all horses do this? First time I've seen it, and I thought it was pretty cool!

The desert. Yes, I took this while Cody was drivin' down the highway. Kinda like it though.

Umm,  how cool is this tree? I mean it has a seat ready & waiting! All you need is a good book! Or maybe binoculars since this was at the Grand Canyon after all.

Some clouds. I swear clouds are a purer white outside of Cali. Or maybe long hours on the road plays tricks on your mind....

The town of Happy Jack, Arizona: gas station, restaurant, post office (that little shed in the middle), real estate office and car mechanic all thisclose together! Talk about a small town! Kinda jealous though, gotta admit...

FEEEEED MEEE!!! At our first campsite in Happy Jack we got to watch (& listen to!) a young family of birdies get fed like 8 million times a day. Kind of cool, kind of annoying.

Yep, that says $3.18/gallon. Payson, Arizona. Cute town! Cheap gas! What more could you ask for?

Ok so as barren and 'dead' as the desert is...it's mysteriously beautiful!!!

This is the slap-you-in-the-face image for how bad our first motor was...

Ashley took us to The Olive Bar, she is a fellow olive-lover by the way. Unfortunately they decided to capitalize on their coolness and dedicate a good portion of their shop to a 'more than I wanted to pay' restaurant instead of the tasting room they started out as. But that's ok! They had some pretty cool combos and I grabbed a cool (free) recipe card for grilled corn on the cob--I will post about that later....

This little chickadee loves to have her hair in her face. She took full advantage of this windows down on the freeway situation.

And he says he hates cats....

The inside of the card says, " If you have the thyme, let's get together!" How cute is that? Ok, so a little corny...but I would fall for it!

So the trio here got themselves barracaded in here for multiple reasons. Lucky for them its too hot in Arizona to simply boot the dogs outside.

Boo was such a motherly figure to Ariel/Rapunzel (her name changes daily). Seriously though, she took great care to guard her from Tanner while he learned to be nice to kitties. Ok so he didn't totally learn to be nice, but he made progress!

Since Kyle & Ashley were SO amazing in aiding us with our truck problems (place to stay & resident mechanic?! yeah they're THAT awesome!) we got the oppurtunity to hang out with their cutie-pa-tootie. We wore her out, apparently...

So in an effort to not be a complete bum, I made dinners forKyle & Ashley while we were stranded at their cute home! By the way, she had some AMAZING recipes! Don't worry, I copied them down and will post with pics! Above I'm browning pork for Chili Verde. Soooo good!

And this is one of the many blue bellies Cody caught in various locations on our trip. Kind of cute, huh?

So that's that. Back to real life....