The trip from San Francisco to Whitehall, MI

The second part of the trip:
From San Francisco, we started driving across the country towards the end point, Whitehall, MI.

On the first drive from San Francisco, we ended in Winemucca, NV. Now you might ask what is in Winemucca? Well, besides an RV camp with a pool, not a whole lot. Quite honestly, besides the one exit from the highway for this po-dunk town, there was nothing there. It's about 150 miles east of Reno, NV, which by the way is pretty small and very unimpressive. However, we did drive by it in the daytime so maybe at night with all the lights, it looks cooler. Winemucca was pretty boring but at least they had a pool which was a nice respite. The drive from San Francisco to Winemucca was the first time I actually wished I had air conditioning in my car. It was so flat with no cloud cover and very little to look at. In summation, Nevada, not a great state to drive through.

(The Winnemucca Camp)

After the night in Winemucca, we started the next journey of 450 miles east to a small town south of Salt Lake City, UT. The camping there was absolutely gorgeous and quite remote. There were only a couple people camping there at the same time so we had an awesome and quite large campsite all to ourselves. No showers at this campsite unfortunately. Our campsite did have a cool stone oven in the middle near the fire pit but since we had been living off of food that was cooked with boiling water, we couldn't use the oven. We also made friends with a little ground squirrel too.

(The Salt Lake Camp)
(A View from the Road in Utah)

After Salt Lake City, we drove another 500 miles to Denver to stay with my aunt and uncle who were gracious enough to make us dinner and give us a warm place to sleep. We weren't there for very long but the hospitality was wonderful. Onward to Lincoln, NE...we arrived in time to check out the cool hot tub at the campsite and then settle in for a night with the mosquitoes. At about 7am, we awoke to the sound of thunder and the minute after I put my contacts in, the rain started POURING down. After loading all the stuff in the car, the fun part came when we had to take down the tent in the pouring rain. That was fun and altogether completely wet. After rolling the tent up the best I could, we were on our way to Madison. On the way through Nebraska, one of my windshield wipers stopped working. After pulling over at a gas station that thankfully had a mechanic, they showed me that one of the nuts had come loose from the bolt that holds the wiper. So after that little fun stopover, we got to Madison.

Madison is the home of one of my best friends Anna who just had a baby girl. After meeting Eliza, we had a great time in the state's capitol touring the capitol building and the University of Wisconsin campus as well as the Henry Villas Zoo. Here we are at the zoo:
The food was excellent and Anna made an amazing tofu dish our first night there. I really had a great time in Madison with Eliza....and Anna too. We played Settlers of Catan (which is a really fun strategy game) and had wonderful pasta for dinner the next night. We had to leave on the 3rd day to see Chris and let Anna and her family start her Labor Day weekend festivities.

Once we left Madison, it was just a short drive to the Chicagoland area to see my friend Chris and just hang out a little before arriving at my mom's house. In Chicago, we went to a minor league baseball game and saw Batman: The Dark Knight. It was a fun and calm time. A note to anyone thinking about living in Chicago, please live in the city limits. DO NOT live in the suburbs. We had to drive for hours to get ANYWHERE!
(Chris and Jen)

Finally, on Sunday, Aug. 31 (13 days after leaving LA), I got to my mom's house in Whitehall, MI. We drove exactly 3,297.3 miles from door to door.