Go West ... Part 1

On Thursday November 3rd we set out for what is to be the biggest Michael Family Adventure yet.  We left Fort Collins around 2 pm for a 12 day road trip to California.  A little bit of business and a little bit of fun.

~ Justin all smiles as we pull out of the drive-way for Vacation!! ~

~ Makenna with our 3rd child Elmo ... ready for a LONG ride ~ 

~ Dwight's look says it all ... what the heck are we about to do??? ~

Our first stop was in Green River, Wyoming.  We had planned to drive closer to Salt Lake City.  But Wyoming held true to what everyone says. The weather BLOWS in Wyoming.  High winds and black ice was not a great way to start our journey.  Thankfully Dwight was driving when we were traveling 60 mh down the interstate pulling a 28 ft enclosed trailer and the truck and trailer starts to fishtail  I panicked and Dwight was calm.  We called it a day and decided to stay the night.  We awoke to better weather and continued our drive west.

~ Since we will be celebrating Makenna's 5th birthday while on vacation we are giving her one present for 5 days ~

~ Present #1 ... At the top of her wish list, something educational and fun to play with while we are traveling ~

~ We didn't leave Justin out ... we had 5 small surprises for him as well ... as you can see he was thrilled when I pulled out cousin Brandon's Nintendo DS to play with while traveling ~ 

~ Utah Moutains ~

Day #2 was a long drive for us.  With a storm predicted to hit Lake Tahoe we decided to make it all the way over the pass and into Sacramento, California. 

 

Our trip planning started when Dwight purchased a tractor located in Lompoc, California … then when he located another tractor outside of Sacramento we decided it was a GO and the plans began to fall into place.

~ Mommy hanging out with Justin and Makenna in the hotel ~ 

One of my dear friends Metza that I met over 18 years ago while I was a nanny in L.A, now lives in Sacramento.  Once we arrived in Sacramento, Dwight loaded Tractor #1 and we spent 2 days visiting and hanging out with Metza and her family at their beautiful house.  We had such a great time together that we are already making plans for another get together next summer.

~ Ronnie, Metza, me and Dwight ~

~ Just like old times ... except we were all in bed before midnight ~

We left Sacramento Sunday afternoon and headed down the coast to Lompoc, California to pick up tractor #2.