L-R - Eric, ML, Amelia, Lesa, Alex
We started across West Texas after a great breakfast by Amelia. We didn't get far before we had to take a couple pictures of the wild flowers in Texas roadways. May have been my first selfie...however, there are others on this trip.
The road from point 3 to 4 was about as boring as can be...and long. The only saving grace was that we were in Texas for most of it and speed limit and traffic flowed at 85-90 mph.
New Mexico
It was late when we got to Roswell, NM. This was the only night (and the last time) that we did not have a scheduled hotel. The only thing we could find in my price range (less than $29/night since we are now on a fixed budget) was a Roadway Inn in the warehouse district of Roswell. Lesa had to take a picture.
In the next room beside us, we had 4-5 motorcycles and neighbors that drank the night away. Actually, we did, too, as we brought a 50 pound sack of snacks and bottles of bourbon, whiskey, vodka, and ameretto. You would not want to be on the road and not have access to the finer things in life.
Through the window, you can see the pool, which actually was an empty cement basin with some weeds growing in it.
Roswell is an interesting town. As you may know, it is famous for a UFO scare....see the Wikipedia blurb below.
In mid 1947, a military Air Force surveillance balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico prompting claims alleging the crash was of an extraterrestrial spaceship.
After an initial spike of interest, the military reported that the crash was merely of a conventional weather balloon. Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s when ufologists began promulgating a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories claiming that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military who then engaged in a cover-up.
In the 1990s the US military published reports disclosing the true nature of the crashed Project Mogul balloon. Nevertheless, the Roswell incident continues to be of interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist. Roswell has been called "the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim".
Most of the store fronts have an alien statue or at least an alien painting on the storefront window.
On to Sante Fe.
Most of our time in New Mexico was spent in Northern New Mexico - specifically Santa Fe and Albuquerque - #5 and 6. I will think of New Mexico as sandy colored (everything), Indians, desert and art.
When we got to Santa Fe we were starved. One of our objectives was to eat at restaurants that had been profiled on Guy Fieri's TV Show.
We stayed in a very nice Hilton resort in the Pojoaque resort area - Buffalo Thunder (we saw neither - Buffalo or Thunder). This place was ranked in the top 10 Native American Owned Hotels...it is operated as part of the Hilton chain. We'd recommend this to travelers - about 25 miles North of Santa Fe.
One reason it was selected -it has a golf course. We got paired up on the golf course with a private pilot who flies a CEO around to various board meetings. Pretty good life he says - stays in these hotels, eats on the boss, golfs on the boss....
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| Mike (pilot) took our picture. Nice course |
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| About 5,000 ft elevation - 1/2 club distance change |
We visited downtown Santa Fe. I was not that impressed. I think an art lover would think it was awesome, but that's just not me. You can see all the merchants (many Native Americans) selling their wares in the outdoors.
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| Lesa at Georgia O'Keefe museum - she (Georgia, not Lesa) was a recluse and a weird duck. |
We did visit St Francis of Assisi Cathedral in downtown Santa Fe. It was built in late 1800's on a spot of an older church built in early 1700s which was built on a spot of an older church from the 1600's. Consequently, one of the side alters had a lot of relics - part of Mary's clothing, part of the cross from Calvary...etc. - pretty amazing.
In the afternoon, we visited Bandelier National Monument - 50 sq mile national park designated by Woodrow Wilson. Over the course of the afternoon, we hiked over 10 miles to the pueblos and waterfall areas. This place is well worth seeing....one of the highlights of the trip.
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| Was up to 3 story tall flat land dwellings and meeting areas |
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| Holes in the rocks (lots of them) became cave dwellings |
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| A nice trail makes it easy to see some of the dwellings |
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| they've had 2 very significant floods...the size of the downed trees indicates the power of the flood |
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| As an option, you can go to the Alcove dwelling. Lesa undertaking just a few of the 140 ladder steps to the top |
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| At the very top is a shelter house |
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| If you look close, you can see many of the 140 steps of the ladders |
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| Most bridges were wiped out in the last 2013 flood |
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| We hiked about 3.5 miles each way to get to the waterfall. Lesa needed ice cream when we returned. |
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| We could hear but not see the waterfall until we marched another 1/4 mile past and looked back |
We ended the day with another Drive-In Diner and Dive place.....excellent pizza. Pizza crust is rolled in corn meal.
