Day 18: Say What?!? …Say Cheese!

Today was our anniversary. Like I said in yesterday’s blog, we had a nice dinner last night so today it was free breakfast at hotel, PBJ’s for lunch (tailgate style), and subway for dinner. It’s all good.

We started this beautiful sunny day at Sunset Crater NP. We were tired out from all of yesterday’s hiking but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a walk through the ancient lava flow! It rocked! Then we drove to a scenic viewing area where we got a good look at Sunset Crater (you can actually see it from all over), not to mention an awesome view of everything in the park.

Then we decided that we would try to avoid the smoke plumes that are hovering over the Santa Fe NM area by heading north, through Utah, on HWY 89 out of Flagstaff (HWY 89-160-191). It was very windy today which made driving a little challenging (and the air very dusty). But it didn’t hinder our view too much of the painted dessert (north of Flagstaff about 70 miles) and a lot of other beautiful scenery along the way.

We took a small detour today as well to “Four Corners.” This is the spot where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico all meet. The spot is surveyed and marked with a monument (large metal circle). When you stand on that spot, you’re in all four states at once. It was pretty sweet, although I complained about getting charged $6! 

Say Cheese… So, we’re just coming into a small town (Monticello, UT) and we see one of those radar speed detector’s. Right when it’s giving us our speed, we see a blinking light and a flash and realize that we’ve just had our picture taken! Luckily, Jeff was not speeding… or was he? Has anyone else ever had this happen?? We didn’t like it… we really won’t like it if we get a ticket!

Tonight, we are crashing in Moab Utah. We didn’t pull in until 10:15 so we’re tired and J&S are hitting the sack!

Until tomorrow

lava flow... see tiny people toward back for perspective

sunset crater

painted dessert, north AZ

red rock

stand in the place where you were...

marks the spot

monument valley

the amazing apache bloom... by sunset crater

another "lava bloom"

happiness is...

passing a corvette...

and having a pic to prove it!

Day 17: Yahooooo! Grand Canyon!

Wow… what an awesome (and tiring) day! The last site that I could not get off my mind (Jeff either) was the Grand Canyon. We debated going north through Zion NP, but we decided that we wanted the big enchilada! We actually stayed in the same place for 2 nights in a row (first time) so we could go and enjoy the canyon without the pressure. We escaped the 110° temps and “cooled off” in Flagstaff, AZ (over 7000 ft elevation). 

It was my second time and Jeff’s first to the canyon and what a wonderful time we had enjoying the amazing views! Tomorrow we plan to visit Sunset Crater NP and walk around in some ancient lava flows. After that, we will begin a serious quest for home. Of course, as you know by now, we won’t pass up the opportunity for another great adventure.

Tomorrow is our 27^th anniversary and since we will be on the road tomorrow, we celebrated tonight with an amazing dinner at Red Lobster. It was great to chill there after a day of hiking.

Until tomorrow

Followed this truck on the way... dogs kept switching places

The Canyon

Canyon was hazy... still beautiful

Colorado River on the bottom of the canyon

Stairs in the watch tower (built to overlook canyon)

Beautiful cactus flower

Soft peach wild flower

Day 16: No stopping for orange sheep!

If you’re reading our blog you know that we stayed in Las Vegas last night. There are some things we considered doing since we were there, but with an expected high of 107° we chose… not. One thing that we almost did (I even checked on-line to see how much it would cost) is to renew our vows at the Graceland Chapel. If we had done that we could have heard “Elvis” perform, “Love Me Tender” and “Viva Las Vegas.” That was the $199 package. We also chose not to take $20 and feed it to the casinos. In other words, we did nothing in Vegas that needs to stay in Vegas. Yup… we are just a couple of wild and crazy travelers!

We did, however, see the Hoover Dam which is an amazing architectural wonder. And the mountains around it (and Lake Mead) are absolutely beautiful.

OK… so what’s up with the orange sheep? Here’s the scoop… on our way out of the Hoover Dam area, I saw a big red cactus and we decided we couldn’t stop to take a pic because of the traffic. Then there was a sign to watch out for big horned sheep, and Jeff said, “we can’t stop for horned sheep either.” I thought he said orange sheep. It was just one of many things that has filled this van with hysterical laughter!

There is only one major thing left that is a must see for us and we are on our way there. Any guesses? I’m going to leave that one blank for now…but I’ll leave you with a hint and you’ll have to check back tomorrow for all of the details! Here’s the hint: we ate at the Roadkill Café on the historic old route 66 along the way.

Until tomorrow

Beautiful Lake Mead

Restricted access cave at Lake Mead

Hoover Dam spillway

Adorable twin palms

Colorado River

Not even Snoopy could take the heat... hang on Snoopy!

Awesome rock formation

You kill it... they grill it!

Beautiful Nevada flowers

Day 15: Long Way From Buzzard Creek Road!

Hey! We’re in Vegas! Well… actually we’re staying in Henderson (about 5 miles from the strip). Anyway, this has been an awesome day. The other night’s troubles are now but a war story! We hit the road again and decided that yes, we really do need to start heading in the general direction of home. Although, when we stepped outside and breathed in some really hot air (high today 101 degrees where we stayed), we were tempted to head for the Pacific coastline again (LOL). 

We had three real highlights today, the first being the drive (as always). Everywhere we go the landscape changes and we love all of it! We went through the Mojave Dessert today and the mountains (more and more the closer we got to Las Vegas) are now ranging from rounded, to rocky and jagged, and from almost skin colored to tan/brownish… beautiful! And the sunset on and behind the mountains…wow!

