A long, long trip

OK, so the trip meter puts me at about 4,600 miles. First leg from Gardiner to Bossier City took about 2 days. It was a marathon drive with a purpose - needed to get to see my boys!
A trashed house and a line of broken computers to fix sobered my enthusiasm quickly. (Ended up leaving with 2 of 5 running - brought the laptop back to get a new hard drive installed, but the 2 desktops stayed. I'm hoping the 2 left behind will get fixed, but I'm not holding my breath.) Cleaned up quite a bit of the house, had a major breakdown (see post below) semi-enjoyed Christmas (mom and dad had to brave the Texas blizzards and made it for the x-mas afternoon) Two days of power cleaning and house-fixing later, the caravan hit the road. Oma and Poppa driving truck, pulling trailer with broken car - me, mitch, and the dog trailing behind in the Element.
In case you were not aware it is a LONG drive across Texas. Oh, and El Paso is nowhere you will ever want to live. We tried visiting 2 hot springs in the NM/AZ area but the first was lackluster and the second was closed due to excessive partying. Sigh. Wanted to be back home where the hot springs are beautiful and available. Visited casa de oma & poppa in Gold Canyon, AZ - GORGEOUS house, but way too little time to appreciate the beauty of the area.
Mitch and I drove north to the Grand Canyon and woke up on New Year's day to a beautiful view of the canyon. Cold, but a very nice day. We drove up through Zion (stopping at park HQ to see if Greg was around, but then realized it was a federal holiday) and made it to SLC that night. Mitch hopped on the plane headed for Spokane to visit his dad while the dog and I drove north for home. Really sad leaving Mitch - it was a fun road trip with him.
Eddie and I drove through some bad weather in Idaho and holed up in Butte for the night. Last night before returning for work and I'm exhausted. Another relaxing vacation.