Our last stop in New Mexico was the Albuquerque BioPark. Combintion zoo, Japanese garden, botanical garden and aquarium. You transport around the 200 acre park in a train. Our train engineer was from Iowa....so we had to compare notes - he knew of Fonda.
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| Mother Hippos are very protective of the babies against other hippos. This Mom was getting ready to kick another ones butt when it got close...very entertaining to watch |
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| Odd looking dudes |
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| The paw on a polar bear was bigger than Sherry's head |
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| Japanese garden was pretty, but not as good as San Antonio's |
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| Like the Dallas zoo, they greet you first thing with the flamingos |
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| Very close to the animals in this zoo |
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| Baby - 2-3 ft away - very curious fella |
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| Giant bee |
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| One area was for kids with monsters, monster bees and spiders and ants |
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| Japanese woman named Lesa |
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| Japanese man named Dan |
After the park and prior to heading for Arizona, we stopped in Albuquerque for lunch....yes another DD&D.
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| Standard Diner was its name |
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| Hamburger and truffle fries. Look at the burger - beef, bourbon sauce, egg, red onion, pickle, blue cheese and maple bacon |
Arizona (#7-11) will be remembered for golfing, Grand Canyon, gorgeous deserts, and London Bridge. We stayed in Flagstaff and Lake Havasu with side trips to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.
Arizona
After leaving New Mexico, we stopped in mid to late afternoon, just across the border in Arizona to visit the Painted Desert National Park. Imbedded in the Painted Desert is the Petrified Forest. There is a 30 mile road that drives across the painted desert. You've never seen so many rock colors...who said dirt can not be pretty. Color depends on time of day and time of year.
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| Meteor Crater |
The really strange thing about the 30 mile drive...we saw no birds, no animals, no bugs. It was like we were on the moon...a very eerie feeling.
The petrified forest is something you should see! This is the most concentrated petrified forest in the country (if I recall correctly). I still do not understand how it happens, but the trees are pretty much intact, albeit in slices, with bark still on the tree. The chunk below is about 30 inches in diameter and 4 ft long. I'm sure it ways several ton. I tried to pick up a petrified piece of wood that was about the size of a basketball and could not lift it!
After the Painted Desert we went to Flagstaff, just a bit North of Phoenix. We stayed overnight and then headed for the Grand Canyon South Rim early the next morning. 1000's of people visiting there...was all we could do to find our car back at days end! We were already tired and had to look in 2-3 parking lots.
Another of my ambitions while on this trip is to do my daily 4 mile run somewhere recognizable. Yes, I ran along the Grand Canyon - Lesa did her 3 mile walk/trot, too.
The Grand Canyon, like many of the places we saw, can not be captured appropriately on a camera.
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| Grand Canyon Selfie |
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| The trail is how you would hike 10 miles to the bottom, camp and hike 10 miles back up the next day |
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| The GC is 1 mile deep...you just can not capture that on camera - pretty much straight down |
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| Colorado River |
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| Pathway is right along the edge...no railing....pretty much a 1 mile drop off |
We were continuously amazed by the folks sitting on the edge of the GC trail, or they sat their kids out there to take a picture. You can see in our selfie above...we were probably still 5 ft from drop off, but Lesa hanging on to the tree. Look at these idiots!
When we returned from GC that evening, we drove to Sedona for dinner. Another Santa Fe type city. The drive there was like that Grand Canyon trail in the picture above. Not for the faint of heart - especially after a couple drinks. I did not like Sedona, so no pictures.
The next day we headed for Lake Havasu. However, about an hour out of Flagstaff, we stopped at Elephant Rocks Golf Course. The weather looked suspect, but we started anyway. We played 4 holes. On #1, all looked good. On #2, it sprinkled, On #3, it hailed (a first for us to be one a golf course when hailing), on #4 lightning started pummeling us. We have a rain check if anyone gets over there in the next few months.
Lake Havasu is a lake based play area, vacationland for folks in the area....I'd classify it as a blue collar vacationland. A couple big positives, I did my run over London Bridge, I had what I would consider the best Italian food I've ever eaten, and we played a 4-5 star course for $15 via GOLFNOW.com.
The Italian restaurant is Angelina's Italian Kitchen should you be so lucky to visit there.
As I mentioned, I ran over London Bridge. You recall the childhood song about "London Bridge is Falling down". It truly was a bridge in London and with auto traffic increasing the bridge was condemned. An American guy named McCullough (Chain Saws and Engines) bought it for $2.4M. He had it broken down with each rock numbered and reconstructed in Lake Havasu.
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| London Bridge links an island to the rest of the city |
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| Lesa doing her walk on the bridge |
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| Dan doing his run on the bridge...barely see my head in the picture. |
Off to Nevada....We'll stop and golf and then finish the day by driving to Lesa's cousin's house in Vegas - Celeste and Jim.
Neveda
We stopped first in Laughlin at the Mojave Resort Golf Club. Really nice golf club. Ate lunch at a buffet in the casino. Seems like a nice resort if you are not into Las Vegas, but want to gamble. The resort/casino runs along the Colorado River. We played golf with a couple of dealers from the casino....nice guys, but I'll bet they each lost a dozen golf balls. They were practicing for an upcoming Casino Employee scramble.
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| Colorado River Beach |
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| You can see my ball already on the green - pin high! |
After golf, we headed into Las Vegas to visit Lesa's cousin. Jim and Celeste used to be heavy in the restaurant business....now they still are involved with one. Mostly now they are real estate and property management tycoons in Las Vegas.
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| Lesa and Celeste |
Needless to say, Celeste knows how to cook, so the meals were second to none. We introduced Jim to a orange-based Manhattan drink - Bourbon, Orange bitters, orange liquor and Agave. Good stuff.
When we awoke the first morning, we decided to go hiking. What better place than to hike to the Hoover Dam. It was a 3.5 mile old train track, including 5 tunnels with bats. Was a great walk, but 7 miles in 85 degree temp was plenty.
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| Celeste and Lesa approaching tunnel 1 |
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Light at the end of the tunnel!!!
This is pretty crazy! The Hoover Dam is one of the most phenomenal structures in modern history. This 1244 feet long, 660 feet thick, and 726 feet high concrete behemoth holds back so much water that it deformed the earth's crust and caused 600 small earthquakes in the decade after its construction. |
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| The Dam |
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| Very high!! Interesting fact. Unless you died on the job site, your death did not count during dam construction so that your family received death benefits. If you were moved from the job site and died elsewhere, you didn't count. Consequently, only around 100 workers died. |
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| Dan, Lesa, Celeste, and Jim |
The last evening, Jim and Celeste took us to a new restaurant on the strip....that's where the above picture of Lesa and Celeste was taken. Incredible food - all served more or less family style. You order meat in pounds - like 24 ounces of filet, or 30 ounces of lamb chops, or x ounces of artichoke hearts, etc.
Long Beach
From Nevada we headed to our final stop for Leg 1 - Tim and Melisa's (and Lilyanne) in Long Beach. Leg 1 was fitting that we started and ended with family.
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| Melisa, Lilyanne and Tim |
We were flattered when Tim and Melisa asked us to be Lilyanne's first babysitter (other than an occasional hour by Melissa's family). At the time, Lilyanne was 3 months old. We had so much fun with our new pride and joy and she's really getting active...newborn babies just don't do much.
We did the evening walk, the bath in the kitchen sink (have a movie of it), and the 5-mile drive to put her soundly asleep.
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| The Lilyanne-Maverick walk |
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| The bath....she loves her bath...gets to splashing so hard she scares herself. |
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| Ava (Grandma in Portuguese) doing the rocking chair thing |
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| Ride'em Cowgirl. Maverick looks like "Boy am I in trouble if she falls off" |
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| Add caption |
It was a nice coincidence that Sunday was Mother's Day. Melisa is from a large family of all girls and every year, her Mother takes them (25 years now) to the same small Mexican restaurant. There were 14 of us.
