Hotel Arizona

(it's a song by Wilco...it works)

Partly because we went to sleep at 8pm and partly because we had a big day ahead of us, we got up at 4 and were gone from Zion by 4:30. Most of the time on this trip we're just a little unsure of what time it actually is. I didn't realize that although Arizona is on mountain time, they don't follow Daylight Savings Time. The route we took had us leave Utah, go back an hour when we hit Arizona, go forward an hour when we hit the Navajo Nation area which does observe Daylight Savings Time, and go back an hour again when we got to the Grand Canyon. I think we got there at 8.

Rick and I were both worried that it wouldn't be so Grand after all of the other things we have seen so far on the trip. We didn't need to worry. It was so impressive that it didn't look real. It is hard to wrap my mind around the massive scale of the canyon. My only criticism is that I wanted to get into it. You can't do that without reserving a spot on a 2 day hiking trip months in advance. It's great to drive to the different viewing platforms on the south rim, but every other park we went to allowed us to immerse ourselves in the place. I think we will have to schedule a return trip to really experience the place.

On the drive to the Petrified Forest we listened to Empire by Orson Scott Card. We had to turn it off as we got close because I wasn't paying attention to road signs. The story is really gripping and pretty intense. It gives a scenario for starting a modern civil war here in the US. We will see how the story ends later but it is a great road trip listen. It is a well written story and it gives us something to talk about when we stop listening.

I was a little worried about the Petrified Forest. It seemed very off the beaten path. We passed through the town of Holbrook on our way there. It is situated right on Route 66 and we noticed an interesting Wigwam motel that looks suspiciously like the Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs. In writing this post I found that we were correct that the Wigwam was the inspiration for the Cozy Cone. That is pretty neat!
So after driving on Route 66 we entered the Petrified Forest. There was a nice movie and exhibits at the Rainbow Forest Museum. We took two short walking tours. The number of petrified logs is just amazing. The rest of the park drive through the Painted Desert was also very pretty. Again, we were so sore from yesterday that we weren't at all upset to be doing driving tours.

We stopped for the night at our first KOA in Flagstaff. Boy, these places are nice. We have electric at our site and the showers were awesome and clean. There are activities for kids, a store and wifi. Today we head to Phoenix to stay with friends for the night followed by a day in Joshua Tree and then off to San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean.

To Zion

When last you read about our heros, they were leaving the Four Corners and had stopped for coffee near Lake Powell. Yes Marylandmom, we agree that it would be fun to rent a house boat for a week...as long as I have some meclizine. I tried to nap while Rick sang to Billy Joel for at least an hour and a half straight. We got to Zion and set up camp in time to take the 90 minute shuttle bus tour. We were lucky enough to enter from the east entrance which has some of the most dramatic views of the park according to our guide book. Before we even hit the park we stopped and took some photos of bison at a little roadside store.
If you ever get to Zion, I strongly recommend taking the shuttle trip first. The drivers talk about all of the different hikes and their level of difficulty. Of course, we had already decided to hike Angel's Landing. We also decided to do the Emerald Pools loop and take a look at the Weeping Rock if we had a chance. So we went to sleep and were woken up by a young guy from the next campsite when he walked over and said "Hey, Stop Snoring," to Rick. I was SLEEPING right next to Rick. I know he snores, but COME ON. We both slept like crap after that.
So we woke up, packed lunches and took the shuttle to The Grotto which is the stop for the West Rim and Angel's Landing trails. You have to do West Rim before you can start Angel's Landing. Apparently, there is a debate about whether or not "regular people" should be allowed to make this climb/hike. I'm proud to say that this was the second time I made the hike and Rick was able to do the whole thing. We both went up and came back down, although the going was slow and there were plenty of water breaks. My legs were shaking several times from fear more than strain I think. I didn't remember how scary it was. We were good and started in the morning, but by the time we were coming down it was afternoon and the sun just baked us the whole way back to the shuttle. We ended up sitting at the shuttle stop drinking water for about 15 minutes. Then we went to the cafe and drank water and ate ice cream for about an hour. We dragged ourselves into town to take showers and eat an early dinner. We were in bed by 8 I think. We didn't have energy for anything else. I might have been able to keep going if I wasn't the one carrying the approx. 20 pound backpack filled with water bottles. Either way, that was one hell of a hike. Rick says this is the hardest hike he has ever done. We were super happy that today was a day full of mainly driving.
Although this post says that it was done by Rick. This was actually Mandy...just in case you couldn't tell by the writing style.

