Day 23- California to Home!

I woke up at about 4am today super confused. Dad was supposed to wake me up quite a few hours ago, but he didn't and he kept driving. I tried to drive, but only made it about 7 miles in the California mountains. After hours of (Dad) driving, we were almost home!

The Oregon sign! Once we saw this sign we stopped as soon as we could and I switched to driving. I drove to Brooks, OR where we stopped at a Pilot for some food and cinnamon rolls. Then Dad offered to drive the last 30 minutes home and I let him. 

Being goofy to pass the last 20 minutes

We had a very happy and excited puppy waiting for us once we got home!

Day 22-Las Vegas, Nevada to East Palo Alto, California to Home (almost)

We left Vegas, and then soon after crossed into California!

Visiting the World's Tallest Thermometer

It was so hot out that the bees were all crowded around a dog water bowl.

It was so hot!

Sad moment on the trip... We stopped at the last Aldi we could :(

Sunset near Palo Alto

We then dropped Mom off for her conference and started the drive back home. Dad drove, Lauren rode shotgun, and I slept. 

Day 18-Fort Stockton, Texas to Mesa, Arizona

Scott and I drove through Fort Stockton back in 1999 when we moved to the East Coast.  All of the things we looked at today were not there all those years ago. 

Peeking in the train

Built in 1979, Paisano Pete was for many years the World's Largest Roadrunner (There is now a Road Runner is Las Cruces, NM who has the title). At 22 feet long and 11 feet tall, he's still pretty big.

Welcome to New Mexico

Storm Clouds

We were driving between two storm cells for a while.

Then we drive right through one of them

The rain stopped and then off to the side we saw an amazing lightning storm

Driving through Tucson 

Sun on one side...

Storms on the other

Dust storm

Getting ready to drive through a little dust storm

And done

Another dust storm off in the distance

We stopped for dinner at Steak 'N Shake in Tempe, AZ and then we drove to my parent's place which was about a 30 minutes drive.  We took a late night stroll through Towerpoint and saw all the facilities.  Hopefully tomorrow we can go exploring around the area and then swimming in the pools later.