There's No Place Like Home...There's No Place Like Home

Sunday, June 20th was to be our last day on the road. It was also Father’s Day. At one point in the evening we jokingly told Dad “You get us for Father’s Day!!” He laughed but we know he was totally alright with that idea.

We left Minden by about ten in the morning; after eating our last Holiday Inn Express breakfast of biscuits and sausage and eggs. Josh made a friend at breakfast! Toto and I went down after beautifying ourselves, and low and behold Josh is sitting with some guy who looks to be about Toto’s age. They weren’t really talking though. We went over and put our stuff down (we had both taken our laptops down to breakfast with the intention of blogging/facebooking on the free internet of the hotel), and the gentleman looked up and seemed surprised. “I thought he was alone,” he said to me. “Nope,” I replied, “but I’m sure he’d love to get rid of Toto and me.” Then Toto sat down and he asked me “Are there more of you?” (it was only a four person table). He seemed a little relieved when I told him no, there were not more of us, or more precisely, the rest of us were at home. We chatted awhile while we were all eating, and we discovered that he had been active duty and National Guard for 22 years! He gave Josh lots of advice, and to the untrained ear of a civilian, it sounded like really good advice. Hopefully Josh will take it to heart.

After our little conversation at the hotel, we got everything (including JT) packed up and ready to go. We knew it was our last day on the road, so we weren’t quite as meticulous in the organization of the car, but Toto still wanted to be able to see out the back window, so we decided we could accommodate her on that.

We started the day off on an interesting note. I was in the backseat, but I was still in control of the iPod. The very first thing I played was the song that is Josh’s ring tone on my phone, and I dedicated it to him. Then Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” came blasting out of the speakers. Toto didn’t get it. She complained a little bit about the ghetto music until Josh told her to listen to the lyrics. Then she understood. Josh threw the hood on his sweatshirt up over his head and started dancing like a white and nerdy wannabe gangster, it was quite entertaining.



Then I wrote the blog about the day before, which if you are reading this, you probably already read. And you know it is my best work yet, but I can’t guarantee that the one you are reading now is going to top that one, I mean, we didn’t really do much on Sunday.

Toto wanted to make a few stops along the drive home, the first of which was Lake Tahoe. We were only ten minutes south of there where we stayed, so we drove on up. Then we discovered that it cost seven dollars to get into the park. Toto didn’t want to pay it because all she wanted to do was show us the lake for five minutes and get back in the car and drive on. So she looked at us questioningly, and Josh told her his opinion: “Let’s just go. I want to get home.” She looked back at the guy in the toll booth and asked him nicely (yes Toto was nice to someone) “We’re driving home to Oregon today, and I just wanted to show the kids the lake, it’s been 30 years since I was here. Is there any way…?” He let us in without paying, he gave us ten minutes and told us to stay in the car. So she drove in, waited till she couldn’t see his little booth, then parked and we went out and looked at the water. The sand on the shore of Lake Tahoe is not nice when it gets in between your feet and the soles of your sandals, let me just tell you that right now, but it was gorgeous! Someone told us that it was agate sand, but it wasn’t really sand. It was more like really little pebbles everywhere. Some were tan, some were sparkly, some were grayish, it was nice.



The next stop wasn’t really going to be a stop. Toto wanted to drive us through Virginia City, which was what she described as a ghost town. Yeah, so not a ghost town. I mean it was hoppin'. It’s about a mile long, and lined with shops and restaurants and things in a western style. It was really cute. I remarked to Toto that it was a good thing we were only driving through because it looked like an awesome place that you could spend all day in. Then I saw them. Cute boys in cowboy gear. Like Campbell’s soup says, "M'm! M'm! Good!" and they were. I think I got whiplash from yanking my neck back to look behind the car as we went past them. It was a blessedly wonderful moment. We got to the other side of town and Toto pulled over so I could get a soda out of the cooler. Then we decided we were hungry. There were restaurants up by the cute cowboys. Josh just rolled his eyes and grumbled about getting home but Toto and I overruled him. We found somewhere to park, and then we walked around a bit. We found where the cute guys went: they went into the gunfight place. It’s a show they do three times a day. We just barely missed the first one (at noon) and Josh wanted no part of sticking around until the next one (at 1:30). So we peaked in between the boards for a minute, and then went on out merry little way. Across the street Josh found a shirt he just needed, a black t-shirt that said Sons of Anarchy Virginia City on it with the logo of the biker gang. I don’t know if you have ever watched this show or not, but you should. It’s on FX in the fall, and it is good. Josh got into it a couple years back, and Dad and I have since become addicted to it. Speaking of which, I think he and I are overdue for an episode or a marathon. Check it out at http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/soa/. The shirt was hanging in a shop that didn’t sell them, but was a western picture place. The gal asked us if we’d like one, and we asked how much it was. It was going to end up around $25 after tax, so we decided to go ahead. It turned out great! I look like a floozy, but I think that’s part of the point.



