We Made It...To Miami!

Well after four days of traveling from Utah to New Orleans to Miami.... we are finally here. What a trip! We've had a ton of fun as well as scary experiences on our trip.

This is a photo of Downtown Miami

I will give you a brief travelog of our trip. We planned on leaving at 10 a.m. Friday, January 2nd, but didn't get out of utah county until 2 p.m. Everything took longer than we anticipated. My mom took the picture below the morning we left. It was so sad saying goodbye to my mom. I don't like saying goodbye. Everytime someone else starts crying, I start crying. I don't know how crying is contageous, but it is.

We made our first stop in Las Vegas and stayed the night in a sweet hotel. This is a picture of Tommy in front of the Palazza Hotel.

I'm not sure what hotel we are in this picture, but it was absolutely beautiful inside. As you can tell, my camera doesn't take good pictures when it's dark outside (or inside), so the photos are poor quality.

Initially, we planned on staying with a family friend in Vegas to save a little money, but that fell through and we had to find a hotel. Vegas is pretty pricey, so we decided to drive further south and find a more inexpensive hotel... BAD IDEA. We got lost because we didn't follow Carmen (our GPS), and ended up driving 30 miles out of the way of the next hotel.

Once we found the right route to take toward Flagstaff, Arizona, we made a reservation at the cheapest hotel we could find - Grandview at Las Vegas. Come to find out...this hotel only had rooms available in their Timeshare rooms (SCORE)!! This hotel was bigger than my apartment with more amenities - King size bed, jacuzzi, large bathroom, TV in the living room and bedroom, fridge, stove, coffee pot (not that it was of any use), ironing board, iron, two couches, coffee table, etc... You name it, this place had it. AND we got a great deal on the room! Here are a couple pictures...

Looking into the bathroom from the bedroom

Our next stop was Hoover Dam. We thought it was going to be an exhilarating sight because traffic was bumper to bumper for SIX miles before getting to the dam. Well come to find out, Homeland Security had to check everyone's cars before going across to protect against terrorists. I'm not sure how effective it was because all they did to check our car was have us open ONE CORNER of our top carrier to show what we had inside. All you could see was a bag of clothes...and they let us go. We coulda had a BOMB in between the clothes and they never would have known (we didn't of course), but it just seemed like a silly thing to do since their security check was not thorough.

Here is a picture of Hoover Dam.


It was a pretty sight to see. We still don't understand the significance of it cuz we didn't stop for a tour, only long enough to take a few pictures





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WRONG WAY

The next eventful part of the trip was in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The third day on the road. I don't have any pictures to show, and thankgoodness we didn't take out the camera to try and capture the moment, or we wouldn't be here with anything to post.

Tommy enjoys driving so he drove the first two days of the trip. Well Sunday morning he decides to let me drive while he reads a book and relaxes a bit. We grab some breakfast, our tummies are full and we are ready for a long day of driving. I jump in the driver's seat and take off. I come to the freeway entrance and turn onto ONE of the TWO entrances to the freeway.

Well, about half way up, Tommy starts to panic saying, "Kira, stop! Back up! The signs are the wrong way. We can't read the signs! This isn't the entrance! THIS IS THE OFF RAMP." Sure enough, I look at the signs and they are facing the other direction. And not too far ahead, the traffic is going the opposite way of me. So I hit the brakes, throw the car into reverse and begin reversing down the off ramp.

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The back of the car is FILLED to the BRIM with our stuff and I can't see well enough to go fast. I keep hitting the edge of the ramp, and can't reverse very quickly. Tommy is panicking saying, "Faster Kira. Stop. Switch me. I'll drive. We're gonna get killed!" Realizing we aren't going very fast with my wheels hitting the edge of the ramp, he tells me to drive over the median between the on and off ramps. I'm worried that we'll bottom out, but Tommy's insistant we won't. So I shift back into first gear and carefully drive over the median, while praying we don't bottom out. Thankfully, we made it to the other side safely...and SECONDS LATER, literally SECONDS later a car comes flying down the off ramp. Had I not crossed the median when I did, we would have been in a head-on collision and who knows where we'd be spending the next six months.

The crazy thing is there were NO signs saying WRONG WAY. There was ZERO indication that there was only one entrance to the freeway. No signs. Nothing! I think New Mexico oughtta make things more clear...and I'LL pay more attention to where I'm driving. No wonder Tommy drove for two day's straight. :-)

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New Orleans!

So we went to French Quarter in New Orleans to check it out. This is the infamous place where Mardi Gras is held every year. At night, French Quarter is a really scary part of town anywhere off of Bourbon Street. Tommy and I didn't dare park on the street, so we decided to find a hotel to stay in first, then head off to a nice little restaurant for dinner. We pull up to this place called French Quarter Courtyard Hotel and checked in. I felt really uneasy about staying there, but we couldn't find any other hotels in the area and they had parkin off the street, so we checked in anyway.

We drove across the street and pulled into what looked like an abandoned parking lot. A small, dark alley led the way to a spacious, yet empty parking lot surrounded by old, run-down buildings. The windows to the buildings were broken and dark inside. We parked our car where it wasn't visible from the street - afraid someone would attempt breaking in.

When we walked in the room, the smell of mildew and smoke filled our nostrils. We ignored the smells and unpacked a few things before going to dinner. As we were leaving, I opened the curtain on the door and noticed a fist-sized whole in the window right next to the door handle. NOW THAT'S COMFORTING!!! Not! I freaked out and rushed out, slamming the door behind me. The thought of someone coming in at night lingered in my mind all during dinner.

You can see the hotel room here...

Funny picture of Tommy :-)......and the rest of the room

As we ate on the balcony of a cute italian restaurant, we were serenaded by Jazz music and entertained by the club jockey's on the street persuading tourists to come into their bar.

This is Bourbon street behind Tommy

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Once we'd had enough of Bourbon Street, which didn't take long since it was just another version of Sin City, we headed back to our hotel. I held tightly to my purse as we walked down the dark streets, worried someone might snatch it out of my hands. On the way , we found a Best Western but decided we'd had enough of the dirty city and wanted to get outta there as fast as possible. There was not only an eerie feeling about the hotel, but there was a bad feeling on Bourbon Street. I NEVER want to go back again.

SOOO.....we got our money back from the hotel and drove another hour to a town in Mississippi and checked into a Days Inn. I've never felt so good about leaving a town in my life!! There was a bad spirit there and really creepy. It felt sooooo good to be driving away.

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The very next day, we drove thirteen hours to Miami and stayed with Uncle Luis until we found a quaint little studio on Miami Beach. We are now getting settled in and I am job hunting. That's the end of our journey.

WE HAVE ARRIVED!!!