Ohio -> Colorado

We set out on our trip on Friday, October 6th. Our hope was to make the drive from Ohio straight through to our first stop in Colorado in as little time as possible. We were wanting to maximize our time in Baja by spending as little time on the cross country portion as possible. All 3 dogs are seasoned travelers and great in the car, but we had never taken all three together on any car trip longer than 3 hours.

With Luna packed up with hopefully everything we would need, we set out at approximately 7 pm. We always try to get a family photo when we start a trip, but coordinating three dogs can be challenging!

We quickly realized that between Luna's less then ideal gas milage (12 mpg's average) and the amount of time it takes to walk and water 3 dogs (approx. 20+ min) that we would not be making the kind of time we are used to when we travel alone.

The first night was pretty uneventful. We hoped to listen to the Indian's game (they were still in the playoffs at this point), but discovered that our radio was no longer working. I was able to watch the play-cast on my phone and gave Cory the play by play. That particular game went 13 innings and we ended up winning, so it was good entertainment!

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Cory started to get sleepy. We were limited as far as coffee goes; all we had was bottled cold brew coffee concentrate. Cory tried his best to drink a few sips of the concentrate, but it was disgusting and made him feel sick. I was still wide awake but that didn't help us much with the driving since I can't drive stick shift. We pulled into a rest stop to try to sleep but that didn't really work for either of us, so we ended up just continuing on our drive after about 30 min as we were unable to sleep.

Most of the next day was pretty boring. If you have ever done this stretch of a cross country trip (OH, IN, Il, IA, and Ne) its pretty much all the same. We saw lots of cows and windmills. Cory has done the back and forth to Colorado trip many times so the windmills weren't to exciting for him, but this was my first car trip across and the hundreds of massive windmills were pretty impressive to me. I tried to get some photos, but its hard to put in perspective how huge they are and how many there are.

We did end up having to drive through some rain which is never ideal, but then we got to see a huge rainbow!

There isn't too much more to say about this first leg of the trip. The girls all did well traveling, Cory pushed through with the driving, the coffee was horrible, and we were ready to be in Denver for some R&R, real food (and coffee) and quality time with friends!