10/2/11 Day 1- Angels Camp to Phoenix, 719 miles

Sweet Sleepy Aaron

We rolled out of Angels Camp at 5:45am, certainly the earliest any of us had been awake in a long time. My parents were awake too to send us off with lots of hugs. I'd hoped that we could move Jonathan and Aaron from their beds to carseats and keep them asleep but they woke up as we were packing up the last few things into the car. I was surprised how cold it was outside! The boys marveled at how dark the sky was and we loved watching the sun come up, watching the sky change from black to blue and seeing all the colors in between. I drove the first leg of the trip, even driving most of the way through the outskirts of LA. Thankfully it being Sunday the traffic wasn't too bad. Aaron did end up falling asleep for about 2 hrs and woke up just in time to stop for lunch in LA. Jonathan was content reading his books. The boys enjoyed watching the cars on the free way. They'd cheer, "Yeah!" as we passed each car and then I'd hear groans from the backseat as cars would pass us. It didn't make much sense to me that they'd be so invested in our driving status, but Kris says it's a guy thing. After lunch Kris took over driving for the rest of the day.

Jonathan reading books

Windmills!

Thanks to Aaron's newfound potty training achievement we made quite a few stops, which allowed us to see a bit more of the route than we originally planned. The boys were mesmerized by the sight of hundreds of windmills all over the hills in the Palm Springs area, so we inserted a nice little homeschooling lesson on electricity and where it comes from and what it is used for. We also spent some time on the "Sonny Bono Memorial Highway," Kris figured it would have more trees, lol. But we were getting close to the desert and things were flattening out at this point.
Our poor sheltered boys- they ooed and ahhed over going through tunnels, and on overpasses. Aaron said, "Oh Mommy, I like overpasses now!"

Just after we passed the border into Arizona we were escatic to find that gas was a mere $3.49/gal! And it only got cheaper from there, some stations were $3.29!! Considering we're getting about 11 miles/gal in our Beast of a Suburban, gas prices are of high interest to us. Arizona also greeted us with a rainstorm that came out of nowhere (if we looked out the back window, the sun was shining, but it was storming out the front window). The rainstorm lasted about 10 minutes and then we saw 3 rainbows!
We filled up the gas tank just after coming in to Arizona and asked the boys if they needed to go potty, resounding "No's" came from the back seat. We no sooner got to the on-ramp to get back on the interstate and Aaron pipes up that he needs to potty right now! Slightly frustrated we turn around and head back to the gas station. I take the boys to the bathroom and Kris realizes that he forgot the gas cap on the bumper and it fell off when we drove away. So he walks around trying to find it. He finds one (not our original one, but one that will do the job for now). In the end we were grateful to God for making Aaron's bladder so small and causing us to turn around or we may not have noticed our uncapped gas tank until we got into Buckeye some 3 hrs later!
We met up with my best friend and her family for dinner at McDonalds. This McDonalds had a big playground and the boys were super excited about running around, climbing, and jumping after being cooped up in the car for over 12 hrs. It was so great visiting with the Trent family!
All in all it was a good day on the road. According to Google the drive should have taken us 12hrs. We made the drive in about 13 hrs, not bad for two small boys with even smaller bladders, :o) Praise the Lord, the car is running well and we are tired but in good spirits. There was no arguing from the boys at bedtime tonight! Tomorrow is a bright new day!