A few times over the years I'd thought of possibly driving out west but didn't think it would ever really happen. Neither Pat or myself have ever driven very much. But since the Florida road trip this past February went so well, we decided to finally try it. We planned to visit Bill & Nancy Siders for a day or two. Since he volunteers at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, we expected to go there at least one day. We thought about checking out the Bradbury Science Museum, and visiting White Sands again. We saw some of NM in 1994 when we visited Bill & Nancy, and a friend of ours who had moved from Beavercreek. Other than that, we hadn't planned to see much else in NM. We had a long list of things to see in Arizona - Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve and adjacent Paton home (lots of hummingbirds), the Grand Canyon, perhaps Hoover Dam, and Water Holes Canyon. Antelope Canyon is the most famous of the slot canyons, but I intended to skip it - I've heard it's too busy and getting rather expensive to visit. Other places we hoped to see in Arizona were Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Saguaro National Park, and much more. If we got to Hoover Dam, we thought of going on over to Las Vegas for a night or two. We also considered getting into southern Utah for Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, etc. We also planned to visit old friends from the computer club who retired to AZ a few years ago. So much to see, so little time! ;-) When we discussed our plans with friends, several other places to see were suggested, such as Cadillac Ranch, DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, San Xavier Mission, Tanque Verde Ranch, B&B Cactus Farm, Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries and leaning water tower at Groom, TX, Patagonia Lake State Park, Madera Canyon, Salt River Canyon, Tubac, AZ, Sentinel Peak ("A" Mountain), El Minuto Cafe, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Biosphere 2, Chiricahua National Monument, Colossal Cave National Park, Picacho Peak State Park, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, and more.
I got a 11-16mm f/2.8 lens for the Nikon D300 to take on this trip. Until fairly recently, I never felt much need for a wide angle lens, but wished I'd had a wider lens when I shot the WEBN fireworks last fall and the couple times I've tried shooting meteor showers. I figured that visiting the southwest was sufficient cause to get one. ;-)
So, that was the plan, such as it was. We actually saw most of the places we had hoped to, some that friends suggested, and a few others that weren't initially on our list.
We got started much later than intended the first day, April 6. Other than a lot of wind, we didn't have any problems getting to St. Louis the first night. We stayed just a couple blocks from Gateway Arch at Drury Plaza Hotel at the Arch, so I walked over to the park after we got checked in and did some night photography. We had a partial view of the arch from our room, but the windows were badly in need of cleaning.
We went to Missouri Botanical Garden April 7. What an amazing place! I think I could go there every day for a month and not tire of it. I didn't go up Gateway Arch or even visit the museum, but I did take a few more photos of it. We stayed at the botanical garden until it closed - it was too late to go up the arch by then. There was quite a downpour and thunderstorm while we had lunch at Sassafras Cafe at the gardens, but had ended by the time we finished eating.
We arrived in Oklahoma City about 9pm April 8. That was a long drive, at least for us! We encountered more construction delays that day than anywhere else so far, but it wasn't too bad. Except for bathroom & gas breaks (the second gas stop was mainly to clean bugs off the windshield), lunch & supper, we were on the road all day. We saw lots of Redbud Trees in bloom. Gorgeous!
The next day (Apr. 9) we visited the Myriad Botanical Gardens and Oklahoma City National Memorial (but not the museum - maybe next time we're in town). I wasn't too impressed with the former, but thought the latter was done very well. Cincinnati's Krohn Conservatory is much better maintained than Myriad, larger, allows tripods, and is free! It's possible that Myriad Gardens were poorly maintained simply because it was scheduled to close for a year-long renovation shortly after our visit. We had lunch at Shorty Small's Great American Restaurant, and supper at Elephant Bar - both were excellent. The weather was pretty nice and not so windy as the previous couple days. There seemed to be some sort of antique car rally going on here. We saw antique cars everywhere we went!
The morning of April 10 we visited the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, which our friends Greg & Sherri Jump had recommended seeing. I surprised Pat by getting there before opening time. The museum was actually more interesting than I had expected, and the building it's in is beautiful! Then we had a nice lunch visiting with former DMA member Wally Lee and his wife Jan at Irma's Burger Shack. Wally was the Windows SIG leader while a member of DMA. They're also members of Dayton Tripod Camera Club, even though they live in Oklahoma City, OK. They also do the annual Spring trip to the Smokies with Julie Guenther. That trip was canceled this year due to extensive road closures in GSMNP for much needed repairs. We finally got on the road about 2:30, and arrived at our hotel in Amarillo, TX late that evening.
