From Oregon to Colorado: A New Beginning
by Shanny
It was close to evening time when my husband, Devin and I got the U-haul fully loaded up and ready to go. I was feeling okay about the move, not fully ready to be away from my parents and friends but ready to have my family back together in one spot. We had just spent 8 months apart only seeing Devin at Christmas time and then I got to see him again at Graduation for a few days. So we were missing each other and the kids were missing their father. Lots of tears and heartache had already been shed from being away from each other for so long. It felt good to be together again.
Before leaving Oregon, my father decided to treat us to a pizza dinner before we moved on. So off to Chuck E. Cheeses one last time before saying good-bye and visits would become fewer and farther between. The kids had a ball running around all over the place and playing with Grandpa. After a couple of hours we decided to head off, it was already later then we had expected to leave and we knew we weren't going to get very far.
So after our good-byes we loaded up the kids and headed for our new home in Colorado. The first drive was a pretty quick one, we drove from Salem Oregon to The Dalls since we were so late getting out so it was about 11pm by the time we go there. I was fatigued from driving and so was Devin, the kids were ready to get out of the car and stretch their legs too. It felt good to be laying down in a comfy bed. I still think that the reality of the move had not quite hit me yet either.
Later that day we ended up meeting with Devin's father for a visit and lunch. After spending a few hours with him at the restaurant we made our way to Idaho. I don't think I had ever been this far east in Oregon in my life. Before we crossed the Oregon Idaho border we stopped at a place they call the "Farewell Bend", it's not too far from Ontario Oregon, a place where Devin lived before he moved to Newport (the town where we met). He pointed out places that he knew and where his step-father used to work, he was glad to show me the place where he loved to live.
We didn't stop until we reached Boise, only then we went and put gas in the U haul and got some snacks for us and the kids from the store. Then we were back on our way. We ended up getting stuck in horrible traffic for about an hour just as we were getting out of the city limits. Being stuck in that kind of traffic jam with kids in the back seat is NOT fun. We had planned to drive to Twin Falls and rest there for the night and then work our way to Wyoming. Things ended up not going as planned.
When we arrived in Twin Falls (around 11:00 pm) we stopped at the first hotel we saw, they were booked... so on to the second one... they were booked too. We found out from the second desk clerk that they had some boat races going on. I can't remember what the event was called but every hotel/motel in that town was booked up solid. So we had our options we could back track hours of driving and try to find a place in Boise or we could drive on and stop when we saw a vacancy sign. I was not in the mood for back tracking so we ended up driving on towards the next available place to sleep.
We ended up driving all the way to Pocatello where it seems we got the last room vacancy that was around in all the neighboring cities. Okay so the boat races were a bigger event than I thought they were, apparently people from all over come to it and things had been booked up in advance for weeks. It was 2:30 in the morning by the time we were able to get to bed.
We got back on the road around noon and were ready to head off hopefully to Cheyenne. Instead of going through Utah and cutting back up into Wyoming we ended up taking HWY 30 that goes from Idaho straight into Wyoming. I kept seeing a ton of signs for a place called Little America. Every few miles you went another sign would pop up. Devin, having driven from Oregon to Colorado once before said that if we had taken the other route we would have seen more of them. I was curious so we decided that we should go ahead and stop there for something to eat. Little America is a huge motel/pit stop sort of place that has a restaurant, shopette and is home of the .30 ice cream cone. We all got ice cream cones after waiting in line for 10 minutes for them walked around a little bit and then headed back on our way. There is a bit more to it but I didn't get to see it, we had to get back on the road if we wanted to get somewhere before midnight!
Around 6:00 pm Devin called me on the cell phone and suggested we stop at Rawlins instead of trying to push ourselves to Cheyenne, this actually gave us more time to relax and enjoy a night of rest. I had no arguments there. Plus by this time when we would put the kids in the car my youngest would just start to cry, I felt so bad.
The weather was beautiful and the air was still. There were actually mountains around us now, I had always had the misconception that Wyoming was all flat lands. And it pretty much was of what I saw, but as we got closer to the Colorado border mountains were in the scenery again. I thought it would be a nice opportunity to take advantage of the weather and go swimming, the only problem was I didn't have swim suits for the kids. I went to the front desk and asked if there was a Wal-Mart or anything close by. She laughed a little and told me the biggest thing they had there was a Checkers (Shucks auto parts for us west coasters). So I ended up scratching the idea of swimming. We rested and enjoyed the weather outside. Until we finally ended up falling asleep.
The next day was our final day on the road; we had decided that we were going to make it to our new home. We left in the morning and headed on our way stopping by the only grocery shop in town and picking up some snacks for the road. Just before we hit the Colorado border we stopped at a little restaurant/gas station area had some breakfast and then after an hour or so got back on the road. After this the trip was pretty uneventful, we just kept driving along Devin did call me on my cell phone to point out a few of the sites. Traffic wasn't bad at all and the weather was beautiful. When we made it to Denver our pace slowed down a bit. We drove over the city on the interstate and since we were going slowly enough (sometimes even stopping) I would just look out the window and check out the buildings around us. After we got onto the outskirts of the city traffic started to pick up and we were heading on our way.
As the day went on I kept wondering if we'd make it before dark. Denver is two hours away from Colorado Springs and we were all hungry so we ended up stopping again for a quick bite to eat at a Subway somewhere between Denver and Colorado Springs. That was our last stop. After that it was a one way drive to home. Dusk had just fallen as we made it to our house. It was even better then the pictures my husband had shown us before we set off to get here. After getting car parked and setting the U-Haul up so we could unload, we started to get settled in. It was probably past midnight before we got the U-Haul unloaded and the basics unpacked but the beds were out and furniture was set and the rest was left in the Garage to deal with tomorrow.
We were home.
Shanny
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