Another highlight… for lunch we decided to eat at this little Mexican place. In the middle of seemingly nowhere, there was a sign for “Christina’s Restaurant,” and we stopped. We were waited on by Christina herself (who didn’t speak much English and was smiley and adorable!). We were the only ones in the place (it was about 2pm), and we ate probably the best Mexican food we’ve ever had. This little restaurant would be pretty easy to find since it is right off of HWY 58 and is right by Edwards Air force Base (in North Edwards, CA). If you are ever in the area and enjoy Mexican food, it would be well worth the stop. 

 

Also, we saw a sign for “Harper Lake” (Harper Dry Lake Marsh) and although it was about 8 miles off of the HWY, we went to explore. It was freakin hot! We stepped out of the car and it was like breathing in a sauna, it was probably 110 degrees (conservatively). I don’t think I have ever experienced that kind of heat, and we lived in GA for 5 ½ years. The heat didn’t stop us though; we grabbed our water and walked around on the lake bed. The ground was whitish/tan and had kind of a coral like consistency with pockets of air so that when we stepped down, it was crunchy (kind of like stepping on ice pockets and breaking them in the winter). Although the area is an observation area for wild life, we didn’t see any. This wasn’t such a bad thing since the wild life consists of badgers, bob-cats, coyotes, all sorts of birds, and not to mention snakes, lizards, and other creeping dessert critters. Ok, I admit, it would have been fun to see some of them (some preferably from the car!). And I’m always game for bird watching! Oh… Jeff just reminded me that right when we got to the area we saw a “dust devil” out on the dry lake bed.

We also, on the same drive, saw abandoned houses, abandoned businesses, and one business that seemed to be thriving: NextEra Energy Resources. We got pix of hundreds of solar panels set in rows in a large field. It was something to see.   

So far our luck has been good in Vegas, Jeff won us two free breakfast buffets for tomorrow morning! Now we are about to crash here for the night and then we’re off again in the morning. One thing has remained true; just when we think we’ve seen “the sweetest thing,” another amazing site appears on the horizon. So we look forward to what lies ahead.

Until tomorrow

Christina! ...was awesome

One funky dessert tree!

Close-up

On the dock at Harper Lake

Hundreds of solar panels

Awe... southwestern mountains

Day 14: Do We Hafta?

Well, because of last night we didn’t check out of our hotel until 1pm so we got a really late start. We also made a critical decision today… that even though we have so many more beautiful places we want to see (including the thought of trying to get on the Jay Leno show… I know, right? Probably not), we know that we need to start making our way home. So we turned east/NE. Not before taking one last walk down by the ocean… 

 We did head slightly south before heading east/NE  only so that we could catch scenic HWY 166. The drive was beautiful. Again, something different including what had to be thousands of acres of orange groves. We also passed a huge water reservoir and the mountains are now the pinkish, arid, southern CA type. We are enjoying this so much! 

Tonight we’re staying in Bakersfield, CA. The high here tomorrow is 100!

Until tomorrow

Our last look at the Pacific

Some interesting desert flowers

Another beautiful wild flower (along the HWY after Monterey)

Day 13: What the flip?

Today was actually mostly a really, really good day. We left Salinas this morning and headed for Big Sur. On the way we drove around the peninsula of Monterey and then “Carmel by the sea,” previously known as the town of Clint Eastwood’s mayoral stint. Monterey is a highly touristed site with gorgeous beaches (CA is loaded with awesome beaches), and a fisherman’s wharf. This wharf is much smaller that San Francisco’s but… very nice and with more beautiful boats, yachts, and sailboats than you can count. Plus, lots of people were in the water all over taking sailing, kayaking, and scuba lessons (these are the ones we saw). It’s also a historic town and has amazing, old architecture so it was just fun to drive through. 

Carmel was absolutely stunning! Also very touristed with amazing architecture and it seems that everyone has meticulously landscaped yards with flowers and shrubs. The coast, as usual, was beautiful and yet again different and unique with a sweet combination of more rounded and rolling rocks, beautiful sugar sand, and wildflowers everywhere… beautiful. We got out here and walked the beach and I took tons of pix. 

As usual, we stopped in the afternoon to make our reservation (that was difficult here because of tourists). We found a place in Morro Bay. We are on HWY 1 now and the drive through Big Sur and down was indescribable! We were up so high on the coastline and the drive was winding and hilly. We stopped in Big Sur for lunch at a little place called the Redwood Grill (Fernwood motel). The service was great and the food was awesome. There, the waitress told us about a place down the road a bit where we could watch elephant seals right on shore and we did indeed see them. 

So far, we have had no troubles but that was to end tonight. I’ll make it short. We got to our reserved (through Expedia) hotel at about 9 and the manager proceeded to tell us that he had no space for us (Holland Inn, don’t ever stay there). He said that he told Expedia that he was over-booked and they booked us anyway. So… we spent the next 3 hours in our van in front of McDonalds on the phone with Expedia trying to figure everything out and have a place to sleep. I was getting the back of the van organized for what we thought was to be our room for the night and finally, Jeff got through to someone that actually found us a room. It was at Marriot Courtyard! Plus, she credited our account with $25 for gas and gave us a $100 Expedia certificate.  So, although it was really late, it all ended well.

Until tomorrow

Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey, CA

Monterey shack on the coast... it's for sale, anyone?

Amazing view coming into Big Sur

Funky succulent plants... they grow wild everywhere

Coastline beyond Big Sur

More funky plants