Road Trip Wrap Up

The three week long road trip I took with my daughter was amazing!  We're so fortunate to have been able to do that!  And, I'm so blessed to have such an amazing daughter to have done it with!  We had a ton of fun, saw a lot of new places and things, and we even grew closer.  She's not only my daughter but she's also my best friend...and even more so now!  I love her so much!

Here's a picture she snapped just before we headed home on the final day of our trip...

I thought it might be fun to figure out some stats and make some lists about our trip.

I thought it might be fun to share them too.  Here it goes...

We drove almost 5,000 miles!  I'm so glad we shared the driving!

We drove 65-70 hours, total!

Yup....SO glad we shared the driving!

We visited 10 states (not counting our home state):  Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

We stayed at 13 different places in 13 different cities.

We visited at least 10 different Starbucks.

I took over 1,500 photos.  My daughter took a lot of photos too.

It rained on 14 of the 20 days we were gone. We saw some of the most incredible lightning we've ever seen.  And, we probably saw more rain fall on our trip than we've seen in at least five years in California!  We loved it!

We saw some critters:  Buzzards, Grackles, Blue Jays, Bluebirds, Cardinals, squirrels, Armadillos (dead on the road), raccoons (also dead on the road), an alligator (on side of the freeway), elk, deer, bunnies, dragonflies, lightning bugs, Canadian Geese, fish (jumping out of the water in the lake my aunt lives at), bats (in the darkness), coyote, Cactus Wrens, doves, pigeons, and assorted other birds.

The hottest day was in Tucson on the first day...106'.

The coldest day was early morning in Dodge City, Kansas.  

I don't remember the temp but we wore jeans and jackets.

Our three favorite hotels/inns that we stayed were: Hacienda Del Sol in Tucson, Arizona (also the cheapest); Dansereau House in Thibodaux, Louisiana; and Holiday Inn in Fredericksburg, Texas.

The three worst hotels/inns were:  Astor Crown Plaza in New Orleans (dirty), Holiday Inn in Memphis (noisy and the carpet was wet by the bathroom), and Boot Hill Bed and Breakfast in Dodge City (just not appealing at all...dirty, dated, and we didn't get the room we'd reserved)

Lodging lesson learned:  Expensive doesn't guarantee a good hotel because some of the most expensive were disappointing.  And...cheap doesn't mean it'll be bad.  One of our favorites (Hacienda Del Sol in Tucson) was the cheapest one of the whole trip...only $90 a night.  It was super clean, staff were extremely professional, and we had a wonderful stay.

Our favorite meals (besides the delicious food served up by family) were:  Iron Works in Memphis; Stanley in New Orleans; Applebees in Dodge City; La Cueva for Mexican food in Taos; and the cafe in Grand Canyon National Park.

Another lesson:  Expensive and fancy restaurants aren't necessarily better.

Some of our better meals were cheaper ones.

We found and visited eight fiber/yarn/weaving shops.

I bought things in three of them.

I finished two projects...a knitted cowl and a crocheted cowl.

I posted 59 times on Instagram during the trip.

We got gas at 21 different gas stations.  We stopped often to avoid running out.  That's not including all the ones we stopped at for a break, restroom, or something to drink.

We got 35 miles per gallon in our little Toyota Matrix.

We tried BBQ in three places that are famous for it...Texas, Memphis and Kansas City.

Texas was our hands down favorite!  Yum!

Best part of the trip...sharing it with my daughter!

Here's one last picture from our trip.  It wasn't included in a previous post as I didn't see it until we got home.  My daughter took this at the Texas Capitol building in Austin.  That's me standing under those windows.  This picture blew us away to see how tiny we were in this huge and amazing place.  When we were there, we were so busy snapping photos and ooohing and ahhhing that we didn't notice that.  

A HUGE thank you to all of you who followed along on our journey and left so many wonderful comments.  You have no idea how much each and every one of them means to me.  They were fun to read and brightened my day each time I got one.  I almost felt like ya'll were on the trip with us.  I loved that!  And, I love that you enjoyed my posts.  Thank you so much!