Saturday morning, we woke up at 5am to make the final preparations to leave our Minnesota home. Our home went on the market at 5pm Friday evening with all showings starting on Saturday; so we are feeling pretty good leaving and knowing that our home is in the best possible shape - glowing granite and fresh vacuum marks on the carpet throughout. :) We leave at 6am feeling anxious for our first showing scheduled for 10:30am.
6:00am | Put the princess in her carseat, praying she stays asleep. {not a fat chance}
6:22am | "I wanna get out" {of her car seat}- Miss L says, as Mr. Cole begins to meow. This is this equivalent of "Are we there yet?" Jer and I give each other a nervous look and wonder how the next 13.5 hours are going to pan out.
 |
| Mmmm...hot cakes! |
7:30am | It seems that maybe she is going to experience a "food coma" and looks sleepy; meanwhile, Mr. Cole is still meowing. We decide to let Mr. Cole out of his cage...wrong decision. Miss L has a new found excitement for her furry brother. Uh oh!
 |
| See Mr. Cole as "high" as he can go! |
9am | 3 hours into the trip, time to change drivers - we stop at a Kum & Go Gas Station - interesting "Iowa gas station" - Daddy and Miss L pick a "flower" for mommy, while I go search for coffee as it is my turn. I am overjoyed as this coffee station has tons of coffee varieties AND a massive coffee creamer station with all of my faves - I had a hard time selecting. I decide to go "house blend + caramel macchiato creamer"
10am | Naptime through Iowa - peace and quiet for mommy to reflect. As I drive across the prairie lands, I experience a feeling of anticipation that might parallel our early American settlers as they "headed west" in search of gold and prosperity.
 |
| I drive as the rest of the car naps |
 |
| Iowa's many windmills |
 |
| An Iowa Casino...LOL! |
11:30am | Enter Nebraska...or rather enter Omaha, as this is nearly the only thing is this VERY long state. We decide I-80 in Nebraska is to Colorado, as I-75 in Georgia is to Florida. It is long and never-ending leading into your final destination.
1pm | Stopped at Lincoln, NE Airport for gas {thank you, Hertz!} and went downtown for some Chipotle. We ate outside for fresh air and found downtown Lincoln to be a really cute, nice and clean college town. Hard to believe we are still in "Big 10 Country" though...this is far from home!
1:45pm | Back on the road - time for mommy and baby to nap.
2:10pm | I awake as I receive a call from Tom, our realtor. We have one offer on showing #1 {which happened to arrive at 9:30am, instead of 10:30am}, but we have at least one other offer coming in...and we will have a total of 12 showings today. Great news, we are thrilled!
{Too excited to sleep}
2:45pm | 3 offers are now on the table, all showings have been through and all realtors have been offered a chance to make an offer on the home.
{Insert about 4 phone calls with our realtor}
5:15pm | Home is sold - we are feeling victorious!
5:30pm | We enter Colorado!
There is nothing around...so we finally stop at a little gas station. The ladies Rest Room makes me thankful Miss L is not potty trained yet, as I think we would have been slapping a diaper on her instead of using this Rest Room. There was a fun dinosaur statue out front to play on, and we said hello to a few doggies that were also making a pit stop. Back on the road...Mommy's turn to drive. 5:40pm | Tons of lightening and dark skies ahead as we are in the dessert plains of Colorado.
I pull over to let Jer drive when the tumbleweed are blowing across the road and it looks as if we are driving into the eye of the storm. We unknowingly stopped next to an extremely large cattle farm. as I opened the door, I thought to myself "what dirty diaper did we leave in the car!???" but the smell was that of 1,000 diapers made me quickly realize...it was manure...and it lingered in the car for a bit, but we become distracted by the storms ahead. I turn on a local FM station and learn that we are driving through a Tornado Warning. The muted green sky is quite scary and we decided to power through as fast as can {after all, the speed limit is 75...which translates to 85 in our car!}
6:20pm | Back to blue skies and sunshine, we both are relieved as we continue to listen to the radio meteorologist tell everyone in the areas south of us to take shelter. We both view the storm in our rear, via the mirrors.
 |
| Look how dark it is behind us from the mirror. We were already in blue skies and sunshine. |
8:00pm (7:00pm MT) | We have arrived, Yay!!! Thanks to our Lord for watching over and guiding us..
Summary:
Just over 900 miles and 14 hours from Lakeville to Denver, including 2 hours {lunch + 2 stops}
Miss L napped for just 3.5 hours of the 14 {a lot less than expected}
Her favorite toys included: baby doll + bottle, her baby laptop, books, cell phones, and of course the ipad..oh and Mr. Cole! She did manage to eat 2 of her 3 meals while traveling in her car seat, her "food bag" was packed solid prior to leaving! It wasn't nearly as bad as we anticipated and leaving/arriving in the daylight was really helpful.
Now, we begin making our {very small} furnished one-bedroom apartment a little more like home; while we search for our next permanent home. I have already found library storytime for toddlers, the nearest Starbucks {someone was up at 5:45am this morning}, a park and a community waterpark/splash pad. Now...I just need my car to arrive either Monday or Tuesday!
Oh, and a celebratory dinner tonight! :)
