California, right back where I started from...

I did manage to make it from Iowa to Boulder, CO in one day! Crossing into the Mountain Time Zone and knowing for sure where I was staying helped me to keep driving even after it got dark. Crossing Nebraska is long and honestly really there's nothing to look at after Lincoln. I missed the supposed Jesus statue in western Nebraska has I cut south to head to Boulder, such is my luck!

Every time I visit Boulder I just like it more and more. My friends live up in the hills in a fabulous house they have been remodeling. It was great to be able to spend an extra day there recouping from all my driving and knowing that I wouldn't have to get into the car for an entire day. Needless to say I slept in, relaxed, played with their super cute puppy, went for a walk in the evening, dinner, and saw the new Warren Miller ski porn movie. All in all a fabulous break from driving.

From Boulder I pointed my car towards Salt Lake City. Wyoming too is a big state to drive across and not too much road side attraction. That being said I did have to Rockies south of me for awhile and somehow managed to cross the Continental Divide twice (or at least that's what the signs told me). Getting into Utah was quiet as there was no welcome sign and it was beginning to get dark, but I knew I had a place to crash with a classmate from Brandeis so I wasn't too worried. Salt Lake was much larger than I expected but easy to maneuver. Somehow I missed seeing the temple though!

Driving across Utah was certainly flat once I left SLC. Salt flats as far was one could see. My plan of stopping for lunch along the road somewhere failed as there really was no where to stop except for gas stations and even those were few and far between! Arriving in Nevada certainly had more fanfare than Utah, with welcome signs, a city and lots of signs for casinos, bars and brothels. Some of the signs were pretty entertaining. The country was pretty to drive through though a little nerve wracking once I started to run low on gas. Gas stations were at least 40 miles apart and only found in towns. Getting into Reno was great though certainly tempting to keep driving until I hit Berkeley. But I had another classmate to stay with and certainly felt better driving over Tahoe during the day. Even though I only had a 3-4 hour drive on the last day it did seem to take forever!

So after multiple toll roads, gas stops, couch surfing and many many miles of road I made it safely into Berkeley!