Greetings from Flagstaff, Arizona! We’ve just settled in for the night and though we would recap the past two days of travel. I know it’s hard to believe, but we’ve been having a blast despite driving 28 hours and close to 2000 miles. We’ve really enjoyed the scenery and finally getting time to relax and goof off. The trip is off to a great start!

So long, Atlanta!

To recap, we left Atlanta on Thursday at 6AM in hopes of leaving before Georgia’s “Blizzard 2010” :). We made great time and decided our first meal of the trip would have to be Shoney’s for their breakfast bar. It’s not as great as we remembered, but it still hit the spot. We managed to make it to Dallas by 6 that night with only a couple bathroom stops, a Chick-fil-a fix, and onemuch needed energy drink. My sweet friend Alicia bought us this book of questions called “If” that really helped to pass the time. The drive wasn’t the most interesting in the world (so much flat land!) but it was enjoyable.

Much Needed Energy Drink

We got to Dallas in time to have dinner with one of my closest friends, Ashley. The BBQ place we picked wasn’t the best, but it was great to see Ashley and catch up. She’s getting married in July, so I needed a little time to catch up face to face. Having dinner was a really nice break from driving, but we  got back on the road as soon as we said our good-byes.

Jennifer & Ashley

After Dallas, we headed to Oklahoma City, OK, about 3 hours away. By the time we got to our hotel (around 11pm), we were exhausted! We have to say a HUGE thank you to my mom who helped us use priceline.com to book our hotel. We called her and told her the area and she booked it online. We managed to get a $150/night room for $64 including taxes. Awesome!

Hotel Lobby

Oklahoma City Hotel Room

This morning we woke up to a lovely ELEVEN degrees below zero in Oklahoma City. Strangely enough, I wasn’t that cold but poor Justin was freezing. We hightailed it out of town hoping it would get warmer as we went. There wasn’t much to see as we drove to Albuquerque, but we did take a couple interesting pictures. All I have to say is that there are some strange things you see in the middle of nowhere. As great as everything has been so far, we did have one  unpleasant little experience. Justin got caught doing 85 in a 70 mph zone and got a $200 ticket–not fun. Gotta love small town speeding traps. We’ve since been using cruise control religiously :).

Crooked Water Tower = Engineering Fail

Giant Cross, Little Church

In Albuquerque we stopped at “The Standard” diner, which was featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” on Food Network. We love the show and wanted to try to stop at places they featured along the way. My cousin Carrie moved to California last week and her family drove the same route, so I saw where they went and we’re following suit. The diner was ok, but nothing special. We did make sure to try the green chili soup since green chilies are the speciality of the city.

After a quick lunch, we were back on the road for the 5 hour drive to Flagstaff. I completely forgot that on the drive to Flagstaff we would be passing the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. It ended up being pitch black so we saw everything “in theory”. We’re just going to pretend we saw it :). The drive itself to get here was interesting. Imagine driving in the pitch black desert with only your headlights. When it wasn’t dark, what we saw was gorgeous. New Mexico is a gorgeous state, and once we see Arizona in the daylight, I’m sure it will be too.

Beautiful New Mexico!

When we finally got to Flagstaff, we were really surprised. We assumed Flagstaff would be a big city. Wrong. It’s about the size of Stockbridge and smack in the middle of nowhere. We managed to take about 20 wrong turns getting to the hotel, but we’re finally here. We also used Priceline and got this $100 room for $50. It’s pretty dang nice too!

Flagstaff Hotel

We had dinner at this amazing mexican restaurant, Salsa Bravo, which was also on “DDD”, and now we’re ready to crash.  Tomorrow we head to the Grand Canyon which we can’t wait to see!!

Jenn