East Coast Tour - Day 33

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Day 33 (and a bit) Santa Fe to HOME!

Since there was minimal set-up last night we were able to pack up and get on the road early this morning. It was roughly 1000 miles between Santa Fe and Atascadero. We planned to go as far as Needles today and split the trip into two days. Our first stop was Albuquerque for breakfast. We found a nice cafe off of I-40 and had a great breakfast. After breakfast we were racing the thunderstorms again. We flew down I-40 through Gallup and into Arizona. once we reached Flagstaff we were back on the route we started on over a month ago. We were making pretty good time and expected to hit Needles in the early afternoon. At this point we noticed two things. I-40 was closed just past Needles and It was going to be 103 in Needles when we reached it. We started researching alternate paths and stopping locations. We changed course slightly and headed towards Barstow. We took some side roads out of Kingman and worked our way past Laughlin and through another storm to I-15 and on to Barstow. At that point it was 8PM and only 5 hours to home. It was still almost 100 degrees in Barstow and the KOA looked a little sketchy so we decided to push on to home. Caffeine and Pandora kept us going along the familiar route and by 1AM we were finally home.



It was a long trip but worth every mile and mishap. We were able to visit with many of our far flung friends and family, see the differences and similarities of many parts of the country, and check off another achievement, driving the east coast from bottom to top.

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Photos

California
So, our side-road shortcut didn't have a road sign. We noticed we were in California when we saw the San Bernadino County Line.

Comments

[Traci Money]

Great Blog!
I enjoyed your blog .... fun trip. I'm glad you include the mishaps in detail ... this is more what a long road trip entails than just fun fun fun.