Heading West

We had plans to go to Chicago.  Then the dust bowl hit Amarillo.  We decided that although we want to experience Chicago, we really just wanted to be somewhere with beautiful weather.   So California was our solution. 

 We decided to leave at night so Finn could sleep while we drove to Albq. I said we were headed to California via Hell on account of the nasty wind along the way...

 Finn did not sleep after all.   So he was very tired the next day.  Tosh worked and we did this...

 And this...

 Then we headed to Arizona.  We stopped in Kingman for the night.  We had a late night stop at In-N-Out...

 The hotel was a SpringHill Suites.   It was crazy nice for the price...

 We brought the magic clock...

 The first couple of nights were actually kind of rough.  Finn is a great traveler.  He has always been a night owl and this was our first trip with his new early bird ways.  Finn staying up past his new early bedtime does not work.    The time change had him off too.  The clock was a life saver because after a couple days he wasn't waking at 4:45 local time.

 Our final ride to Santa Monica he was pooped and couldn't keep his eyes open...

 Just as we hit the Mojave Desert...

Our check engine light came on.  We were able to get it looked at as we were in a town just before a stretch of nothing.

Luckily, it was not something that kept us from driving. But it was something these guys couldn't fix.  So it headed to a dealer as soon as we arrived to Santa Monica.  The perk is we took it on Saturday and since they can't look at it until Monday, they kept it and we save the parking fee at the hotel.   That will be the brightside.

We got into LA and the traffic is always surprisingly bad.   Tosh said, "It would probably be the same difference as driving backwards."  The closer in miles we got the length in hours grew.    

After we arrived at the hotel, we were eating in the lobby.  A basketball game was on.   It was the LA Clippers...at the Staples Center for a play off game...oh...so that explains some of the traffic :)  

This was not our first time to be somewhere busy and not meant to be.  We have a history of it, in fact.  Here is our list: Austin during SXSW two times, Austin during ACL, Sea World during spring break.  We can add another one to our list Santa Monica, but I will share that in another post.