california

we went to california for my cousin kyle's homecoming in july.  it was a great road trip with our grandparents!  me, the triplets, and hannah came!  it was quite the drive and was a short trip but it was so worth it!  we stopped at a rest stop on the way there for some lunch!

 our sleeping arrangements.

it was such a happy day seeing all our cousins!  i haven't seen these nielsons since 2008 (minus elle', kristen and jd).  we went from living with them for a few summers in a row and seeing them lots to never seeing them.  sad day.  so i was so excited to see them all. crazy how fast the kids grew!

i miss them already! kyle was his same crazy self and i'm so glad he is back from his misson!  our drive back was quite an adventure.  it consisted of listening to the music we listened to when we were kids with gma and gpa.  that was great.

Now for a really long story that made the trip home very exciting.  We left at 7 am from California.  My head hurt a bit but I figured it was because I needed to sleep.  I slept and then we got breakfast.  Head still hurt.  We pulled up to go through the city Mcdermitt, Nevada.  There was a sign that said “burn area next 50 miles.  Slow.”  Then there was a sign on the road with smoky the bear that said, “Fire-extreme.”  A lady drove by and told us to pull off the road and go into a casino or somewhere with AC.  We asked a guy who was waiting how long they have been waiting there.  They said sometimes the wait is 15 minutes to an hour.  There is no way to know how long.  We waited about five minutes and grandpa decided to go another way.  He said it was 80 miles out of a way but better than waiting for who knows how long.  Well, about 30 minutes into the drive grandpa decided to pull over and see how far it will be on the gps.  He also asked a trucker what his plan was since the fire.  The trucker didn’t speak much English and said he didn’t even come from that way ha.  Well on the gps he realized that it was actually 120 miles to the city and then more time going through that city anyway.  So we decided to go back!  At first we thought that the cars had moved so we were excited.  But once we got closer we realized nothing has changed.  We went to a gas station to use the restroom and asked the worker what she knows.  She told us it could be 1-3 hours.  It had already been an hour since we were there originally.  She also told us about a library that we could go into.  We went in and it felt great being in an ac room.  The worker came in just for us, the library wasn’t usually opened.  Adorable.  We had a room to ourselves and played wizard and spades.  Then we watched a movie ha.  My head and stomach started KILLING during the movie.  It was probably close to seven now and everyone besides Jami went to go eat.  Grandpa brought in blankets and set up a bed for me in our room.  They got me powerade and saltine crackers to help with my stomach.  We kept hearing different updates on the fire.  We heard we wouldn’t be able to go until midnight!  Ah!  So we decided to get comfy.  J  Some girls got on the computer in the library, grandpa took a seat, and grandma laid down for a bit.  I threw up after eating two crackers.  Luckily, the bathroom was empty so I made it.  Still felt sick.  The worker at the library was so nice.  She asked if I was hot or cold and closed the blinds and shut the door for me.  She knew I was feeling sick and kept checking on me.  Some people were staying in their cars outside.  Grandpa moved the van so we could hurry to it and be able to get in front of people in the rush.  We heard that the city we were going to go through originally was blocked off too, so good thing we didn’t do that!  There were fires in lots of places apparently and lots of roads were blocked.  All of a sudden at like 9:30 they announced we could go!  Lauren and I wanted to go to the bathroom before we left but it was full and there wasn’t time.  We met the others in the car and started to run to it.  There were lots of people hurrying to their cars and a traffic jam of cars trying to go.  We slipped right in.  Well, the trip was ridiculous at the beginning.  We were behind SO many semi-trucks and so we were going so slow.  We could see smoke and flames ahead.  For 30 minutes we drove next to the fire!  It was so crazy.  There were flames everywhere, it was so scary!  They were right next to the road.  At one point grandpa couldn’t see because of the smoke.  We got lots of pictures and it was just crazy!  I threw up again at the beginning of our drive when we were going through the flames ha.  We got home at 1:40.  What a trip.  We took a long time when we stopped before Mcdermitt and so it seriously was the longest trip ever.  Grandma called us the next morning and found out that 30 minutes after we left they stopped letting cars go through and they had to stay overnight.  Good thing we made it through!  Also they think it was started by lightning.  Hopefully they get it out because that really is sad and good.  We took lots of pictures luckily!  Good thinking on our part.

intense right!? good thing we made it alive!