4000 miles down

We spent 2 days camping in Durango, CO at the RV site of Erin and Mike Hill as well as their wonderful children Brian and Kerry. The first day we drove through the Rockys to the towns of Silverton and Ouray. The drive itself was the main purpose of the trip. We had absolutely spectacular views. It was also the first time we had to use the Prius' engine braking feature for any significant amount of time and it proved itself adequate. While we were in Silverton we hit up a local brewery which had some quite tasty craft brews including a very good barley wine. They also served very tasty green chile soup. As Mandy mentioned Ouray had an awesome little park maintained by the city called Box Canyon Falls. A waterfall channeled down the mountain in a pretty awesome show of force. We did dinner at the camp site that evening with the Hills. We cooked up a campfire pizza (our first) with mediocre results. We’ll do better next time. Mike made burgers with roasted green chile. Very tasty.

As planned I got the Prius’ first oil change the next morning and Mandy and I took off to Mesa Verde. It was packed for a Tuesday. We got there around 11 AM. The first tour was available @ 4 PM. So, we didn’t tour the cliff ruins, but I did get some pictures. We did tour some of the ruins on top of the mesa that are open with out having a ranger present and guiding. We also took a 3 mile hike on the petroglyph trail. Petroglyphs are images carved in to rock. The hike was awesome but taxing. It ranged from 7000 to 8000 feet and I’m definitely not acclimated nor in shape. The scenery was awesome and the petroglyphs were neat if a little anti-climactic. The hike ended in a climb up to the top of the mesa, and the views from the top were incredible…they would have left me breathless if I hadn’t already been. Mandy was especially proud of us on this hike because we were only 2 of many hiking groups to complete this hike. We passed many groups of hikers who just gave up and headed back the way they came despite the trail being a loop. We ended the day with dinner in Durango with the Hills at a Mexican joint. All of our meals were excellent as was the company.

I’m writing now from a coffee shop in Page, AZ. We’re about 2-3 hours outside of Zion and will arrive in good time to set up camp comfortably and hopefully have a nice fire. On the way here we hit 4 corners and took pictures…about all you really can do at 4 corners. We’ll write and post again as soon as we get another opportunity!

Rocky Mountain High

So I haven't downloaded photos yet but I wanted to share what we did yesterday. We had awesome breakfast burritos at the Steaming Bean Coffee shop in downtown Durango. Then we met the Hills at their RV. We took a beautiful drive through the mountains to Silverton and Ouray. At Ouray we took a little hike up to a very impressive waterfall.

We came back to the camp site and tried our hand at making pizza over the fire. The adults had burgers, beans, and a salad. It was so nice to have some greens. Oh yeah, we had some wine too. :)

Today Rick is getting the oil changed while I'm handling breakfast and this post. Once he gets back, we're going to Mesa Verde for the day. It sounds like we're going to hit the town for dinner tonight. Tomorrow we will be driving out to Zion. That will probably take all day.

Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?

We do. And we decided not to go that way. Yesterday was a very long extraterrestrial adventure. First stop was Carlsbad city for a car wash (which turned out to be useless at getting the Mississippi bugs off the front of the car) and grocery shopping. Then we headed up to Roswell.

We visited the UFO Museum. It was worth the hour and $5. It was the first real kitchy thing we did. There was a surprising amount of reading at the exhibits. We ate lunch at Farleys which could not serve us our beer at 11:50 when we ordered it. They had to wait until noon to bring it to our table. We searched for the Crashdown Cafe to take pictures for Jeannine, but it wasn't in TomTom or on either of the two main drags in town. We did get some shots of alien signs though.

Then we headed across the state to the Very Large Array. We need to look up the Valley of Fires at some point. We drove right through it and it looked like old volcanic lava flows. That was a really neat stop. There was a nice little movie and a cool little self guided walking tour which we ended up doing with some folks from the UK. I'll let Rick talk about the rest of the day's journeys. I would just like to say that the Chihuahan desert was nice, but I greatly prefer the higher altitudes with the ponderosa pines.

New Mexico in a day

We started the morning at the lovely Guadalupe National park bright and early. I woke (amazingly) just before sunrise. Our original itinerary had us hitting up White Sands and Roswell for the day. We decided to skip White Sands in favor of the Very Large Array closer to the middle of the country. Roswell was a quick and fun stop. We went into the UFO Museum and Research center. The thing that amazed me most about all of the documentation that they had was how badly the government handled the whole shebang. If theý'd have been a little more forthcoming in the first place they wouldn't have this whole conspiracy. We ate at a local bar and grill with decent food and of course I had to try the "Alien Amber" ale. It was quite good,very malty with a light hop flavor.



