It all started with a dinosaur

 

And it has progressed from there.

 

I'm not sure what he was tryng to wrestle in the lower right hand picture. Or if he just needed me to hurry up with the picture of us in West Virgina so he could use the bathroom.

Before the earthquake adventure in Washington DC

we went 160 miles out of our way to visit a place in Nebraska called Carhenge. Without looking at the link I'm sure you can imagine the likes of this tourist trap. Think STONEhenge. But not as mysterious.

I wonder if they sell tshirts, coffee mugs and postcards at Stonehenge?

Anyway, I stumbled across this place while searching around for "important things to see" across I-80. Honestly, I was giddy at the thought of seeing this. I'm all about stupid and silly. This kind of tops the list. However the idea of driving 80 miles north then turning right around to continue on our way was...well, not something I wanted to tell Troy.

So I didn't. Don't judge me.

I didn't tell him until we were 20 miles north and he asked how much longer it would be. When I replied about 50 miles there was silence. For about 5 seconds. Then he looked at me and asked what in the world I was thinking. "This better be worth it." Dang. It's not like it was Wizard of Oz related. I thought HE would enjoy it, too.

Yes, I was worried. But I was also in my "seeing the country" mode and refused to let his perpetual pessimism bring me down. We had a few good laughs on the 80 mile trip, but in the back of my mind I was REALLY hoping this wouldn't be a complete bust. Troy would never let me live it down and I would no doubt be paying it back for the rest of the trip by having to stop at every single WWII museum and exhibit known to man.

As we approached the general vicinity, Troy saw it off in the distance. We were both quiet with anticipation and as we got closer we both burst in to laughter.

 

We bought t shirts. And postcards. And left a donation. Then started the 80 mile trip back to I-80.

Carhenge was a hit.

But not nearly as big a hit as THIS:

 

We didn't get a t-shirt. Or even a book of matches. They were closed. But we've got the picture...and the memory of the locals looking at us as if we were crazy as I ran from the car while my camera's self-timer was counting down.

All in a day's work of making memories, people.

We interrupt any chronological order of vacation for this post

Soooo….things just happen to us on vacation. I’ve mentioned this before. I’ve blogged about it before. We are cursed.

This vacation is no exception.

We survived the Virginia earthquake on Tuesday. At the time of the quake we were in Washington DC visiting the Holocaust Museum watching a video on Antisemitism, just a 1/2 hour in to the first floor. This California bred girl hit the floor as soon as the shaking started and was getting ready to grab my husband to get under the bench when it stopped. It lasted about 2 minutes but seemed like forever. I understand how some folk in this country aren't "earthquake trained"....I'm not "tornado trained"....but to think the quake was part of the film was interesting to me. It's not Disneyland, people. This is not an attraction with special effects. It's the Holocaust MUSEUM. TAKE COVER!!

This is the only picture we were “allowed” to take in the museum. Evacuation.

 

And this is us sitting outside amidst the chaos: sirens, helicopters, horns honking, whistles blowing, people yelling. We are calmly eating a hot dog trying to figure out our next move.

 

Our next move turned out to be arguing back and forth about what our next move was going to be. After taking exactly 4 more pictures, (2 of the Washington monument with dozens of people wandering in and out of our pictures and 2 of the Capitol with those same people wandering around in the background) the next move turned out to be cramming on to the DC Metro with everybody else who didn’t really have a next move after the museums closed for the day and Federal employees were sent home. Yes, Troy was THISCLOSETOME when taking the picture. 3 more people that I never met were also THISCLOSETOME. We exchanged phone numbers at the end of the line. (I'm joking, of course).

 

Just another day on vacation with the Pryors. We left before Hurricane Irene came so we can’t be blamed for that.

But vacation isn’t over yet.

2,547 miles in 5 days

Whose idea was this cross-country road trip, anyway? Oh, yeah. Mine.

Here we are leaving Sacramento. Don't we look excited and happy to be on our way? We really had no idea how loooooong and lonely I-80 can actually be. Actually, *I* wasn't remembering from a previous road trip with my bff many years ago across PART of I-80. Troy had already done this exact road trip several years ago on his Harley. That could explain the look on his face vs. the look on my face.....

I have to say that Day 1 was by far the best day for me on this trip. I slept most of it away having just come off of night shift. But that meant my poor husband had to drive and keep himself entertained while I snored next to him. That's hard to do for 400 miles. Music helps. And of course there is no "Welcome to Nevada" picture to memorialize the event. Did I mention that I slept the first day?

But we did snap pics entering most of the other states. Well, Troy did while I was driving....and yelling at him that the photo op was coming up. Yelling. He was tense the entire trip. I can't understand why.

UTAH

 

The desert mountains in Utah were beautiful. And what a treat to see the Salt Flats for the first time! The quote of the day came from Troy: "I wonder if fish fart?" What goes through a mind that you would even wonder that? The tension for pictures was raised for Troy when a photo op was missed. But the fun really ended at the campground. WORST. SLEEP. EVER. We found out the inflatable mattress we bought had an ELECTRIC pump. What? What happened to the battery operated pump?? *sigh*. So we got to sleep on rocks. And it was cold. I didn't plan for cold weather. It IS August for Pete's sake! Just miserable.

WYOMING

Missed photo op of entering Wyoming. I think I'll let up on Troy a bit. I mean, at least he is staying awake in the passenger seat. I'm pretty sure we would miss ALL the signs if I was the passenger because I would be asleep.

 

There's not a whole lot to say about Wyoming. But this is the point of the trip where Troy started to become VERY troubled over the road work. LOTS of road work. So much road work. Question of the day came from me: "I wonder where they store all of these orange construction barrels?" There was seriously close to 1,000 of them across Wyoming. I'm imagining a HUGE warehouse for these things. I wonder how much those things cost....someone's rich. Just sayin'.

Troy wrestled a dinosaur in Wyoming. I guess wearing the cowboy hat in the gift shop made him feel like he needed to. The dinosaur didn't put up much of a fight. We did finally get a good night's sleep because we rented a cabin at KOA just outside of Cheyenne. Tornado warnings sent us inside instead of sleeping under the stars. Why do storms follow us on vacation? Remember this? Yeah. So I got to look at a pretty spectacular lightening storm that night....which would be great if I actually LIKED spectacular lightening storms. I don't. I like them about as much as I like the dark.

NEBRASKA/IOWA/ILLINOIS/INDIANA

Updates to come....let me just say we saw a lot of corn fields. We played the game "how many things can you think of that contain corn?" There's a lot.

And just one word to keep you hanging on to the edge of your seat until the next update: CARHENGE.

Holy smokes!

It's just been far TOO long since I updated this stale old thing. But I've come back for a very good reason.

I'm going on vacation. A 7,000 mile road trip.

Driving cross-country with my husband is sure to provide fodder for this blog. For now I'll just leave you with this...but watch for updates all month long!