My best friend Lesley asked me if I would help her out by riding with her, her 6 little girls, and the uhaul trailer from El Paso, Texas to Columbus, Georgia. I thought how much fun I would have with Lesley so of course I went. I arrived in El Paso around 9:15 Monday night. I hung out with Lesley and helped her do some last minute packing until 1 o'clock that night. Then we woke up bright and early and headed out the door to get the first leg of our trip done. Which was El Paso to San Antonio. 
We didn't quite make it out of El Paso before Lesley was getting herself pulled over. Yep we had hitched the trailer up wrong. It was hitched up the exact same way the guy at the uhaul place did it but, It was not following state regulations. I think maybe he saw a whole bunch of heads in a SUV pulling a uhaul and wanted to make sure we weren't transporting anyone illegally. She got off with only a warning.
I thought the scenery was very dry and desert looking very much like Arizona. Texas also had the bluest skies. I wanted to get a picture of this tree because I thought it looked cool with the funky thing poking out the top of it. I almost made Lesley swear off the side of the road getting this picture. I tried many times to get a picture of it but, I kept missing.
As Lesley was driving along she noticed that she was getting very low on gas and we had a very long way to go to get to the next gas station (according to the GPS) she pushed a button that showed how much miles worth of gasoline we had left. We pulled into this gas station with 4 miles left. The next closest one was over 20 miles away. This gas station was in a teeny town that wasn't even on the GPS. It was one of the old school pumps with the rotary numbers on it. Thank goodness we ran into it.
This was the hub of the town. The little country store that we got the gas at. It also sold bear traps. There were about 5 old men sitting around drinking coffee hanging out in there.
After 11 hours we made it to San Antonio. We stayed at one of Lesley's friends houses. She had just moved into the house about 3 weeks before and the movers did a number on her stuff. Including the master bed which we happened to be sleeping on. 
At 1 o'clock in the morning the bed made a rumbling noise and collapsed to the ground. Lesley and I didn't know what to do. So Lesley went to investigate. Come to find out that the movers didn't actually put the supports on the king side bed. They but the end ones on but the middle ones were laying on the floor. Then they pushed the bed over so the top and bottom ones were in cockeyed and they didn't screw them in all of the way. We decided to take the bed apart and screw the supports back in. It never happened to us again.
These 3 little girls slept through the whole thing. Lesley and I tried really hard to be quite because we didn't want to wake up the whole house but we were laughing pretty hard.
We spent the next day at Sea World. It was so hot and humid that day. We tried to see as much as we could. The first thing we did was go to the sea lion show. It was really cute.
From closest to farthest: Ava(4), Trista (6) Kassy (10) Bella (8) Aria (2) and Lesley (if I put her age she would kill me)
The stage at the sea lion show.
We also fed the sea lions too.
The baby pup.
The last thing we did that day was go and see the Killer Whale show. It was neat. and the highlight of sea world for me.
There was a 5 month old baby killer whale that followed its mommy around. She would peek her head out every once in a while and even try to do some of the tricks. We were pooped at the end of the day!
We left the next day for Baton Rouge. See how green it was. What a contrast to the dessert. As we are traveling down the freeway in Houston some guy pulls up next to us to tell us that the uhaul trailer door is open. As Lesley is pulling over all I can imagine is all of the stuff that we had lost. Luck for us we didn't loose anything but maybe a few books. We have no idea how long we were traveling with it open. 
The bridge supports over the Mississippi. My favorite picture. Our next stop was in Baton Rouge, LA. It took us about 8 hours to get there. We spent the night in a hotel and got up bright and early for the next leg of our journey. 
The Mississippi. The next stop was in Pensacola, Florida. We had to drive by Biloxi, Mississippi which is where Nate was stationed while he was learning ATC. So it was neat to at least drive past where he had once lived. It took us about 6 hours to get to Florida. Lesley had a lot of fun driving me around and showing me all of the places she lived and hung out as a kid.
The morning after we got there we went blueberry picking. I had never seen blueberries on a bush before. They kind of remind me of grapes how they all bunch up like that. 
Aria picked all of the blueberries she could reach. It didn't matter if they were ripe or not. She would pick them.
Trista got a good stash of blueberries herself.
Boy it was hot and humid out there that morning. I was sticky before we even made it over to the start picking the blueberries. Bella and Kassy were very diligent pickers. All together we picked a little over 4 lbs. And that takes work.
Later on the evening we went to the beach. It was gorgeous. The sand was white and the beach was blue and crystal clear. Earlier that week not far from where we were (just a few hundred feet) they had to clean up tar balls from the shore. I guess they came in that night too. But where we were at was just gorgeous. I collected sea shells and played in the water. It was the perfect weather for it too. There was this really nice breeze and the water was just right.
Maya at the beach. Maya is 4 months old.
Gorgeous right?
We didn't quite make it out of El Paso before Lesley was getting herself pulled over. Yep we had hitched the trailer up wrong. It was hitched up the exact same way the guy at the uhaul place did it but, It was not following state regulations. I think maybe he saw a whole bunch of heads in a SUV pulling a uhaul and wanted to make sure we weren't transporting anyone illegally. She got off with only a warning.
