Road Trip Across America...again

For the 4th of July John and I flew to Utah for the Ashdown Family Reunion in Cedar City! Our flight from Providence left an 1 1/2 late and we barely made our connection in Charlotte, NC. We had just enough time to go to the bathroom, grab some Quiznos, and run to the terminal. When we got there we found out they were waiting an extra 10 minutes for us.

The family reunion was awesome. It started at John's Grandma's house. I met a lot of extended family that I did not know and got to know other family members a lot better. We camped at Panguitch Lake for 2 days in our hammocks. It was our first successful camp out in our hammocks. It was more comfy than lying on the ground, but getting into a sleeping bag in a hammock in the dark... that's tricky.

Saturday morning we said our goodbyes, packed up the car (we left one in Utah), and started the long drive 50 hour drive back to Rhode Island.

The sunset @ Panguitch Lake. I forgot to take pictures during the reunion.

In Arizona we had to take a detour because of construction which made us miss a turn off, which delayed us for @ least an hour. We saw a lot of the Navajo Reservation.

We drove through a different part of New Mexico that I had never seen. It was actually kind of pretty and we got to watch a distant thunderstorm.

The splats on the windshield are the remains of ridiculously juicy moths. We went through Texas because we were dropping off John's sister Amelia in Lubbock. We made it to her house around 2 am after 15 hours.

After sleeping on Amelia's couch and floor for a couple hours John and I headed to Dallas. My parents were on their way home from Missouri, so we had dinner at Clark and Janelle's. It was delicious and John got to meet our nephew Ben. We stayed the night at my parent's house and I got to see Josh too!

OKLAHOMA! Now I have the song stuck in my head. Anyway on Monday my Mom joined us. Crystal just got a job in Texas and had to move in a week so we drove my Mom to Rhode Island so she could help Crystal move from Boston.

We stayed the night in Missouri at my brother Jake's house. It was my first time on an army base. During the night Liz's water broke, but we still didn't get to see baby Pace because he finally came out later that afternoon. Unfortunately we didn't have time to wait for him.

Illinois. Nothing exciting happened here. Just a  bunch of farms.

Indiana. Holy road construction on I-70! It was ridiculous and we got stuck in traffic.

Ohio. There was a huge thunderstorm that my Mom had the privilege to drive through. It slowed us down a lot because the rain was so heavy. We decided to drive straight through to RI thinking it's only 20 hours and with 3 drivers that's no problem. But with all the delays it was more like 24 hours.

It was dark during Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I drove from 9-1:30 a.m. and was asleep for all of New Jersey.

New York. We paid $13 to cross the George Washington Bridge. You are lame NYC! Had we known we would have gone around. There was no traffic because it was 4:30 a.m.

We finally got home around 8 in the morning. I didn't take any pictures of Connecticut because it looks like Rhode Island and I was half asleep. We all took long naps and kind of vegged for the whole day. Needless to say John and I are not driving anywhere anytime soon.