Carter Blogs about the trip from Utah to Texas

OK, so as you probably know from the previous post, we just got back from a little trip up to Utah. The primary reason we went is because my car, El Toro Rojo (AKA The Red Bull) was pretty much dead. Basically it had over 187K miles on it, needed a new catalytic converter and breaks. There comes a point in time where it is just cheaper to give up then it is to fix it. So, before we talk about the trip, let's take a moment to remember the car that passed before:


OK, so we went up to Utah because Kari's brother works for Saturn and he always takes good care of us when it comes to buying cars. We bought Kari's car from him almost 2 years ago. We were looking at a Saturn Aura, and he was able to find us a 2008 model that was in excellent condition. We picked up the car on Friday and started for home on Saturday. When we originally planned out our trip we were going to go through Colorado and Oklahoma to get home, but circumstances changed and we decided to go south through New Mexico into the Texas panhandle. The first night we stopped in Moab, UT. Fortunately for us it was bike week. Fun times... (You know, one Harley is cool, but 25 on the same street, especially the street where you are with your 3 year old that thinks they sound like thunder, the same 3 year old that is scared of thunder, that is not cool.) We were able to get a room for the night. The next day we spent some time at Arches national park.

Don't we look great? Notice the cowboy hat on the kid. She loves it.

It is a really fun place to go, the rock formations are just unbelievable.

It was fun to drive/hike around and see the sites. Of course it was HOT, so we did not stick around too long. We got in the car and drove down to the four corners area.

Here we are in four different states at the same time. It was about as much fun as a concrete slab in the middle of the desert in 100 degree heat in summer could be, but at least they had Navajo fry bread. We spent the night in Gallup New Mexico since there were some storms moving in. The next morning we drove down to Albuquerque and saw Kari's cousin Andrea and her husband Daniel and their son Alex.

We stopped in Amarillo and saw Cadillac Ranch. Mackenzie was really tripped out by it all. Imagine 10 cars buried in the middle of a field with nothing around.


That was pretty much the highlights of the trip. Nothing really exciting happened, but it was nice to not have to be somewhere and just take our time getting home. There were a few things that I would like to share:

• If you are planning a road trip with a small child, you can't beat a DVD player in the car. We got a holder to put our little portable DVD player into for Mackenzie, and she loved it. Totally worth it, and it allowed Kari and I to talk more freely since she was using headphones.


• Sometimes when you are driving and you see something like this on the side of the road:

it might not be your imagination.

• Everyone should drive the desert at sunset once in your life, to see this kind of view. (And it is extra cool when you are in a car that totally gets up to 90 without you even realizing it. I mean this car just FLYS!!!)

• The car has XM, which makes driving across large swaths of nothing a lot more manageable. I still had the iPod ready to go, but the XM was nice. Not sure if I am going to keep it, since there is a monthly charge, but I am considering it.


• If you see a pecan store somewhere between Amarillo and Dallas, stop, because the chocolate covered pecans there are darn good.


• Nothing beats a post trip nap after driving 1300 miles.

So in closing, here it the newest member of the family. She is a 2008 Saturn Aura with 13000 miles on her. Ain't she pretty? Any suggestions on what we should call her?

Carter