We then cruised our way up to the very large array (VLA). It's about 1/2 way up New Mexico and a little bit west of the center of the state. It was a little bit out of our way from our earlier planned route but it was completely worth it. The walking tour and video presentation were good and each parabolic dish itself is extremely impressive. We also met a jackrabbit who was not afraid to let humans get close to get some decent pictures.

We decided to be adventurous and didn't backtrack from the VLA back to the interstate. Instead we took some local roads just west of the VLA that were a more direct approach to Durango Colorado. What we didn't know is that the route we'd planned on the map included a significant chunk on a long unimproved road. The prius handled admirably on what started out as a packed gravel road and ended up in a rutted hard packed dirt road. We spent about 60 miles on that road and it turned out to be a great experience. The road was flanked with large ranches and all in all was very wild. We startled a group of antelope who raced us up the road for about a mile. I was going about 25 miles an hour and they were making slightly better time than that when they finally turned on to a side road on the ranch. They were only about 50 yards in front of us (on the other side of a fence and plenty of stopping distance if they decided to bolt in front of us). Just a few minutes later we saw a buck antelope hanging out on the other side of the road. Our route turned out to be perfect. It put us exactly where we wanted to be and now we were just a few hours south of Durango.

We popped off of the unimproved road around 7:00 PM and we were now in northern NM. It is exceptionally beautiful. Another reason that we lucked out on this route is that we got to see a natural arch at a tiny little national monument park. It was a good chance to stretch our legs before we finished the home stretch to Durango.

We pulled in to Durango Colorado just a few minutes after 11 PM to end a perfect day on the road.

The Stars at Night, are Big and Bright

(Note: This post was written last night but posted this evening as soon as we were able to hit a wifi)

deep in the heart of Texas. Actually made it all the way from Austin to Carlsbad New Mexico in time to see the bats leave the cave. It actually made for a good comparison. While there are significantly more bats at Carlsbad than under the Congress bridge in Austin, the bats at Carlsbad take their time coming out. The Austin bats are a bit better organized and all come out at once which makes for a really impressive few minutes.

We thought that today we would do the Carlsbad caverns stuff in the morning and come back to our campground for some afternoon above ground hiking. Instead, we ended up doing almost all there was to do in Carlsbad. We went on the King’s Room tour and took the self guided audio tour from the natural entrance down to and through the big room. We started around 10 and were done at about 3:30 or so. I’m composing this blog entry sitting at our beautiful campsite at Guadalupe National Park. We noticed that most rest stops have wifi access so we hope to upload this in the morning. I have to say that it feels very strange to be typing on a laptop while camping. I think all of the other campers will start making fun of me any minute now.

Tomorrow we NEED to do some grocery shopping. We need to make sure that we have some fresh veggies soon. Anyway, Rick left his toiletry bag in Austin and we won’t be able to pick it up again until we hit Phoenix so he needs some manly deodorant. He doesn’t want to use my “strong enough for a man, but made for a woman (with sensitive skin)” stuff. We will be setting the alarm early so we can make it to White Sands around noon. I think we will also hit Roswell tomorrow too. I don’t know if we will be spending the night there or just driving straight through. We will see how weird things are there when we get there and we’ll play it by ear. So far, that strategy has been working just fine for us.

On through Texas

Yesterday was the first day when we started noticing a distinct shift in the vegetation as we cruised by. Without regard for the topography much of the first third of the US looks very much the same from a vegetation standpoint. At our stops to and in Missouri I saw many of the same plants that we have back home in Maryland...including unpleasant ones like stinging nettles and poison ivy to the pleasantly familiar like honeysuckle and mayflowers. The trees up until yesterday were tall and green, with a broad mix of conifers and deciduous trees. About midday yesterday we started noticing the yellowing of the land and the shrinking of the trees. I don't know what the tree type would be called. Their size doesn't exactly compare to the scrub oak and mesquite of the desert , they're much larger than that, but the trees and shrubs are definitely not of the same stature of those in the well watered East. The ground-cover is also starting to look decidedly brown.

Whup! Looks like it's time to head out. Onward to Carlsbad!

That's Right (You're Not from Texas)

...but Texas wants you anyway. Man, Texas is BIG. We were through Louisiana before noon yesterday and spent the rest of the day going through Texas. We're not even half-way through. Regarding our pace, now is when we do slow down a bit. We actually looked at our sketchy outline for the trip yesterday and I think we got a day ahead of schedule. Probably the trip from Missouri to New Orleans. We did it in a day and I think I budgeted for us to take two to get there. It's nice to have an extra day to play with. I think today we're going to find a somewhere to do some laundry then look for a campsite on the way to Carlsbad. We might be out of internet range with the exception of the odd wifi coffee shop for quite a while now. We will do our best to have updates, but we will definitely be able to keep you all posted through the Twitter updates from my phone (unless we get out of cell phone range too.) Enjoy this shot of the bats coming out from under the Congress Street bridge.

