Retroblog: What it took to get to Ann Arbor.

We left my sisters’ house in Carlsbad early on a Thursday morning and made it to a giant thermometer before lunchtime. Because we had loaded the car with every earthly possession we could (including hundreds of pounds of vacuum-packed clothing), we tried not to run the air conditioning too much. It was hot.

Soon the Nevada border arose out of the glimmering heat.

And then Las Vegas did, too.

Most of the drive was not very exciting, and Daniel hogged the first seven hours of driving, so I was left to entertain myself. Woooooo.

Arizona showed up unexpectedly, and we skirted the edge of the state.

We crossed through imposing canyons.

And all of a sudden, we were in Utah.

St. George, Utah: red hills, white temple. At this point, we had to stop, so we traipsed through the Target and giddily grabbed licorice, fruit leather, iced tea, and other strange things that sound appealing when you’ve been driving for longer than you normally sleep.

The only picture of me from the entire drive. It’s best that way.

In Utah, you can see really, really, really far into the distance.

As the sun set, we reached colorful Colorado. Tragic.

It got later and later, and we still weren’t at our destination (the home of Daniel’s gracious friends, the Blessings). At one point, we careened through the Rocky Mountains via this tunnel. At long last, we pulled into Denver at 12:30 am, 20 hours after we had left California, and four hours after we’d expected to be there.

We had a pleasant morning, and then shoved off. This is what Denver looked like.

This is what Nebraska looked like.

This is a Nebraskan sunrise. We stayed the night in Omaha and left early the next morning, now Saturday, and arrived in Michigan that evening.

This is how we sometimes stretched our legs. Daniel can totally drive with his left foot.

Right?

This is the Mississippi River.

It brought us into Illinois.

We got more and more excited as the radio station sources changed. Before we knew it, we were crossing into Michigan.

This was an exit we passed. Hah.

We got our key and parking pass, went to open up our apartment, couldn’t get the key to work, got a new key, and exhaustedly emptied the car. We built a blanket nest and huddled to sleep. This is our living room, with everything we fit into the car sprawled across it.

The next day, we walked through the U of M law quad and checked out Daniel’s new view. The town was shockingly beautiful (especially after hours of mid-American highways), and we were quite glad to be there.