Hasta Luego Boise, Hola Everywhere Else!

10PM, May 30th, the day before the big 30 day road trip, Josh and Rachel’s Pad: Progress on packing – Zero. Yeah, 30 days of away-from-home and we had absolutely nothing packed the night before. What were we thinking? Well, we were thinking “Gee, we got married this last weekend, had 20 million things to take care of through the week, had 2 weddings to attend less than 48 hours before we left, my brother’s graduation…hmm, maybe we should fit in packing.” So, at 2 AM, packing irritation had taken its toll and we decided to hit the sack in an attempt to get some amount of hours of sleep, which turned out to be less than we had hoped for. At 6 AM, Mother Nature thought it would be funny to kick in, and it kicked me (Josh) straight in the back of my throat – the ever dreaded allergy throat itch, the kind that you have to make a disgusting hacking sound in order to itch the back of your throat for a few seconds of solace from itchy-throat allergies. Rachel in turn wanted to kick me in the head (although she is too kind to say it), but like the amazing, loving wife she is, got me some water and consoled me, and we went back to sleep for another couple of hours, although I think we both felt the travel-excitement. We wanted to get out of Boise around 11:30 or Noon, but when do things ever go as planned? We finally got to my house to pick up my forgotten-about health insurance card around noon, then hit the Maverick for a quick fill-up. This is when the fun began. Apparently, it is an international violation of ethics to not pull your car out of the fill-up spot while you pay INSIDE the gas station when someone is waiting behind you, and Moses’ mother herself informed me as I got back to my car from paying for my gas that I should have more courtesy and pull out of the way for her and grandpa next time. While inside, I thought it necessary to buy 2 bags of ice as opposed to 1, which was to fit into our already over-flowing cooler in the back of our jam-packed Ford Escape. We pushed and shoved the ice into the cooler as much as possible, and realized oh, we need some dry ice to put into this cooler that has no more space available. As we pulled out of the gas station, I glanced down and noticed black and brown dirt and oil and tire tread all over the bottom of my shirt. I guess after I smashed the ice on the ground, I decided to rub the wet bag all over my shirt (not on purpose though). So I had my first change-of-clothing experience in the middle of the Walmart on Overland Road – nothing better than to bare your chest to the hundreds of drivers coming in and out of Wally World, but it’s probably fitting because that seems to be the theme for many shoppers these days at your local Walmart. So, finally, at 1:42 PM, we drove out of the parking lot and were headed out of Boise.
Thus far, outside of being yelled at by George Washington’s grandmother at Maverick (seriously, I don’t know how this lady was walking) and changing shirts at Walmart, nothing too exciting. Rachel saw the Lagoon Theme Park for the first time that she can remember (from the freeway), a little rain coming into Salt Lake that made the windshield wonderful to look through thanks to the smearing of around 53 bugs that ended their short lives, and we are now waiting for Dominos Pizza and watching our delivery progress online – yes, you can watch your order delivery online now, how exciting! The only other thing that was semi exciting was a 10 minute detour trying to find our hotel. Rachel came through though with some amazing map skills and got us to the right place at a decent time. She thinks she can’t read a map but I am witness to some pure map ownage today! Seriously, our honeymoon has been amazing so far, I promise! Salt Lake City is sort of a stop-on-the-way for bigger and better things. Tomorrow we’ll be hittin’ up Las Vegas, which is going to be incredible! Tomorrow we’ll see the Blue Man Group (from the FRONT ROW) and then the next day we’ll see Cirque de Soleil, which I hear is awesome! Overall, really great trip so far.
You can look at things a couple ways – One, everything that could have gone wrong did and we didn’t get to go to Spaghetti Factory like we planned and I got yelled at and my shirt got dirty and we couldn’t find our hotel right away and yadda yadda yadda, OR…we are at the beginning of a major life adventure, one we will never forget, one that we will remember for as long as we live, an adventure that will take us through 27 of the 50 greatest states in the world through the greatest nation on earth, through history and famous landmarks and famous places, all the while getting to spend time with my favorite person in the world, (and I think she would say the same ;o). It’s a time for a glass-half-full approach, because in the midst of economic downturn and war throughout the world and sadness and homelessness and atrocity here on the home front (can you believe this Jon and Kate plus 8 ordeal, sheesh!), it’s also a time of great people emerging and love and so many things to be thankful for – like a new family, new people, new gifts, new life together and new things all around. And hey, if worse comes to worse, I got to meet Grandmother Time today!

Salt Lake City Highlights! – Pizza, some cool rain clouds and lightning, a super nice hotel room, a hot tub, our first blog, thoughts of an exciting day tomorrow!

From the Road Less Traveled,
Josh and Rachel

License Plate Update: Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Indiana, Texas, Florida, Oregon, California, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Illinois, Oklahoma, Maine (16/50) - We played this game as I was a kid growing up, so we’ll see if we can see all 50 license plates by the time we are back!