San Diego or bust (day 1)

Day 1:

We left town at 4 a.m. on July 17.  I hadn't made it to bed the night before, my sleep a casualty of procrastination plus Jacob's last baseball game. Of course he had an 8:00 game the night before we left! I chased Jeff to bed around midnight so that at least one of us could safely drive the first shift.  I actually think I could have managed for a few hours, but once he claimed the driver's seat I was out, waking up four hours later around Kansas City.

Daniel teaching Jacob how to play Magic.

We'd planned our first day to be a long one, hoping to knock out as many miles as possible so we could get to the fun stuff sooner.  Daniel's presence was a triple bonus: it was great to spend some time with him, we had three drivers, and he and Jacob spent a lot of time playing cards together or playing Pokemon.

Colorado: not quite as colorful as Jacob's outfit.

Highlights were reminiscing about Dirty Kanza as we passed through the Flint Hills and entering Colorado. The low point was nearly running out of gas in BFE.  I looked over as we passed through Eads, CO, (population 622) and observed, "We're pretty low on gas." This is much more typically a Kate issue than a Jeff issue; my car spends most of its miles in the bottom half of the fuel gauge.  With our readout giving us about 30 miles til empty, we looked down the road for a gas station and saw...nothing.

We continued on our way west hoping for better luck in the next town, but the atlas showed that town was even smaller.  Some nervous googling showed that there was, indeed, a gas station in Eads, and since we were pretty much screwed if the next town didn't have gas, we turned around.  The fuel gauge read 6 miles til empty when we pulled into the address yp.com had listed.  There may have been a gas station there 20 years ago, but there certainly isn't anymore.

Jeff asked a trucker in the lot if there were any gas stations in town.  "No, this is it.  This is the old west, man...you gotta be prepared."

Thankfully there was a gift shop/information booth next door, where the proprietor directed us towards a gas station about a mile away.  Saved! Our tank didn't go below half full for the rest of the trip.

Home, sweet home on night 1.

We pulled into the Pueblo KOA after about 15 hours on the road, spent some time on the jumping pillow (where Daniel's favorite activity was to bounce me off of it), had dinner, and then headed to bed.  Our next days would be long, but they'd be a much higher fun:driving ratio and only one or two more near disasters.