So far this is just the driving part. On Wednesday, we drove from home to Boulder, to drop Rebbe at my brother’s house.

It was so great to see them and we decided that we’d pick Rebbe up on the 27^th and stay to do a seder—spaced apart in the living room, although they will likely have managed to get their first shots by then (fingers crossed).

We stopped at Rincon Argentino in Boulder on the way in to have some empanadas for lunch. Angie had never eaten there and was able to find a tasty empanada tart for herself, but also tried the mushroom empanada I had ordered to go with my beef one. Delicious!

On the way out of Boulder we stopped at Sweet Cow (almost obligatory but it was actually on our way out of town)! Always worth it! I always have the Ozo coffee ice cream. Angie is always more adventurous than I am.

We drove from Boulder to Grand Junction—mainly uneventful. There were a few flurries around Dillon and it was the first time we’d been on I-70 in the mountains in a long time.

Dinner in Grand Junction was Pablo’s Pizza—very good pizza with some interesting options though the extra charge for gluten free was quite excessive. We also had a good dinner salad that we stretched into lunch on the road the next day.

On Thursday we hit the road by 9 a.m. after a takeout, very mediocre, microwave it yourself breakfast.

The highlight of the drive today was the eastern part of Utah and the little slice of Arizona we drove through. We couldn’t find an ideal place for our picnic lunch. We had stopped at a state park Angie had identified. She had read that the day fee was $4 but the website was totally out of date and they wanted $10, which seemed excessive just for somewhere to eat lunch.

Since Angie was getting hungry, we stopped at a truck stop to eat, in the car, as it was also a lot cooler suddenly. We added some components to the salad from the previous night (pastrami, tomatoes, yellow pepper) and it was very satisfying.

We drove on with more stops for coffee and the loo, then arrived in Las Vegas. Our hotel was on the south end of the Strip and we drove about 20 minutes back into the more popular area to pick up a great Thai meal from Weera Thai. They specialize in duck at their Sahara branch, so we ordered the pad ka pow, and some pad see ewe with chicken, and some delicious papaya rolls with tofu (and peanut sauce). It was a really satisfying dinner and we had some of the chicken and rolls left for subsequent meals.

Sadly the bed was too firm for me and I didn’t sleep well, but otherwise a good stop.

Next up, Death Valley and Carpinteria.