After lunch I was getting drowsy, so after I got to open road well outside of Oklahoma City I made a short stop to gas up and use the facilities. I then turned the wheel over to Pat and took a nap. She didn't bother to wake me as she drove past a large wind farm. Phooey! We did see a solitary windmill at a rest stop a few miles into Texas. We first saw the gigantic cross at Groom, TX about 10 miles away, then as we neared it, also saw the leaning water tower across the road. At McClean, we had the best burgers in Texas. Well, that's what the sign at Country Corner gas station / convenience store / R.V. Park said. ;-) They were pretty good, but a bit too well done for my taste.
The Prius' GPS has not been as helpful as I would like the past couple days. It seems to be off by a few hundred feet, so sometimes doesn't notify of upcoming turns until we're nearly in the middle of the intersection. :-( I had some trouble finding the hotel in Amarillo. Initially, it was my fault because I entered Sconcy Rd., when it should have been Soncy Rd. Quite correctly, it informed me there's no such address. I dismissed it assuming it was a new road that hadn't been included in its map yet. I later discovered the correct street name spelling by looking on the Google map on my Motorola Droid cell phone. After correctly spelling the street on the car's GPS, it still said no such address, but offered North Soncy and South Soncy as possibilities. No such address on N. Soncy, got a match on S. Soncy, even though the address listed on the hotel's web site didn't mention N, S, E, or W in the street name. When we got to Soncy, the GPS said turn left, then the destination would be ahead. Normally it also says which side of the street, but was mum on the subject. In a few seconds, was the familiar "You have arrived" message, but the hotel was nowhere to be seen. I drove a couple blocks and saw that we had obviously passed it, and turned around. I selected the destination from the previous destinations list and tried again. This time, it announced that the destination was ahead, on the right. Thanks! But it was wrong. It turns out that we should have turned right on Soncy, instead of left as it had instructed, and the hotel was on the other side of the street. Sigh... I had inquired about getting the map updated the last time I had the car serviced and was told that updates are $250, payable in advance, with no refunds. They didn't have the update DVD in stock and wouldn't have it until after we left home. Also, Toyota apparently only updates their maps once every other year, so there's only been one update since I bought the car almost three years ago. I really like the Prius, but that sucks.
We had intended to visit Cadillac Ranch before continuing to Roswell, but missed it. The drive to Roswell was pretty uneventful except that we did see a couple wind farms, so I'll forgive Pat for not waking me the day before. ;-) We also saw several cattle farms, and not a lot else except wide open space.
We arrived at Bill & Nancy Siders' home mid afternoon April 11 and visited a couple hours before checking in to a nearby hotel. We then rejoined them for more conversation and a very good dinner at Cattle Baron restaurant in Roswell.
The Prius' GPS seemed to be working better, but the default route to Roswell from Amarillo, TX was several more miles and at least half an hour longer than the two other routes it proposed. I don't mind if the suggested route is a few miles longer if the trip time is shorter, but both the distance and elapsed time it initially offered were considerably longer than the other two routes it proposed. Bill and Nancy said they had also had trouble using a GPS out here and had pretty much given up on it. Our GPS routed us several blocks out of the way to get to their house when you could clearly see that there was a shorter and faster way. Were we in the twilight zone? ;-)
Bill took me to Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge the morning of April 12 where we saw an unidentified bat, Great Blue Heron, Avocets, Black Neck Stilts, White-faced Ibis, Snowy Egrets, and a Coyote. I took several photos and shot some video clips which Bill plans to composite into a video for Bitter Lake's Facebook site. In the mean time, Pat and Nancy worked on genealogy. After a nice homemade lunch, Bill helped me identify what I'd shot so I could tag the photos, then we struggled valiantly to get the photos copied from my Windows XP laptop to his iMac. We finally did it by sneaker-net via a camera memory card and card reader. :-(
We all went to Applebee's for a nice supper, then returned to Bill & Nancy's home where Pat and Nancy continued with their genealogy, and I introduced Bill to Lexulous. Pat got a good chuckle that Bill and I were in adjacent rooms playing a game over the Internet.
On April 13, Bill took me to the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in the morning after a brief stop at the John Simpson Chisum statue. In the mean time, Pat and Nancy continued working on genealogy and reminiscing about old times. After a very nice homemade lunch of ham salad & strawberry shortcake, I indexed my photos from the morning then took a nap - I'd been unusually tired in the morning. Later, I came down with a mild Crohn's flare-up.
