Lessons Learned from Our Road Trip

Salt Flats, west of Utah


For our spring break from school, my daughters and I are visiting their big sister in northern California. Our girl’s road trip across the Utah/Nevada desert and then over Donner Pass in California has been an adventure with preparedness lessons learned. While traveling across the Utah desert we passed the Great Salt Lake and were surprised by the mountains of salt at the Morton salt plant. We enjoyed our 12-hour journey by listening/watching DVD’s. Such a vast desert which I would rather cross in the springtime than the summer.

Lesson 1 – Plan Fuel Stops
As we drove I realized I had forgotten to plan where we would stop for gas. We were out of cell phone range,
so we couldn’t reach my husband. I estimated how far I thought I could go and choose Elko, Nevada as the place to gas up. That was kind of risky. Next time, I will plan better. Thank goodness we didn’t run out of gas!

Lesson 2 – Prepare for all Kinds of Weather and Incidents
We were so excited to go to California that we dressed in our capris and sandals. These clothes were fine until we left Reno, Nevada and began climbing the Sierra Nevada mountains. It was then my youngest felt car sick. The screams from her older sister in the back seat confirmed that “It” had happened. I quickly found a gas station and we began the clean up. However, our surroundings were much different than the desert. Snow was 12 feet high on the sides of the road and it was cold! We shivered, cleaned, calmed, and endured. Thank goodness for the extra large and kitchen-sized plastic trash bags in the car emergency kit. Great for holding soiled items. I had to throw a few pillows away. The car blankets were soiled as well, but after the clean up, my youngest was smiling again, and we continued our journey.

Happy again at the San Jose Flea Market

Do you know the way to San Jose? Well, thankfully our car GPS got us here and we were extremely happy to greet my daughter and her husband. We enjoyed San Jose,
Santa Cruz,
San Francisco!

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