Photos from our trip home
We spent 4 days driving 4600km from Ontario to California. We averaged about 8 hours of driving a day. View the whole set on Flickr
4600 km to home
Day 1 – Ontario, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois
1:30pm
Left New Hamburg, Ontario. Very cold and driving conditions between London and Sarnia were terrible. Looking forward to getting out of the snow!
Leaving home! Ontario Driving
5:30-6:30pm
Legally imported the Santa Fe into the USA. They didn’t charge us any duty. We got the feeling they were giving us a break.
Parker hates the car. 8 hrs a day makes it even worse.
11:59pm EST
New Years #1 on the EST side of the time zone at Donaldson, Indiana. We stopped to take a quick picture.
New years 1 Eastern Standard Time.
11:59pm CST
New Years #2 Stopped just south of Chicago to count down New Years #2 this evening. We are tired and want to finda place to crash.
New years 2 Central Standard Time.
1:30am
We got a “pet-friendly” room at Motel 6, Joilet. This room is so gross I almost don’t want Parker to sleep in it. We think we got lice.
Day 2 – Illinois, Missouri
12:00pm
Slept in (as always). Leave our room in Joilet, IL and head south on I-55 for St.Lous. Jesse is excited to listen to the NHL Winter Classic game between the Redwings and the Blackhawks on the radio. The game was being played at Wrigley field just north of us in Chicago.
4:30pm
Alton, Illinois – life size Worlds Tallest Man Robert Wadlow statue. We starting finding neat places to stop using roadsideamerica.com
Christen with the World's Tallest Man
Jesse with the World's Tallest Man
Us and Robert Wadlow - he was 8'11"
5:00pm
St. Louis Arch. Already dark so too hard to get a great picture, but the Arch is much bigger than we thought. It is beautiful at night with the lights of the city.
St. Louis Arch
9:55pm
Jefferson, MO. Christen pulled over for “not yielding to a stationary emergency vehicle with lights on.” Apparently, in most states you have to move into the left hand land if you are passing a cop car on the right shoulder. $130 driving lesson. Sorry no photos of this!
12:25am
Gas light is on, we’ve gone 570km on one tank. We fuel up our entire tank for only $22. The gas was $1.33 a gallon.
12:45am
Topeka, KS – Stop for the night at the Best Western. We are paranoid that we have lice from last nights crash at the seedy Motel 6.
Day 3 – Kansas, Colorado
11:00am
Leave hotel after waffles for breakfast. It’s a warm day of about 12 degrees Celsius. Lots of sunshine. We drive on the I-70W through Kansas where we saw lots of flat land and rolling hills. We bypassed the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, Prairie Dog World and other oddities. There’s lots of signs with bible verses, only country music and conservative Christian programs on the radio.
Kentucky windmills and hay
Windmills in Kentucky
9:00 pm
Arrived in Denver, CO. Drove just beyond it to stay at LaQuinta Motel in Wheat Ridge. We can’t see the mountains yet. There aren’t many lights here in Wheat Ridge – no street lights to illuminate the roads. A quick walk with Parker and and lights out by 10:00pm.
Colorado sunset
Day 4 – Wyoming, Utah
10:00am
We had planned to drive across the mountains today, but the highway report says it’s icy and snow tires or chains are required. We decide not to take our chances and head north on Hwy 125 for the I-80W in Wyoming. Hopefully we’ll still see mountains.
2:00pm
Laramie, WY we see our first bison in the field. The rest of today is a snow storm and tediously long.
8:30pm
Salt Lake City, UT – Exhausted, sleep at LaQuinta Motel and Denny’s for dinner
Day 5 – Utah to home!
11:00am
Amazing mountains surrounding us in Salt Lake City. 11.5 hour drive ahead of us until home.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt flats dessert, Utah
Salt flats dessert, Utah
Nevada sunset
7:30pm
Reno, NV – The biggest little city. We just drove the man drag to see the lights, then got a quick bite and head to cross the border into California. We drove through Lake Tahoe which was absolutely stunning. Can’t wait to come back here and ski.
Reno, Nevada
11:00pm
Arrive home in Cupertino.
View the whole set on Flickr if ya want.
Categorized as Life
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Parker got ticked! | J and C in California
[...] been one crazy month. Between the cross-continental trip, car accidents, surgery and multiple traffic tickets we thought we had seen our fill of drama for [...]
wow! ever cool. i’ll definately be checking out the flickr full set. :)
which was ur faverite place??
I think Salt Lake City and Nevada were my faves.
A friend and I plan to leave for cali from stayner ontario in a week. did this route completely avoid toll routes? any advice? ha thanks.
Robin.
Hi Robin.
I think tolls were maybe $20 total. Just bring some USD. The cheap gas in the mid west made up for it. :)
Good luck!