All the Livelong Day

Just crossed into the promised land. Yee-haw! Unfortunately the camera battery just died, so the cell phone camera will have to do for awhile.

On the Road Again

Filling up with some cucumber water before leaving Santa Fe, which was awesome! Hopefully we'll have some internet access in Wichita Falls tonight.

Wednesday - 5/23/07

Today was great. No car trouble, no shady B&B issues to deal with, just smooth sailing and beautiful scenery. And a little rain, but nothing serious.

(I'm telling you, Amanda's description of the Bed & Breakfast situation did not begin to describe how scared I was. I've seen way too many horror movies not to have been crapping my pants while we were literally wandering around the pitch black surroundings of a house in the middle of nowhere right off the side of the highway - I felt like we were in an Eli Roth movie or something.)

We woke up and hit the Petrified Forest National Park around 8:00. No Grand Canyon, but wow. Really cool. And freezing. When you think about driving through Arizona and New Mexico in the Summer, you think shorts, right? Think again. We've been freezing our butts off the whole time. Anyway, the Petrified Forest was great. We drove from the South end to the Painted Desert at the North end (about 26 miles), and it all looked like different planets from Star Wars. The Painted Desert was absolutely beautiful, and pictures really don't do it justice, but here's one anyway.

On the way from the Painted Desert to Santa Fe, we made a few stops. First was the famous El Rancho hotel in Gallup, NM, where old-time movie actors like Ronald Reagan (the actor!?!), Gregory Peck, and Jackie Cooper used to stay while filming Westerns. We looked around a bit and had lunch there. All of the menu items were named after famous actors. I had the John Wayne, Amanda had the Burt Lancaster.

We also made a stop in Albuquerque, and we were really glad we did. They have this historic section of town called "Old Town," which we walked around in and went into a few shops. It was really quaint and comfortable (aside from the sporadic rain), and reminded me a lot of Oxford, MS, but with a Southwestern flair.


We got to Santa Fe around 6:30, and checked into our hotel - the Hilton - INTERNET ACCESS!! After checking email, updating the blog a bit, and changing clothes, we headed out for dinner. Amanda found this great Mexican place called The Shed, and afterwards we headed over to this bar called The Cowgirl where an alt-country band was playing. If I wasn't still feeling sick we'd probably still be there, but after a beer, I was just ready to head back to the hotel. All I could think about while we were there was our cold walk back (it was maybe 2 blocks, but I'm a huge wuss).

Tomorrow we're going to wake up and have breakfast and spend a few hours walking around this area of town, where there are a lot of art galleries, shops, cafes, and even the oldest church in the United States. Hopefully it will be a bit warmer.

Tuesday, 5/22/07

This is Amanda blogging today, so it's going to sound a little different (and probably a little less humorous than Ben, but I'll give it my best shot). Today started off bright and early with Ben groaning because he felt sick. Shockingly, there was no drug store within 100 miles of the Grand Canyon, so he just toughed it out for most of the day.

Our day began with a hearty breakfast at the Bright Angel Lodge, followed by a guided tour of the Western Rim of the Grand Canyon with a final destination at Hermit's Rest. This is an old lodge that was used long ago for stops on guided wagon train tours. Now, it's prime real estate for selling hot chocolate and ugly tee-shirts. I think our tour guide was a little messed up in the head because he kept recommending that we buy the book "Death in the Canyon." Fortunately, we came away from the tour alive, and the views were absolutely amazing.

We were hoping to go for a short hike after the tour, but due to rain (and a weird hail storm!), we passed up the hike in lieu of a talk from a park ranger. I think the ranger might have been drunk because he kept slurring his words. The stories were still pretty cool and told us (again) about some famous deaths in the Canyon. (I started to notice a weird pattern at this point...)

Our Grand Canyon visit ended with a drive to the Desert Viewpoint. We climbed the lookout tower, which had spectacular views of the canyon, but the rain and haze made it a tough to see very far in the distance. Regardless of the crummy weather, our trip to the Grand Canyon was great!

