Safe Arrival

We arrived in Santa Barbara, safe & sound, no worse for wear. We drove from Eden Prairie, MN to Grand Junction, CO (1175 miles, 17.5 hours) the first day. The next leg - from Grand Junction to Las Vegas (511 miles, 7.5 hours) was pretty easy. Don drove that leg, and we had very little traffic and just a little road construction. The last leg, Las Vegas to Santa Barbara (364 miles, 5.75 hours) was the worst. Of course, that's the leg I drove. The traffic was horrible - bumper-to-bumper going anywhere from 10 MPH to 85 MPH. People were weaving in and out, cutting in front of cars with inches to spare, using the slow traffic/truck only lane as a passing lane. It was a very stressful drive. Between LV and Barstow, we'd be traveling at a pretty good pace and then all of a sudden, we'd have to slam on the brakes and creep along at 20 MPH for a few miles and then floor it when the traffic cleared. I'm know part of the reason it was so crazy is it was the Sunday after the 4th of July, so there was a lot of holiday traffic.

The dogs did really well. They stay in the back of the CRV and remain pretty quiet. They did get excited when we got off in Santa Barbara. I opened up the sunroof and the back windows and they were sniffing up a storm. I'd like to think they knew where they were. They had a bit of a rough patch the second day since it was so hot and the blacktop and dried out grass hurt their paws so neither of them wanted to get out and "mark."

We arrived in Santa Barbara around 5:30 PM local time. We unpacked, ordered BBQ to go (yum!) and vegged out. Both Don and I were a little testy because of the stressful last leg. A few glasses of wine and a good night's sleep seemed to remedy that. I went to Trader Joe's in the morning to stock up and then spent the rest of the day out by the pool reading and relaxing. It was overcast until around 2:30 PM, which was fine with us.

I read an entire book yesterday - "The Red Tent." If you haven't read this, you really should. It's the fictionalized story of Dinah, daughter of Joseph, from the Bible. It was a great read, and I was drawn in immediately to the story. I brought a total of 11 books (9 for me, 2 for Don).

We don't really have formal plans for today. It's overcast this morning but it's supposed to burn off earlier than it did yesterday. We will take the dogs for a beach walk early this morning and then hang by the pool again. I know, a rough job, but somebody has to do it!