We closed the loop!

One year later, the loop around America, “a year without winter,” is complete! If you’re able to take a road trip across America, do it! And if you can stretch it out over a few weeks or months, even better. A few stats about our trip:

Miles driven: about 17,000
National Parks: 7 (plus numerous national monuments/forests/etc and state parks)
Wildlife sightings: 24
Rocket gardens/space museums: 6
Regrets: 0 (except for maybe that bee sting on the bottom of my foot!)

Keep reading below to travel with us in reverse, or head back to the beginning to start with us in Iowa.

Thanks for following along with us, it’s been an unforgettable year!

Road trip to California

The drive from Salt Lake City to Marin County, California is long but easy. Take I-80 west and just keep going! There’s some fun things along the route to break up the trip, like…

The Bonneville salt flats! Salt as far as the eye can see! The salt is crunchy underfoot and is quite bright to look at.

This humongous log!

Reno — I donated $1 to the slot machines!

Lake Tahoe! I’d love to go back here for vacation. From the highway, you have to drive up a twisty mountain road, but then you’re rewarded with a beautiful view of the lake and surrounding wooded hills. If you drive around the north side of the lake, you can head back to 80 near Tahoe City.

And last, but not least, Donner Memorial State Park! Yup, the cannibals. The visitor center has a really interesting exhibit about the family’s journey and the history of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Hooray, we made it the west coast! (On September 12 if you’re keeping track.)

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New time zone

We drove 968.4 miles this weekend! Yes, I’m counting that .4 miles, just like you marathoners count your .2’s. We left Arlington on Saturday morning and arrived in Cedar Rapids on Sunday evening. The drive alternated between miles of farmland and miles of wooded areas.

On Saturday we drove through a herd of locusts that made very loud splats when they hit the car. They were large and gross. In the late afternoon a big storm crossed our path and since we had made it halfway we decided to stop for the night in Dayton, Ohio.

On Sunday we saw more farms and woodlands, lots of windmills, and several signs for Steak ‘n Shakes. We didn’t stop at one of those, but we did grab lunch at a place called Culvers, home of the ButterBurger. Also home of delicious custard. Yum yums in my tum tums.

We crossed the Mississippi river! And in Iowa we got to visit the World’s Largest Truck Stop. That place has a library, a barber shop, restaurant, gift shop, and an auto section that sells very neat accessories for your big rig.

Kenan took some cool time-lapse videos along the way. Here’s a glimpse of the drive in 45 seconds!

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