After leaving the park, we stopped for a late lunch of Navajo tacos at the Anasazi Inn. (See below for details.)

We decided to take a side trip to the Wupatki National Monument and the Sunset Crater Volcano. As we turned down a small road towards Wupatki, we quickly realized that we we were on a 30+ mile journey down an unpaved road. We laughed about the situation and enjoyed the drive through a beautiful countryside. The monument was really cool and told the story of an ancient pueblo village. We then headed for the Sunset Crater but didn't realize where it was and drove right past. Fortunately, we got some cool shots from the car of the volcanic rocks.

We tried to stop off at the Meteor Crater but we didn't arrive until around 6pm, and by that time, it was closed :( I guess we don't have good luck with craters.

Our next stop was the infamous Winslow, AZ. You may be wondering what is so special about Winslow. Well, for all you Eagles fans, the tiny town is featured in the famous song "Take it Easy." Ben and I took a bunch of photos "on a corner in Winslow, AZ." Fun fun fun.

The day ended in Holbrook, AZ, which is a place that I wouldn't recommend visiting. We were supposed to stay at a cute bed and breakfast, but we showed up at the house, and it was totally dark. We walked all around the property and Ben thought we were going to die, so we decided to check into the Comfort Inn instead.

Day 2 was great. We saw some incredible sites, saw some weird places and had a great time!

Monday - 5/21/07

After going to sleep around 12:30 a.m., the beeping alarm at 6:00 a.m. was NOT fun. We got up, though, dutifully, and loaded the rest of the bags into the car, and we were off and running at 7:15. Luckily, we never really hit too much traffic (outside of an accident near San Bernadino), and the first half of the drive was rather uneventful. We stopped to have a picnic lunch at Moabi Regional Park, just inside the California/Arizona border, then crossed over into Arizona. This was where things got interesting.

The check engine light came on in Amanda's car. Somewhere, Howard is laughing to himself (or maybe to the people around him). Nothing really seemed to be wrong, but just to be safe, we drove to the Toyota dealership in Flagstaff to have it checked out. We sat there for about 2 hours while they reset the computer in the car, which cleared everything right up, and we hightailed it up to the Grand Canyon, racing against time in order to get there before sunset. Amanda really showed her inner Ricky Bobby and got us there just under the wire.

Words really cannot describe how amazing the Grand Canyon is. We walked around Mather Point and watched the Sun go down (from the East side, unfortunately, so the view wasn't as spectacular as it could have been), but it was simply majestic. It is almost incomprehensible how something like this could just be there in the middle of the desert. We then checked into our hotel, the El Tovar lodge, and caught the season finale of Heroes (yes, I am a dork) before dinner.

We just got to our hotel in Santa Fe and finally got some internet access, so we will get the next couple of reports posted later tonight. We're starving, so we're off to dinner. Safe travels, and check back with us soon for more updates!!

Navajo Taco

Our friend Tracy recommended these to us, and I couldn't resist. I couldn't finish it either. Amanda says hi and we'll check in later when we can get some internet access.

Grand Canyon

Despite an uneventful yet annoying 2 hour stop at a mechanic's shop (more details later), we finally got to the Grand Canyon just before sunset. No internet, so we'll have to post the full report in a few days. (this was from last night but had no cell service.)

And We're Off

Leaving only 15 minutes behind schedule, which is actually 15 minutes early according to JST.

The Prelude

Amanda and I are leaving in about 9 hours for our road trip across the country. We're both really sad to leave LA and all of the great friends we've made here, but we are so excited for our trip and to get to Atlanta to be with all of our friends there. We'll be on the road for about 3 weeks, and on our way we'll be stopping in Arizona (at the Grand Canyon!), New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, back to Mississippi, and finally to Georgia. We're going to try (if Amanda's computer holds up, and if we can find some internet along the way) to make regular updates about our drive (like our friend Howard did), so check back often over the next couple of weeks to see where we are and what kind of trouble I'm getting Amanda into.