Hales -- [noun]: One who is saved by Grace.: We made it alive!

Thank GOD we made it! California to Georgia... 2200 miles and 33 hours. It took us 3 days. It was a lot worse than the trip there for me. The weather sucked. SUCKED. And if you know me, you know that bad weather and airplanes are my 2 biggest fears. The first day was rain. That, along with driving on the sides of mountains in 4000 ft of elevation... well, I just wasn't exactly thrilled. We made it from San Diego, CA to El Paso, TX. I hate driving miles and miles with no town in site, and that was the case for most of it. Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas... well... there are just no signs of life. The next day, we were outrunning this storm that's crossing the country. We were ahead of the rain, but the wind was around 30mph, and since we were in the desert for half of Texas, it kept creating these dust storms that were kind of scary to drive through... not to mention blowing our little car around. It finally got better and we started seeing civilization around Abeline, which is in the middle of Texas. We stopped in Shreveport, LA for the night, and the next day set out for the last 14 hour stretch. The only problem is, I got sick. I guess the lack of sleep mixed with eating horribly and anxiety got to me. I was exhausted. I made Chase stop in another hotel in Mississippi, and we stayed there a few hours while he let me nap. I woke up feeling a little better, and we tried again. FINALLY we made it home to Albany, GA at 12:30 last night, and I have NEVER been happier to be home! My nerves were completely shot, and I'm still trying to get over the trip. But, on the up-side, I did get some pretty cool photos out of it. Here are a few of my faves.

This is the beach at Camp Pendleton in CA. There was a storm off to the west, so it made some interesting shots. We were waiting on some of Chase's buddies. They were going of the same interstate for part of the way, so I was fortunate enough to get some shots while we waited: