Planning for a road trip in 2020 could be pretty complicated. Been invited to a wedding.. do I go and support? Or do I make up an excuse and pass this time? With CDC guidelines, rising Corona virus cases, and my wife being high risk, YIKES!
We decided to take a chance and go. Especially with my cousin making arrangements to have been in our wedding a couple years ago. We would set out to make this a family road trip. Not only the kids but Dad and Mom even came along for the journey.
Although it would be a lot faster to fly! It is safer and fun to just rent a car. Plus, I’ll save a little money using my AAA auto club membership. And booking a room you get a variety of perks using Expedia, which I used all the time with our trucking company. I decided to use our Choice Rewards and stay at the Cambria hotel and Suites. Excellent rooms even though there was no breakfast because of COVID. Absolutely amazing and great price!
After stocking up on masks, sanitizer and saying a prayer for safety. We set off on our 16 hour road journey.
In hopes to make it through the Colorado mountains while the sun was still up to be able to watch out for black ice. The gang got hungry right in the middle of the crossover. My son and daughter were anxious to see some snow. As we hadn’t run into much snow yet. So a pit stop for dinner and the kids taking pictures in front of a Colorado sign for their Instagram and Ticky Tok posts. We finally made it into Aurora, Colorado around 8pm. Enough time to get my Dad something to eat as he hadn’t eaten earlier and check into our rooms. No snow in inner Colorado throughout our short stay but it was still colder than a 10lb bag of frozen neck bones.
The wedding was a great turnout. We where briefed with the CDC guidelines for the venue before entering and they checked our temperatures at the door. This gave us more peace of mind to enjoy the event and support the family on this special day. They set those who came in the same car together at tables so we could take our masks off if we wanted to.
We tried to leave out early the next day to miss the snow storm that was expected to hit Colorado the following day. It seemed to drag out with getting the kids up late. Everyone was hungry, a quick drive through is not what the gang wants at this point, everyone wants a good meal. So we find a nice little restaurant (Moonlight Diner) for a long breakfast. The bright side was, the food was really good and they seemed to give you a lot of it.
Returning through the Colorado mountains we got a chance to stop and see some snow on the ground that was probably from the night before. My daughter was super ecstatic being that she had never been to the snow before. But, we still had a lot of ground to cover to bypass the snowstorm headed our way. We ended up hitting some pretty thick snow going through Utah that slowed us down a bit. We did make it pretty close to Arizona and had a break before the next haul back home to Cali. We arrived safely Monday with enough time for my daughter to login to school and to return the car back to the airport.
CDC rules and all, it was a great trip and we made it happen, had fun with each other and everyone!
Safety first……
- Lots of mask
- Large bottle of Sanitizer
- Sit at tables with the party you came in the same vehicle with
Choice rewards savings
(Platinum Member) saved 20% on 2 rooms plus received almost 8000 points to use later
The logo on the wedding party grooms men mask.