Utah on the I-15

Driving into a summer storm in Utah. There is a lot of sky once you get out of California.

Arizona Bedding Planes

The view from the I-15 through Arizona.

Random Picture of the Day: Grand Prismatic

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone

I’m a big geology nerd, so I took hundreds of pictures on this trip. I’m not a particularly good photographer, but I figure all those photos go to waste just sitting on my hard drive, so I’m going to post them at random.

A Random Las Vegas Mall

The first day of driving was from LA to Pocatello, Idaho. It was the end of July, so Vegas was a balmy 110°.

Scott has had the same Dodger hat since he was a kid. The day before we left for the trip, I came up with the brilliant plan to surprise him with a new one. Of course, I thought of this on a Sunday night when all the nearby sporting goods stores had closed.

So I came up with another brilliant plan (I have a lot of those): we’ll stop in Vegas and I’ll buy him one there. It didn’t, of course, occur to me that sporting goods stores in Nevada wouldn’t be overflowing with Dodgers gear.

After a quick detour to the Barstow Outlet stores (I kind of just figured that, if we drove around enough, we’d find a hat store. We didn’t), we finally got to the Random Outer Edge of Las Vegas Mall.

Given that it was ridiculously hot outside, we decided to bring Kit into the mall. I figured it would be okay because he and I would just sit on a bench while Scott went into a store and picked out a hat.

You learn a lot of things about someone when you spend two weeks in a car with them. In this case, it only took being in a car five hours to learn that Scott is really, really picky about hats.

Really picky.

On our way to the third sporting goods store in the mall, an imposing figure rolled up to us. Yes, the mall cop on a Segway had spotted us. Apparently, the dog was allowed in the mall, but only if we carried him.
Scott carrying the dog like a baby was apparently a babe magnet. Seriously, there is nothing that women in the Random Outer Edge of Las Vegas Mall enjoy more than a man carrying a dog like a baby.

On our way out, we noticed this Ninja Turtles Ride.

For a kid’s ride, Leonardo is getting pretty cozy with Raphael.

The Route

I can’t seem to get this to embed properly, so:

1. J – Home (LA)

2. H – Pocatello, Idaho

3. E – Kalispell, Montana

4. D – Glacier National Park, Montana

5. F – Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

6. G – Jackson Hole, Wyoming

7. H – Pocatello, Idaho

8. I – St. George, Utah

9. J – Home (LA)

Total distance: 3,065 miles

Total we actually drove: 4,222 miles

This is Kit

Kit is a rescue from the Thousand Palms Animal Shelter. We’re not sure exactly what he is, so when people ask I just say he’s a Chupcacabra – although, without fail, everyone who sees him immediately says, “He looks just like a fox!” My only regret is that I didn’t keep a running tally of how many people said this during our trip to Montana.

I was supposed to write this blog from the road, but I’m more ambitious than I am driven. So, three months later, I’m finally getting around to it.

We’ll see how long that lasts.