Day five on the road... and DONE!

Hello everyone!! I'm sorry it has taken me a while to get on this, but we have been having some major internet issues. Luckily, Scott came to the rescue and fixed it up yesterday. I will give you a recap of what has been going on. Get ready, it's going to be long.

Tuesday July, 31st
Tuesday was the day that changed our trip. We had a nice stay at Motel 6, especially Turkey. He "happy flopped" all over the bed, as evidenced in this picture. How could I not share this?
We decided to eat at Bella's (a diner where everything was homemade) over Burger King for breakfast and met up with a PSU alumni! He and his wife (the first woman Chaplin of the Navy!!) had just traveled north from Las Vegas and suggested we get off I 80 and take the route they had. They called it the "scenic route" and also advised us to stay away from 5 and 99 (these go south to Bakersfield). Scott and I checked the map over delicious breakfast burritos and decided it would cut a lot of time, and we wouldn't have to deal with traffic through big cities like Sacramento and Fresno.

The route we followed was definitely scenic! We traveled through the mountains - a little scary but we took our time. Here's a view from the top of a very winding road.
We also traveled through a lot of dry, desert area. We were pleasantly surprised to see some hope for civilization, though.
After what seemed like endless desert, we came to Las Vegas. It was 4:30 PM, so it didn't look very different from any other big city located in the middle of the desert (that's a joke, there are no other big cities like this in the middle of no where). We drove straight through and saw the gaudy buildings in natural light.

^^I didn't take this one, it was on Wikipedia^^

We stopped at the Nevada/California border for gas and food and then pushed ourselves to make it to Bakersfield. Desert sunsets are so beautiful!!
We got to my apartment at 9:30 PM, ending with 13 hours of driving on our final day. The grounds for Rio Paseo are only about a year old (just like my new school) and there was plenty of space for us to leave the truck. My apartment is absolutely gorgeous, and the roommate who moved in first, Jeff, said I could pick one of the remaining two bedrooms. It was a pretty easy choice for me, as one of the bedrooms was the master (I don't know why he didn't take it!) and has it's own bathroom. Scott and I were exhausted, so we just grabbed two pillows and slept on the floor. Here's a picture of my living arrangement from the following morning:


August 1st - 4th
The past four days have been very busy. Jeff had his first day of work at Dreyer's (he's an industrial engineer, more on him and my other roommate later) so Scott and I moved everything in on Wednesday. It was really hot and my second floor apartment proved to be very annoying when moving the couch, dresser, and chest of drawers. Thursday I bought Old English scratch hider and we polished the old bedroom set that my dad gave me. I was very pleased with the results. I apologize for not thinking of taking a picture of the entire dresser before we started, but you can see the difference with this one drawer.
Yesterday, we returned the Penske. This proved more difficult than expected because the site I was told to return it to had canceled their contract with Penske... and didn't notify me. We had to drive to the opposite end of the city, but we finally got rid of it. I then took Scott to my school (only about a 10 min drive from my apartment!) and chatted with one of the secretaries. She gave us some beach recommendations and we are going to Santa Barbara this afternoon. We have been working so hard, and I wanted Scott to have some relaxation before he leaves me on Monday.

A note to my readers, I will be keeping up with this blog. I've already found it hard to keep in touch with friends and family because the 3 hour time difference and having the blog allows me to show and tell. I know once school starts I won't be able to post daily, but I will share when I can. There will be lots of pictures when I get the apartment set up so keep checking for updates!

- Carol