Southwest

Fort Collins, Colorado, 850 miles

We woke up around 4am still not knowing if we were going to try to move forward with our East Coast plan. Once we got the car packed up, we decided to go the safe route and head west. I prefer to have reservations all made in advance, so the idea of "booking as we go" felt a little backwards. We knew that we wanted to go to Rocky Mountain National Park but we'd get to the area late, so we decided to stay in Fort Collins so we could get some rest before driving to the mountains!

We arrived in the evening so we had a couple hours to explore the city. We sat outside in the rain under a covered patio at Stuft Burger Bar (where they come out kabobed!) before calling it a day.

Montrose, Colorado, 400-ish miles

Our first destination: Rocky Mountain National Park! We took our time driving throught the park and stopping at overviews along the way. This is another drive that can be a little stressful if you're used to the flat midwest!

After we left the park, we made our way to the quaint town of Crested Butte and wandered the streets browsing through shops. Once we were back on the road, we weaved through low mountains with our windows down to smell the aspens - I'll never forget the scent! We saw a beautiful sunset on our way to the next hotel.

Las Vegas, Nevada, 625 miles

We did mostly interstate driving on this day, making a few stops at Black Dragon Canyon and Zion National Park. If you ask Phil what his favorite national park is, he'll likely say Zion! We didn't have a lot of time to explore, but we hope to come back some day.

We saw some pretty cool weather on our way!

By the time we made it to Vegas, we were pretty beat and overstimulated by all the city commotion! We had dinner at Bubba Gump overlooking the action and walked around for a bit before settling in for the night.

At the time, Britney Spears was doing her residency - if it had been the Backstreet Boys, I would have dragged Phil to a show!

Paso Robles, California, 475 miles

When we decided to go west, we were hoping to get away from the rain - that didn't stop it from following us to the desert! We woke up early (again) and made our way to the famous "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign for a few photos before heading over to the Hoover Dam. We don't usually do guided tours so we just walked around for a bit to check it out. After that, we were on our way to Death Valley.

With the elevation being so low, there were many sections of road that were under water. We closed our eyes and said our prayers when crossing each one!

We were originally going to find a hotel in Bakersfield (really??), but we decided to drive a bit further and settled on the La Quinta in Paso Robles. We're not certain on this, but we're pretty sure that we were given a brand new extended-stay townhome that had never been used - it was probably one of the most comfortable hotels we've ever stayed at.

Ventura, California, 350 miles

We added some extra driving in this day to ensure that we drove up to the point where we stayed on our west coast road trip so we covered the entire pacific coast.

We made many stops to stand in awe of the beautiful coastline and do some seal-watching (obviously!) It's easy to see why so many people choose to live in California.

We got into Ventura fairly early so we had plenty of time to hang out on the pier. While on vacation, we always try to dine at places that will remind us of where we have been - so the obvious choice was to sit oceanside at Beach House Fish and do some people-watching.

Laguna Beach, California, 150 miles

We stopped for breakfast on our way out of Ventura and continued on our way along the coastline through Malibu. When we got into the LA area, we made our way to a very important destination - the mosaic tile house. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm obsessed with mosaics, so I just had to stop and get a few photos. We spent some time in venice beach afterwards - side note, apparently people don't wake up early in California, so it was pretty quiet!

Next up was a Warner Bros studio tour where we would see the (recreated) Friends coffeeshop set and Phoebe's actual guitar! Unfortunately, no celebrity sightings - that we noticed, anyway.

Trying to be mindful of traffic in LA during rush hour, we promptly made our way out of the city to Laguna Beach - one of our favorite places on the trip. We stayed at the beautiful Laguna Beach House and dined at Nicks Laguna Beach and spent the rest of the evening hanging out at the beach. It was nice to slow down for a minute and enjoy the perfect weather!

Coronado Island, California, 85 miles

Since we had less than 100 miles to our next stop (which as you may have noticed, is pretty unusual for us!), we slept in and lazily walked around the beach until checkout.

We headed south and stopped in La Jolla cove (to watch seals, again), then made our way to Coronado to our charming El Rancho Motel where they still use legit keys!

After checking in, we drove to Old Town San Diego where we browsed through shops and had fresh-made tortillas with dinner at Cafe Coyote.

Grand Canyon, Arizona, 600 miles

Another big driving day! We got up early and got on our way - a lot of desert views on this stretch. It's crazy how different dry heat is from humidity - 90 degrees and we could still wear sweaters.

We passed through Phoenix and stopped in Sedona to browse some shops - my favorite was Son Silver West. I can't believe I didn't come home with a talavera tile pot!

Since shopping is more my thing, we snuck in an impromptu ATV tour for Phil! We got back on the road and stopped in Flagstaff for dinner at Bigfoot BBQ before heading to our hotel in Grand Canyon village. The grand canyon really is massive, I don't even know how far apart each entrance is from one another, but it's not a simple "visit all in one day" solution!

Home, 1730 miles

We woke up bright and early again to get a good spot to watch the sunrise over the grand canyon - and we weren't the only ones. It's no joke that the desert gets cold at night!

We decided that we were going to attempt to drive all the way home without staying in another hotel, so we hit the road shortly after the sun came up. We stopped at a few other waypoints along the way - despite seeing signs like this all over the place. Yep, couldn't live in the south!

In addition to driving through the night again, we (mostly I) felt it necessary to tack on more miles to hit a couple more states on our list, so we headed east towards Albuquerque. We were just 1 week off from the famous air balloon festival.

Determined to get a memorable "Texas" experience in before making the overnight haul, we decided to stop at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo for dinner.

After that, we just barely picked up some coffee before closing and we set off for another overnight drive. Phil usually drives the most on our trips (if not all of the day driving), but night is where my driving skills get put to the test. As long as I have good tunes, I can do it!

Approximately 15 hours and many coffees later, we were home!