Moving Cross Country - Part I

Okay so in every trip there is a slight hiccup right? Or a few...

Hiccup #1 -
I'm with one college roommate Mal, we pick up another college roommate Erica from the airport, and we pick up some snacks on the way back to my brothers. Its around 11pm and I am packing my last few things, when - HICCUP!
Actually it was a tickle, in the back of the throat, you know the one that says,"you're about to feel like a truck hit ya." And I totally did but tried really hard to fight that dang stupid cold, I HAD PLANS, how dare it ruin my vacation-move!

 Mal wanted to document my last few Arizona moments

 Erica watching me pack

 The three of us - Mal, me, and Erica - met freshman year of college. Crazy to realize that was almost nine years ago! I'm so grateful I met them.

Erica flew in from Utah to drive across country with me and I'm so glad she did. I loved being able to spend time with her but I also ended up being EXTREMELY grateful for a second driver. I slept a lot when in the car, which made me sad because we didn't talk as much as I was hoping but we still had fun! Wednesday morning after a gas stop and a quick buy-a-medicine-cabinet-worth-of-drugs-to-try-and-get-over-this-cold stop we got on the way out of town. It was weird driving out of Arizona realizing this wasn't just for vacation, I got a little sad knowing I wasn't coming back anytime soon. But then I focused on the fun about to be had.

First stop:

We headed north east right up to the far corner of Arizona and stopped at
 Four Corners Monument. 

 This is it, there really isn't much there.

 "Four states here meet in freedom under God."

 Sexy shadows!

So I went when I was too little to remember and I really wanted to remember and take fun photos of us being in four places at once, how many people get to say they've done that?

I do!

So does Erica!

I did a backbend in 4 states at once, because I'm cool and talented like that!

 My OH-SO gorgeous traveling companion.

 Of course there were a bunch of Asians, I loved this old guy doing a lunge pose, haha!

 Just to give you full on proof, that is my very white foot,

 and there are the state lines.

After the exhausting business of being 4 places at once, we stopped for dinner somewhere in Colorado.

Enter Hiccup #2 -
So because I was sick and not fully with it I didn't remember my original plan was not to take the direct route to St.Louis but to go south through New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma so Erica could see more states. Well I was tired and after dinner, Erica was taking over the drive, and I just plugged St.Louis into the gps and we started off. At some point Erica got nervous she had missed a turn and woke me up to make sure we were going in the right direction. That's when I remembered my original plan. By this time though it would add 4 hours to the trip (originally only 1hr) to go south, so we said oh well and stayed on the direct route to St.Louis.

Some CRAZY windy, steep mountain roads later and at the wee hour of 3am I took over at the wheel with a herbal tea in hand to keep me awake and my throat soothed.

Hiccup #3 -
I'm enjoying a beautiful sunrise over the Kansas plains, thinking about that country song Fly Over States, and I whip past two cops doing about 15 over. Come on! In the middle of nowhere why is the speed limit ONLY 65? I slowed down and watched my rearview mirror and about half a mile away I see one cop pull out and suddenly he's right behind me. I also had my seat-belt buckled behind me. (Side note: I REALLY hate seat-belts and my car has a very annoying nonstop beeper when its unbuckled, thus I leave it buckled behind me.) So I unbuckle the belt and semi pull it over me as the cop car comes up right beside me. He then drops back and I figure he's going to pull me over so instead of waiting till he does to buckle, I try and buckle one handed and end up jerking the car. Real smooth Elizabeth, real smooth. Well you guessed it, the lights come on and I pull over. He asked me if I knew I was speeding and that I was jerking. My excuse for the jerk was that I was reaching for a water bottle, he looked at the state of my car overflowing with my stuff and totally accepted it, thank goodness. I think because I was moving cross-country he let me off without a ticket and warned me I was heading into construction so to keep it slow. Not bad, no ticket, just a slight hiccup :)

Along with hiccups are the fun, unexpected unplanned stops. Things I notice along the way and make a completely worthwhile detour.

Unplanned Stop #1 -
 As I had been driving, I thought I remembered a LDS temple in Kansas City. I love having a smartphone.  I looked it up and found out the Kansas City temple had JUST opened a few days before! So we headed to check it out. We were super nasty - driving all night, no shower - so we just wanted to see the outside of it.

This is the front side and only entrance/exit for the temple.

This is on the backside of the temple, there was some kind of metal thing at the base that was catching the sun, thus the light on the sign.

 We were crazy hungry by this point and so went to the nearest breakfast place - Bob Evans, I guess its a chain common out here. I thought it was SUPER delicious, way better than Dennys or IHOP.

Unplanned Stop #2 -
While eating, I also remembered Liberty Jail was nearby and I asked Erica if she wanted to go. And as I suspected, she totally did. Liberty Jail is where the LDS prophet Joseph Smith was held for 6 months in depraved conditions. I did not take any pictures because I had some from three years ago when I visited it with my mom.

We got back on the road and around 5pm we made it to St.Louis and JUST IN TIME

 we were the last people allowed up for the day!

Notice how Erica's head is practically touching the ceiling of the little carriage that took us up, it was sooo tiny. The ride up and down was a bit freaky.

 The view from the top.

 Its shadow on the Mississippi River.

 This may seem obvious but the lookout area is arched, not flat and being up so high and not on flat ground, I felt a bit of vertigo. I kept breathing deeply and holding onto the walls. It may have also been made worse by my cold.

 360 feet in the air, just chilling.

We totally were having a good time, look at that smile.

Erica checking out the might dirty Mississippi. I tried to get her to put her foot in it but she wouldn't. We then headed to a local place called Blueberry Hill for dinner. Its a huge restaurant and they have a million collections like juke boxes and other random items.

 They also are known for their toasted ravioli and jerk chicken pictured below.

 I forgot to get a picture of the toasted ravioli. It is a St.Louis specialty and they were really good. The chicken was also really delicious. I was sad though because the sore throat and cold were totally killing my appetite and I was barely eating.

 We then walked across the street to the only rootbeer micro-brewery in the U.S. - Fitz's.

 You can actually watch the brewing happen. Pretty fun!

We were both full but we had to get a rootbeer float of course!

It was so hard to eat and when I tried to push my ice-cream into the rootbeer, I totally spilled rootbeer all over the table - oops! It tasted really good at first but then it had a slightly medicinal aftertaste to me. After conferring with Erica (who doesn't really like rootbeer but thought it tasted good,) I realized my cold was yet again the culprit. Oh well, it was still tasty and fun to try.

One last stop of the day...

 the St. Louis Temple.

 The entrance.

The backside of the temple. It was a really pretty one, I especially loved the stain glass.
We got back on the road around 9pm, Erica drove while I read a dating book outloud.  Seriously, I will probably read more dating books because they are HILARIOUS! We both just kept laughing. Until we got to Efffingham, IL. Then Erica totally lost it, she thought it was the funniest name EVER - I agreed. We had to stop for gas and Erica looked for a postcard with the cities name but no such luck. Bummer! I took over driving and she took a nap. I don't know how long I drove, maybe two hours and then I started drifting off so I pulled over and Erica drove the rest of the way. We got to the hotel around 3am (we had an hour time change). We were EXHAUSTED! I really wanted to shower since it'd been two days but I was just too tired. So we both crashed - hard!

Stay tuned more adventures to come...