We all went to Red Lobster for supper, then said our goodbyes to Bill & Nancy before returning to our hotel. I felt lousy at supper time. I only ate about 2/3 of my smaller portion meal and didn't get dessert, which is extremely rare for me. :-(
On April 14 we left Roswell and went south to Artesia, where I shot the oil refinery that's basically in the center of town. On the way out of town I noticed "The Derrick Floor", a nice homage to oil workers, which I also shot. From there, we went west to Cloudcroft where we had an excellent lunch at Rebecca's in The Lodge. After lunch we visited White Sands National Monument for a few hours before finally settling in for the night in Las Cruces, NM. Pat got sand, or sun block, or both, in her eye at White Sands and was miserable the last few hours. I was bushed, so we considered staying put for a day before moving on. It was a very long day!
We drove to Sonoita, AZ April 15 where we planned to stay a couple days at Sonoita Inn to go looking for hummingbirds. On the way there, we passed through a border patrol stop on I-10. We had an excellent rib-eye dinner at The Steak Out, and the apple pie was very good also. I couldn't get online with my laptop. Typing a daily update message on my cell phone was tedious, so it was very brief. I found out the next morning that their router had gone down. It wasn't very fast when it was up, but sure beat typing on the tiny cell phone keyboard.
There was a large group of bicyclists staying here. I can't imagine doing any serious riding out here. I get parched just driving the car.
On April 16, we visited the Paton home for a couple hours to watch hummingbirds, had lunch in downtown Patagonia at The Home Plate, did a little shopping at a gallery by the visitor center, then went to Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve for more hummers. There were lots of hummingbirds at both the Paton home and the preserve! I probably saw more hummingbirds there than I've seen in my whole life until then. I absolutely saw more different kinds of hummers than ever before.
Sonoita Inn was an interesting place, but I had trouble with their Internet service both days we were there. Pat was a little put out about not having a hair drier in the room, but that didn't bother me. The air conditioning was a bit on the weak side, but at least it didn't deafen us or blast us with icy air like many hotel units do. And they don't have an elevator, which was a problem for Pat. It was a bit of a problem for me because I had to lug all of our stuff up and back down. I imagine most people travel lighter than we do. ;-) Overall, I was very pleased with it except for the Internet access problems. They do have ground floor rooms, but we hadn't made reservations in advance to get one.
On April 17 we checked out of Sonoita Inn and returned for a couple hours to Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve for more hummers. I love those little critters! I walked part of their nature trail, hoping to find some in native habitat instead of at feeders, but no luck. So I shot some more at the feeders. ;-) We then had a delicious lunch at Velvet Elvis in Patagonia. Shortly after leaving Patagonia, we saw a Roadrunner, just north of Nogales, AZ. That rascal zipped across the road in front of us in a flash. We both shouted "Roadrunner!" By the time I pulled off the road (we were only going about 25MPH) to look for it, it was out of sight. From there, we went to Tubac for about an hour, then on to the Titan Missile Museum. That was a very interesting and educational tour. We then settled in to a hotel, where once again I had trouble getting online. I could get connected to their Wi-Fi OK, but it then redirected me to a site presumably to agree to their TOS, but it always timed out there. Grrr! I finally ended up using my cell phone as a wireless modem to get online.
On April 18 we visited Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It's awesome! I need to spend a bit less time in the hummingbird aviary next time so I can see the rest of the place! ;-) We had a wonderful lunch at Ocotillo Café in the museum.
April 19 we returned Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, but not as early as I had planned. I was unbelievably tired that morning, so stayed in the room and rested a couple hours after breakfast. I saw more of the museum today, but there's still a lot I haven't seen. As much as I wanted to, I refrained from returning to the hummingbird aviary, but saw a hummer anyway in the other aviary. We again had a very good lunch at Ocotillo Café in the museum, and a very nice inexpensive supper at Panda Express.
On April 20 we visited Kitt Peak National Observatory. Just driving to and from Kitt Peak chewed up a good chunk of the day, so there wasn't much time do do anything else. We took a brief look at the Sun through a Coronado Solarmax telescope, but there wasn't much to see due to extended very low sunspot activity. Then I took the 11:30am guided tour of the 2.1 meter telescope. Pat stayed in the visitor center and read. After the tour, we drove to the picnic area and had some snacks, then took a gander at the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope adjacent to the picnic area. From there, we drove to Saguaro National Park, where we watched the short slide show before driving the Scenic Bajada Loop Drive.
On April 21 we visited the DeGrazia Gallery in Tucson before heading north. It's quite an interesting place. We arrived at Bob & Carol Esch's home in Surprise, AZ, in time to have supper with them at Village Inn where they serve American cuisine, and free pie on Wednesdays. The apple pie I had was very good, but visiting with Bob and Carol was even better.
Driving was not so good. First, it was extremely windy, so it was a struggle to hold the Prius in the lane. I would think as aerodynamic as it is to get excellent gas mileage, wind would just slip right past it, but it doesn't. Second, I had a hemorrhage in my right eye that morning which caused huge dark floaters and thousands of tiny circles (blood cells) to mess with my vision. Finally, we ran into very heavy traffic around Phoenix, so we crept along at roughly 15MPH for about five miles. Otherwise, the day was great. Well, actually it was pretty chilly for me, but Pat loved the cool weather.
