The long ride home...

Hmmm. Where do I even start?!?! I have SO much updating to do!!!

I might have to break up this post into a couple different ones depending on how much time Gavin gives me to write this!

Let's start back at the beginning and get everyone caught up on the happenings in the Scrupps world

On December 5th, Ryan was released from the Marine Corps!!! We left Camp Pendleton that day and made it up to Bakersfield, CA. We ended up having to drive seperatly in two different vehicles as our original plan had a hiccup in it when we found out we were unable to ship Ryan's pickup back up to Washington. Taking turns with who had Gavin in the car, we made it about 4 hours the first day. The feeling of driving north towards home was one of the greatest feelings ever!!! We bought some bluetooth attachments for our cars so that Ryan and I could talk to each other while driving, which helped A LOT. Gavin did amazing. On the second day we made it up to Redding, CA. Around Sacramento we started seeing signs for a winter storm advisory, but figured it was just for that area as we were still pretty far away from any mountain passes. By the time we got up to Redding, it was starting to snow and we knew we might be in for a long day the following day.

{ Quick side note story about stopping in Redding...we stayed in a hotel that was walking distance from an iHop and because of all of the ice on the roads, we decided to get a late start and let the air warm up and melt the ice a little bit. We walked over to the iHop for breakfast, and we were sitting in a booth, and a lady came in by herself and was sitting in a booth kitty-corner from us. Her booth was to Ryan's back, and I was facing it. Gavin was in a highchair where he could look to his left to see her. She was older, had white shoulder length hair and was wearing a red knitted sweater and she had her back to us. Well, Gavin looks over and sees the white hair and red coat and yells, "SANTA!!!!!!!!" It was probably the funniest and most embarrassing thing that has happened so far in my parenting world. Ryan and I were just shaking and crying with laughter. Luckily there were a lot of Christmas decorations around us so the lady either didn't hear it, or assumed he was talking about those. Oh my, it was funny!}

So, we left Redding around 11am or so and the roads were ok for the first twenty or so miles. Well, after we got past Shasta Lake, shit hit the fan. The roads were TERRIBLE, the iciest I have ever seen before. It was literally a three to four inch sheet of ice covering the roads. We were going at a slight downgrade, and it was bumper to bumper. We were driving 5 mph. For an hour. Not even exaggerating. At that speed, 5 mph, everyone was sliding around and fishtailing. I had semi's in front of me fishtailing, at only 5 mph!!!! It was insane. So we were in the car for about 7 hours or so that day, and hardly made any distance.

We ended up staying at a hotel at the summit of Grant's Pass in Oregon. We went out to eat and started talking to another family who had also just gotten off the roads, but coming the opposite way as us. They told us it was terrible and that eventually they had shut down the road after they went through. She said that there were several trucks in the ditch, one had jackknifed and blocked the entire two lane freeway for several hours. We were happy that we stopped as that just confirmed our prediction that it was only going to get worse.

The next day we got up really early to try and make up for the lost time and were on the road by 7am or so. We got on the freeway and the roads were fair. I mean, we were on a mountain pass in December, so you aren't really expecting to have excellent conditions. We made good time for a couple hours and then ran into some yuckier roads. We were going about 20 miles an hour on them for a while, which was frustrating but still much better than 5mph like the day before. We were in the car for 12 hours that day as we decided to just push through and make it home. It should have only been a 7 hour trip or so but with the roads it nearly doubled the time.

When we pulled into Odessa, the thermometers on our cars read "0 degrees." HOLY CRAP it was cold!!! It was -3 out at our house and we were FREEZING!!! We were cold, but SO SO SO happy to finally be home and to have made it safely. We were both super tense and stressed from the horrendous roads, but thankful to be safe. Gavin did great the entire trip. The last hour and a half was iffy, but to be honest, I can't blame him, after being in the car for 11 hours, I was cranky and I can't imagine how bored he was of sitting in his car seat. Luckily we had our ipad's loaded with movies for him, but that only goes so far.

We had breakfast with our parents the next day, and Gavin, well really all of us, were in heaven with having family so close once again! That afternoon, Ryan and I drove to Moses Lake to stock up on our groceries and to get a few needed items for the house. We also bought paint and supplies to paint our living room, laundry room, bathrooms and kitchen. It was a big project to take on but we knew we had to get started before the baby came or else it would be another year before we would be able to do it.