About three stores down from the picture place was a western clothing supply store. After trying on a bunch of boots, Josh and I each got a pair, and I got a pretty sweet hat too. I found it entertaining that I tried on every hat I could in Nashville, but I had to get to Nevada to find one that I liked enough to buy. We ate lunch at a place called The Palace, where Josh got the biggest burger in the western states (I don’t think it was bigger than the Hub Cap Burger). I finally got some pulled pork that had been cooked in the BBQ sauce so I felt better. Mom ate the same thing I had but pulled chicken instead of pork. It was good food. Then we headed down the street in search of the place with the SOA shirts. We found it and Josh got a sweatshirt, I got a long sleeved tee and we bought Dad a t-shirt. All in all, we were in Virginia city for about two hours. Josh complained that this was precious time that we could have been driving and therefore two hours closer to home, but deep down he loved the western picture and the SOA sweat shirt. So he didn’t complain too much.



We stopped in Reno for gas, and then Toto drove us down the main strip. It was neat. But we didn’t get out as we didn’t want a verbal lashing from Josh.



Then we drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. And still, we drove. I took pictures of all the state line signs along the trip, except Colorado which we passed without even noticing, but I informed Toto and Josh that we wouldn’t juts take a picture of the Welcome to Oregon sign, we would get out and be dorks. I hadn’t planned on hugging the sign, but when I saw it I couldn’t help myself.



Then we drove some more. And some more. And a little more. We got Taco Bell (or Tango Bravo as Josh has been calling it) in Klamath Falls and then we kept on trekking North. Toto decided she wanted me to start reading the entire blog to her out loud after we ate out food. I read until we arrived in Eugene about 10:30pm and took I-5 North. We passed the turn off for Corvallis at about 11 and pulled in the driveway at 12:28am June 21, 2010. How on earth we made it from Eugene to Gresham in two hours, I have no idea. But we were glad to be home.

Now since the day the blog is about isn’t over until we go to bed, I still have more to talk about. Josh’s friends Austin, Mike and Sarah all got to the house about three minutes after we did. So we let the guys unload the car while I gave Dad his father’s day presents since it was sort of still Dad’s day (he got a new book and new grill racks for the BBQ).



Then Toto and I divvied up the souvenirs to Dad and made a pile for the munchkin. Then we discovered that he had not been reading the blogs while we were gone. He claims to have read a few, but until he reads this one and then tells me he knows what happened in all of them, I don’t think I will believe him.

It wasn’t a terribly exciting day, but it was busy enough, what with the driving and all.

For those of you who have become avid followers of this blog, don’t worry. This is not the last posting. I will post an epilogue in a day or two.

Wait For it….Wait For it….And We Just Kept Waiting…

With a day of driving ahead of us, we didn’t think we were going to have all that great of a time yesterday. Our goal was Reno from Page, AZ, and that’s not a short drive.

We left Page about 9:45 yesterday morning. Toto was driving, Josh was in the back and I was navigator. I set to work writing the blogs for the previous two days as I knew I had a ton of time on my hands. Toto wanted to go through Zion National Park on the way home, though she swore she wouldn’t stop for longer than it would take to snap a few photos. When we got up to the turn off it was closed. She was very disappointed. Ten years ago when we had been in this neck of the woods, we hadn’t gotten to go to Zion either. Our trailer was too large to fit through the tunnel into the park without guidance, which they provide, but not at midnight. We had continued on to our other destination and Toto had been disappointed then too.

Somewhere on the highway in Nevada, we came across some plant life that we feel a certain affinity for: Joshua Trees. Of course we found a good sized one and took Josh’s picture with it.



Now, what I am about to tell you didn’t really happen. There is no proof of it ever occurring, no pictures and certainly no physical evidence. Think of it more as the wandering imagination of three very delusional people who have been trapped in the car for way too long together. After taking the picture with Josh and the Joshua Tree we had gotten in the car and driven on. Two or three minutes later Josh made some comment under his breath about stealing a Joshua Tree. Somehow, and I am not sure how, we convinced Toto to turn around and backtrack about a mile (I will xplain why we had to go back in just a moment) until we found a small Joshua Tree that Josh could dig up. The tree in question was about 18incehs tall. Still is I suppose. Josh was rooting around in the back of the Tahoe for something to do said digging with, and all he could come up with was a hammer. So he and I went trotting out to the chosen tree (it was about 50 feet from the road): him to dig it up and me to NOT document it with the camera. Josh and JT (what we have subsequently named the thefted tree) got to know each other really fast: JT poked Josh in the forehead. I was a little behind Josh on the trip to the tree and all I heard from twenty feet away was “OUCH!!” and saw Josh clutching his left eyerbrow. After recovering from JT’s initial defensive move, Josh attempted to remove the soil from JT’s roots with the hammer. This did not work. Josh was the one to get violent next. He kicked JT near the ground a few times from different directions. This was apparently what JT had been waiting for because he came loose from the soil rather rapidly. Josh then picked him up by the trunk, and RAN to the car because there was a car coming towards us. JT is now apart of the family. At one point, Josh said “If he wasn’t so prickly, I would sleep with him.” Then Toto replied “He can’t help being prickly kind of like Kansas can’t help but be boring.” We did have to hide him when we crossed into California though, we didn’t want anyone to think he was a deformed pineapple.



Now the reason we had to turn around to go find JT is thus: somehow in nature, trees and shrubs know where to grow and not to grow. As we were leaving the photo site (where Josh and the big tree had been posing together) we were on a downward slope. Right before Josh made the suggestion of stopping and acting like a kleptomaniac, Toto had made a comment about how flora (plant life) knows where their lines are (where to grow and not to grow). It was like the light came on and she just said “It’s like the Joshua trees know where their line is…Josh, you should know where yours is too...”

