We got up on Thursday morning at Steve's parents house and once again started thinking about the trailer. When we originally packed the trailer a year and a half ago, we had no idea where our daughter would be in life nor did we fully understand where we would be, so we packed everything that we thought might be needed. It turned out that we had packed too much into the trailer for her current needs, so when we moved her into her new apartment, we left quite a few items behind in Steve's parents garage. So Thursday morning we repacked the trailer for the final time with all of our remaining treasures that needed to return to Havasu with us. It took us a couple of hours, and then we hit the road home.
Our greatest fear with this entire trip was making it back home without any truck or trailer problems. It seems that no matter how well you take care of your things, or how well you prepare for a trip, things can still go wrong! And a breakdown on this trip home could have been devastating because we were under a very tight schedule.
As we passed each milestone in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona, a small weight lifted for us as we realized that we were just a little closer to our destination in Havasu.
We arrived home a little after midnight on Friday morning, and jumped in bed for a few hours. When we got up we started unpacking our suitcases, doing laundry and then repacking again. We are once again using our packing cubes, which simplify our lives immensely, allowing us to cross pack our clothes between our suitcases, but still not get everything all mixed up. We had 70 pounds of "stuff" between the two of us, and it is everything we will need for the next three weeks. It kind of makes us wonder why we still have so much other stuff in our lives!
After getting repacked, we pushed the trailer up into the garage and just left it there until our return. We knew we could unpack it later and save ourselves some time.
The other obstacle we knew we had during these crazy days was that there was no food in the house since we had been gone for three weeks in Colorado. So after a breakfast of toast, and a lunch of grilled peanut butter and jelly, we managed to get everything done before dinner time so that we could go out and enjoy a nice relaxing dinner, a quick RZR ride up in the desert, and a quick drink with friends before calling it a night.
After a good nights sleep, we got up Saturday morning and headed for Los Angeles. Luckily, our drive to LA also went very well. We hit a lot of traffic once we were in the city, but it only slowed us down by about an hour. We LOVE using the GPS, it has truly revolutionized driving in LA. It is not an easy city to drive in even if you know the roads, so for someone that doesn't live here, the GPS is totally amazing!
We checked into our usual Holiday Inn Express hotel near LAX, eager to stretch out a little bit. We decided to walk to our favorite nearby Thai restaurant (Ayara) and pick up some dinner. It is only about 1/2 mile away and gave us a great chance to stretch out our legs a little bit. After about 1,400 miles of driving over the last few days, we were definitely ready for a good walk.
The restaurant did a great job of packing up our dinner for our hotel takeout, providing us with plates, bowls, spoons, forks, chopsticks and condiments as well as our amazing dinner. It was a meal packed for royalty.
It's been a couple of crazy days, but it will all be worth it in the end. Stay tuned for the start of our next adventure as we make our was to Beijing, China!
Steve went to China in 1995 as part of his MBA program. He loved the country, but was also shocked by some of what he experienced. He has always said that it was a life changing experience for him and has always wanted to take me there to experience it for myself. The time is finally here! So China, here we come!!!
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