The trip concludes...

It took me a month longer to write about my trip than took me to drive it. I'm finally going to finish it even though most of you aren't even looking at my blog anymore.

So we start the second day driving through the rest of Missouri and into...

Oklahoma

We weren't in Oklahoma for a long time. The state didn't do much to distinguish itself in our short trek though. The only thing that jumped out at me was Oklahoma City. Thinking that a terrorist attack actually happened there was crazy. This is a midsize city in the heart of America. It didn't look like the sort of place that a terrorist attack could happen. It made me think about how shocking it must have been for the people that live there. Oh, Oklahoma also has tolls on its highways. That took us by surprise.

Texas

Texas is big. We mostly drove through portions that had nothing but farms... gigantic farms. These things went on for miles and as far as the eye could see. I saw my first oil rig in person. By the time we left the state they were no longer a novelty. In Amarillo we saw the self proclaimed second largest cross in the western hemisphere. You could see it from miles away. It's a gigantic white cross. From the time we entered the state we kept seeing billboards for a Free 64 oz. Steak*. The * stated that you had to eat the steak in one hour for it to be free. Louie and I decided to pass on the challenge.

New Mexico

We weren't in the state for 1/10 of mile when we stopped at the first rest stop right across the border. The first thing I saw when I walked up to the restrooms was a sign warning us about snakes and scorpions. I knew I was getting close to home. This was one of the most interesting states that we passed through. We didn't realize it on the first day in the state because it got dark pretty soon after we entered and we couldn't see much. We ended up stopping in Albuquerque for the night. The second day tally was 900 miles. We woke up Monday morning for the third and final day of the trip and took off around 9 a.m. It was great knowing this was the last day and it was also baseball's Opening Day. New Mexico has to be one of the most undeveloped states in the country. There was nothing but desert and mountains most of the way. Gas stations came every 40 miles or so. People live out in the middle of nowhere. Literally! They'll just stick a trailer in the desert 10 to 20 miles away from anything. Phone and electic wires are run from the highway out to the house or trailer. I can't imagine living like that. I recommend that everyone drive through New Mexico at some point in their life. It's beautiful. The mountains, the miles of nothingness, and the sunsets are amazing.

Arizona

I'm home! It was very exciting to enter the last state in our journey. Once again, we stopped at a rest stop just over the border and saw another sign warning us about critters. We put the Diamondbacks game on the radio on kept on driving. I can't tell you how different Northern Arizona is from the southern portion of the state. It's a lot of forest and snow capped mountains. We could see a huge snow capped mountain in Flagstaff when we were still 60 miles away. It was so cool to see the mountain get bigger and bigger as we got closer. We made our way down the mountain and kept driving to Tempe. You could just feel it getting hotter and hotter as we decended down the mountain. We finally arrived in Tempe a little after 2 p.m. Louie and busted our asses to unload the truck and get the TV set up in time for the NCAA Championship game at 5 p.m. We were in front of the TV with beer and Boston Market in time for the tip-off.

It was a long trip but I'm glad that I did it. Driving across the county isn't something most people get a chance to do in their lives. Granted, we did it so fast that we didn't get to stop and check out anything. That's OK though. There weren't too many times during the trip that I thought I wanted to stop. The lasting impression for me will be the remote areas where you can drive for 20-30 miles and see nothing. That's totally opposite of what I was used to in Northern Virginia. It's amazing to see how big the county is and think about what people's lives are like in different parts. We're all Americans in this county but people are so different from state to state.

In my next post I'll update you on what I've been up to since I got out here.