Sunday, May 27, 2007

Welcome to Georgia - Athens!

Hey everyone! It took us two and a half days but we made it! We took a Penske moving truck and our car. Brooks' dad joined us on our trip and we all took turns driving different vehicles. Zibby rode in the back of the car and was no trouble at all! He pretty much slept most of the trip and now he really likes riding in the car! I made a log of our trip and all of the places and things we saw along the way:


May 20, 2007
7:00 am Richard (Brooks' dad) stops to save the dragon. In the fields in Salem there is an old tractor thing that is painted like a dragon and has a sign hanging on it that says 'save the dragon.' This was the first time that we lost Richard behind us....he had to stop for the dragon I guess.
8:00 am Welcome to Helper, UT. Wow, this is a crappy place.
10:06 am Welcome to Colorado.
10:43 am Crossed the Colorado River.
1:39 pm Veil Colorado is an awesome place!
3:11 pm Welcome to Denver - Saw a sign for Steele Street! Awesome!
3:43 pm Where are we? It got really flat all of the sudden.
3:47 pm Hardcore rain

















3:53 pm Rain stopped
5:51 pm Saw a sign for Bonny State Recreatioinal Area
6:02 pm/7:02 pm Welcome to Kansas (entered Central Time Zone)
7:08 pm Saw a semi that fell on it's side on the freeway.
8:28 pm Service engine light comes on in the car...!!!!!!!
8:45 pm Spotted some cattle in a field with giant horns.
11:30 pm Finally arrived at our hotel in Salina, Kansas.


Here is a sweet pic of Brooks and Zibby at a pit stop:




















May 21, 2007

7:45 am Took the car to Auto Zone to find out why the light came on. Turns out it was just an o2 sensor and we are fine to keep driving and get it fixed when we get to Georgia. What a relief!
9:00 am Hit the road! Goodbye Salina
10:55 am Welcome to Topeka
11:19 am Passed what seemed like thousands of motorcycles - "Ride for the Wall"- There were tons of them riding two-by-two all decked out with their gear. We figure they were riding to the Vietnam Wall. Here are some photos I shot of them from the truck.



















11:31 am Finally got through the herd of motorcycles. That was cool.
11:50 am Welcome to Kansas City
11:56 am Welcome to Missouri - Crossed Missouri River
3:31 pm Saw a Nazi Paul Bunyan - a giant statue that had his hand in the air kind of like the Nazis did. Hah!
4:00 pm Welcome to St. Louis - Found the arch AND rush hour traffic - got a few shots from the truck of the arch. Didn't realize it was so close to the freeway....we practically drove in a circle around it.



















4:45 pm Welcome to Illinois - Crossed Mississippi River
7:25 pm Crossed Ohio River
7:30 pm Welcome to Kentucky
7:40 pm Passed a Penske truck pulling a little Uhaul trailer...funny.
9:08 pm Fireflies leave huge squash marks on the windshield.
9:10 pm Welcome to Tennessee!
9:30 pm Welcome to Nashville....heard Willie Nelson wispering in the pines....

May 22, 2007
7:30 am depart Nashville
10:30 am Dipped in to Georgia and then back up to Tennessee again. I wish the road wouldn't tease me like that.
10:45 am The Appalachain Mountains are beautiful! Here is a picture of an awesome lake.



















11:14 am Welcome to Georgia!
11:30 am Saw another semi on its side.
12:45 pm Welcome to Atlanta!
2:20 pm Welcome to Athens!

We made it! here are some photos of our new place...






















So we're doing great! We're trying to get to know the place as much as possible. Athens is beautiful and the campus is especially beautiful. Here are some pics of the campus. This first one is the building where the college of business is located. Its funny because the building is called Brooks Hall.....go figure.















































This stadium is something like the 5th largest on campus football stadium in the nation and holds around 86,000 people. Go Bulldogs!















We had some true southern food the other day at a place called Weaver D's. If you know much about the band R.E.M. maybe you've heard a song about this place. The sign outside said: Weaver D's - Automatic for the People. It was a dive of a place but the food was great. You choose your main dish of meat - fried pork chop, steak n gravy, fried chicken dark or white.... and then you choose 2 sides. When the lady listed off the side dishes to me I had no idea what she was saying so I chose the two things that I understood....mac and cheese & buttered potatoes. Later we discovered the other sides: sweet potato soufflé, broccoli casserole, green beans, potato salad.....etc. Everything was soaked in butter and delicious! We also got a dish of peach cobbler with the meal and when the big guy brought it to our table he put the cobblers down and said "automatic for the people." We all just looked at each other wondering what exactly that meant. It was great. We are really excited to try some other southern foods!

Thats about it for Georgia so far. We miss everyone and everything but we're having a great time in a new place. Here are some other photos that we have been wanting to share with everyone: (mostly pictures of Zibby and how cute we think he is :) )

This is a picture of Zibby on the couch looking out the window at our new place. He loves that he can see out the window and he sits like this on the couch all the time. We think it is really cute. When he hears the neighbor kids outside he has to jump up on the couch and see them. He especially loves to go out and play with them. We also found a dog park just down the road that he loves to play at. He usually ends up taunting the other dogs to get them to chase him and the other dogs usually give up cuz Zibby never gets tired of running. We love the dog park.



This is another great one of Zibby back in Utah. I was taking a nap on the couch and he had to join me. It was adorable when he climbed right up behind me and threw his arm around my stomach.









Zibby was such a good boy on the trip. We were so proud of him.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Here we go!


Hey everyone! Well in case you all didn't hear the news Brooks got accepted to the University of Georgia. We are both really excited and scared at the same time. The school is located in Athens Georgia, which is just over 1900 miles from Salt Lake. We start our cross country tour on Suday the 20th. Brooks will be working towards his MBA, and will be graduating in one year.