Happy halfway

Halftime statistics:

• Number of days on the road: 18
• Number of miles driven: 4,393
• Number of National Parks visited: 9
• Number of days encountering scary wildlife: 18
• Number of times eating at Subway: 5
• Hotel visits: 3
• Number of nights sleeping in our car (at least part of the night): 2
• Number of nights sleeping in our tent (at least part of the night): 9

Things that we have found to be overrated, i.e. things we thought were important but have not been used very frequently:

• Camping stove. We have been cooking most things over charcoal or over our campfire.
• Clothes in general. We brought way, way too many clothes.
• Shoes. We only needed one pair of flip flops and one pair of hiking shoes, but of course we both brought several pairs of shoes (what if I want to go running? I'll need running shoes. And hiking shoes! And regular tennis shoes!)
• McDonald's Wifi. Supposedly, all McDonald's restaurants have Wifi. We have only successfully used this free Wifi once. It exists, but we are unable to connect. Annoying.
• The dryer at Motel 6. This is a recent addition to the list, as we are currently surrounded by heaps of damp laundry.

Things we have found to be underrated, i.e. things we didn't think would be important but we either miss them or use them every day:

• Towels. We both have these little sammy towels, but we really wish we had regular, human-sized towels
• Quarters. We've had to pay for most of our showers, requiring lots of quarters.
• Sunscreen
• Electricity
• Free, warm, bug-less showers
• A tiny citronella candle we bought at Walmart at the beginning of our trip that has proven to be extremely important for keeping away bugs at campsites

Random things we have learned, or tidbits we would like to pass along:

• Hand sanitizer does not remove dirt
• Canvas walls do not make you feel safe from wildlife
• Driving really far in a Civic gives you back pain
• Getting away from the city allows you to see lots and lots of stars
• Tiny grocery stores with questionable refrigeration lead to an intense fear of food poisoning
• 110 degree heat will melt the interior of your car

We are in Utah just north of Provo, hanging out at our hotel and watching The Invention of Lying. We are getting used to this new time zone thing, with live sporting events occurring two hours earlier than usual. Thankfully, we have a few weeks to get used to the time zone change. We learned last summer on our trip to Alaska (AKA the trip that ruined our lives, made us realize we miss the great outdoors, and motivated us to quit two perfectly good jobs and move across the country) that Robbie does not handle jet lag very well. He spent the first few days in Juneau drooling on himself and squinting into the sun, rubbing his eyes and wondering why it was so bright.

Anyway, we've seen some pretty cool things so far:

We are more than halfway through our homeless adventure, but we thought it was time for a little recap. Thanks for following along with us, and we hope you are enjoying the journey so far!

Today's route:

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