Trippin'.

Operation road trip was a complete success! We feared constant screaming from the child and car pooping from the dog... It looks like we worked it out perfectly, though. We left our house around 10pm and travelled through the night. Sebastian and Murphy slept most of the way! It does seem that we found ourselves a carsick dog, but things could be worse. They were all smiles in the morning (okay, I am not sure that Murphy is smiling... he's just sort of making the best of his circumstance):

It was warm with a beautiful cloudless sky and the road beckoned us forth:

We stopped off in the Mojave Desert for a bit of exploration. It tickles me how enraptured Ben becomes with every rock and plant. Here he is engrossed in his element:

Some of his discoveries:

A bit o' the landscape:

I realized that I am crappy at taking pictures once we get to our destination. We have some sweet pics to share of our trip to the Living Desert gardens/zoo, but none from our time with Ben's family. Oops! Maybe Grandma Myrna will send us some of the pics she took... if she does, we will be sure to share.

I'm great at getting pics of the actual trip. Here are some from the return. On the way home we left at 4am so that we could see Southern Utah in the light. Beautiful! This is actually a tiny stretch of Arizona just before making our way into Utah. Lovely Canyons... unfortunately I couldn't get a shot of the Virgin River flowing just below. Spectacular beauty.

The almost full moon lead us home. After 13 hours in the car we capped our trip off with a whirl around IKEA. Some little boy I know is turning 2 in a few weeks and we just don't get out that direction much. It was a good leg stretching opportunity, at least.

Ben and I (and Murphy for sure) were so happy to make it home and unwind a bit. Sebastian, however, was not. We pulled into the driveway and he said, "NOOOOOO! NO HOME! Go bye car, pleeeeeeease!" I guess he is a true travelling Sagittarian. Looking forward to many more trips with him in the future.