When we were at the International UFO Museum and Research Center on Wednesday, we had seen something about a highway in Nevada called the Extraterrestrial Highway.







I had immediately asked Toto if we could drive down it. Of course she said yes. So we were heading towards Nevada and this highway that went past Area 51. One of the highways we were on in Utah was a horrible road. It had the tar to fill in the cracks all over it. We determined that this must be how the government communicates with the aliens. They write them messages in the roads and we humans can’t see the grand scale of it so we just assume they’re fixing the roads.



Well ok so they really are just fixing the roads, but maybe that little bit of crazy talk will make it into the “facts” of some of the crackpots who are always going on and on about aliens spout off. We made it to Highway 375 (the aforementioned Extraterrestrial Highway, or ET Hwy for short) in the early afternoon and had a blast by the sign at the beginning. I realized about twenty miles before this that I did not have the X-Files theme song, so I used what little service we had on the wifi card to download it from iTunes. I told Toto and Josh that we were going to listen to it the whole 100 miles of the ET Hwy; I don’t think they believed me. Boy did I show them. About a mile down the ET Hwy was a bright silver metal Quonset hut that had a gigantic metal alien in front of it. It was a store of some kind. We did not go in as it was closed, which we found out by sending Josh up the hill to it on foot while we waited in the car. Right as he was walking back a Jeep pulled into the parking area we were in and asked him a question. We didn’t hear it but when he got back in the car he said she was Geo-Caching. Geo-Caching is like a scavenger hunt using GPS. We went on our way. A few miles down the road we encountered yet another car that was pulled over on the side of the road. Geo-Cachers. We saw them every few miles for the entire 100 miles of the ET Hwy. Let me give you a little geography lesson about the part of Nevada we were in. There were mountains and hills and valleys in between. The hills weren’t all that tall, neither were the mountains, but they were much more mountainy than the things Kentucky calls mountains. We would drive over a pass and come down into a valley and be able to see for what felt like forever. The highway was long and straight and flat, and we would make bets on how far to the other side of the flat stretch. The first was seven miles. The next was closer to 14. It was very beautiful in a desolate sort of way. We encountered this sort of terrain for a while until we found a pick up on the side of the road that was completely smashed in the front. I started making up a story about Al driving home from Rachel (a tiny town I will explain later) from his step daughter’s birthday party and all of a sudden he gets abducted by aliens. Right as I was getting to what I would have called the good part, we were approaching something on the side of the road. Toto thought it was a bag of trash because it was black and one end was flapping in the breeze and I thought it was something dead. I was right. It was a dead cow, but there was something flapping on it, a buzzard. It was all bloated and kind of gross. About 300 yards down the road we found another dead cow on the other side of the road. Because we were so bored, we actually backed up and took pictures of both of them. Upon the reproach of the second cow, Josh inquired “Where’s it’s head?” This was a very good question. I had rolled my window down to take the picture, and was therefore holding my breath, but when I looked at it, I couldn’t see the head. When we got to the other side of it (we were driving rather slowly) we discovered that the head was completely under the body of the animal, obviously its neck was broken in the impact that killed it. Then I realized what REALLY had happened to Al. He probably was driving down the road late at night a few nights ago (on his way home from his stepdaughter’s birthday party in Rachel), and we think this cow was waiting on the side of the road for unsuspecting drivers with a friend because she was depressed. As a final hurrah in her life she had decided that she would commit suicide but jumping in front of a car. Her friend was there to help with the timing. “Wait for it….Wait for it…not yet....NOW!!” and then she jumped in front of Al’s truck. He probably clipped her after swerving to try and avoid her. Then he looked back through the back window, and when he looked forward again he was face to face with yet another depressed cow that had determined now was the right time to jump as well. I mean, if I were a cow and lived in that area, and did nothing but wait to be abducted by aliens or be slaughtered, I would be depressed too. I don’t think he had time enough to swerve to avoid the animal and hit it dead on. Then in his shock he probably was only able to drive half a mile before the truck pooped out on him. Then he would have gotten out of the vehicle and started hiking towards home, and this is when the aliens got him. He was already in such shock he probably thought it was his wife who he had called to come get him after the accident. If you are sick and twisted (like us) and you want to see said pictures of the deceased bovines, feel free to email me, but I am not going to put them up here. If you are wondering why the cows were near the road, it is because the whole stretch of the ET Hwy is open range land. Now the funny part is that there was an episode of X-Files that involves dead cows, though it was a brief involvement, but Toto was adamant that there was.



After that excitement, we found the town of Rachel. It is seriously tiny. Almost as small as Point of Rock, but it had a few more trailer homes and a diner. The very first part of it you see is desolate and looks kind of deserted, like a town that Mulder and Scully would encounter on one of their cases so we had to take pictures. Then we found the part with the diner which looks a little more occupied, but not much. Across the highway from this little town is a broken down and dilapidated something, possibly an old mine of some sort. Next to it was a bunker looking thing. We told Josh to go investigate, but he decided with where we were (nearish to Area 51) and the creepy music playing and the weird looking little town next to us (where the locals were probably cannibals and ate unsuspecting outsiders) he wasn’t getting out of the car. We snapped a picture from the road and left in a hurry.





