San Francisco

After more than fifty hours of driving, during this trip, the last two seem to be the hardest, the traffic around San Francisco is very heavy. Today at 11:00 AM, we finally arrived to our new apartment. Our household arrived a few days ahead of us, waiting for us to unpack, and set, in its new place. We spent the rest of the day settling down - unpacking and shopping.

The trip is over, it was an amazing experience for us, we learned a lot about USA's geography and people, and perhaps even more about ourselves.

Thank you for following our journey, posting comments, and encouraging us to keep writing this blog.

Rony, Galit, Naomi and Bruno

California ?

We started the day at beautiful and deserted Salt Lake city. We took Bruno and Naomi for a tour around downtown, having breakfast at a cute cafe. The streets were wide and clean, and snowy mountains were visible from many of them, but there were hardly any people. Very strange for a Thursday morning... Afterwards, we headed off to Reno, Nevada. This leg of our journey was the part we dreaded most. It consists of 520 miles through the dessert of Nevada. We weren't sure we'll be able to pass it in a single day, and we were ready to stop somewhere before Reno.
As we started the trip, we found that the road was easy to drive. In the first couple of hours we passed through the salt lake (it's mostly dry and the road passes through it). Then we entered Nevada and found that it too has many green hills and even some snow covered mountains. Since we both participated in driving, and Naomi cooperated, we were able to get to Reno before the sunset.
Gambling is legal in Nevada so most hotels have casinos in them. We were reluctant to spend the night at a casino hotel, and we assumed we'll be able to find some chain motel right after the California border. So since Reno is only a few miles away from California, we decided to continue. Well, there were no motels. West of Reno the area becomes vacation destination with lodges and inns for people who come to vacation at Lake Tahoe. Most of these require advance booking and we didn't want to start hunting for a place to stay at this point. So we moved further into California to a larger town with some basic motels. When we finally got our room Naomi was very happy to say goodbye to her car seat and hello to her giraffe. We are now about 130 miles from San Francisco, we'll be at our new home tomorrow!

Island in the Sky, 3000 Miles from Starting Point

Island in the sky area is part of the Canyonlands National Park. It stands 1000 feet above vast canyons area carved by the Colorado and Green rivers, called Canyonlands. Every overlook from the island's cliffs offers a different perspective on Canyonlands’ spectacular landscape. This was our main destination today. It was just as impressive as we imagined it would be. Unfortunately, this is the last park we'll visit, as we need to start heading west towards San Francisco. We started by driving north west to Salt Lake city, Utah. During this drive we hit the 3000 miles (4828 km) milestone! Like in Colorado, the scenery along the roads is very diverse, and just as beautiful. The red canyons turn into green hills and valleys and then into snow topped mountains as we moved north west. Driving west during sunset is challenging, but the way the hills and meadows are lit during this time is especially rewarding. The sunset was in its peak as we approached Salt Lake City. The city is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains and the sunset colored everything in beautiful orange and gold (Galit tried to take pictures for you while Rony drove but they didn't come out nicely). At the city, we took a nice, pet friendly, hotel in the center of town, and took a walk around. Not much to do in the city center at night, but it's safe and the Mormon church has a lovely park we could walk in.

Naomi's Post

Today mommy and daddy were tired, and for the first time, stayed at the same hotel for two nights. They said they have a lot of things to do around here, in Moab, Utah. Bruno was not very useful either, he preferred to chill out on the balcony. Well, since they were all so tired, I decided to chip in and help with the driving part. I took them to the Arches national park, it was very impressive, mommy and daddy took lots of pictures. They told me they plan to organize all the photos once they arrive, and even promised to publish photos of themselves. After spending the day driving in the park from one site to the other, we came back to the city to rest and have a late lunch. I reminded them we did not see the most famous arch of them all and urged them to go back, do a short 1.5 mile (2.4 km) trek, up the hill, and see it. Surprisingly, they agreed, and we headed off to the park again, to see the "delicate arch" during sunset. We made it almost all the way to the top, but strong winds stopped us, and we came back down without seeing it, maybe next time…
Mommy and daddy were too tired after the trek, and I had to write this post myself.

