Baltimore Bound - Radford, VA

Hi all!

We hit our first major traffic for the trip, but it didn't delay us too much.  The truck hit a milestone 70,000 miles while driving through Nashville.  Other than that, we drove.

We had originally planned to stop at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, however, forgot until we saw the sign as we were passing the exit.  It worked out because we were able to get to the hotel at about 4:30 EDT.

With the extra time we were able to spend time in the hotel pool, which included an 18" deep kiddie pool, in which Aurora could walk around and play.

We are all getting really tired.  We think we should be at the new house around 3:00 (EDT) tomorrow.  We found a route that goes around Washington D.C. hoping to avoid traffic.  That's all for tonight.

Thanks for your prayers and support!
ZTeam

Baltimore Bound - Kingston Springs, TN

I’m writing to cover the last two days.  

We were blessed to be able to stop for a night at the Chaney’s.  We drove from Amarillo, TX to Hattieville, AR, which is about 556 mi.  We left early and tried to stop minimally because we wanted to spend as much time with the Chaney’s as possible. 

While driving, one of the cats decided it was a great time to “drop a bomb”.  Matt thought he would quickly get off the freeway to take care of the smelly mess and then we would be on our way.  The only problem was, when he got off the freeway there was not an on ramp to get back on the interstate.

What we thought would be a quick off and back on trip turned into driving through a run down town - reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre - trying to figure out how to get back onto the freeway.  He kept saying, “Where there’s usually an off ramp, there’s usually an on ramp...Right???”  He was cracking me up.  I love my Matthew!! 

We arrived at the Chaney’s around 5 pm.  AJ instantly had 4 new best friends.  We enjoyed a wonderful family spaghetti dinner, and after dinner we were able to go feed the horse, Rosie, and chickens. The kids were able to go on the zip line, and we walked a little around the 40 acre property.  We were able to have a “big” family devotion time, and sing some hymns around the piano.  We put 1/2 of the kids to bed, and were able to have more catching up time before bed.  We were able to have a nice breakfast and hang out a bit before getting back on the road.  We loved visiting a full house of wonderful, amazing chaos.  Once again, we were totally blessed, and want to thank the Chaney family for their hospitality.  

Today we drove 380 mi from Hattieville, AR, to Kingston Springs, TN; not much to report today.

Please keep praying for safe travels, and we’re hoping to be in MD soon!

Love,

ZTeam

Baltimore Bound - Amarillo, TX

We discovered a couple things today:

1. iPhone 4's don't tell time so well

2. Texans don't care where they go to the bathroom

We set my phone alarm to go off at 5:15 a.m.  but it decided to go off at 4:15 a.m.  I didn't realize it until after I got out of the shower and saw the hotel alarm clock read 4:30.  Aurora woke up too, and therefore refused to go back to bed.  Fortunately, it worked out; we were able to get out of the hotel by 6:30 and were on the road.  Note: this is the first instance of poor iPhone time telling.

First, we took a slight detour to Petrified Forest National Park.  The 28 mile drive through the park lasted about an hour.  Both the Painted Desert overlook at Pintado Point and the Route 66 stop off were our favorite parts of the park.  When we stopped for gas at the Visitor Center, the attendant told me that some of the older maintenance men at the park still remember Route 66 when it went through the park and in fact would deliver soda and cigarettes to the same gas station at which we stopped.  She also told me that the gas station used to be a full service station and that the original garage doors were behind the refrigerators, and one of the lifts was under the candy counter.  "They'll be there forever," she said.

Pintado Point

We then continued our trip on I-40.  We stopped just past Albuquerque, NM because I finally wore myself out from driving.  Erica took the steering wheel and drove for the next two and a half hours while I caught a much needed nap.  Aurora also slept quite a bit today since she had been up at 4:30.  When I woke up, we were having a time zone discussion in the car.  New Mexico is on Mountain Time and my phone was still displaying Pacific time (iPhone 4 fail #2).  We stopped soon thereafter, switched out drivers, had a quick snack, and continued.  

God's Promise

We made it to Texas within the hour, and we lost another hour due to the time zone change (now in Central Time).  So far we have seen some interesting things in Texas:

1. We saw a cowboy riding his horse along the side of the Interstate.

2. We saw a cowboy taking a leak at a picnic area on a fence post - no restroom at the area.  When you gotta go, you gotta go...

3. The good Lord provided a full rainbow for us, as we drove into some rain.

4. We drove past the Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch

During dinner at Cracker Barrel, I checked the time on my phone again.  It had, at least, switched to Mountain Time (iPhone 4 fail #3).

We are still plugging along, and are looking forward to spending some time with Erica's friends in Arkansas. 

Baltimore Bound - Holbrook, AZ

Just some bullet points from our travels today.
> This morning we left Barstow, CA at about 8am, and arrived in Holbrook, AZ at about 5:30pm.  We thank God that we didn't have troubles like yesterday.

> We drove 437 miles today in 9 1/2 hours.  The temperature ranged from 64* to 100*.    
> We stopped for a picnic in Kingman, AZ.  We’ve stopped in Kingman before on our way to the Grand Canyon.  There is a nice park with grass, shade and a play structure, which comes in handy for AJ to run around in before having to sit for another few hours. 

> We drove through Flagstaff, AZ, and Matthew fell in love with it.  He now wants to move there... :)  It is beautiful with lots of green trees and the temperature was definitely tolerable.
>Please keep us in your prayers as we continue East.
>Love to ALL!
The Z-Team

Sunrise in Barstow, CA.

Ominous clouds over Arizona desert.

Still smiling!

Baltimore or (almost) Bust - Barstow, CA

C'mon, Everyone, C'mon!

For those that are interested, we will try to blog our progress across the country en route to Baltimore, MD.

Today our day started at 6:00 a.m. putting the finishing touches on our pack job.  We have about 3000 lbs of our junk loaded into the truck and a 6 x 10 trailer.  We had planned to leave by 8:00 a.m., but we fell a little behind.  As the truck and trailer combo was double parked on the street, the original battery decided to die (lasted 6 years, thanks Chevy).  My father in law gave us a jump, and one husband, one pregnant wife, one child, and two cats were on their way around 8:45.

We stopped at the local Walmart to have a new battery installed which didn't take very long and we were back on the road by 10:00 a.m.  It was cloudy when we left Alameda and a balmy 60 degrees.  Once we got over the Altamont Pass, the weather was clear and 80 degrees.  We discovered that the air conditioner broke when the battery failed, which wasn't a good thing the closer one gets to Bakersfield.  

We were going to take a huge detour to Merced, CA, where the nearest Chevy service provider was open, but I took a wrong turn and we ended up in Newman, CA.  The good Lord provides, even with wrong turns.  We found an open service shop in Newman that took twenty bucks to run diagnostics immediately - it was fixed in less than five minutes once he reset the truck computer!  Whew - what could have been a combined three hours of driving and vehicle service in Merced, ended up being a 30 minute detour and 5 minute repair!  Blessed!

We ate some lunch before we hit the road again - it was about 1:00 by this time, and we still had about 300 miles to travel.  Frustration was setting in, but we had our air conditioner and a new battery.  

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful; we drove though Wasco, Bakersfield, passed Edwards AFB, and are now resting for the evening in Barstow, CA.  

Day 1: 430 miles in 10 hours.

Hopefully we will have more pictures tomorrow.