About halfway down the ET Hwy we found a heard of cows. Sure enough two were nearish the road. Thankfully they were brown and it was daylight so we saw them and did not hit them, wreck our car, abandon it in search of help and get captured by aliens.

We had meant to see Area 51 as we traveled along the ET Hwy yesterday. I didn’t expect it to see way to get into it, but I figured I would at least see a chain link fence and a no trespassing sign. I didn’t see either.

We finally got off the ET Hwy and I turned off the X-Files theme music. We turned and headed down highway six. A little while later there was a rest stop and next to it was this huge rusty metal thing. When I say huge, I mean HUGE. Probably 15 feet tall and 30 feet across. It was almost a half circle shape. Toto made a comment about it as I got out of the car to use the facilities, and somehow between the two of us we spaced taking a photo of it. So I do not have anything to show you. Ten miles later or so we were nearing civilization. Right before the little town was a gravel road with a missile next to it. About half a mile down the road was what looked like the other half of the weird metal half circle. Toto wouldn’t go down the road because it looked all forbidding and scary so we just settled on not knowing what the fink it was (we hypothesized about it being a UFO).

A little bit later we saw something amazing. We saw our second “Orange Squeezer Thingy” of the trip. We had commented to ourselves (Toto and I at least) that we had seen a serious lack of them this trip; I mean we had seen them all over the place when we were little. So when we saw this, we had to switch lenses on the camera to the mega-zoom lens because it was WAY off the road. Then 20 miles or so later as we were nearing the California border, we saw yet ANOTHER ONE!! We were psyched! Just now as I sit here writing this we made a connection…we saw one in Hermiston near the army depot up there. And now we saw two in Nevada near Nellis Air Force base and Area 51 and the Nevada test site. So maybe they have something to do with the bases?





Toto had been going on and on about Mono Lake and the neat little things that “grew” on the shores of the alkaline lake in the Sierra Nevada’s all day. She really wanted to get up there and show it to us. She had seen it when she was my age, and thought it was super neat. When we got there, she said to me “Well, that’s not how I remember it. That’s not real exciting.” And that was it. We were done there. We had dinner in Lee Vining at a little joint that had a soup and salad bar with FRESH and HOMEMADE stuff, so Toto and I enjoyed homemade white bean and ham soup and piles of freshly chopped salad for dinner. No salad mix there (unlike all the places we ate in the south). It was a very nice change.

We ended up staying in Minden which is just a little south of Carson City. Got there about 11:30 and Josh went right to bed. Toto messed around on the computer a while then crawled into bed next to me. I was up till 1:30 or so uploading pictures and finishing posting the blogs for the prior two days (the internet card had been being wonky yesterday in the car so I couldn’t upload photos on the road).

Playlist
Nickel Creek
Paramore
TATU
Don McLean
Patty Loveless
X-Files Theme (for 100 miles)
Three Days Grace
ACDC
Don Henley
Dierks Bentley

Sun, Sand and Slot Canyons

I assumed we would get to sleep in yesterday. I mean, we got into Page at one in the morning the night before, so I thought Toto would let us sleep in since we were staying in Page for two nights. Well, I guess nine is sleeping in, but it didn’t feel like it. Toto got up and went out for a walk, and dragged us out of bed when she got back. We sleepily went down to breakfast, and when we got back Toto disclosed the plans for the day. We had a 1:30 tour of Antelope Canyon. Before that though we were going to go explore because we had a couple hours to kill.

Toto drove us up highway 89, across the river, in front of the Glen Canyon Dam, and up the highway some more. We found a gas station, got gas, bought ice (and ice cream) and then decided we only had enough time to head back and maybe stop at the dam visitor center (hehehe, DAM visitor center, hehehe). We learned some cool stuff there. The Glen Canyon Dam construction began in 1958 (I think) and it was completed in 1964. Lake Powell (the reservoir behind the dam) took 20 years to fill up. The water from the Colorago River was needed down stream so only one of the two bypass tunnels through the cliffs on either side of the dam (that were built to reroute the river during construction) was shut off. That allowed the people downstream to continue using the water but also allowed the lake to start filling up. It didn’t explain this on the large photographic time line on the wall and Toto and I were all sorts of confused so we went and asked the kid behind the counter (by kid I mean mid twenties, probably just a few years older than me). He explained it to us. We discussed a few other things and then I gave him the link to this blog. Mr. Dam Info Dude, if you’re reading this, HOLLA!!