Naomi

Colorado

Before embarking on our trip people told us we're crazy driving such a big distance especially with a baby and a dog. We agree it can be challenging at times, especially towards the end of the day when all 4 of us are tired. Today we faced a challenge we did not expect, we were over- whelmed by the dramatic and extremely diverse landscape of Colorado. We started our day at Estes Park, a town on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, and made our way south west out of Colorado and into Moab, Utah. As we left the snowy mountains of the park, the temperature got higher, and the views changed to green pastures with horses and cows scattered in large ranches. The dramatic, snow- capped mountains were still visible in the distance. Soon we neared Denver, a big metropolis that looked ugly on this beautiful land. We zoomed by it, entering a magical land of ski resorts. The mountains were heavy with pine trees; snow covered their tops and melted into rolling streams and many small waterfalls. We met some buffalos in a valley where a nature preserve was set aside for them. Suddenly the scenery changed again. The dense, deep green, pine forests were replaced by smaller and sparser shrubs. The mountains now revealed their geological qualities - vertical layers of brown, grey and black stone, large red rocks in impossible angles. The road winded through canyons, formed by the mighty Colorado River. The Colorado River appeared wide and brown in some places and narrower and blue in others. As we continued to travel west the canyons became wider and lined by red cliffs. The highlight of that region was the "Colorado National Monument" – a national park that is composed of those amazing red cliffs. There is a road on the rim of the cliffs. Exhausted but still not ready to stop for the day, we decided to drive to our next stop – Moab in Utah. Now, there was no trace of the snow we saw in the morning. A large desert surrounded us with the exception of the Colorado River, which still flowed near the highway. As we neared Moab, we were pleasantly surprised to see to our south - mountains topped with… Yes, you guessed it, snow! So here we are, past midnight, sitting in our hotel room and literally amazed by all this diverse natural beauty we passed by today…

Rocky Mountains National Park

Luckily today was a cold day, so cold that the road we planned to take through the "Rocky Mountain National Park" was closed due to heavy snow. This forced us stay in the park, and allowed us more time to do some trails. The cold gave us two other benefits – the park was not crowded and we could leave Bruno in the car without concern that he'll over-heat while we hiked some trails (dogs are not allowed on the trails of the park). Our day was wonderful, full with magnificent views of snow covered peaks, lakes, forests and streams. We were even lucky to see noble Elks. Unfortunately Naomi still cannot appreciate their beauty, and did not share our excitement, but we will definitely put Colorado on our "return list".

A Different Kind of Highway

Today we'll do a short post, we are very tired... We just arrived to Boulder Colorado, after an amazing day trip to Pikes Peak. This is one of the highest mountains in Colorado, and probably of the most popular one. It's height is 14,110 feet, or 4,300 meters. There is a narrow two lane road that leads all the way to the peak, called Pike's Peak Highway, giving the word highway a new meaning. We actually did not make it all the way to the top, as we did not feel very well with the altitude, and did not want to risk Naomi. We were told she should be safe until height of 4,000 meters, this is pretty much as far as we went. Still pretty impressive considering her age! The views were amazing! both of us agree that this is one of the most breath taking places we've ever been to. Here's a picture of Naomi at a lower point of the highway. The snowy mountain behind her is Pikes Peak.

Sidesways to Colorado

We woke up this morning to beautiful, clear, blue sky. No hint of the severe storms that held us back yesterday. Happily, we started by visiting the Mushroom Rock State Park in Kansas. This is a tiny park that has a few wind shaped rock formations that resemble mushrooms or flying saucers on a pedestal, whichever way you want to look at them. The park is located about an hour and a half off the highway so we had the opportunity to drive on some country sideways. We found that sideways are much more scenic and although a bit slower than highways, they allow a glimpse of the real America. So for today, we decided to drive on a US-50, a two lane road that follows the Santa-Fe trail. US-50 took us to the town of Kinsley - the middle of the road between New York and San-Francisco. And so, now officially we were out west. We continued north-west, towards Colorado. The landscape changed as we moved westwards, the small farms we saw before, now became considerably bigger. The lush green vegetation became yellowish. We passed by Dodge City and Garden City - two old time cowboy towns where the cattle industry is still dominant. These made the vegetarian one of us feel stronger about her beliefs and the carnivore one feel hungry... As we entered Colorado, we started to go higher in elevation. Colorado Springs, our final destination for today is situated 6035 feet, or 1839 meters above sea level.
Colorado Springs is a beautiful town with amazing rock formations. It is surrounded by even higher mountains which we hope to explore tomorrow. We ended the day by visiting a park called "Garden of the Gods" which features some incredibly beautiful rocks.

