Hello Everyone!
I am writing a very overdue post… about our Cross Country Trip to Los Angeles from Kansas City, Missouri. We drove Bryce home for the summer. Then, I flew back to the Midwest. Yes, I was sad to leave him. Three days after arriving home, he flew with his family to Kansas City for my birthday. I would agree…he is wonderful and makes long distance not long at all. Our driving trip seems like a decade ago since we are getting ready to leave for Europe. Checking our adventure off my bucket list and getting ready for the next one tomorrow. Gasp!
We passed through five different states, stayed in two incredible places, and spent half of the day in Vegas. Even though I am not the road trip type of person, this was one of my favorite driving trips I have been on. I actually wish that we could have extended the drive for one more day so we could have visited more sights. If we ever get the chance to drive it all again, we will stop in some of the towns along the river in Western Colorado and travel to Salt Lake City! We had a do-over drive to Colorado (remember Springbreak), this time we made sure to stop at the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign. Every single trip I have ever been on to Colorado I somehow miss that dang sign along the highway. So that’s like a total of four or five times now…. This time Bryce and I were so determined to stop and take a photo at it. We packed up the camera bag, tripod, blogging camera…etc. Of course we were screaming with excitement when we finally pulled up to the iconic spot until neither of us could figure out how to set up the self timer. Nothing ever comes easily haha. I think we fooled around with it for at least twenty minutes until we figured it out. After that whole thing, we decided to just keep the self timer on for the remainder of the trip. Thank goodness we did because we stopped at more state signs along the highway as the drive progressed (yes, we are those people).
After our last trip to Colorado, it kinda felt like Colorado was not our state. Literally nothing was going to plan and we were both stressed out of our minds. The second time around, we approached things a little differently. We drove past Denver and headed straight to Arvada. It is the sweetest town that has been taken over by beer loving hipsters. Obviously we had a fantastic night, and we were ready to tackle the longest day of driving. A whole nine and a half hours long…but we were excited.
Our next stop was… UTAH!
I have never been there before, so I was excited to see it. The drive was spectacular–filled with mountains galore and all the desert feels. It felt like we were driving on the moon because of the incredible rock formations and dry terrain. We stayed in St. George for the night in southern Utah. If you watch Aspyn and Parker on Youtube, they live there and so does Bryce’s Man Crush Steve Cook. We even got to workout at Steve Cook’s brand new gym, Fitness Culture, which is a lot smaller than it looks on Youtube (Bryce fan girl-ed when he saw the “Vanilla Gorilla” (aka Steve Cook’s best friend) at the gym. He was so big that Bryce got scared to talk to him but he built up the courage to ask him where the yoga mats were. #dead).
PSA if you ever get the chance to visit St. George, I highly recommend staying at the Inn on the Cliff. It is a small boutique hotel that is very affordable and has the best view of the city. St. George is at the bottom of a valley, so you really have a beautiful view from the hotel.
The last day of driving was spent in a food coma that was first induced at “The Culinary Dropout” in Las Vegas. I had the best salad of my life that was way too expensive but I will always cherish it (lol okay maybe not, but it had sweet potatoes in it). After lunch we had plans of driving to the Museum of Neon. It’s a 15 minute drive from the Vegas Strip but ohmygosh, nobody tells you how bad the traffic is in Vegas!! Once we finally made it to the museum and tried to purchase tickets they were sold out for the day. It was completely A-OK though because we still squeezed in a photoshoot on the side of the museum by the gift shop (still very pretty) and learned that we have to purchase tickets in advance for anything. I have to go back though and walk through the museum because it was incredible to see all of these preserved neon signs from various buildings. How big some of them were was mind blowing to me.
Back to the food coma though. Once we FINALLY made it to California our first stop was In-N-Out. My Californian boyfriend said that was going to be his first meal back in his home-state and we made that dream come true real fast. Of course next door to this fine establishment was Krispy Kreme. If anyone knows anything about Bryce is that he loves donuts more than anything. So after our fine dining experience, we shared a dozen glazed donuts (this was the exact moment when I kissed my summer bod goals goodbye).
Three days in a car and countless songs and conversations were shared. We saw so much beautiful country and the fun stops we made checked off items on both of our bucket lists. It was a journey together that I treasure. If you have a chance, get in the car and drive.
America is Beautiful!
by Twofold Media 
