A Long Drive to Nowhere

Today it was time to say goodbye to our hotel here in Utah and start our long drive home.

We started out with breakfast at the lodge.

Then we drove and drove and drove. We had two really long drives on this trip. The first was from Denver to Vegas (made even longer due to snow) and the second is today, from Zion to Amarillo. Both are about 12 hours assuming no problems and without stops, which is about the longest we can do in a day (we do longer when we drive from Florida, but that's because I drive first and Jason sleeps). We started out in beautiful Utah, then went into Arizona. We saw a lot of great landscape there too, as well a lot of Indian reservations. They were really bleak and you could tell there wasn't a lot of opportunity there. We continued on into New Mexico, though I was disappointed it was dark before we got too far into into it since I would have liked to see it once we got closer to the mountains. Then finally we crossed into the Texas panhandle and Amarillo is just a little bit into Texas.

We finally got checked into our hotel (after a walk through the 29-degree night air. Thanks a lot, Amarillo) and we turned on a movie for the kids so they could unwind (luckily there was a Christmas show on. A lot of times there is nothing good for kids on in the middle of the night). I pretty much fell asleep immediately as I can't nap in the car like they can and oftentimes eating fast food before driving makes me feel a little sick and we don't have a lot of options in, say, Tuba City, AZ, so I wasn't feeling all that great. It was a long day, but now we are only 8.5 hours from home so it shouldn't be too bad tomorrow.