Heading West!

Our longest visit home (but what seemed like the shortest) inevitably came to an end; the Air Force was calling us west. So we packed up Jonathan's truck with our stuff (and really. . . how did we get so much stuff?!), grabbed Oskar, and hit the road for a 3 day trek to Las Vegas. First day: Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. . .

Oskar was the navigator for the first day. "Where we going guys?!"

Crossing the Mighty Mississippi. . . we're officially "out west!"

And Oskar was over the trip by this point. . .

Entering Kansas, the longest, most boring state in the U.S. I'm sorry if anyone from Kansas reads this, but you have to admit. . . there is NOTHING in Kansas.

This is the extent of what we saw in Kansas: fields and wind turbines. That. is. it.

Day one went quickly, and we made it all the way to Hays, Kansas before stopping for the night. The next morning, we got up and hit the road again, driving through an even MORE boring part of Kansas (is that possible?) before finally reaching Colorado.

We made a stop in Denver to visit one of Jonathan's friends before heading into the Rocky Mountains.

We ran into some crazy weather and then an accident that forced us off of I-70 and up a steep mountain road with NO RAILING along the side. I was too scared to even take pictures.

Because of the factors listed above, we only made it to the edge of Colorado on our second day, stopping in a little town called Fruita. It wasn't until the next day that we realized that stopping here was a good choice; there was absolutely NOTHING for 106 miles past that point. Utah is literally a wasteland. . .

By the third day, Oskar was completely over it. I think he was beginning to think we were going to drive every day for the rest of his life.

But can you blame him? There wasn't a whole lot to see in Utah. . .

Although even MORE inclement weather made for some interesting scenery for awhile. . .

Blink-and-you'll-miss-it: We were in Arizona for 23 miles.

And then, FINALLY. . . NEVADA!

Oskar was still not impressed, but the Nevada sun got to be too hot for him, even inside the air-conditioned truck. He gave up on sleeping ON the pillow and crawled underneath it to get some shade.

In my mind, I pictured Nevada to be flat and ugly. While I wouldn't exactly call it pretty, I was pleasantly surprised by the mountains.

We finally exited the interstate, popped over a hill, and there it was: Las Vegas. . . covered in haze and smog.

Welcome to Las Vegas. Bluh. We later found out that the local weatherman called this a "cool down." Yuck.

After arguing with billeting about losing our reservations, we finally got settled into an off-base, pet-friendly hotel. And not a moment too soon. My poor almost 8-months pregnant body was rebelling against the 3 day car trip. I had cankles (read: my calf and ankle merged into one body part) and my toes looked like baby carrots (according to Jonathan). It didn't help that I had cuts on the top of my feet from trying to break in a new pair of sandals. If you only saw this picture of me, wouldn't you think I weighed 200 pounds? Gross.

But anyways, we made it here safe and sound and in one (slightly larger) piece. Now the real adventure begins. . . house hunting!