November 17 Indiana or Bust Road Trip - Birthday Fun

Currently, Rob and I are about 70 miles from our final destination of Zion National Park in Utah and running on only a couple hours of sleep from last night. You know what that means? It means what follows may be the most uncreative blog I have written to date. What a shame, because today was a great first day of our Indiana or Bust Road trip. Fun day...just no guarantees that it will be good or enjoyable. and don't you dare judge on my grammar or punctuation. I'm telling you, it aint gonna be pretty.

I can only speak for myself, but I think Rob's birthday was the best yet! Today was his special day, and it was also the first day of our Indiana or Bust Road Trip. I was happy to be spending it with him - especially in this way. Leaving LA and moving him back to Indiana.

The original goal was to start the road trip on Friday morning and arrive back in Indiana by Tuesday night. Well, after quickly realizing we were NOT going to finish packing Thursday night, we decided to stay another day in LA to pack and organize. I went to bed at 2 a.m. this morning and Rob went to bed at 4 a.m. We woke up at 5:30 a.m. Ready for action...YES!





The manger at the Lancaster iHop was nice enough to give Rob a free birthday breakfast PLUS singing at the table PLUS an ice cream sundae even though he forgot to print out the free birthday coupon from the web site. For everyone reading this, you too can also sign up online for a free breakfast on your birthday. Do it pronto. Look how good this looks..and he looks!




While in Lancaster, aside from seeing the beautiful scenery...





...We drove down the only musical road in the U.S. Originally, it was used for a Honda commercial, and it stuck around because IT"S AWESOME and everyone needs one of them in their town.

After Landcaster, we headed East and stopped at Calico Ghost Town on the way.













This old mining town-now made tourist attraction - was built in the 1880's and is one of the only mining towns left that has been maintained and rehabilitated back to its original glory. Yes, they had wooden bulls back then. ;) Many of the buildings we saw were the original buildings or at least some of the building materials. Way back when, with over 500 mines, this town was able to produce $12 million worth of silver over a 12 year period. When silver lost it's value in the 1890's, so did the population of this little town.

After Calico, we made one more pit stop...but not before taking in some mighty awesome views. God's paintbrush never ceases to amaze me.








That pit stop was a stark contrast to the beautiful nature we had just left...guesses anyone?



We first stopped at the famous Gold and Silver Pawn Shop..made famous by the Pawn Stars Reality TV show. Rob tried to sell a model boat he found in an LA dumpster...but without batting an eye, the shop worker said he couldn't buy anything like that...so we went next door..next to the chapel of love...



Doug here bought the boat for $20 and was very excited about it. We were just excited we had money to spend on dinner and a few slot machines at Fremont Street.





We weren't big winners at the end of the night, but we were glad we stopped for a some people watching. And a little bit of sun roof fun down Los Vegas Blvd.




At this point we are only 30 miles from our first night's sleep, so until tomorrow...