Up by Page, there are a ton of slot canyons. A slot canyon is a crack in the sandstone that gets eroded by water and winds over time. They are these little crevices with a flat sandy floor and the sun comes down into them in such a beautiful way. Google image search them. Do it now. You’ll understand why we went. Toto has been dying to see one for ten years, so she was not going to let this trip go by without going to one. These canyons used to be open to the public but people got destructive: they would graffiti the walls of the canyon, some people shot guns at the walls, so the National parks people closed it down and relinquished power of them back to the Navajo Nation because they are on their land. So you have to prearrange a tour through one of the tour agencies. They will pick you up at your hotel, drive you out to the canyon, then they guide you through the canyon and tell you where all the great pictures are (if you’re like Toto this just annoys you because you like to take your own photos), they give you lots of information and then they drive you back to your hotel. The whole process takes about 2 hours. The only bad thing is that there a ton of people in the canyon. The 1:30 tour we went on had 6 or 8 truck loads of people. Each truck had its own tour guide, but they all went in at the same time. But everyone worked well together and stood out of the way when someone was trying to take a picture. Toto took a million pictures, to see the majority of them go to my facebook. When we got to the tour office from the hotel there was a wide selection of four by four rigs to truck us out to the canyon. There was one in particular that Josh wanted to ride in. It was a bright blue (the tour company color) 1977 Chevy pick up that had a six or eight inch lift and 35” off road tires on it. He requested us to sit in that one and went to save us a seat. When Toto and I got out to the truck, Josh was at the very front of the bed, and the only two seats left were at the very back. But he was happy because he got to sit squished up against a cute girl from Switzerland. The ride out to the canyon was fun. Obviously. We were in the back of a pickup, and it was a bumpy ride along a dried up creek bed.



It was perfect temperature, probably 93ish or so, and windy and it brought out the redneck side of me that would be content with life if I had nothing but a big truck and a farm. When we got to the canyon we filed in and heard some interesting things from JR, our gigantic Navajo tour guide. The way the slot canyon is formed, they have an open top. You can’t always see the sky, but the wind up above will kick up sand and throw it down into the canyon which then lands on you and your camera. This doesn’t occur the entire time you are inside, just once and a while and it isn’t as annoying as you would think. The falling sand gives you a beautiful photographic opportunity, and you forgive the minor irritation it causes to your eyes as you take the picture that will make your friends wish they had been there with you.







After the slot canyon (or slut canyon as one of my friends is calling them now), we went in search of a light lunch. There was some disagreement over just where the Subway was, and in the long run I was correct and I got to say “I told you so.” Ok, side note: in Oregon when you get a meal at Subway you get the little paper 21 ounce cup with your sandwich and chips. Apparently, EVERYWHERE ELSE gets the big plastic 32 ouncer with their meals. I think we’re getting jipped Oregon. We need to write an angry letter. After our food we went back to the Grand Canyon. But this time we went to the North Rim, and on the way there we made a few stops. We stopped at a bridge over the Colorado River down near the Vermillion Cliffs. This is the Navajo Bridge. It was built in 1929 and was the only bridge over the Colorado River for 600 miles. It opened up commerce routes (obviously) and made life better for everyone nearby. It is now a walking bridge, with a newer one built right next to it for the highway. Kind of like the Crooked River bridges in Central Oregon. We also stopped, very briefly (like did not get out of the car) at a little wide spot in the road at a marker called “People who live in rock houses” (see photo below). Toto says “People who live in rock houses shouldn’t throw glass.” It was retarded but funny. We may have been stuck in this car a little too long.



We got to the Grand Canyon’s North Rim between six and six thirty. We walked out to this view point that actually puts you out in the canyon. It was pretty amazing. It was windy, and cool (somewhere around 70 degrees), and clear. The sun was higher than it had been the day before, so Toto had better light for pictures. There was a large rock next to the view point that Josh wanted to climb. We wouldn’t let him. Toto has always worried that God blessed us with Zack in case Josh does something stupid and we “need a spare.” So we wouldn’t let him go anywhere near climbing the rock. There was a lower ledge on it that I was sitting on, so we let him go up there, but then he was getting way too close to the edge and I freaked out on him a little. He finally got the point and came down from there.





We helped a few people and took their photos so they could all be in the picture together instead of in groups. We struck up a conversation with one group of these people. Toto asked them “So where are you guys from?” The wife answered “Oh we’re from Delaware.” Upon hearing the word Delaware I screamed “WHERE IS YOUR CAR!!??” (We were fairly certain this was the last license plate we needed) at the same time as Toto asked the same thing, grant it not quite as emphatically as I did, and we scared them half to death. They probably had this brief moment of horror thinking we were psycho lunatics on the loose, until I recovered and apologized and explained that we collect license plates while we are on trips and theirs was the last one we needed. They then apologized and said that they had flown in and rented a car. Their vehicle was in the parking lot of the Philadelphia airport. Pooh. We chatted with them for a few minutes, and then we went on our way. On our way back we discovered the lodge. It was slightly reminiscent of Timberline lodge and the lodge at Old Faithful in Yellowstone. It was just a huge old stone mason building with huge timbers in the ceiling. We put our name on the list for the restaurant and had an hour to kill so we decided to wander around. The gift shop was just across the porch from the main hall, so we headed over there. I found a T-shirt and a sweatshirt that I liked so I bought both. The t-shirt looks like it must have been from the same company that made the sweater I bought in Louisville on our way out of town in April. The design was the same, but the words were different. Toto just got a T-shirt and Josh got a flashlight key chain that said Grand Canyon and Josh on either side. Then we went over to the sun porch that overlooks the canyon. It had gotten dark though, so we couldn’t see much. I started playing with the camera. I was messing around with the F-Stop (which adjusts the amount of light that comes into the camera and adjusts your focal depth of field) and the shutter speed to get lighter pictures without using the flash. I only got one picture that I really loved. The others were alright.









Dinner was amazing. I was dickering over three or four items on the menu, one of which Josh was getting, until I read them to Toto and she decided for me. I had a Frontiersmen Panini. It was salmon and cilantro and red onions smothered in BBQ sauce on Italian bread (that was suspiciously like whole grain sourdough). Served with home made sweet potato chips. I was so happy that I got that instead of the pasta Josh got. It was a parmesan encrusted chicken breast over a bed of noodles in a butter cream sauce with asparagus in it. It was good, but the sauce tasted really standard, and for how much the food cost I would have expected it to be better if it had been my dinner. I stole bites of his asparagus though. Toto got a salad of spinach with sun dried tomatoes, walnuts and goat cheese drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette dressing (ladies and gentlemen, we have left the south behind with its horrible-for-you-food). I tried a new drink too. By now you all know that I love cosmopolitans (the drink). Well they have their own version of a cosmo there. Its almost like your regular one but instead of regular vodka, it has Prickly Pear Vodka in it. It just makes it a little crisper. It was good. Toto and I shared it.









It was 10:15pm when we got in the car. The North Rim is 125 miles from Page. It took us two hours to get back. Josh was sleeping in the back seat (again, I joked with Toto that its not really like he is even with us when we’re driving, it’s a little like the first leg of the trip), I was super sleepy but I knew Toto needed me to stay awake to keep her awake. When we did get back to the hotel I was in the shower within 45 seconds. After all that sand getting dumped on us I needed a good scrub. We only stayed up late enough to look at the pictures for the day (and by we I mean Toto and I, Josh crashed). We had some pretty entertaining ones. The lights went out at two, and we went right to sleep. It had been a good day.

Playlist
Josh Turner

Yep, It’s a Big Hole in the Gound: a Tribute to my Father

I discovered the other morning that Albuquerque (“I’ll-be-quirky”) is really a very pretty place. The view from our hotel room wasn’t all that amazing in the fact that we were right at the junction of I-40 and I-25, and there were other hotels and odd little buildings all around us, but it was a great view because of how “I’ll-be-quirky” is geographically. I could see so much from our fourth floor room. While I could not see downtown, it was a little too far south; I could see west way beyond the city. On the west side of “I’ll-be-quirky” there is a tiny rise. I could see the freeway go up and disappear over the top of it where the cars just sparkling little dots in the morning sun. I don’t know why I was so enthralled by the view (most people really wouldn’t consider it all that great of one) but I was. Josh came and sat next to me and stared out the window for a while too while we waited on Toto to finish packing up her stuff. She wanted to be out the door by nine, and at this point it was a quarter to nine. We had just enough time to go down and grab a quick bite to eat and then throw our stuff in the car and take off.

Our first stop was to get gas. Josh was very adamant about needing to use the facilities at the gas station and I only had half a tank, so I figured we might as well. Plus this gas station happened to be situated right on top of the third continental divide we have crossed this trip, so this break in the drive would give Toto something to take a picture of that wasn’t through a bug splattered windshield.



Interstate 40 replaced part of the old Route 66. Old Route 66 went from Chicago to Santa Barbara. I-40 meets it in Oklahoma east of OKC. So while we were on I-40 we were on Route 66, which is fun. “Get your kicks on Route 66” right? We do!!

The first REAL stop on Toto’s list was the petrified forest just outside of Holbrook, AZ. Like the White Sands assumption we made, Josh and I assumed that this was not going to be one of the most exciting excursions we had ever been on. This time we were closer to being right. I have seen petrified forests before. When I was like 12. Didn’t overly enjoy them then, still don’t. I mean sure, the process of wood turning into rock is slightly interesting, but looking at pieced of this wood-rock on the ground in the middle of the desert is not really on top of my list of things to do on vacation. But Toto wanted to do it, so we did it and we didn’t really complain much. The petrified forest offers a 28 mile long drive through their park that has different viewpoints and little spots to see some neat stuff. At one point, there was a rock pit with a bunch of petroglyphs on them. Over 650 petroglyphs. It was pretty sick (the good kind of sick). There were a few other stops in the petrified forest, but we pretty much booked it out of there as we had a few other stops to make and it was already pushing four in the afternoon.



One good thing about going to the petrified forest, was that on the way back we passed through Holbrook, AZ instead of bypassing it on the freeway (the exit to the forest is on state highway 180, not on the freeway) we had to travel through the town. While on our way back to the freeway we discovered something: a wigwam hotel with teepees you can stay in. It looked just like the cone hotel in Cars that Sally runs. Toto jumped out of the car (I was driving) and took a ton of pictures for Zack.



If you get of I-40 Westbound at the very first exit for Winslow, AZ the first thing you will see is a memorial for the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. That is what welcomes you into their town. The metal “sculpture” in this little garden is actually two pieces of twisted and rested metal from the World Trade Center itself. It was dedicated exactly one year after the attacks, and boasts the motto “United we stand”. The garden is not very big, but it is powerful just to drive by.



