Cross Country Part I

(Note: this is posted from an email)

For those of you who don't know, my mom and I are driving across the country!  I know that half of you are asking yourselves... WHY?  I'm not sure I can answer that, so I just thought I'd update you on my progress.  After a fun few days in Orange County, CA (Hi Brad!), we went up to the high desert to pick up my last few belongings and see some friends.  I had some plants with my friend Randee (Hi, Randee), and most of them lived.  They are in the back seat in individual coolers that can be zipped up to protect them from the heat when we are out of the car.  It looks very odd!  LOL

Yesterday we hightailed it out of the Californian desert and east to Arizona.  I didn't know that Arizona didn't participate in daylight savings time, so I'm still on CA time.  We drove all the way to Sedonna, AZ, with only one stop in Kingman, AZ.  We drove down a short section of historic route 66 and went to the Historic Route 66 Museum.  It was very interesting.  Maybe a future trip from Chicago to CA on route 66 is in order.

Today we spent time in the Sedonna area.  We went to 2 places that had Native American cliff dwellings.  One of them was way out of town and 7 miles on a dirt road.  I don't think many people get there!  We were permitted to enter some of these dwellings!  That is quite rare!  That was the Patlaki dwellings I believe.  We also saw the cliff dwellings at Montezuma's Castle.  We saw a water supply at Montezuma's Well, we saw various places with petroglyphs, and we saw incredible red rock formations.  The area is called Red Rock Country and there are numerous red rock monuments towering above the land.  I got a little sunburned today.  I wore a sleeveless shirt to balance out the farmer's burn I got on the 4th at the Huntington Beach 4th of July parade (the largest Fourth of July parade west of the Mississippi).

We just kept finding more and more things to do and see in the area (no not shopping), so we didn't get as far east as we thought.  All the things we were going to see today has been postponed until tomorrow...Meteor crater, the painted desert, and the petrified forest.  Since I don't have local aol service here, I'll just have to add onto this email tomorrow.  We got into Winslow, AZ kind of late and my mom asked where we might find a restaurant where the food was not spicy.  We got directed to Bojo's bar and grill which was really Bojo's sports bar and grill, which was a Mexican Restaurant!  I got the biggest burrito I have ever seen in my life!  I couldn't eat it all!   Desert was cheesecake wrapped in a tortilla, deep-fried, and then rolled in cinnamon!  (YUM!)  Mom did manage to find something to eat.

We have made it all the way to New Mexico!  We are once again staying at a hotel on Route 66.  I Hope we don't hear the trains that run parallel to 66.   We are in Gallop, NM, which also has a route 666!  It is 12:30am, so I will make this entry quite brief.  We went to Meteor Crater today.  We spent quite a bit of time there.  We viewed the movie, went through the museum, and did the hour tour along the rim.  It was quite an impressive hole in the ground!   Next thing that we did was to drive through the petrified forest and the painted desert.  We got out of the car several times to take photos of interesting landscape.  It was so different from the desert I lived in, although it got windy in the afternoon as the Mojave Desert always did!  We observed a short school bus all along our journey today.  We got a good look at it finally in the petrified forest.  It was painted with Grateful Dead symbols and instead of "school bus" painted on the side, it said, "Cool bus."  The driver and his wife were quite friendly and animated.  They were from PA and had been on the road for 6 weeks!  We then drove all the way to NM where we finally saw a time change.  I will send this out to everyone as soon as I can get online.  Sorry for the delay!  I hope your summer is going well!  
Please write!

Today is Wednesday, I think.  We left Gallop, NM, and we headed off for Roswell.  It took most of the day to drive there.  We stopped at where the 40 met the continental divide.  We got off at the familiar Route 66.  We also made one other detour.  We went off 40 about an hour to climb up an extinct volcano and then climb down to the entrance of ice caves.  The altitude at the top of the volcano was over 8,000 feet and was part of the continental divide.  We weren't allowed to go very far into the cave, but it sure felt good after the other climb!  The ice was green from arctic algae, and the temperature never got above freezing.  As we left the cave we heard thunder in the distance.  We hurried back to the car since the old lava, which was all around us, contained iron.  We didn't need to be in the middle of the lava field when the lightning storm came up!  

We continued our journey through Albuquerque.  The wind here was TERRIBLE!   Worse than most winds in the high desert.  Dirt and garbage was blowing everywhere.  We stopped there to fuel up and were told to be careful.  Don't show money.  The cashier hated to admit it, but a lot of visitors had money stolen, and it wasn't a nice town.  So we continued our journey.  We finally had to leave 40 to head down to Roswell.  We'd been on the 40 since Barstow, CA. This stretch of road down to Roswell was 3 hours of BORING!  There were a few head of cattle and fewer cars.  We saw a sign that stated that if we turned off this boring road and traveled another 54 miles out of our way on a smaller road, we could see Billy the Kid's grave site.  We passed.  This stretch was already long enough!

I awoke, and I had not been abducted, at least not that I can recall!  I don't have any little bump at the base of my skull, so I guess the aliens passed me by...this time.  We did the complete tourist thing today.  We went to the UFO Museum and Research Center.  The museum tried to present all perspectives of the incident and later abductions from around the world.   There were lots of letters from "abductees" from around the world, and there were cartoons about aliens.  Most of the reported sitings were in the US and Great Britain.  Some sitings, evidence, and close encounters were reported in the Los Angeles area.  I wasn't surpised!

The plants were not happy to be in the car during the 105 degree heat.  I hope the coolers did their job!  I'm writing this part as we drive from Roswell back up north towards Santa Fe and Los Alamos.  I don't know where we'll stay tonight.  It all depends on how far we can go.  I've done probably about 99% of the driving so far, but I just couldn't face the boring drive back north, so mom has that job today.  

