As we left Troy’s mom and stepdad’s town, we had a little tiny bit of rain. That was probably the most precipitation we had on the whole trip. Considering that we made this cross-country drive in February, during one of the snowiest winters in recent history, I think that’s pretty amazing.

My mom liked the palms lining this stretch of the highway along the Gulf coast.

Can you tell I was bored? Cameras make the best toys on long road trips.

Cell phones make good toys too. Annalie was typing in a text-message box on my cell phone. In case anyone is getting a headache trying to figure this photo out, I’ll explain that I took this photo by angling the camera at the visor mirror above the passenger seat. That’s why it looks like Troy is driving on the wrong side of the car. Unless you’re Sarah or Lauren, in which case this photo didn’t even make you blink.

I mentioned my geekwear on Twitter, including my Orange Orange t-shirt and one of these pins. Anyone get the references? The pin on the right (a gift from Sonja) could have a couple of geeky meanings.

Another self-portrait born of boredom.

In Texas, the bathrooms are bigger and fancier!

Here is proof that our other cat, Lily, really was in the minivan with us. She doesn’t like road trips and tends to stay in her carrier the whole time, only coming out to eat or drink or glare at us accusingly.

Louisiana sky. I never get tired of taking pictures of the sky and clouds.

Bridge over Lake Charles.

Sunset and a semi.

Sunsets may be larger than they appear. Although these rearview-mirror shots are pretty cool, it’s much easier to photograph sunsets when we’re driving west.

When we were at Tom & Carol’s, my mom was looking at Carol’s cookbooks and found a recipe published 1965 that called for “one 29-cent bag of Fritos.” We all had a good laugh about that, joking that it would be awfully hard to find a 29-cent bag of Fritos nowadays. So when we saw these 35-cent bags of Fritos at a gas station today it cracked us up. I bet this bag is a LOT smaller than the 29-cent bags in 1965 were.

I liked the packaging on these Hubig’s New Orleans Style Pies so much I bought two of them. I guess they’re a New Orleans institution, and no wonder—they were pretty good!

Poor Katy, she gets manhandled a lot by Annalie. She doesn’t really seem to mind, though.

I took this from a moving vehicle, so it was pure luck that I caught the sun shining off a serendipitous lake and that green flare/reflection over there on the right.

Alabama sunset. When I took this we were about one minute away from the Target where we met Bex & Jo.

Annalie in her Hello Kitty jammies + a kitty on her lap = happy Annalie.

Annalie the strawbender! She has done this for as long as I can remember. When she is drinking from a non-bendy straw, she creates a bend in it.

Snowy hills in Virginia. The first snow we saw on our trip was on the side of the road in Tennessee, but that wasn’t very much. This was the first sizeable amount of snow we saw.

I think these are the Blue Ridge Mountains. Any Virginians care to confirm or deny that?

This rest-stop drinking fountain at a rest stop seemed funny to me with all that snow in the field behind it. It doesn’t really seem that funny now, though. It’s entirely possible that I was a bit loopy at the time from a week of traveling.

When I took this photo we’d driven over 3,000 miles (5,400 km) across the country. We’d spent 8 days and 7 nights on the road, for a total of 54 hours of driving time…and yet these last two hours seemed to last longer than the entire trip.

One last rearview-mirror sunset shot before…

…the exit to our hotel. We made it!

We were assured by the owners and the previous tenants that their final walk-through would be at 10am Sunday. The tenants (who were very nice, and quite gracious when we unexpectedly showed up at their house to check it out last week) told us it would be fine for us to stop by this afternoon to show the house to my mom before she flew home, even though we wouldn’t officially take possession till Monday. The keys would be in the mailbox for us, they said.

The keys weren’t in the mailbox. We could see through the open windows that the house wasn’t empty yet. No one was home. It was a bummer.

Even though we couldn’t get in the house, we walked around back so my mom and Annalie could at least see the yard and the deck. You can see about half the backyard in the photo above.

We drove back by the house that evening after we took my mom to the airport, just to see if anyone was there. The house was still locked up, with all the same boxes and furniture inside, no keys in the mailbox, and no one around. It made us a little nervous. How could they have had their walk-through if the house wasn’t empty and clean? It’s not like we could call anyone and complain though. It wasn’t our house yet.

I guess maybe the tenants underestimated how much time they’d need to pack up and move all their stuff. Maybe they’ll be working till 3am to get everything out of the house. That sounds like something I might do, honestly. We just have to hope they are done and that the keys are there tomorrow, because the movers are coming bright and early to start unloading our stuff.

Omaha got its first significant snowfall on Christmas Day since 1941 this year, with about 12 inches of snow! It’s magical and all, but the city is pretty much shut down. Many flights out of Omaha were cancelled today, which makes me nervous because we’re supposed to fly home tomorrow, and I have to pick up a certain Australian at the airport in L.A. on Monday.

I know it’ll all work out, but I really hope our flight doesn’t get cancelled. Flying at Christmastime is crazy enough without adding cancelled flights to the mix on top of the added security we’ll have because of that guy who attempted to blow up a flight to Detroit. I’m very thankful that my mom is coming home with us for a short visit so it won’t be just me and Annalie navigating the insanity at the airports.

Don’t mind me, I’m just being a tiny bit Scrooge-ish because it was a weird day. Christmas worship was cancelled, the city was snowed in, and I was missing Troy extra today. But even with all that it was a good day. Annalie had a blast opening and playing with her presents. We watched movies and lounged in our pajamas and ate too many cookies. I made another big batch of sugar-and-spice candied nuts, and homemade mac & cheese for dinner.

And I finished the babette! In a stroke of serendipity, I had just enough black yarn to do a border. I wish I could give the blanket to Ben and Angie in person but with the snow and us leaving tomorrow that’s not likely. I’ll just wash it, wrap it, and leave it here for them to pick up once the roads are clear.