Across the Country III

In case anybody was wondering, we made it to Utah.  But before we go too long without making a post about our journey, I’d figure I’d better do it now.  Five days it took us to cross the country, and roughly about 2500 miles passed by along the way.  Honestly, it didn’t feel as long as the previous TWO times we’ve done it (I know, you’d think this would be getting old by now).  I never imagined we would have traveled as many miles as we have in our short time, but we’re hoping sometime soon we’ll pick a spot and call it our home for the long run.  We’re in Salt Lake City now, and while we don’t know if this is the place (even if it is the land of Zion, aka the Promised Land), we’re happy to be here and we’re going to make it the best we can.  But enough about that, let’s talk about how we got here!

There it is… the Traveling Sellers caravan!  We picked up this twelve foot trailer from a friend of a friend and it pulled behind our newly purchased ’06 Chevy just fine.  Sucked the gas down faster than we could put it in, with the trailer full of all of the use(less)ful stuff we’ve acquired in the past couple of years, but the Trailblazer did just fine, even at the top of the Rockies in Colorado.  The first night, we stayed in Tennessee, after a 20 hour drive-sleep-drive-sleep night, with a lot of cold, rainy rest stops along the way.  Got to see Uncle Andy and Aunt Theresa, which was superb.  One of these days maybe all of the extended family will be within a short drive, maybe… hopefully, but for now it was great to see them, even if just for a night. 

The next day we got stuck in traffic outside of St. Louis, but took the time to stop and check out the Gateway Arch and the Big Muddy river for a minute. 

There was a defining moment along the way, in the museum under the arch, Adam Michael had his first drink of nectar from the heavens.  That is, he enjoyed his first taste of Mountain Dew.  Thanks to this blog, he’ll always remember when and where he was when he first tasted the addiction my father passed to me.

After that, we climbed into the tightly packed space pods and rode the arch to the top for a fine view of St. Louis and the road to the west.

The boys were mesmerized by the view, lying down to put their noses on the glass and glance down at the sickening height, with tiny cars moving about far below them.  The line to go up was pretty ridiculous, since it appeared short but didn’t move for about an hour, but the view at the top was pretty cool.

Then it was to Uncle Shane’s Farm in Brookfield, MO where the Miller family find’s residence these days.  There was Uncle Shane, Aunt Laura, Cousins Wyatt, Josie, Mo, Row, and Liam (aka, Miller #5 as Josh calls him).  Along with an assortment of other domesticated mammals and birds.  Always a fantastic time on the Miller farm, so we stayed a day and took some time off from the road to hang out.

Paul and Morgan enjoyed some organically grown, all natural, free range eggs, produced by happy Missouri chickens, fed off of only the most premium slop and garbage scraped off of the Miller family’s dinner plates.

Then it was off through Nebraska and into Wyoming where we stayed in Cheyenne for a night before dropping down through Colorado to Dinosaur National Monument.  We had promised Paul we’d stop along the way (hoping to get his mind off of leaving Maryland), so we checked out all the dinosaur bones for a few minutes.

 Here he is with a wall of rock and real dinosaur bones, carved out of the mountain with the visitors center built on top.  Very cool.

After that we came through the mountains and landed in the valley that the Mormons built.  For me personally, about the time we got to Wyoming it started to feel right, being back amongst the mountains and the overall feel of the west.  While we’re not technically “home” in the sense that Montana might feel, we’re as close as we may be for a while, and it feels good to be back.  So stay tuned for more from the, eh… Salt Lake Sellers?  I guess?