Epic Road Trip 2016, California !

After Arcosanti we made our way north to I-40, and drove thru the desolate desert to Barstow.

We didn't arrive in Barstow until after dark, and it was cold again. After some dinner we holed up in the hotel and went to bed early, even though it was New Years Eve.

We checked the weather report in the morning, and it had snowed in the upper altitudes.  We decided to drive thru the Tehachapi pass, even though it had snowed there overnight. Once we got past Mojave and into the mountains, there was snow on the sides of the road, but none on the roadbed. 

... and, 6400 miles and 30 days later, we were home.

It was an Epic Trip.

Epic Road Trip 2016, Return to California (New Mexico & Arizona)

From El Paso we made the short trip up to Tucson, arriving about mid-day. We stopped in to see our friends the Tippies, (who recently moved here from California).  We took in the Titan Missile Museum and then had a great dinner with them, and spent part of the next day exploring downtown Tucson.

After lunch on the second day we drove to Phoenix, and met my cousin and her husband for dinner.  We stayed in Phoenix overnight, and went to Arcosanti in the morning. Arcosanti is an experimental community, built on the idea of combining Architecture with Ecology. It is about 60 miles north of the edge of Phoenix, built on a  beautiful mesa. A couple of pictures of the mesa:

There is some delicious irony in that the founder of Arcosanti wanted to develop a compact living style, ideally eliminating the need for urban sprawl by creating dense cities with lots of unspoiled open space around them.  Phoenix has sprawled to about 75 miles by 75 miles of rambling city...

Epic Road Trip 2016, Return to California (Texas crossing)

We left California on the 2nd of December, and got to Louisiana on the 19th, meaning we took about 18 days to get there.  It took us 6 days to return home -- we probably cold have done it in 4 or 5, but we missed a couple of people and places on the way East, so we took our time, sort-of.

Dec 27 - we left Slidell in the morning, and drove to San Antonio.

On the way to San Antonio, we stopped at Buc-ee's Travel Center, an Amazing gas station and store and restaurant and... Well, everything. There is a bronze statue of their mascot in front of the store.

Once we got to San Antonio, we found our downtown hotel. After dinner we walked to the Alamo via the Riverwalk.  The Riverwalk was nice in the daytime, but even better after dark. It was mild night, so we enjoyed our outing.

Remember how it was 32 degrees about 10 days ago? Here's today's high temp:

Dec 28: San Antonio to El Paso.  Another long day in the car.  Texas is huge.

You know how they say everything is bigger in Texas?  Here's one example.  This is a Medium drink:

A MEDIUM.

Epic Road Trip 2016, Christmas in Louisiana

After Houston, we continued on to Slidell, Louisiana, which is just north of New Orleans. We stayed with Janice's mom, and saw lots of family over the next several days.

Christmas dinner was early - we celebrated on the 23rd, with 19 people. The 24th and 25th were a little quieter - we ate more good food and visited with relatives. It seems I didn't take many pictures of Christmas.

One of our nieces works for a Ropes Course company - they make attractions that children and adults can climb on, safely.  We visited one of their installations at Margaritaville in Biloxi Mississippi on the Monday after Christmas, and had a great time.

Epic Road Trip 2016, Texas Part III

When we went to bed on our last evening in Austin, it was about 50-55 degrees outside.

When we got up the next morning, a cold front had moved in. The car thermometer read 32 degrees. We packed up and headed East, taking the small roads once again.  By the time we got to Giddings (about 11:00 AM) it was down to 28 degrees, and 2 of the fountains in town were frozen.  We stopped at a cool shop called A Blast from the Past, did some shopping, and also found the Lee County Courthouse, an amazing building. We continued on to Houston, where we had dinner with one of Janice's Junior High School friends; it was great to catch up with them after all these years.

Epic Road Trip 2016, Texas Part II

We stayed in Austin for 4 nights, on the northern side of town. We took a day trip to San Antonio, where we saw the Alamo and walked along the Riverwalk. We also visited the Mission San Jose (in San Antonio!) and were amazed at the size of the place and how well preserved it is. On the way back to Auston we had dinner at the Famous Salt Lick BBQ restaurant in Driftwood Texas. Good food, great ambiance.