Other than that, Winslow is a very small and lighthearted town. If you like The Eagles, then you have probably heard the song “Take it Easy” sung by Glenn Fry. If not, the second verse goes something like this: “Well I was standin’ on a corner in Winslow Arizona, such a fine sight to see, it’s a girl my lord in a flatbed ford slowing down to take a look at me, come on baby, don’t say maybe, I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me, we may lose and we may win but we will never be here again, so open up I’m climbin’ in, take it easy.” Well you can imagine that a tiny little town in the middle of the desert in Arizona on a dried up stretch of old Route 66 could probably appreciate the publicity that a song by a major group like The Eagles could give them. Ten years ago when Josh and I were little (ok he was 10 and I was 13) we did a big loop in the South West. One of our stops was Flagstaff, so we decided to drive over to Winslow because of the song. We expected it to be tiny and dusty and not a lot to do there but we were going to go stand on a corner there just for bragging rights. Well when we got there, we discovered that the “city” had built a little corner up with a bronze musician with his guitar (he looked nothing like Glenn Fry, though I have heard someone say that it is supposed to be Don Henley and I veto that because it looks nothing like him either), and on the wall of the building behind him is a painting of windows with the reflection of a girl in a flatbed ford, it was AWESOME!! We had a blast. I have ALWAYS been a big Eagles fan, so even at 13 it was super sweet to go there and see that. Well since we were going to drive right past Winslow, we knew we had to stop. We were surprised again. They actually have a flatbed ford now sitting next to the corner with the statue! I was so excited. I was going to get to be the “girl in the flat bed ford” from the song for a minute or two! Well, not exactly, the cab to the truck was locked, but I got to stand in the back of it. So I was still TECHNICALLY in the ford. We, of course, had to buy souvenirs here. I had been eye-balling a Route 66 sweatshirt at the petrified forest gift shop, but thought I could find something better in Winslow, and boy did I! I got a shot glass, a sweatshirt (that says both “Take it Easy” and Route 66 on it), a t-shirt, a window decal for my car, and a couple of post cards. I made out like a bandit. I think I spent less than $75. We had a blast, again.





Winslow is about 60 miles from Flagstaff. We hit Flagstaff about an hour and a half before sunset, and Toto was in a right panic about getting up to the Grand Canyon before the sun went down. Here is another memory from my childhood: the same trip that we went to Winslow when we were kinds, we also went to the Grand Canyon. We got there right at sunset. Toto was not super thrilled about this back then (this is before the age of the digital camera, at least the decent ones) so she could not get the kind of pictures she had wanted to take. I was not all that thrilled by it back then, but I think that is because you have to be older to really appreciate it. Dad had always said things to us like “It’s just a big hole in the ground.” Toto HATED it when he did that. Well when we got there, we all went out to the viewpoint, Toto took as many pictures as she possibly could, then we turned around, and Josh was gone. Toto and Dad freaked out. They went nuts looking for him. We finally found him back at the truck, in the bed of it just waiting for us. “It’s just a big hole in the ground” he said to us when questioned why he had left. Toto was furious. So on our way up to the Grand Canyon the other day, Josh and I kept saying things like “I don’t know what the big deal is all about, it’s just a big hole in the ground” just to poke fun at her. We got to the canyon right before sunset, so Toto got some good pictures, though she was irritated that it was the same time of day as last time. She informed us we might be venturing back that way the next day from our lodgings in Page, AZ. We did however lose Josh again. This time, it was because someone had to use the rest room, and the rest of us didn’t feel like going back quite yet. We ended up walking the road back to the parking lot (there is a bunch of construction so you have to walk way out of the way to get to the view points) and wondering where he was. Right as I was reaching for my phone to call him, he called me. I asked him where he was, he informed me he was walking along a road. I told him I was too! A little red car had just passed me, so I told him to be on the look out for one (trying to determine if he was behind us on the road or in front of us). He saw a silver one. I told him to hold the phone away from his head and yell really loudly, and I thought I heard him (not through the phone) when he did. I laughed and said “this is like playing Marco Polo, but with a cell phone.” So, I told him that there was a red Dodge Ram pickup with a canopy and double head lights passing me, and he said he saw it a few moments later. So I yelled “JOSH!!!” really loudly, and I heard him yell “HI!!” back. So we found him (darn it!). Then we piled in the car and headed toward our destination that night (Page, AZ).







Now usually, I do not sleep in the car, but we had gotten up early remember, and we had done a ton of stuff, so I was tired. I ended up dozing in and out in the two plus hours to our hotel in Page. Once we got there, we unloaded, found our room, and crashed. It was nearly one in the morning.

License Plates Seen
Oregon (not our own)

Playlist
Boston
Heart
Jason Aldean
Josh Gracin
Mark Broussard
Taylor Swift
Lonestar

I May Want to Believe, But I am Really a Skeptic

I woke up yesterday to Toto getting ready to work out. Usually I notice when the person in the bed with me gets up, but not this time. I was surprised to find her across the room. I went back to sleep for a little while, until I heard her come back in and she stirred me. Since we had eaten Holiday Inn Express breakfast for way too many days in a row, Josh and I opted for IHOP since it was literally right next to the hotel. During family weekend, all Josh wanted to do was find an IHOP and have their endless pancakes. Well, that promotion ended in February right after he shipped out, so he was forced to get some normal breakfast.

We headed over to the International UFO Museum and Research Center in downtown Roswell after breakfast. This is really the big deal in Roswell, and had been closed the previous night when we got into town. Honestly, I was really disappointed in that place. I mean, I knew it was going to be cheesy, but it was just so simple, it looked like a high school senor project. It wasn’t very clean, things were broken, it was all one big room and it was a lot of the same information over and over and over and over and over. And over. The most exciting part was when I found the X-Files posters on the wall of the museum.



