WA to VA - a 4,000 mile road trip

A little over a month ago Daniel and I moved across the country and decided to make a road trip out of it since our belongings were being transported by PODS. My parents graciously flew out to Seattle to drive one of our cars (and our cat) across the country while Daniel and I drove our other car along with our puppies.

We loaded up the cars on July 14th and started making our way to our first stop, Las Vegas! This was our second time being in Vegas and my parent’s first time. We didn’t have much time to to explore the city considering we were walking the strip with 2 large dogs and a cat tucked away in her carrier. Plus it was close to 120 degrees (don’t worry, our dogs had little heat protectors on their paws). After we ate some good food and showed my parents the hotel we stayed at during our last trip to Vegas (The Venetian), we started making our way towards The Grand Canyon.

We had never been to the Grand Canyon before and had no idea what to expect. As soon as we entered the park we saw a herd gigantic elk. They were everywhere and it was so cool to see. Once we stopped the car we got the dogs and walked a little ways to the edge of the Canyon (South Rim). It was breathtaking and so amazing to see my mom’s life long dream to come true. We were so surprised how much bigger the Grand Canyon was in person, rather than in pictures. About 10 minutes after we got out of the car the sun began to set, perfect timing! The sky turned a dark orange color and the rocks began to glow, it was beautiful. On our way out of the park, we encounter another group of Elk and the dogs were a little unsure of what to think. Other visitors were walking up to the Elk and trying to pet them, definitely something that I was not interested in. We decided to stay the night at a hotel in the park so we could get an early start on our drive to Waco, Texas.

I have always been a huge fan of the show Fixer Upper, so when we decided to drive across the country I made a slight detour (about 15 hours) to see the Silos. We were all surprised how much bigger Waco was than we imaged from the show. We stayed in a cozy loft style townhouse in the center of Baylor University. We ate breakfast at Magnolia Table and got Joanna’s famous biscuits with strawberry butter. The food was amazing and the portions were huge! After we ate breakfast, we headed over to the Silos and got to shopping. I felt like a little kid in a candy shop and wanted to buy everything in sight. My parents and wonderful fiancé got together and surprised me with a few of my favorite items. After all the shopping we started to get hungry again so we decided to browse the food truck selection. My mom, Daniel, and I got sweet tea and then ate the cheesiest grilled cheese sandwiches from Cheddar Box and my dad got a tasty pizza from 900 Pizzeria. Even though we were stuffed after we ate, we had to stop by Silos Baking Co. for some cupcakes. After just 2 days in Waco, Daniel and I had fallen in love and even talked about moving down there one day (along with the other 20 cities we want to live in!).

We had planned for our next stop to be in Nashville, but decided that we were just too exhausted and stopped in a small town before we made it there. On our last day in the car we drove a whopping 16 hours and arrived back to Virginia just in time to surprise my little sister and nephew who waited up to see us. The best part of arriving back in Virginia was seeing our dog’s reaction to being back at “grandma’s and grandpa’s house”. They were so excited and remembered exactly where they were even after being gone for two entire years!

We had such an amazing road trip and got to cross so many states off of our map. It’s funny to think that our dogs have traveled to more states than most people have. And who knew that driving 4,000 miles in a packed car could make you love someone even more? We can’t wait for our next adventure!

Keep an eye out for an upcoming post on our must have travel items and tips!

-Taylor and Daniel