And so it begins...

I've finally set up a blog. I know I should have set one up years ago with all the traveling we do but better late than never. So, here we go...

When Larnie told me she was offered a position as a fellow at the New Hampshire Musculoskeletal Institute, I was so excited. 2 things popped into my mind: 1) it would be an awesome opportunity for her & 2) it would be the perfect opportunity to take a cross country trip (something I've always wanted to do in life). And so it begins...

Sunday July 16, 2006: Day 1 ~ Los Angeles, CA to Las Vegas, NV

Thanks for seeing us off everyone! I think momma Boquiren shed a lil tear for her baby girl and Andrew wanted to cry because he was going to miss his lil sister SO much! Hahaha... ya right!
OK, so Larnie took the 1st leg of the drive... BIG mistake! Since there we're about 15 people in the front of the Boquiren house I think she got a bit nervous backing out of the driveway. Not only was she a tad close to the fence on the driver's side, but she was backing out just as a car was coming down the street. But Larnie did a good job and backed up ALL the way across the street to the other house's driveway. I looked @ the lady in the other car and she was just laughing cuz she saw all these people outside the house just looking @ Larnie drive.

And so we headed to Vegas. Alvin took the 2nd leg of the drive and we made pretty good time. We got to Vegas in 4 hours. Here are our gracious hosts for our first night. Alvin & Minette were so kind to let us crash @ their house for the night.

It's such a cute house... With the best sweet tea ever!
Thanks for being so hospitable guys!

MISSION 1 ACCOMPLISHED! 290 miles traveled

Monday July 17, 2006 ~ Las Vegas, NV to Salt Lake City, UT

We decided to start off our second day with a hearty meal @ good old IHOP. Alvin worked from home and was able to have breakfast with us. Breakfast was on Poppa Boquiren this morning!

ARIZONA
Driving through the beautiful canyons.


Ok, so why the walmart picture? Well, I thought about how long we we're going to be in the car together and figured that I should buy a portable dvd player to help pass the time. I can always use it for future trips, so it's a good investment for me. So, we stopped by the local vegas walmart to pick one out.
So, we tried it out in the car while I was driving (I know, not a good idea... but I'm a good driver and you can only listen to music for so long in the car) and we're like, "Is that the highest the volume goes"? And we get this brilliant plan to connect the tape adapter we use for the ipod to the dvd player and TADA... SURROUND SOUND!!! AWESOME! So, we watched Friends all the way up to Salt Lake City.

UTAH IS ON FIRE!!!
We got freaked out when we saw black smoke up ahead. Apparently it's fire season and there was a huge fire this past weekend on the 15N. They just opened up the highway today. Lucky us.
And if that wasn't scary enough we had to drive through another fire!
We arrived safely in Salt Lake City in about 7.5 hrs. Not bad.

MISSION 2 ACCOMPLISHED! 720 miles traveled


FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE DAY
(talking about our caribbean trip) Leia: Yeah, at our apts in tortola we were supposed to take Navy Style showers
Larnie: [pause] Like Together???
Leia: [rolling my eyes & laughing] No, not communal showers Larnie!

Good times!