Road Trip: Central Valley, CA to Flagstaff, AZ

Justin and I started our road trip across America today. We drove all the way from California's central valley to Flagstaff, AZ today. Total trip, including stops, was about 12 hours and about 700 miles. I got lucky and only had to drive right after lunch for about 2 hours. Justin, my wonderful hubby, is amazing!! :) So I took pictures along the way.

Starting off, Spike was a little antsy, but then he settled down. We put him in his cage for a little bit, but then he sat on top of the luggage the rest of the way. Poor thing, he's still kinda confused and he was running around the hotel room exploring, but has chilled now too. I wish I could make it easier on him, but I'm not sure what to do there. It's just a lot of new things to handle.

The drive down HWY 99 in California was pretty uneventful. Once we got on HWY 40, rerouted historic 66, the terrain was basically desert. The hills became more rust-colored as we went south. As we got closer to the border of California and Arizona, we started to see a little more shrubs and trees. We kept passing "Elk Crossing" signs but I was never quick enough to get a picture. For about an hour we took the historic route 66 around the Amboy Crater area (though we didn't stop since we had such a long driving day today). It is a little sad to see so many little business deserted with the re-routed highway. I guess that is progress? I don't know... Finally, once we crossed to Arizona I started seeing pine trees, which for some reason I didn't expect. It's very interesting to see the different geographical features.

Tomorrow is the Grand Canyon- stay tuned!!