3rd Stop: Salt Lake City and Final Destination: CALIFORNIA!

Big California hello to you! We have been super duper busy these last 4 days. We are going to catch you up on our adventures...slash stressful times! 

 Sunday morning we left from Colorado Springs, saying goodbye to my good friends Robin and Ryan Campbell (such great hosts!). The GPS led us through Wyoming which we were not expecting. This was an exciting time for Nat since Wyoming is her birthplace. So of course we had to take a picture with the sign. And there was snow, which Nat just had to go and play in. It was FREEZING and she picked up the snow with her BARE hands and then threw it on top of her head. That's how excited she was...

This is me (Bela). Freezing my tush off.

This is Natalie and her snow.

We entered into Utah and the first thing we noticed were the beautiful red, rocky mountains surrounding us on both sides, right off the side of the highway. Later on during our drive in Utah we had beautiful clear skies on our right and several separated snow storms on our left (featured in the pic above).  SO FRIGGIN COOL. Never have seen anything like it. 

{Side note: We have a few theme songs that we had been singing during our road trip. Almost every few hours we would bust out "Country Roads" by John Denver. (I - Bela - am not a huge country fan but when you have someone singing it every hour on the hour on a 13h road trip up to St. Louis, it kind of catches on! Ha!) Every time we would see mountains we would bust out "America the Beautiful" in a manly southern accent. And reverted back to "Country Roads" when all else failed. Other songs, "Home" by Phillip Phillips, "This Land is Your Land" when thinking about the Redwood Forest. Over and over and over again.}

Our stop in Salt Lake City, Utah. State Capital Bldg behind us. We also stopped by to tour Temple Square. 

Massive organ where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practices...I think.

The Mormon temple- a beautiful structure

Did you know that there are casinos at gas stations in Nevada? I didn't! I've been to Las Vegas so I've seen the casinos and stuff but this was Nat's first time in one. And guess what? She puts in a dollar and gets a hundred out. Yea. And had no clue what she was doing (does anyone know anyway?) just pushing buttons. Beginners luck.

Our entrance into California!! We were in the home stretch in this pic. Only 3 hours left to go to reach our destination. We came in through Lake Tahoe. Utah is a beautiful state and California has a different kind of beauty. We entered from I80, coming into mid-CA. It was just like I've seen in the movies and even more so. So many green, fir, "Christmas" trees sitting on the mountains covered with snow with a beautiful lake sitting right smack in the middle.

This pic does not do justice to the views we had! 

Towards the end of our trip into CA at the In-N-Out burger. I think Nat had about 8 burgers total on our trip. Such an American (said in an Indian accent.) Can you tell that we were tired? 

The two pictures above contradict our emotions. It's actually the complete opposite. The way I look is how Natalie was feeling and the way Natalie looks was how I was feeling (ok, maybe I was not that happy).

Next day shopping. Target. The softener sounded like maracas! It was fun. 

First day of orientation. A LOT of computer training. We were so tired. Did accomplish many things today and yesterday so now we are relaxing. Our bodies are scheduled 3 hours ahead of time. It's 8p and we are already ready for bed! 

Went for a walk (and jogged for about 30 seconds) to help us de-stress. Was going to use the hotel gym but glad we didn't. Came across the bay and had a beautiful view of SF. Able to see the Golden Gate waaaaay off in the distance. Weather was beautiful, smelled like the ocean (making us miss home), foggy, and the sun was setting. A great ending to the last couple of days. Had some stressful times but everything has worked out perfectly for us. Until next time...