Shorts and leather car seats are not a good combination!  Oh yeah, this is boring!

Mom often asks for books on tape for birthdays and Christmas.  We've listened to Dead Even, a murder mystery and Moon Shot.  Boy, I wonder who gave her the latter one!  I guess since I'm the navigator for the moment, I better get another tape out and check our progress.

We ended up all the way in Los Alamos.  We almost went 30 miles beyond to a B& B, but that seemed WAY out of the way!  Today we went to the Bradbury Science Museum...no, not Ray Bradbury, but the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  The museum was quite extensive.  Sections covered the research done during WW 2, the history of the area before WW2, and what research they're doing currently (such as human genome, lasers, radioactive waste disposal, etc.).  

Friday the 13th
We then went to Bandalier National Monument which has extensive cliff dwelling ruins.  We got to go in and around several of them.  The trail was a loop that was just over a mile.  When we got to the half way mark, there was a tangent trail that led to a ceremonial cave that was reached by a vertical climb up wooden ladders that were fashioned after Native American ladders in pueblos.  I decided to take the tangent trail.  Mom decided absolutely not for her.  She's had some difficulty with the high altitudes.  I had just run out of water at this tangent trail (stupid!).  I did the walk up the trail which wasn't too strenuous.  Then I got to the vertical climb!  That was a little more strenuous!!  And the cliff was being blasted by the early afternoon sun.  I did it all the way to the top!  It was quite an awesome view!  I went into the Kiva at the top.  After 10 minutes of waiting for my heart rate to return to normal, I managed to return down the 4 hot ladders and walk back to the loop trail.  Mom had left to return to the visitor center, so I continued on.  I guess I needed some more water since my fingers started to swell and I only got a little light headed.  Could be the altitude too.  I'm much better now!  It's presently 10 PM, and we're in Santa Fe.  I can't email this now because my computer doesn't recognize the dial tone at the hotel.  I hope to get this mailed soon!  It's getting REALLY long!!!!  

Saturday, July 14, 2001
This is our last day in NM.  One reason is that it's time to move on.  Second is the 11% taxes at the hotels!  We took our first city tour of the trip.  It gave us a lot of interesting information about Santa Fe and some about New Mexico.  It is the 5th largest state in square miles, but it is rather small in population (average of 8 people to the square mile).  Lots of space here.   There are still buildings in Santa Fe that were built in 1610!  (Before the Mayflower came to the New World.)  We went to the Palace of the Governors which had been inhabited by the Spanish, Natives, and Americans.  We hit route 66 again and also walked down the Santa Fe Trail.  We went to Loretto's Chapel which has the miraculous staircase featured on Unsolved Mysteries and other programs.  It is apparently a miracle that it has not collapsed on itself since it is not attached to any wall.  It was built by a man whom no one knew, and after it was built, the man left without asking for payment.   The bishop of Santa Fe, Father Lamy, disliked the Santa Fe adobe buildings and lack of civilization.  He decided to build a Romanesque Cathedral around the adobe chapel, and when the cathedral was finished the adobe chapel was removed brick by brick.  After this the city declared nothing should be taller than the cathedral.  Later it was determined that any new downtown buildings shall be only of 2 styles-adobe and territorial.  The outer residential areas didn't have to build to these requirements, but most do.   Anything else looks out of place.  Santa Fe has been quite successful in keeping it's history and culture.  This is also the place to live if you don't want to mow a lawn!  The natural look is in!!  This city is quite expensive!!  We did not walk into any of the MANY galleries where prices were in the tens of thousands!!  This is quite the art community.  Well, enough of the history lesson!  We're headed towards Colorado tonight...about a three hour drive.  Oh, one other thing, because of the altitude, one cocktail hits you like three!  Cuts down on the bar bill.

Oh, if anyone wants to travel here and they like spicy food, please take me with you!!  My mom cannot eat spicy food, and it is killing me to eat at Denny's and the such instead of Mexican Restaurants!!  

We've seen some incredible lightning storms in our travels!  The light show has been absolutely awesome.  Just about every time we leave a city, it starts to storm.  The storms never last very long and often times they're off in the distance.  That's the best because I can see these fantastic lightning strikes while doing the speed limit...75mph!  It just kills me that there are so many people here who don't do the speed limit.  Meanwhile, I'm wondering if we can get 75 mph in CT.

We are now 2 weeks into our vacation.  Nothing is going as planned today or last night.  We drove forever last night because hotels have been booked.  We ended up in Pueblo, CO.  We were going to drive through CO, but a piece of Native American pottery was broken, and we stopped at Colorado Springs to try and replace it.  We found something similar, but not quite as nice.  Both mom and I have done Colorado Springs fairly extensively.  I was out here once for a class that was offered through the US Space Foundation.  I've seen most of what's here, but I hadn't seen Cave of the Winds.  Mom had been here MANY years before, but also hadn't seen that.  Mom was starting not to feel well, but thought she could do the easiest cave tour.  She had difficulty, but she got through it.  If anyone wants to come here and do the other cave tours please take me!  Actually Colorado Springs is a great place!  Nice climate and lots to do outside and inside.  We drove up to Denver to hit the Claim Jumpers Restaurant (YUM!), but mom really wasn't well at this point, and we quickly found a hotel for her to rest.  Mom immediately went to bed.  It was 7:30, so I went swimming and tried to find other ways to stay out of the room.  She is starting to feel a little better, but we'll see how she is tomorrow.