Kansas City, and a Tornado warning

We had a very nice hotel last night, among other things they served warm breakfast with 'do it yourself' waffles, delicious... During our breakfast, we saw a weather report mentioning there may be some tornadoes in Kansas later today. We decided to start by visiting Kansas City, where we had spent the night, and then, depending on the weather, decide how to continue further into Kansas. Kansas City was gorgeous. The city center has many fountains and looks a bit Spanish. We saw the weather was good so we decided to continue west for a while. Kansas has vast prairies where the cows are free to graze. After a couple of hours driving, at around 4 pm, it started to get very windy. We decided to stop at a McDonald's and heard there that there was a tornado watch for the area. We decided to call it a day and checked into a nearby hotel. Soon enough the storm hit our area. The skies turned black and there was heavy rain. This whole thing lasted less than an hour. By 5 the sun had come back and everything was peaceful. Since we already paid for the hotel and were still tired from yesterday we decided to stay. So here we are, at central Kansas. Hopefully tomorrow we'll reach Colorado. We have high expectations for the natural beauty of the land there, and can't wait to finally get there.

Chasing the Sun

What a day! We started at rainy Ohio. The thunder storms that stopped us last night continued throughout the morning and flooded the farm fields we drove by. It was a beautiful sight, but it stopped us from visiting Indianapo- lis. We zipped through the states of Indiana and Illinois. At around 5 pm we reached Saint Louis, Missouri. It was too late to check out Pratzel bakery but we wanted to at least stop by the gateway arch park. We couldn't find the correct address for it and so our GPS led us into one of the slums and then to an aboded industrial area... We gave up and decided to keep on driving west. Coming out of St. Louis we crossed the spectacular Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We were taken by the scenic views along Missouri - lush green valleys, little farms and grand rivers. Chasing the sun to the west we drove all the way to Kansas City, stopping just 9 miles east of Kansas. Overall we covered almost 600 miles today and got west enough to set our clocks one hour back to Central time zone, giving us and extra hour for our 'sun chasing'. That distance is incomprehensible for us. It's like crossing Israel lengthwise twice - going from Metula to Eilat and back!!! Although most of the driving credit goes to Rony, we couldn't have done it without the long naps and good moods of Naomi and Bruno.

Off to ... Dayton Ohio?

Leaving Pittsburgh, we were headed towards Indianapolis, IN. Garmin, our GPS, told us that we should be there by 7:30 PM. As we entered forested and hilly West Virginia, encouraged by the optimistic arrival estimate, and a warm recommendation on the "Let's Go" guide, we were tempted to stop at the "Toys and Trains" museum at Wheeling, WV. How bad can this be, who doesn't like toys? well, it could have been ok (and take only 5 minutes) if we would not have accepted the offer to do a guided tour... when we got back to the car, Garmin told us it would be 9:30 by the time we'll get to Indianapolis, what a waste. As Naomi fell asleep we continued driving on the highways through the Ohio flat farm lands, when she finally woke up, demanding to eat, we were by Dayton, OH. We stopped at the nearest exit, and discovered a huge parking lot, perfect for walking Bruno and feeding Naomi. The parking lot belonged to, Meijer, which turned out to be the biggest superstore we ever visited. We went in to get water, and stayed for two hours. When we finally got back on our way, it started to rain, then it escalated to a huge thunder storm, so we stopped at the first motel we found, 100 miles short of our original destination.
Poor Bruno was so scared of the thunderstorm, he didn't want to leave the car.

Pittsburgh - The Steel City

First I wanted to thank all of you who posted comments. We were very happy to read them. And now to our day: This morning we woke up at our Pittsburgh motel ready to conquer the city. The lady at the hotel lobby recommended we check out Station Square. We got there at around 10 am, passing through the city center on our way, which was deserted and very strange - kind of looked like downtown Manhattan on a long weekend... Finding a parking spot at Station Square was a bit challenging and once we did we got a bit lost on our way to the funicular (a cable car that goes up mountains). At the funicular we were told that Bruno can't come, so it was one more trip to the car and back and then Bruno-less, up the steep mountain. We adored the views with some ice cream. When we got back to the car it was time for lunch. A friend recommended we try the Georgetowne Inn on the mountain edge - so we did. The views there were even more spectacular, the food was OK. With full stomachs (and a changed diaper) we were ready to hit the road.

On The Road

On Sunday when we went to pick up our car rental we decided to upgrade the SUV to a spacious minivan (Hyundai Entourage) and boy was that a smart choice. We folded the back row seats to get plenty of space and still managed to fill the whole car with "essential" stuff for the road. And so, with a fully loaded car, today at around 3 pm we finally started to drive. The sun was shining, our new GPS predicted a bit over 6 driving hours and the roads were traffic free - what a great start for our adventure. Bruno, slept most of the way. Naomi slept a bit and cried a bit. We ended up stopping more than we wanted to and in places we didn't want to. We planned to find an Amish restaurant for dinner but gave that up since Naomi was sleeping. Instead we ended up stopping at a parking lot of a bank... We reached the motel near midnight and now we are finally going to sleep. Well, hopefully, Naomi just woke up...