Day 4

 Texas, New Mexico, Arizona

Berke's family homesteaded 5 acres in the California desert when he was 5 years old.  He's loved the desert ever since.  Even if I might be more of an ocean and mountains girl, that love of the desert has rubbed off on me.  I'm pretty sure our son loves the desert just as much as his dad.

Monday our drive took us through that glorious part of the Southwest.

I think it was my favorite day of travel.

A large wind farm in Texas.

New Mexico scenery.  It speaks for itself.

There was a bit of rain this day too . . . 

. . . but it just made for some magnificent cloud formations.

Tomorrow we drive to California.

Day 3

Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas 

Many of the states bordering Missouri don't allow the sale of fireworks, so as you leave the state, these businesses flourish!

It was early in the day, but it started to get dark as we headed into Oklahoma.

Lots of freight trains.

The story of this day is RAIN!

Storyteller is my word this year and stories keep showing up!

I'm pretty sure it does not rain, torrentially, every day in Oklahoma.

But I'm also pretty sure I have never driven thru OK without hitting  some rain.

This is a photo of what it looked like to my camera :

And this is what it looked like to me:

Berke says it only rained this hard for 45 minutes.

It seemed like 3 hours to me!

Eventually the rain stopped and as we drove into Texas.  

The clouds were glorious!

Day 2

 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri

We arrived in Youngstown, Ohio last night, and woke up to breakfast at the hotel.
I cannot be responsible for clear photographs at 6 am

It really is beautiful countryside driving through Ohio.

Even the rest areas have pretty spots to walk a dog or eat a lunch.

The obligatory art-y photograph.

One of the challenges I'm finding in documenting what I see is how fast everything speeds by at 70 mph.  I see cool stuff and by the time I've turned on the camera and directed it out the window sometimes all I get is a partial image.  Still this is a cool partial image.

Through the middle of St Louis.

Not sure I'd want to live this close to I-55, but this row of houses is cool.

PS:  Let me know if these photos seem too large.  I tried larger images for this post.

Day 1

Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio

Berke & I left Friday morning at about 6:30 am.  The car packed with suitcases, sandwich fixings, snacks.  Oh and cardboard boxes for packing up the things from my mom's house.

One last look at my fav Dogwood tree.  

By the time we get back the white flowers will probably be replaced by green leaves.

Taking non-blurry photographs from a fast moving car is not easy!

Often we were past a thing before I had a chance to take a photo.

This was my view out the front window for most of the driving day.  

I took a lot of shots, but honestly they all look about the same.

Towards the end of the day the sky in Ohio was glorious.

Another view out my window.

Road trips are all sorts of things -- fun; tedious; a chance to see the country, even if it's mostly from a fast moving car.  There are opportunities to talk - a lot; and then again, opportunities to be quiet.  We're going out for my mom's memorial service, so I've been thinking about her and my dad a lot.  

I'm glad Berke has never minded listening to my stories, even the ones I've told before, cuz well I keep being reminded of family stories and sharing them with him.  That is one thing I really liked about my mom -- her stories about her childhood.  She & her best friend used to get into the wackiest situations and I loved hearing them over and over again.

Day one done. One-fifth of the trip outbound is done.

California Dreamin'

 I once couldn't go on a planned trip to France.  But one of the woman always blogged about her travels and that time was no exception.  It was great to see her posts, it almost felt like I was there with the group.  So that's the goal on this blog for the next couple weeks, a day by day of what my travels look like.

On Friday I head to Southern California.  Home.  It's not going to be a fast-paced trip.  My plan is to post each day about what happened.  Take lots of photos.  Share the trip with my kids, as if they were there with me.

This picture, taken in Ventura, speaks to me of home because of how much my dad loves California.

He doesn't live there any longer and I won't see him, but he will be in my heart on this trip.

  

You're invited along.  See you in a couple days.