The 4 day drive from San Diego to Minnesota

Well I always said, "when we get to the driving part of this move, that's going to be fun", and thanks to our Lord, it was. Each day was a new adventure and by His providence, all went well and we made it safe and not to tired... but our first night here, we all slept over 10 hours!

So Day 1 was Sunday April 11th, and after Tom and I, Tom is Melissa's dad and myself, Tom and our best friend Kevin Hovell each drove, me in the Uhaul, Tom in our van and Kev in the Subaru. So anyway, after Tom and I dropped off Melissa, Keenan and Melissa's mom Lisa at the airport for their "quick" 3 hr. plus airline flight, we had to pack up the rest of our things, which didn't fit in the truck, so the van was full, as was the Subaru, my road bike couldn't find inside, so it had to ride on top of the Subaru, but it was a great help as I was leading the caravan and looking back in my mirrors to see if Kev was still there. We left a little later than I had hoped, but we left!

We had lunch at In-n-out in El Cajon, so I could have one more double-double before MN. We ended up in Anthem, AZ, which is just north of Phoenix. A great drive, kinda boring in SW Arizona, but it is the desert.

Day 2, WIND. We had a great drive up from Anthem to Flagstaff, climbing some 7000 ft and we saw some snow. Once we hit Flagstaff we headed east on I-40 for a long couple of days. And we hit wind... lots of it as it was moving from south to north and tended to push the Uhaul back and forth on the road. Needless to say we were all exhausted as we ended up in Tucumcari, NM as we ended our day at 9pm. We also had lunch at Burger King on Day 2.

Day 3, more wind as we moved from Tucumcari, thru Texas, seeing one of the largest free standing crosses in the USA and once we had lunch in Elk City, Oklahoma and had our "manly man" sandwich, which was full of pork, sausage and ham all smothered in BBQ sauce, it was north from OKC on the I-35 up to Wichita and then a little NE as ended up in Emporia, KS.

Overall a great day and not as tough driving as Monday, especially once we turned north and had the winds at our backs.

Day 4, we left early from Emporia and made it thru KC by 10 and drove thru a great section of NW Missouri up towards Iowa. This part really reminded me of Oregon and Washington. We had lunch at Red Robin in West Des Moines, yes that makes it four days of some meat for lunch, but they were each so good! We rolled across the border and into MN around 3:30 and ended up in Tom and Lisa's driveway at 6:15 to a cheering house and were so thankful to be "home".

Enjoy the pictures.

Moving Day

So I know it's been a little while, but it takes time to get adjusted, more so than I realized, but I know I need to update you all on all that we've been up to, which is A LOT. Here is a quick worded post, mainly pictures, of all of our friends from Pacific Hope who came and helped us pack up and say their final good bye... for now at least. Needless to say, we could not fit all of our stuff into the 17' truck, so it soon became Christmas as we were able to give away our crib, our 7' fake Christmas tree, which we have had since our wedding and many other things, all of which was appreciated and taken with excitement.

Thanks to all who came and helped, especially to Hoop and Christian, who saved us over $450 by not allowing me to rent a trailer... but instead just packed our truck FULL! You'll see....

Final bike ride with the boys in San Diego..

So I was able to have a final good bike ride before heading out to MN and it was a great time, there were 4 others, Kev, Christian, Hoop and Rafael who came along as we toured Rancho Sante Fe up into Encinitas, where we stopped off and visited the Qualls boys. After making it to the coast, it was a great ride back down the coast to our final climb of the inside of Torrey Pines state beach. It is always a tough climb, but thankfully I felt great throughout as we finished at 40 miles total. Here are some pics, from before and after... notice the one where we are praying beforehand and how Keenan is participating... makes Miss and I so proud!