We're here! Back home in California

We left Grand Junction on May 29 and drove to Las Vegas. We stayed overnight at the Rio Hotel and enjoyed a quick dip in the pool and a delicious breakfast at Hash House A-Go-Go. We left Las Vegas around noon and arrived in Vista last night around 6pm. We are so glad to be home!

Today's ride was just a quick ride to the local frozen yogurt shop near our house. Frugos Yogurt is a self-serve yogurt place, Eliza's favorite kind of treat. Her favorite is chocolate ice cream with mini M & m's on top. I took a picture of Eliza enjoying her treat:

After I took this picture, Eliza told me she wanted to ride to Twin Lakes Park (her favorite park near our old house in Durham). I don't think Eliza understands yet that we moved across country, and what a big move that is! She is 3 years old. :)

Instead of Twin Lakes Park, we rode home, passing by a small park called Thibodo Park along the way. We stopped to play for a bit, and I got a cute picture of her sitting on some of the HUGE rocks they have here:

Here's our Strava summary. It's only a one-way ride on Strava because I forgot to start my Strava app when we started! I was too busy staring at the Google map to make sure I knew how to navigate to the yogurt shop!

Heading west - short ride at Lunch Loop Trails in Grand Junction, CO

My last Weehoo ride was about 3 weeks ago, but it feels like 3 years ago! That's what preparing to move across country does to your sense of time, I guess!

We are in the middle of our move to California, and I could write a book about the past 3 weeks, but I honestly don't have the energy or desire to do that. So I'll summarize it:

1.) May 9: Last day at work. Hooray! I'm free!

2.) May 10-16: Sell a bunch of our stuff on Craigslist. Sell some stuff to neighbors and friends, too. Prepare to have a big garage sale.

3.) May 17 morning and early afternoon: Garage sale!

4.) May 17 late afternoon into the evening: Donate the stuff that didn't sell or couldn't be taken to the pawn shop.

5.) May 18-23: Pack, pack, and pack some more. We had quite a large collection of junk after living in 1 house for 8 years!

6.) May 24: Load up the U-Haul trailer all day, even though we thought it'd only take a few hours...finally leave and say goodbye to our house at around 10:30pm. Today is also our 11th wedding anniversary!

7.) May 24/25: Drive west on I-40 through the night, watch the sunrise come up somewhere in Tennessee, stop for a quick breakfast, switch drivers (me to Rob), drive through KY, IN, switch drivers again, and keep driving until we arrive in St. Louis, where we slept like babies after a quick dip in the hotel pool!

8.) May 26: Keep driving west. Kansas was so boring! Cross the border into Colorado and stay in the world's comfiest bed at a mom-n-pop owned motel in Burlington, CO.

9.) May 27: drive west to Grand Junction. Pulling a U-haul trailer behind a Hyundai Elantra is fun, err, something like that! Get a hotel and decide to stay 2 nights because we needed some rest.

10.) May 28 (today): Go for a short Weehoo mountain bike ride at the awesome Lunch Loop trails.

Wow, what a network of trails these Lunch Loop trails are! I wish we had more time to ride and explore out here. Here's a trail map of the area. We rode the easiest and shortest trail called the "Kids Meal Trail". It was fun and Eliza said "weehoo" every time we went down any portion of downhill trail!

We didn't ride far, only a couple miles. We rode slow mainly because we kept stopping to say "Whoa, look at the view! It's like a postcard!" Here's our Strava summary:

Only 800 more miles to go until we reach home.

Ride to Trinity Park

I needed to let some steam off from all the final days at work stress, so all 3 of us went for a ride this evening. We rode from home to Trinity Park, stopping off at the Montessori school playground 2 blocks away, too.

I didn't take any pictures, but Rob did, so I'll have to get him to share the pics with me later. It was a nice ride in through east Durham. We didn't take Holloway into downtown like we normally would do to get to this area of Durham, instead we took Miami to Geer to Trinity. There's less stoplights and more chance to just keep pedaling this way. Eliza seemed more secure in the ride tonight. I think she was just excited to go play at one of her favorite Durham parks. We've been to Trinity Park many times before. We stopped first at the Montessori school playground and she had a lot of fun playing with 2 local kids, and Rob and I enjoyed talking with their Dad, who was super nice. Then we went to Trinity Park and played until dark. Then we turned on our lights and flashing blinkies and headed home.

We did our ride there and our ride back as 2 separate rides on Strava. I know I should've just put the ride on pause while we played at the park, but oh well, it doesn't really matter in the long run. Here's our Strava summaries:

We took a slightly longer route home, just for old times sake, I guess. We figured that we're not going to be in North Carolina for much longer, so we might as well ride some of our favorite urban streets (East Main Street and North Driver Street, specifically).

Only 3 more days of work left for me and we'll be ready to roll on this moving across country thing!