Day 3/Day 4 of the Road Trip

Day 3 - Flatlands and Low Speed Limits
Plan: Drive from Dallas, Tx to Tucson, Az. Estimated Travel time: 13 hours, 31 minutes.

So after the 24 hour drive to Dallas, we spent the rest of Day/Night 2 in Texas with Khoa's family just relaxing and eating lots of Vietnamese food. They seriously fed us nonstop. Highlight of the night: After eating Pho for breakfast, taking a nap, and having a barbecue with seemingly endless amounts of meat, beer and desert, Khoa's cousin's left around 10pm. Then his uncle asks us, "are you hungry?" We seriously gained 10 pounds in that night.

So as we left in the morning of Day 3. We embarked upon a long, boring and flat drive through Texas. The best part about the drive through Texas was that it was flat. For those who don't know, cruise control is impossible to use when the roads have a lot of hills (as it pushes and pulls your car to maintain the current speed). So, cruise control was ineffective in Tennessee and Arkansas...but in Texas it worked like a charm. That saved some energy on the drive to Arizona. The other highlight of Day 3 driving was passing through Odessa (for all you Friday Night Lights fans).

When we got to New Mexico, we were hoping to see Aliens. No dice. Little did we know, the border patrol thought WE had aliens… illegal aliens that is.



Through the rest of New Mexico, we saw darkness, stars, and dirt. BORING. At least the Western part of Texas runs below New Mexico, so we weren't in the state for too long. And when we reached Arizona, the speed limit decreased tremendously. We averaged between 75 and 85 miles per hour in the other states... Not in Arizona. Here are David's thoughts on the speed limit:



After taking our sweet ass time getting to Tucson, we ate at Cracker Barrel (pretty decent food) and stayed at a friend's house.



Day 4 - Back to Cali
Plan: Drive from Tucson Az, to Huntington Beach and Los Angeles, Ca. Estimated Travel time: 7 hours, 20 minutes (plus 55 minutes to LA).


Before we begin, random observation from Khoa, "From Tennessee to California, we had to take the 40 freeway, to the 30 freeway, to the 20 freeway to the 10 freeway." That was kind of random. Anyway, this was the most exciting day, because we were starting to get really close to home. We still had to drive mad slow, because of the Arizona speed limits, but we didn't see many cops on the road. We had another reindeer car sighting…



Besides actually getting home, the best part of the day was reaching Blythe, which is on the border of Az and Ca.



Once we got around the mountains and got close to the bigger cities, of course we hit traffic. It was somewhat ironic how much we HATE traffic, but were so glad to be in traffic in California! It felt like home again... After David dropped off Khoa. He drove back to LA. This was really the only part of the trip that severely surpassed the estimated travel time. Google Maps said 55 minutes, LA traffic said an hour and 45 minutes. Getting home was great for two reasons; (1) we ate and (2) slept. Another side note, David had a random thought in Arkansas, which we decided to save for the end. It pretty much sums up the trip.



THE END (of Cross-Country trip). Japan updates coming soon...really soon…