This morning, KK and Scott delivered PK, Erin and Ellery at the Salt Lake City airport for their flight back to Tulsa (they booked the tickets here). We will miss these ladies on our last two days of travel!
The airport drop-off was set for around 8:30. The rest of our group set out on our own to get to our destination as early as possible. Marissa, Mallory, Stephanie and I set a departure target of 6:30 and left about 20 minutes after that. We will take it.
Our first major stop of the day was in Moab, Utah. Moab is conveniently located near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. In fact, we drove right past the Arches NP entrance on our drive into Moab. We visited Arches in 2010 and it is still one of my favorites.
The driving today was uneventful and there were no sightseeing opportunities. We were anxious to get to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to see Miles. Miles is interning at the National Laboratory this summer, and this was a chance for us to see where he is living and working this summer.
All four of us got some serious time in behind the wheel today. Google Maps is our map of choice when driving (although Mallory is Team Waze), and it will tell you the estimated arrival time at your destination. As Mallory was making better time than Google expected, the estimated arrival time would get earlier, and she would proudly let us know.
At one point, the estimated arrival time got later by one minute.
Mallory: “We just gained one minute.”
Steve & Stephanie: “No, you just lost one minute.”
Mallory: “No, we have gained one minute of being together.”
Although Mallory is wrong, I almost understand her logic, but it has still provided an immense amount of entertainment to us.
We arrived in Los Alamos at 6:30 and Miles was waiting for us in the hotel parking lot. What a guy! We dumped our luggage in the room and we went to dinner. It was great catching up with Miles and hearing about his job.
After dinner, we drove to the house where he has rented a room for the summer. We got to meet his landlords, who were very nice, and have told Miles that “he is the most normal renter they have ever had”. What a lofty compliment!
KK and Scott took a slightly different route to Los Alamos than we did, and arrived at 9:30. We met them at the hotel and gave them their keys, and made our plans for meeting Miles for breakfast tomorrow. It is destined to be another great day.