On August 15, the final approval was given and seemingly endless paperwork was signed, and we became owners of a house. We in Michigan and the house in southern California.
August 16 the moving company came by and moved everything out. While the guys were loading, we talked with the driver, who recommended taking route 80 across the states, and then making a left by Salt Lake City to route 15 which goes right by our house in California.
They had everything loaded by mid-morning, just before heavy rains came in.
We figured, let's get out of here. So, after lunch at Arnie's restaurant and a stop by the bank, we hit the road with the goal of getting around Chicago before rush hour. By that evening we were in Davenport, Iowa.
The next day we crossed Iowa and most of Nebraska - at times boring, at times beautiful. That evening we spent the night in Sidney, Nebraska, a stop for the pony express. I couldn't imagine what it was like to make that trip on horseback, or even worse, covered wagon. I was thankful for speed limits of 75 mph.
Western Nebraska into Wyoming was a big change with low mountains and buttes raising up.
For hundreds of miles, we saw signs to stop at Little America, so we had to stop there! I remember stopping there fifty years ago on a family trip with my folks. It hadn't changed much, but it was a break on a long stretch of nothing highway. On those long stretches, audio books helped pass much of the time.
We then cut into Utah.
The mountains were beautiful going into Salt Lake City. We also passed a brush fire near a mountain pass.
Driving into town, we stopped by Temple Square and saw the Mormon Temple. Thinking we'd go in for the evening organ recital or maybe even the choir practice, we started to look for a parking place. Seeing that people were dressed up, we looked at ourselves (after driving through Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah) we decided not to go. After trying to get to the Great Salt Lake with no luck, we made the left turn onto route 15 and went on down to Provo.
After driving through valleys of lavender fields in Utah which were set in beautiful mountain country, things started getting hot in a corner of Arizona we drove through.
Crossing the Mojave desert at noon, temps were up to 110 degrees! Seeing Las Vegas on the horizon, we thought it would be a good place for a break and lunch. After driving down the strip, we stopped at an In and Out fast food restaurant, figuring we'd be in and out in no time. Ha! There were hundreds of people in that place.
Finally, getting our burgers, we set out again, figuring to get out of that town. Hitting the road again, we got caught in a huge freeway traffic jam heading to LA, and it took us two hours to go fifteen miles. At the Nevada-California boarder, we managed to get off at a place called Primm and got a room for the night at the Primm resort. It was nice that they had an outlet mall as part of the resort which gave another option of things to do beside the casino.
Getting an early start next morning you'd never guess that there had been a huge traffic jam on the 15, like the day before. We moved right along through the desert and into Death Valley. Once again, we had seen signs for hundreds of miles for Peggy Sue's 50's Diner. So when we got to Yermo, California, we stopped there for breakfast. It was really like out of the 1950's, but the food was good.
While having breakfast, we met four guys from Durban, South Africa, who were traveling around the west coast on Harley-Davison motorcycles.
More mountains in California, but we began to recognize places we'd been before, and by noon, we made it to Murrieta. We called our realtor and stopped by to pick up the keys to our house. We'd made it!!
After getting the water and electric turned that afternoon, we were able to spend our first night in our own home - on a blow-up air bed. It took another five days for our furniture to catch up with us, but it got there in good shape. We thanked the driver for his good recommendation of taking route 80 west, and then the left turn at route 15. That worked just fine.
And guess who was waiting for us in California...
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