Our New Home

We are SO excited about our new home. We found the perfect house in Scottsdale along the greenbelt (so we can go on walks and ride our bikes for miles each way). We now have a guest room so you're all invited to visit. Last night we had the inspection and everything looks great; our closing date is Sept. 28th. So pretty soon we'll be in a home!!

A tour of our new house

Hi Friends,

We have a tour of our new home to show you. Its like cribs, except for the bling.

Final Numbers

Total Miles Driven: 2,885

Josh wanted to keep driving around until we hit 3,000, but I wasnt letting that happen with me in the car. I couldnt wait to return the penske! By the way, on Thursday after our first night in Scottdale we pulled into a gas station to gas up before returning the penske. For some reason they have special pumps just for those who are also getting a car wash. So, we were asked to go to the other pumps and as we were turning around we heard a scraping noise...thats right after almost 3,000 miles across the street from penske is where we damaged our truck. We were scraping under their car wash sign. They had to let the air out of our tires so we could pass through. No damage was noticed by penske (really, who could see up there? not even a Bloom) and we returned to the car wash after unhitching my car to wash it.

Total Gas Cost: $1,006.86 (not too shabby)
Total Pee Stops: 22 (that's over 4 days)
Total Red Bulls Consumed: 6

Comments on the blog.

Hi everyone,

I just realized that this site was only setup to allow comments from registered blogger users. I've changed that to allow everyone to write comments. So please let us know you care.

Love,
Jody and Josh

Day 4: Continued

5:20PM We have officially arrived in Scottsdale, Arizona. We are safe and very tired and will post some more tommorow. Suffice it to say that I have already pissed off one set of neighbors by blocking their garage with our truck and I'm hoping to be rid of the Penske tommorow.

hittin the road

leavin the ritz at 6:39 in the mornin

Day 4: Wednesday August 9

6:55AM Hitting the road early today after a night at the ritz we are leaving Texas. Breakfast was a treat today at the hotel. There were eggs and biscuits and gravy and hashbrowns and sausage and the eggs were even cooked individually for you. Quite a change from the cold continental breakfast we've been having.
Entering New Mexico we change over to Mountain time so we gain another hour. Also surprising was that NM is very green right now. Definitely much greener than Texas and Oklahoma, another cool thing, we haven't seen any gigantic crosses or Jesus signs. One more point in its favor.

Red Bull's consumed this morning: 0

Day 3: Continued

3:00 pm We took off and headed towards Texas. After many more miles, hills and much construction, we ended up in Amarillo, TX for the night.
9:00 pm Tonight we're staying at the Ritz (oh yes we are).

Day 3: 728 miles
For your viewing pleasure, here is a little tour of our Hotel.

Tomorrow evening we will be arriving in Scottsdale!! Video of our new place to come...

Day 3: Tuesday, August 8

7:15 AM We are on the road! We enter Oklahoma and the city where Josh spent his childhood Tulsa.
Lunch is at the only place in town for ribs. Billy Ray's. We started with the BBQ Sampler and moved on to a full rack of Baby Back ribs. baked beans and fried okra. Delicious!
Then we went by Josh's elementary school, Skelly Elementary. The site of Josh cracking his head open in a misguided pushing game and also the place where Zac was found at the bike rack with a hammer and screwdriver...
Next we got a tour of Josh's house from the current owner. Surprisingly nothing has changed, inside or out.

lunch at billy rays

its time for ribs! old school

on the road

in missouri

Day 2: Continued

11:30 am Josh had tried to walk to the market during our wait (and man, it was hot) and found out, it had closed. So, we went to Subway.
11:35 am We're finally back on the road. We have left Pennsylvania behind us and we headed through Ohio, Indiana, Illinios and Missouri.
Even though we lost some time, we gained an hour being in the Central time zone.
We drove through St. Louis and saw the big arch, the gateway to the west!! Josh wanted to drive the truck up the arch, but they wouldn't let him. Man!

9:00 pm We head into a Super 8 in St. Clair, MO which was surprisingly really nice (much nicer than the Days Inn the night before). This time we got to go swimming (the pool didn't close till 10pm) and we even had a huge jacuzzi (that would totally have fit 3 non-Blooms).
Day 2: 727 miles (woo hoo!!)

Day 2: Monday, August 7

7:40 am and we're at the gas station filling up. A bit of an earlier start today, we are ready to rock! We encountered some rain and found for some reason there's a replay of Stern on the sirius (where is he??).
9:25 am We are rollin' along when some men roll down their window and start franticly waving at us. We pull over onto the shoulder to find that we blew out one of the tires on the car trailer (good thing there are 4 of em) and it is COMPLETELY shredded. We head for the nearest gas station and call Penske.

11:20 am Well, we lost nearly 2 hours (we had to wait an hour and 20 min.s for them), but Rich from Wingfoot Goodyear not only changed our tire, he checked the air pressure in them all (surprisingly the tires on the car trailer were overinflated and those on the truck were underinflated). He even gave Josh a gage so we could check it ourselves. Thanks Rich!!

Funny Story

It's Friday, August 4th. Josh and his brother, Zac, are unloading our storage unit onto the Penske. Josh hands me the shrink wrap, packing tape and pocket knife and says "Throw it in the cab". For some reason I hear "throw it in the trash" (I always thought I had a hearing problem) so I ask "Are you sure?" (I know how much Josh loves the shrink wrap- he thinks it's the coolest thing ever and he collects pocket knives). "Yeah, throw it in the cab", he said. So I did. I threw it in the trash. After lunch at El Pelon (the BEST burrito joint EVER), we were driving to the wedding when Josh asked where the knife, shrink wrap and tape were. When I told him I threw them out, we were just driving by the storage unit (in our penske with the car in tow- Josh thought it better to avoid the Big Dig as the truck wouldn't take a concrete panel on the roof very well), so we pulled in and Josh reached into the trash and grabbed them. Oops!!

Day 1 (Part 3)

9:00 pm We were psyched that the hotel had a pool so I called to find out where it was (by the front desk). To play it safe I decided to call back and find out when it closed...8:00pm. No HBO either (we'll have to catch up on Entourage later). We were so happy to shower and slept for 8 hours. Day 1: We drove 413 miles.

Day 1 Continued

We drove through Rhode Island, Connecticut and into New York. That was frustrating to have to backtrack as we were in NY for the summer and had just left Thursday (we even pasted our old exit in Westchester). In New Jersey we stopped for some grub and could only find a BK. As we walked out of BK what did we see before us?? Yep, a subway. Oh well, next time. We drove 8 hours in all through New Jersey (which is actually pretty) and two thirds of the way through Pennsylvania (what a huge state!!) before we bunked down for the night at a Days Inn in Brookville, PA.

Day 1: Sunday, August 6

10:15 am We left Alton Jones Campus surprising early after a night of partying with all of our good friends. Leigh and Deb had a fabulous wedding and they hired an extremely talented MC for the evening.

We ate, danced and hung out by the bonfire. The promise of breakfast (which closed at 9:30) got us all up in the morning. Somehow we managed to sleep with 10 people in our suite. We left West Greenwich, Rhode Island and headed towards Connecticut.

Here's our Truck.

One Way all the way!