Road Trip to Arizona (Part I)

3:56 PM

"When you make plans, God laughs"

-Unknown

Our original road trip had us going through St Louis, Kansas City, Colorado Springs, Durango, Sedona and finally home to Arizona.

However, plans changed and we needed to get back to Asheville in order to spend time with family and celebrate the life of one of the best people I've ever known. Forgive me, but I'm not ready to share more on that right now.

We looked at all of the options for traveling and ultimately decided that one last road trip to North Carolina from Wisconsin was in order, even if it meant we had to make the trek down I-65 one last time. Then, we'd leave Asheville and make our way West with some new stops along the way.

So, we packed (and packed and packed and packed because we had LOTS of stuff at my parents house in Mukwonago) and embarked on our road trip across the country on Wednesday, June 27th.

We are very fortunate that our kids are such great travelers. I don't say this to brag. I say it only because we truly are lucky to have 2 kids who like playing with their toys, making stops in new places and watching the world out their car windows. If it wasn't for that we would have hopped on a couple of planes to make these trips and figured out how to get our car out to Arizona.

Building legos

Playing with Wikki Stix

Passed our old exit in Lafayette, IN

We made it to Lexington, KY on our first day. We have made this drive plenty of times and knew that this was a good stopping point for hotel and gassing up in the morning. This also meant that we had just over a 4 hour drive to Asheville on Thursday morning.

We spent wonderful time with family while we were back in Asheville. Erik's mom shared this picture of Erik and his brother Jon when they were little. I always go back and forth about who Will and John look like and then see a picture like this!

Jon and Erik, circa 1985

A toast to my sweet sister in law

Drinking "chocolate milk" (aka instant breakfast) in our hotel room

Found this cute note on our last morning while checking the drawers before leaving

We officially hit the road for Arizona on Saturday, June 30. We had planned our new stops in Nashville, Memphis, Waco, Las Cruces and then home!

Traffic on the way out of Asheville

Rest stop and welcome area in Jefferson County, Tennessee

My littlest stinker wouldn't make a funny face for the camera. Will didn't mind at all! :)

Next stop, Nashville!

We are very fortunate to know some really nice people that live all over this country. Erik's college roommate and friend lives in Nashville, TN and was available for dinner with us on Saturday night. He took us to a super casual, delicious pizza place called DeSano. We had wood fired pizza, beer and a quick walk around for some treats for the kiddos after dinner. Thanks again for the hospitality, "Uncle" Josh! The kids loved seeing you again and so did we.

We continued our drive Saturday evening to Memphis and arrived late to our hotel. After a quick snafu with the original room, we got the boys settled in for some much needed sleep. In the morning, we drove into Mississippi (because why not when you're so close to the border of another state?!), drove past Graceland (it was too early to actually tour the property) and headed to a local place in Memphis called Arcade Restaurant. Elvis Presley supposedly used to dine there and the booth next to ours was his regular booth.

Breakfast was AMAZING. Erik had the peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich and I had Eggs Redneck. The boys had french toast and blueberry pancakes. If ever in Memphis, we highly recommend you check this place out.

Will and his straw wrapper mustache

The Elvis Presley booth next to ours

Some people offered to take a picture of all 4 of us together :)

When we finished breakfast we stopped at the Lorraine Motel. This is such a powerful piece of American History and we had no idea just how close we were to it until we started leaving Arcade and saw the sign for it. We walked around the grounds, saw the balcony where MLK was shot and walked inside for a few minutes. This is a place I really want to come back to when the kids are older so we can do the full tour.