Last summer, Becky and I took a road trip in her new Infinity QX 50. The trip spanned thousands of miles and traveled through numerous National Parks. We worked our way from Colorado, where we were living, to Utah and the Arches National Park, Bryce National Park and eventually to the Grand Canyon, where, by mistake’ we were able to visit both the North and South rims. Our trip also took us to Las Vegas where we celebrated Becky’s birthday with a show and delicious dinner, and then to California and Highway 1 up the coast detouring to Sacramento where we visited my family. From there, we returned to the coast making our way through the Redwoods, up to Seaside, Oregon and then to Portland where we visited friends and Becky’s sister Del, who came down from Canada to see her friends and oh yea, say hello wo us. From Portland we turned East making our way to Boise, Idaho where I attended my 51st High School Reunion (it was supposed to be 50 but COVID delayed things a year). Then we traveled to Twin Falls to visit my sister and Laramie, Wyoming where we spent the night with Becky’s daughter and her husband. Leaving Laramie, we journeyed back to Colorado and home. All-in-all it was a wonderful adventure, the end bringing tears to our eyes. The trip took us through 10 states, and we put thousands of miles on Becky’s new car. What a way to break it in!
Becky had just bought her new Infinity QX 50 before we began our great adventure. We had to learn how to use all the bells and whistles while we drove, but it was a great car, well-suited and comfortable for such a long trip. We broke it in right!
During our trip, I wrote a journal of our adventure, which I will share in the blogs to follow. All blogs pertaining to this adventure will be titled “Becky & Harold’s Great Adventure of the West,” the place we visited following a colon. It is impossible to capture the grandeur of our great country in words and pictures, as it is also difficult to express the warmth and friendliness that we received from most of the people we met. It reaffirmed by faith in people and helped me to understand that people are people and deep inside their psyche, they have a longing to be nice. It is the trappings of society that all too often lead them astray. At any rate, I hope my words, our pictures and videos express the joy we experienced as we embarked upon our great adventure of the Western United States.
A picture of me typing in my journal at the end of the day.
Our plan was to stop at roadside rest areas to fix lunch, saving a little money. We bought a cooler that plugged into the car and kept things cool without the use of ice. It worked pretty well. Here I fix a sandwich at a rest area in Colorado.
If you are wondering why I waited almost a year to make these posts, the reason is that we really enjoyed our visit to Sacramento. Having visited Sacramento and my many cousins during the summers growing up, some of my fondest memories happened in Sacramento. Then, when I was a graduate student at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, I would spend my weekends in Sacramento. One of my dreams was to move back to this area where I could once again visit with family members and relive some of the experiences of my childhood. The birthday party my family threw for Becky sealed the deal not just for me, but Becky as well. We “felt the love,” as they say. When we returned to Colorado around September 10, we began looking for houses in the Sacramento area, put our house on the market, and after a week-long trip back to Sacramento, found a wonderful new home, which we put money down on before returning home. To make a long story short, we found a new home, packed up all our belongings, drove a 26-foot U-Haul with a 16-foot trailer across Wyoming, Nevada and Donner Pass in the dead of winter on clear roads and with sunny skies, all taking place between our return to Colorado around September 10 and our move, which took place January 18. It is almost as if it were meant to be. In the meantime, we started remodeling our new home as soon as we closed on the deal and moved in shortly after arriving in California. We have been busy, but now our remodeling is about done, and I have time to write from my office in our new home located in Rancho Murieta. Now I have time to share with you the adventure that brough us to sunny California.
This is a picture of my office in our new home. It is here that I research and write my blogs.