I thought the scenery was very dry and desert looking very much like Arizona. Texas also had the bluest skies. I wanted to get a picture of this tree because I thought it looked cool with the funky thing poking out the top of it. I almost made Lesley swear off the side of the road getting this picture. I tried many times to get a picture of it but, I kept missing.
As Lesley was driving along she noticed that she was getting very low on gas and we had a very long way to go to get to the next gas station (according to the GPS) she pushed a button that showed how much miles worth of gasoline we had left. We pulled into this gas station with 4 miles left. The next closest one was over 20 miles away. This gas station was in a teeny town that wasn't even on the GPS. It was one of the old school pumps with the rotary numbers on it. Thank goodness we ran into it.
This was the hub of the town. The little country store that we got the gas at. It also sold bear traps. There were about 5 old men sitting around drinking coffee hanging out in there.
After 11 hours we made it to San Antonio. We stayed at one of Lesley's friends houses. She had just moved into the house about 3 weeks before and the movers did a number on her stuff. Including the master bed which we happened to be sleeping on. 
At 1 o'clock in the morning the bed made a rumbling noise and collapsed to the ground. Lesley and I didn't know what to do. So Lesley went to investigate. Come to find out that the movers didn't actually put the supports on the king side bed. They but the end ones on but the middle ones were laying on the floor. Then they pushed the bed over so the top and bottom ones were in cockeyed and they didn't screw them in all of the way. We decided to take the bed apart and screw the supports back in. It never happened to us again.
These 3 little girls slept through the whole thing. Lesley and I tried really hard to be quite because we didn't want to wake up the whole house but we were laughing pretty hard.
We spent the next day at Sea World. It was so hot and humid that day. We tried to see as much as we could. The first thing we did was go to the sea lion show. It was really cute.
From closest to farthest: Ava(4), Trista (6) Kassy (10) Bella (8) Aria (2) and Lesley (if I put her age she would kill me)
The stage at the sea lion show.
We also fed the sea lions too.
The baby pup.
The last thing we did that day was go and see the Killer Whale show. It was neat. and the highlight of sea world for me.
There was a 5 month old baby killer whale that followed its mommy around. She would peek her head out every once in a while and even try to do some of the tricks. We were pooped at the end of the day!
We left the next day for Baton Rouge. See how green it was. What a contrast to the dessert. As we are traveling down the freeway in Houston some guy pulls up next to us to tell us that the uhaul trailer door is open. As Lesley is pulling over all I can imagine is all of the stuff that we had lost. Luck for us we didn't loose anything but maybe a few books. We have no idea how long we were traveling with it open. 
The bridge supports over the Mississippi. My favorite picture. Our next stop was in Baton Rouge, LA. It took us about 8 hours to get there. We spent the night in a hotel and got up bright and early for the next leg of our journey. 
The Mississippi. The next stop was in Pensacola, Florida. We had to drive by Biloxi, Mississippi which is where Nate was stationed while he was learning ATC. So it was neat to at least drive past where he had once lived. It took us about 6 hours to get to Florida. Lesley had a lot of fun driving me around and showing me all of the places she lived and hung out as a kid.
The morning after we got there we went blueberry picking. I had never seen blueberries on a bush before. They kind of remind me of grapes how they all bunch up like that. 
Aria picked all of the blueberries she could reach. It didn't matter if they were ripe or not. She would pick them.
Trista got a good stash of blueberries herself.
Boy it was hot and humid out there that morning. I was sticky before we even made it over to the start picking the blueberries. Bella and Kassy were very diligent pickers. All together we picked a little over 4 lbs. And that takes work.
Later on the evening we went to the beach. It was gorgeous. The sand was white and the beach was blue and crystal clear. Earlier that week not far from where we were (just a few hundred feet) they had to clean up tar balls from the shore. I guess they came in that night too. But where we were at was just gorgeous. I collected sea shells and played in the water. It was the perfect weather for it too. There was this really nice breeze and the water was just right.
Maya at the beach. Maya is 4 months old.
Gorgeous right?
Then we drove under this bridge. They have a tradition that goes way back. Whenever the city paints over this bridge the kids come out and tag it all over again within a couple of days it looks like this. We spent the following day in Pensacola just enjoying hanging out with Lesley's family. And we left for our last leg of the trip Monday morning. When Lesley put in the GPS her destination it didn't take into account the time change when it told us the time we were going to be there. So we ended up being a hour late to her walk through of her house. She bought this beautiful 4700 foot home. I cant wait to go back and see what it looks like once she has everything all set up. We spent that night in a hotel room and the following day we went and ran some errands and then The kids and I went back to the hotel room while Lesley closed on her house.
Bright and Early and I mean bright and early (it was 4:30 a.m. and wouldn't of seemed so bad if I would of been able to sleep that night and we wouldn't of stayed up so late to begin with) I had to get up to go home. I left from the Columbus airport at 6:00 in the morning and had a layover in Atlanta and Denver before I made it back to SLC. I was soooo excited to see the kids but really sad to be leaving Lesley. I hope you two enjoy your new home! Thanks for making it possible for me to come out and see you!
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