Hello there! I thought I'd pop in with an update on how things are going in Livermore.

First, the weather. The weather in Livermore has been colder than expected, but overall it's really nice, especially for outdoor activities. The highs have been around 70 and the lows have been in the 50s, and unlike Columbia, the low is reached not long after dark and evenings are windy. We have heard that temperatures do get into the 90s and up at times... We'll see!

We have found a couple of nice hiking trails and parks in the area, which has been great since we don't have a yard to let Sammie out in. There are a lot of ground squirrels (Sammie thinks these are much more exciting than regular tree squirrels) in the hiking areas, so we can't let her off leash too much, depending on what's around. She'd be gone!

• There is a local doughnut shop that is open 24/7. One of their specialties is red velvet doughnuts.
• There are lots of paved biking/walking trails throughout town, as well as bike lanes and sidewalks beside the roads. The roads are really wide and people always stop for pedestrians.
• Overall, there is a vibe of family-friendliness and safety. (This is very different from San Francisco and parts of Oakland and Berkeley.) I've seen several kids here riding their bikes alone, which I don't see very often in Columbia.
• There are tons of wineries. We haven't been to any yet because we've been busy visiting other places, but we plan to soon. 

We were happy to safely arrive in Livermore on Friday, as planned. When I told people we were driving to California, I got mixed reactions. Some people were surprised/horrified at the idea and others said they would love to drive across the country.

Here are some observations we had along the way:

• Good podcasts are way more interesting than music for long drives. We listened to the entire series of Serial, among other things. If you ever want to listen to some interesting podcasts, I have some good suggestions!
• Either South Carolina is really hot, or the rest of the country is cold. I think we can agree on the former. We may have under-packed on winter clothes... Even New Mexico was cold, and California has been consistently chilly!
• From Memphis through southern California, we drove along I-40. There are tons of Indian Reservations along the route. We may have been in Indian territory more than U.S. territory from Oklahoma to California!
• Speeding isn't really an option in Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. Things loosened up in New Mexico and Arizona, but there were cops everywhere until then. 
• Rest stops in Arizona aren't the most pet friendly:

Flashback to 3 years ago

One week from today, we will be heading to Livermore, CA for the summer.  Neither of us have been anywhere in California other than San Diego, so it should be a great time!

Since we have a dog and need to have a car in Livermore, we are driving across the country...again. Here the route that we plan to take:



If you look back on our original cross country road trip, we wasted a lot of time. We got a 2 hour later start than planned, meandered around Knoxville during lunch, and then took ourselves on a walking tour of Vanderbilt. Since we now have a few cross country trips under our belt and don't have much we haven't seen before or want to see until we hit California, I think our first couple of days this time around will be much more efficient.

The first night, we plan to make it to Fort Smith, AR, which is right near the Oklahoma border. We may go crazy driving through all of Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, and almost all of New Mexico the next day.  Each of these days is a little over 12 hours, but I'm sure will take us a bit longer with stops.

Gallup, NM is up next, and then we will drive to Santa Barbara and spend the night. This will be a shorter day and we plan to skip Los Angeles and go above it, through Palmdale, CA. We plan to have a mini vacation in central California and stay one night in Santa Barbara and one night in San Luis Obispo.

From San Luis Obispo, it's just about 3 hours to Livermore. If you have any recommendations for things to see along our route, or good podcasts to listen to, let me know!