It's the night before the flight to Japan and we're in Los Angeles, the city of fast-talkers, slow-traffic, and expensive appetites. We enjoyed our stay in LA with Lexie's family. They live in Woodland Hills, a little north west of LA. The time had to be short and sweet, because our flight would be on Oct 18th.

Here in California we've been doing some family activities:

(I spelled NAVELS, hehe)

Mostly we've been hanging out and enjoying the west coast, while making sure all of our travel papers were in order. We even took time to get my visa.The weather has been fair, and so have our spirits. The excitement and anxiety are building as we leave tomorrow around noon. We've also been trying to do all the things, mostly food, which we may or may not be able to do when we arrive in Japan. We've had TexMex, CaliMex, and a Big-Ole-Burger and fries.

Stay tuned, because our next post will be from Nagoya, Japan!

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This was a trying trip indeed. As I type this, I have just barely finished recovering from that travel trauma. The trip was long, 23 hours, the heat was constant but bearable, and the scenery was uneventful, but pleasant. We drove all the way through, from Frisco, TX to Los Angeles, CA. We remained fueled on energy drinks and snacks.I think in total, I drank 4 energy drinks, some double sized, and 5 sodas. Plus, an awesome frozen cappuccino drink from QT. If you're planning on taking one of these trips yourself, I could advise a few things:
1. Don't do it, unless you are a glutton for punishment.
2. The speed limit in west Texas is now 80 between Odessa and El Paso on Highway 20, so everyone will do 90.
3. The road signs in Arizona lie. If you're looking for a Chick-fil-a you may not necessarily find one.
4. Don't get sucked into the signs in New Mexico, they are giant billboards along the highway that describe untold awesomeness, but result in:

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We came to Texas because we are both originally from the Dallas area. We found that Dallas had not changed much since we left 2 years before. The surrounding areas are still growing up. Frisco, for instance, looks like a mall exploded onto the city, placing commerce centers all over. Many places are the same as we left them, for example, highway 35 is still arguably the worst highway in the state despite the construction that was started before I can remember. Oh, and Blue Bell is, in fact, "The best ice-cream in the country."

While we were in Texas, we tried to visit as many people as possible, but we weren't even able to get in contact with many. We spent most of our time, in Frisco, TX. There we visited my side of the family, and had a lot of fun.

After this, we headed to California to visit and stay with Lexie's family.

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We left West Hartford on Sunday, September 30th at 6:00AM. We had smooth sailing except a little bit of turbulence in Pennsylvania where they closed off a large section of the highway due to some kind of State Trooper Parade. Local police were on the prowl for cone-crashers and anyone traveling over the speed limit. That aside, the Virginias were uneventful. We decided to stop for the night in Knoxville, Tennessee. There we found an affordable inn off highway 40 called Econolodge. We stayed from 10:30 to 4:25, when we set back out on our second leg of the trip.

On the way into Texas, we just kept thinking about how nice it would be to be back in our home state. We found the open skies and flat plains to be both aesthetically pleasing and relaxing.

The total trip time was 34 hours, 28 of which was driving.

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