The Prius so far

Thus far the Prius has been great. It's been handling well on the roads and did well in the mini-mountains so far. It's worst gas mileage was 41 MPG in the mountains but the rest of the time we've been averaging 45-46 MPG. To and from work I normally get 47-48 MPG so I blame the loss of a few on Mandy's driving. Or, it could be the fact that we're carrying a lot more weight in the car than normal w/ all of our camping gear and trip stuff.

Moon Over Bourbon Street

Updated to include photos added since we have a better internet connection.

We made excellent time yesterday. We got from Columbia MO all the way to Baton Rouge LA (although we did get in around midnight). For the sake of speed we took the interstate all the way to Memphis, TN. It was around 3:30 when we got there so we popped downtown for some ribs. Rick was singing Walkin' in Memphis almost the whole time. We couldn't figure out how to walk with our feet 10 feet off of Beale. We just walked normal down it. It was a quick stop, but we did get our picture taken with The King.

From Memphis we went through Mississippi to Baton Rouge via highway 61. It was a very good thing we stopped for gas in the northern part of the state. By the time we got to the end it was getting late and not one of the rickety general stores was still open. About the only thing of note through Mississippi last night was the extremely large number of bugs that we killed with the front of the car. That and we listened to "First to Die" by James Patterson. It was decent. Good for driving through lonely Mississippi down the Great River Road. Tonight should be a bit more exciting. We're going get cleaned up a bit at our hotel and head on down Bourbon Street and check out the jazz club that Anna recommended. Hopefully we won't be too rough in the morning to hit the road around 9.
Update: Here is a dark shot of Tommy's Wine Bar. It's covered in candles and gas lanterns and it had little tables and chairs and couches scattered around in small groups. It was an extremely nice place to relax over some Prosecco. Thanks Anna!!!!

Everything's up to date in Kansas City

Ok, so we're not in Kansas City but we saw signs for it all day so I've been singing songs from Oklahoma anyway. We are west of the Mississippi in Columbia, Missouri. Yesterday we traveled from Southern Maryland through PA, West Virginia (just a little bit), Ohio, Indiana, and most of Illinois. We were pretty excited to get going so we left at about 4am. We stopped at the Dawes Arboretum in Ohio for lunch and an extended rest stop. We toured around a little and stretched our legs. It was a pretty awesome place to just happen upon when we were hungry and needed to get off of 70 for some gas. We spent the night at Lincoln Trail State Park. We were able to set up our tent in about 4 minutes flat which was a very good thing. We could hear the thunder in the distance getting closer as we set up so we decided to buy some food for dinner instead of cooking it ourselves. We choose wisely. As soon as we got inside the camp restaurant it started hailing. The rain lasted for about 10 minutes. I think we ended up falling asleep at about 8 last night. This morning we took a short drive here into Columbia over both the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. We listened to old BBC productions of Sherlock Holmes mysteries and tested our knowledge against the Trivia Pursuit cards we brought (By the way, Mom and Dad Ulrey - were these the cards you said were hard to answer? I've done really well with them so far.) Yesterday we spend about the whole time driving singing songs...believe it or not :)

Tomorrow we set out to see how close to NoLa we can possibly make it before we can't stand being in the car together anymore. If anyone has any recommendations for a place to stay once we are in New Orleans, leave us a comment. We're hoping to get lucky and be able to stay in a hotel so that we can fully enjoy Bourbon Street.

We didn't make it far

Today was our first day of vacation but we didn't make it far. We headed down to my parents house in Southern Maryland for my Gran's 80th birthday. We had a great time and it was a wonderful start to our trip.

We start in earnest in the morning. Our rough itinerary follows as well as some pictures from the day.

In order of anticipated arrival:

Columbia, Missouri
New Orleans
Austin, TX
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
White Sands and Roswell, New Mexico
Mesa Verde
Zion National Park, Utah
Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest, AZ
Phoenix, AZ
Joshua Tree National Forest
San Francisco
Red Wood National Park
Medford, Oregon
Seattle, WA
Glacier National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Lake Michigan on the Western Shore in Wisconsin

T Minus 1 day

Just one day until we begin our road trip! We'll post our projected itinerary and give updates as we can on our trip. There's just a little bit of last minute packing to do before we take off tomorrow morning. Our first stop is my parents house in southern Maryland for my Gran's 80th birthday.

RickU