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| Aunt Adriana and Lillyanne |
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| Looks like one of those deals where Mom is concerned and Dad thinks it looks like fun! |
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| Bo (Bizzle to some), Erin (Sister), and Luke |
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| L-R: Adriana (Sister), Evelyn(Mom), Kady (Sister and Melisa |
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| Luke, Erin, Melisa, Lilyanne, Adriana, Evelyn, Kady, Sophia, and Mia |
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| Happy Mother's Day - We are all dressed up! |
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| Weather was awesome - not sure it ever gets uncomfortable. |
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| Tim photo-bombing Bo and Emelio(Step Dad) taking pictures |
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| Grandma with all the Grandkids |
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| Sweety and Sweeter! |
Tim and I usually get in a couple rounds of golf. One course is by his house - 9-hole Par 29. We both usually shoot about 31 or so and the last several times we played, we've either tied or been within 1 stroke. Fun course.
Then we took Lesa along to a larger course. Nice course...Melisa met us there for lunch afterwards. Tim had the lead going into 18, but I came through and at least got a tie. Had my own clubs, too, so no excuses. Almost at the tipping point of who dominates.
We have to be back in California in exactly 1 month for a Lesa cousin wedding. We are going to leave our car at Tim's and then fly back to Arkansas. In 4 weeks, we'll fly back to the LA Area, spend a couple days and then embark on Leg 2 of the journey.
Between Leg 1 and Leg 2
We were home in Arkansas for 4 weeks between Leg 1 - SW USA and Leg 2 - NW USA. Upon returning home, we had to get together with the Potluckers - 8 couples that pretty regularly over drink and over party - many times associated with golf. It happened to be the birthday of Mike Cates. He along with several others (not me) had 2 very large Margarita schooner with an upside down Corona also in it. Needless to say, we think it was a good time.
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| Birthday Boy |
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| Dan and Steve are not a couple despite how it looks |
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| John really does fit the part of a Gringo |
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| Melanie, Vera, Lesa and Christy belting out "Time after Time" |
A little Karaoke back at Mike's resulted in a visit by the local law establishment, but it all ended fine...complete misunderstanding about our noise-level.
I got my wake up call the next day while running....almost stepped on this little fella.
Lesa and I are blessed to have my brother living here in Arkansas (on the same golf course). During the downtime, we shared dinner with them several times...Sam (Notre Dame '15) was there getting ready to start his real job (welcome to 40 years of hell week). Avery (TCU ' 17) was headed to Spain for R&R - redheads and really good looking women.
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| Brother Dave and Jean - Live on Hole 18 - we are on Hole 2 |
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| Sam and Avery |
Instead of staying home for 4 weeks, we elected to go visit my sister in Wisconsin - she was under repair for a long flu/pneumonia/heart issue. Arkansas to Wisconsin passes through Chicago, so we stopped at an ex-coworkers - Jim and Mary Crawford. A few years ago, we went to their daughters wedding in New Orleans and knocked "Second Line" participation off our bucket list....French Quarter wedding parade! Could do a blog only about that wedding - awesome.
When we awoke Sunday morning to continue the last 3 hours to Wisconsin from Chicago, we received a call that our middle Grand-son, Robby, fell off of a 6 ft slide onto his head on cement. Fractured skull, brain bleed, etc....long story, all appears ok now. However, Lesa said "we have to split up, you take Wisconsin, I'll find a flight back to Houston". So she flew back over where we had just drove and then ended up in Houston by 3pm. She helped Tobe and Kass deal with all the boy watching, cooking, doctor, etc...She stayed for a week.
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| Robby - Right side up |
In the meantime, I went on to Wisconsin and stayed with Sherry - the Sister with the really big head - and helped her get her socks off and on, cook, plant garden, mow, and play with their dog. Actually had a really good time, despite Sherry's condition - she'd doing very well now.
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| Jim (husband) and Sherry |
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| Notice the resemblance |
That's Sherry above. The guy beside her is not Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty (although a noted resemblance), that's her hubby Jim. If you get to Glenbuelah, WI, you have got to stop and see their farm place and Jim's Bar!
On the way home, I stopped in Iowa and saw other relatives, I don't have pictures of them all - that's Leg 5...but here are a couple. I stayed with Jane (sister) and Jay - more pics of them on the Okoboji part of this leg.
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| Jennifer and Chance (Niece and Son) |
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| Joe and Little Joe (Andrew) - Nephew and Son |
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| Joan and Max - Sister and Grandson |
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| Emily - Joe's daughter |
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| Taylor and Reed - Joan's GrandDaughter/Grandson |
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