Next day was spent at TechShop, making christmas cards.  The Original Plan had been to use the laser cutter to create something, but when we checked the calendar a few days earlier, all 4 machines were booked solid.  Like it was the Holidays, or something.  So we made cards the old school way, with paper and rubber stamps and other decorations. 

That evening we had dinner with a long-time TechShop staff member (Robert) and his family. We had planned to go see the Lights in the Park, but it was sold out long before we realized we needed tickets. So we had a leisurely dinner, and afterwards Robert showed us around Georgetown, ending with Pie at a cool diner call The Monument. 

Next day was a car tour of downtown Austin - we were feeling pretty worn out by this time, so we went back to the hotel and finished the christmas cards, and packed for our next stop. 

The Alamo:

Riverwalk: 

Mission San Jose:

Epic Road Trip 2016, 5th stop: Texas, part I

From Carlsbad we headed southward, into Texas. We took the back roads, since the Interstate is nowhere near Carlsbad. We stopped in Fort Stockton and took our pictures with Paisano Pete, the giant roadrunner statue.  We found the interstate, and got to drive legally at 80 mph all the way to Sonora Texas. Stayed at a decent Best Western hotel, walked to Dairy Queen for dinner as there isn't a lot of there there.

Next morning, we left Sonora and took the Interstate for a few miles then drove small roads thru the hill country to Austin.  We drove thru Harper, Fredericksburg, and Johnson City, all worth a return visit. Someday.

Once we got to Austin, the plan was to do some laundry since we were way early for hotel check in.  The Laundromat we chose (based on GoogleMaps) turned out to be under construction. So, we went to TechShop and got a tour and talked to some of the staff. Once our hotel room was ready, we checked in, got some dinner, then spent an hour or more at Michael's buying christmas card making supplies. We finally got time to do laundry back at the hotel, where we also did some card making planning. 

Epic Road Trip 2016, 4th stop: Carlsbad New Mexico

We arrived at our excellent hotel in Carlsbad, New Mexico late in the afternoon.  We only had enough energy to cross the street for dinner, which turned out to be a fabulous local diner called "Danny's Place". We were the only tourists in the place - the wait staff seemed to know everyone else's name.

We got up bright and early the next day and drove to Carlsbad Cavern National Park, drove the seven or so miles from the highway to the visitors center, and paid our admission. We walked down the "Natural Entrance", about 1.25 miles in length and perhaps 750 feet of elevation drop. It took us about 90 minutes, and then we walked the perimeter of the Big Cavern, only a mile loop but it still took almost and hour.  We took the elevator back to the surface (60 seconds!), had some lunch in the car and then cruised the gift shop. 

December is the time to visit - it's practically deserted! We saw about 10 people on the way down to the bottom, including 3 rangers the were walking up the path. One of the guides said they get about 200 people a day in the winter, unlike the throngs who show up in the summer.  The only down side was that the bats were absent - either hibernating or off somewhere warm for the winter.

Since the day was young we decided to visit Roswell too. We arrived in time to tour the World Famous UFO museum in town - spent about an hour or so there. We drove around a bit, and had another fabulous dinner, this time at Martin's Capital Cafe. Again, filled with locals. 

The next morning we toured a little bit of Carlsbad, visiting a couple of shops downtown, Heritage Park and the Pecos River Flume. 

Epic Road Trip 2016, 3rd stop: Tucson

After our Sedona day trip we stayed another night in Phoenix, the set out for Tucson Arizona. As soon as we arrived in Tucson we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. About 90% of the "Museum" is outdoors, and we we saw about 20-25% of it in the 5 or so hours we were there. It's the only museum I have ever visited that had a sunscreen dispenser in the bathroom.

We stayed overnight in Tucson, then went to Church Sunday morning, visiting the church of one of our former pastors. We set out after church for Carlsbad New Mexico, via El Paso.

A few photos from the Museum:

And one of Pastor Jim Cords, preaching: