Day 9: This day was the big….exciting…drive through the middle of Kansas.  It was stormy and looked just like what you see on the Weather Channel.  I was just waiting to see people hiding under the underpasses.  You might not know this, but second to tsunamis, twisters scare the crap out of me.  I kept scanning the horizon for twisters, flying houses and enjoyed watching the tumbleweeds roll by.  We decided to skip seeing the biggest ball of twine, and instead headed to the Oz museum.  It was awesome! David had only seen the movie once, about 2 years ago because I made him watch it….At the end of this long day, we arrived in Denver! Going from 85 and sunny in Kansas City to 40 and rain in Colorado.  We got mediocre room service and called it a night

Day 10: Denver!  Although I had never been to Colorado, I always thought I would love it and was the most excited about this part of the trip.  Too bad we didn’t get one of the 300 days of sunshine and were stuck with crap weather.  We did get up early to go for a hike at Eldorado Canyon Park and took the Rattlesnake Gulch and Grizzly Creek Trails.  This was Gracie’s first ever hike and it was gorgeous!  She absolutely loved the climb and being off leash and smelling all the plants and trees.  Since she was still kind of on a hunger strike, I decided that we should get her one of those Angus 1/3 pounders at McDonald’s.  So yes folks, I am now officially one of those people I laughed at and took my dog through the drive through (no she didn’t eat the bun of the fixins).  That night we tried Noodles & Company and continued to feed ourselves with comfort food with a trip to Starbucks.  Note to travelers: The freeway speed limit in Colorado and Utah is 75!!

Day 11: Since the weather wasn’t cooperating in Colorado, we sadly decided to leave for Utah early since it looked good out there.  So we left Denver at 40 and raining, picked up breakfast at the local jewish deli (yummy rasberry rugulah!!) ,drove West to Utah and hit snow in the mountains and then arrived in Moab, Utah for 80 degrees. Talk about extremes!  We made a pit stop in Vail just to see what it’s like, and boy, would I like to have a a house in that ski village- gorgeous!  Now I know why it’s so popular with the richy riches!  We also made a stop in Glenwood Springs for lunch, which apparently has amazing hot springs.  Well, can’t do that with a dog, so next time!  We arrived late that night to Moah and checked into the Apache Motel, where apparently John Wayne stayed.  Fun fact: My dad’s name is John Wayne McNulty LOL

Day 12: We woke up in Moab and were finally able to see what we missed in the dark the night before: Beautiful red rocks all around us!  We took the puppy to Eclectic Cafe for breakfast (yes we ordered her eggs because of course she didn’t eat her food that morning) and then went for another hike.  What’s the name of the trail you ask?  Well it was Negro Bill- yup.  I hope the city either A) named this trail in 1940 or B) pronounces it like how you say black in spanish and not “nee-gro.”  What a fun hike!  We crossed rivers and Gracie loved drinking the fresh water and wading in it too!  3 hours later after we finished, it was time to grab a snack and head into Arches National Park.  We just had to tour this one via car since dogs are not allowed on any of the trails.  We opted for Thai that night (meh….) but redeemed our meal by stopping Jax’s for a fresh baked chocolate brownie ala mode- yum!

Day 13: After another night in Moab at the Apache, we decided to try out the Hidden Valley trail the next morning.  No wonder the name, we couldn’t find it, and had to back track to the visitor’s center for help.  We did find it eventually (the sign was NOT visible from the road) and we had the trail to ourselves.  This one was even tougher and we definitely were scaling the mountain.  We only went for 1 1/2 hours because we had to drive to Salt Lake City that night.  We arrived and were super tired, so we opted for the Cracker Barrel next door to the hotel.  We had actually eaten pretty well so far, so what the hell, why not make it an official road trip and stuff ourselves silly with Southern fried goodness.  I got the apple cinnamon french toast with a side of….wait for it….mac and cheese.  And Dave opted for chicken fried chicken, dumplings and okra.  Tasted good going down, but boy, not so good afterwards!

Day 14 (I hope I am counting correctly….): We checked out of Salt Lake, and on our way to Boise, Idaho, we decided to make a pit stop at Wasatch National Forest.  Out of the way, but totally worth it.  What David regretted to tell me was that this trail was considered “strenuous.”  Not only did we start at 10,000 feet (re: tough to breathe), we climbed another 900.  Gorgeous, but man!  4 hours later, we realized that we did not actually make a loop like we had planned, but took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a different park entrance- oops.  Good thing we had made some friends along the way and were able to get a ride to our car. Our poor pup was pooped and crashed immediately!  Along the way to Idaho, we unexpectedly drove through Wyoming for about 20 minutes and managed to get a crack in our windshield: Thank you Mr. Truck and Mr. Rock.

Day 15: We spent the night before in Boise at the Shilo Inn (only $50!) and ordered fancy pizzas from Flying Pie.  We checked out and made the 6 1/2 hour journey (our final leg) to Portland Oregon.  We arrived last night and were warmly welcomed by my cousin Mark and his wife Jodi with a BBQ (or as Dave says, a “grill out”).  We have officially been in our new home, well, town that is, for one day and so far so good!

We will definitely give more updates about our lives as we try to make it here on the West coast.  I have already been on a bike ride, and took my dog to the park, and had a yummy local beer….this is gonna be fun!

OK so now it’s my time to write about what we have done…and it’s a lot!  So last update, it was Day 4 and we were on our way to Chicago from Kalamazoo, MI….

Day 4: The drive was fairly uneventful.  By the end of that day we had already seen a lot of states: Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois!  We only had a short drive to Plainfield to see my cousin Sean, his wife Heather and their two kids Matthew and Noelle.  Gracie’s hunger strike was in full force and so before we arrived at their house, we had to stop at Petsmart to find some food.  She was scared at first since this was her first visit to the store, but she was happy to sniff around and pick out her bag of food.  We took it that easy that night and stayed in to order head-sized calzones- super yummy of course, but that much cheese was apparently not a good idea for ye olde GI tract.  We took Gracie for run the next morning to get us all moving and a garden snake crossed our path.  I jumped around like a girl which made David laugh.

Day 5: On this day we were headed to Kansas City to visit David’s friend Cate, and instead of driving the more direct through Iowa (what is in that state anyway?), we decided to drive via St. Louis instead.  On the ride we enjoyed another car picnic, witnessed staggeringly low gas prices (~$2.18) and finally made it to the famed arch.  We had heard that the city was poor and crime-ridden, and seeing the dilapidated buildings was something else.  We parked the car for $6 and walked to the arch on the riverside, but the wait to go to the top was 1 1/2 hours, and with an obviously uncomfortable and wiggly dog, we decided to skip it. But hey, we got to see the exciting state of Missouri, which I never thought we would see!

Day 6: After getting settled into Cate’s Dad’s (Rick) place, our Kansas adventure was ready to begin!  They were such nice hosts, even though I had never met them, and David barely knew Cate (they met in Barcelona).  They had the absolute cutest dog named Russell (Rusty for short) who is a shnauzer-pom mix.  The two seemed to get along fairly well even though Miss Priss would get jealous of him… Rick’s house is in Overland Park, which I just loved! Very suburban, but very well planned.  Wide and organized roads, sidewalks everywhere, lots of shopping etc.  Anthony Bourdain (No Reservations!) has a top 12 places you should eat at before you die, and since we never got to El Bulli in Catalonia, Spain, we decided to hit up his suggestion of Oklahoma Joe’s.  And since Kansas City is so famous for its BBQ, we thought this would be a good choice.  It’s in a shopping center, and it’s a quick serve set up, but we probably waited online for 30 minutes.  No prob since the 4 of us took that time to get to know each other better.  Most of you might not know this, but I have been trying to stay away from meat since I returned to the USA.  Well as you can imagine, there were no veggie options at this place.  I just couldn’t do beef or pork, so I opted for an open-faced turkey sandwich with spicy slaw.  Tough to eat, and it reaffirmed my desire to stay veggie.

Day 7: Still in Kansas City….This was one full day.  We started the morning with a jog again, and then it was off to Ingredient for lunch (mark my word, this place will be nationally franchised soon!), and then to Cate’s family farm.  So Overland Park was not what I would think of as typical Kansas-in-my-mind, but the farm was.  She had to do a quick photo shoot, so me, Dave and Gracie roamed around to check things out.  This was obviously Gracie’s first time on a farm, and after meeting the 4 HUGE resident dogs, we showed her the horses, chickens (she ignored them), goats and took a stroll through the corn fields, pausing to take pictures on the farm equipment of course.  Afterwards we went to the cider mill where we decided against the corn maze, and opted instead to drink cold cider and eat cider donuts- yum!  That evening we toured downtown Kansas City and ate amazing food at a place on “Mexican row.”  We also went down Ward Parkway and saw MANSIONS along the way to the Country Club Plaza (aka the Plaza).  Now I have seen some rich folks’ places in NC, but some of the houses in Kansas City are unbelievable! $10m maybe?  Kansas City is apparently the sister city of Seville, Spain, and the architecture in this part of town was fantastic.  I have never seen such a beautiful and EUROPEAN downtown in the USA- ever.

Too much writing….time for a break. Up next: The drive through Kansas to Colorado, and then Utah (we are currently in Salt Lake City!)Il