Made me wish I had brought the first season with me. We left Roswell, and I wasn’t all that sad to go. It was great for about twelve hours, but other than that, not a lot to do.

Toto wanted to go to White Sands National Monument which is located near Alamogordo, NM. So we had to head south, and there were no freeways. So we were on this piddly little highway up in some mountains somewhere. It was interesting. While driving through these mountains, Josh yells “I saw an armadillo!” I snorted and asked “You saw an armadillo?” He says “Yes! Turn around!” Toto turned the car around and we went armadillo hunting! Well, Josh’s armadillo turned out to be a rusty metal can up in a draw on top of a rock. Good job Josh. On our way we went.

We got down to White Sands and I took one look and knew it was going to be one of those things that Josh and I just had to bear with Toto on. The visitor center was all dated and it looked like it was going to be super boring. We were so wrong. The white sand comes from gypsum crystals drying out and disintegrating. The wind then blows the sand into dunes and as the sand rolls around it scratches the particles around it and that’s how it turns white. It was pretty cool. We drove out into the park on the driving loop they have. It was hot. I think it got up to 105 degrees while we were out there, but since we were in the car most of the time that was alright. When we got to the end of the road, there was a huge parking lot so we got out of the car and started hiking around on the dunes. Toto was snapping pictures all over the place like usual so Josh and I were just being us and dorking around. We got to the top of a tallish dune, and looked down. It was probably twenty five feet tall, so I turned to Josh and said, “Dude, roll down it.” I thought he would argue, but he didn’t. He rolled down the dune, and then just laid there, giving Toto a great photo opp.













We knew it would take him a few minutes to hike back up since sand is a pain in the tush to climb, so we just kept walking. A few minutes later, as Toto and I stood at the top of another dune, I saw Josh pop his head up near where we had been earlier. His head popped up, then disappeared again.



He did this a few times, Toto got a picture, and then he disappeared. I figured he was attempting to be stealthy and sneak up on us (Mr. Army-Man), so I went in search of him. It took me about two minutes to find him. He had climbed back down the dune halfway, and traversed the side of it so that he was directly north of where we were standing. Then he had climbed back up a bit. Had we stayed where we had been, we would not have been able to see him, but since I had walked due north he had gradually come into view. He was just laying there on the side of the dune on his stomach. He had his head turned east and was just lying still. Toto snapped a picture, and at the “click” of the camera, Josh suddenly looked up at us, then put this head back down and with his hand flung sand on the top of his hat.



I laughed, and the process repeated until I was doubled over laughing at the idiotic hilarity. When he thought I was least expecting it (in reality I had been suspecting something like this would happen the whole time) he jumped up and charged up the hill towards me. “If I had to roll down the hill you have to too!” He said as he tackled me to the ground and tried to push me down the side of the dune.



I dug my feet and hands into the sand and he was unsuccessful at forcing me anywhere. There really is no way to explain the goofing we did there. Josh and I, when we are getting along, are the goofiest people I know.

The closest freeway to White Sands is out of Las Cruces, NM which is only twenty miles north of the Texas border. Directly below that is the city of El Paso, and across the Rio Grande from that is Mexico. As we were driving North on I-25 out of Las Cruces, we see a flashing sign that says something like “All vehicles must exit when flashing.” We exchanged confused sounds and then the next sign said “Border Patrol”. Me, being a North West native and being no where near US borders (except that of the Pacific Ocean) have never had a reason to be anywhere near a Border Patrol station so I asked Toto, “Why is there Border Patrol up here?” Then I realized that we were only 25 miles from Mexico. It was way less hassle than we thought. We thought they would at least want to see identification. And if for some reason they felt the need to search our car, we were afraid they might have issues with the illegal fireworks we have stuffed under all our seats. But all the guy did was ask us how far we were traveling, “Home to Oregon.” Toto replied, then he asked us if we were US Citizens, “Yes we are” Toto answered. And we were waived through. I was a little disappointed. I would have at least liked it if he could have asked to see our ID’s. Pooh. So much for homeland security.

The original plan Toto wanted to achieve yesterday was to get to Flagstaff, AZ by the evening. We made it to Albuquerque, NM. I have been calling it “I’ll-be-quirky”. Because Toto detoured us down to White Sands we were three or four hours behind. She thought we could drive to Gallup, NM last night, but I vetoed that idea. As we got to the hotel she warned us that she was waking us up early the next morning, none of this getting up at nine stuff, we were going to be out the door by nine. When we arrived at the hotel, I was pleasantly surprised by the room. While it wasn’t a brand new building, it was updated enough to make it habitable. They didn’t have queen beds though. Not wanting a repeat of the night we spent in Little Rock and being made fun of, I asked about getting a cot in there for Josh. The gal informed me that they didn’t have cots. Right as I was about to be visibly disappointed she said “But there is a sofa bed in the sofa in your room.” We had landed a suite with a living room, kitchenette (without a stove), and two beds. So each of us had our own bed. It was glorious. Even though we got to the hotel at 10:30pm, it was midnight before any of us got to sleep. Unpacking and showering and blogging (of course) can be time consuming!

Playlist
Gary Allen
Good Charlotte
Roy Orbison