Visiting Iowa, Part 3: The Long Trip Home
Isn’t that how it always is, the trip going back home is so much longer than the one driving to see the people you love? It doesn’t have that same excitement and anxiousness, you’re just there the whole 25ish hours knowing you’re going back to ‘reality’. The trip just went by too fast! At least I have Curtis, he makes my reality so great, it doesn’t feel like ‘reality’. 🙂
4 hours driving through Iowa thinking about how much I’ll miss everyone, and knowing that next time we go back, all this will be white…
Goodbye for now, Iowa!
The 3 good things about this trip: We got to see 2 more Whispering Giant statues, found 9 more letterboxes, and stopped to sleep for the night, breaking up the trip!
Nebraska’s Whispering Giant, #35
After the giant, there was nothing. A lot of nothing. Thank God it rained, or we would have died of boredom. 😉
Wall clouds, resulting in a very heavy rainfall which would have made me pull over, but Curtis kept going!
Getting to the end of the endless state…The sky started to clear. Of course!
Welcome to Colorado!
Waiting for the mountains…
I guess there were storms there too. But the clouds were gorgeous!
Finally: Mountains!
At this point, we were trying to beat the sun to get to our Giant in the daylight. If we could make it that far, we could see it and then drive through Denver at night. If not, we’d have to wait till morning and drive through Denver at 7am Monday…Not desirable!
Thankfully, we made it just in time!
Not only did we see this giant, there were also 2 boxes here!
After this, we were able to make in through Denver with no problems, and since we were still feeling great, we made it all the way to Pueblo, CO before stopping for the night.
The night was too short, and we were on the road again in time to catch the sunrise. We had the choice to hurry home, or stop a lot more for boxes, and of course we chose boxing! We had no reason to rush.
The Ludlow Massacre Memorial.
Enjoying the last bit of colorful Colorado!
And here we are… New Mexico! The parts we drove through were scenic & beautiful!
Saw fields and fields of purple flowers, as well as a couple of pronghorn antelope!
Snow capped mountains in the distance!
See what I mean by scenic?! 🙂
Stopped at a Civil War Memorial in Glorieta, NM
After this, we decided to bypass Santa Fe and Albuquerque during the lunch hour, and took a quiet highway instead. It was worth the extra time!
We’ll take these quiet highways over interstates any day!
After several stops along the way in NM, we finally entered AZ!
By the time we reached Tucson, the sun was setting, and our mountains were looking lovely.
Welcome home!
Our friend Mitch sent us the below picture… the high in Tucson the day we returned. Always nice to get a ‘warm welcome’, right?! 😉
Today I believe it was 107, and our air conditioning was off because I was too cold. (Curtis didn’t even notice!) All this driving was exhausting but we’d do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks, families, for making this a wonderful vacation for us!