The morning of April 22 we had fresh squeezed OJ from oranges I picked only minutes earlier from Bob & Carol's back yard. Delicious! Then they took us to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix where we spent most of the day. It's a beautiful place that I could have explored for much longer, although not quite as long as Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum or Missouri Botanical Gardens. The Esch's then showed us some of the many top notch features of Sun City Grand retirement community in Surprise, AZ where they live, before we enjoyed a very nice dinner at Dillon's Grand.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay with Bob and Carol, but Friday we left to see the Grand Canyon and a few more sights before heading back home in a few days. It had been a fantastic trip so far, but I was starting to look forward to getting home and resting a while!
On April 23 we left Bob & Carol to head towards the Grand Canyon. Along the way, we had lunch at Bylers Amish Kitchen in Black Canyon City, AZ, which was OK - not worth going out of your way to eat there, but not bad. A bit later we stopped briefly at Montezuma Castle National Monument. As we approached Flagstaff, if began spritzing and getting colder. By the time we got there, the temperature had dropped to 37 degrees and snow was flying nearly horizontally! Yikes! Fortunately, that didn't last long and soon the temperature was back up into the mid 50's. This whole trip had been pretty cool except for Sonoita & Patagonia. We settled in at Cameron Lodge, just a few miles from the east end of Grand Canyon's south rim.
On April 24 Pat stayed in the room with Montezuma's Revenge. :-( I drove to the Grand Canyon and shot from most of the viewing areas on the South Rim from the Desert View Watchtower to Grandview Point, roughly half way to Grand Canyon City at the other end. What an awesome sight! I used my new 11-16mm wide angle lens on the Nikon which I shot exclusively in RAW, and shot JPG only with my Panasonic DMC-GH1. By the time I got back to our room, Pat was feeling well enough to eat some supper and I was bushed from lugging two cameras all day long. She was surprised I got back before sunset. A couple hours after supper I started my bout of Montezuma's Revenge.
On the 25th, Pat was feeling somewhat better, but I was now the victim of Montezuma's Revenge. We both stayed in the room the entire day. That's no way to spend vacation!
April 26 was an interesting day. I wasn't hungry at all after having not eaten a bite in over 24 hours, but I forced myself to eat a couple eggs, some bacon, and a couple slices of toast. I was incredibly tired - I could barely pick up one foot and move it in front of the other on the way to breakfast! I suppose the nothing to eat for 24 hours had something to do with that. ;-) I can't recall ever being that tired before except possibly after my prostrate surgery. Then I could barely walk across the room from my bed and back, but I think that was more from pain than tiredness. In spite of my tiredness, we visited Meteor Crater (I was surprised to find that it's not a National Monument, so we had to pay the admission fee*) and Petrified Forest / Painted Desert before settling in for the night in Gallup, NM. The Painted Desert wasn't quite what I had expected, and the Petrified Forest has been seriously plundered by souvenir seekers. Still, I'm glad I saw them. If I remember correctly, the park estimates a ton of the petrified forest is stolen every month! Since I'd gotten a couple meals in me, my strength had substantially recovered, but Montezuma hadn't completely released his grip on me.
As we were approaching Meteor Crater, near Winslow, AZ, I kept trying to remember the popular song that mentioned Winslow. No luck! I had to Google it to find that it was "Take It Easy", written by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey, and performed by the Eagles among others. Pat thought it was mentioned in "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66", but I didn't hear it when we played a Manhattan Transfer recording of it while driving and haven't found any evidence of it with Google.
On April 27 we drove. And we drove. And we drove even farther! That's about all we did. No sight-seeing that day, although we did notice Cadillac Ranch this time on our way into Amarillo, but it was a bit south of I-40, and it was almost dark, and we were tired. We stayed in the same Comfort Inn & Suites we used on the way out. We had supper at Famous Dave's near the hotel, although I had almost no appetite - my gut was still a mess! But what I did eat tasted great.
The 28th of April was windy all day - all the way from Amarillo to Tulsa, where we stayed overnight. We did go to Cadillac Ranch in the morning. It's strange! We had a nice hamburger lunch at Red River Steakhouse on historic Route 66 in McLean, TX. Near Weatherford, OK, we saw a wind farm right next to the frontage road parallel to I-40, so I got onto frontage road and shot a few photos and short video clips. We'd seen several wind farms on our trip, but none nearly so close to the highway. Neither Pat nor I can figure out how we didn't see them while heading south west. They're huge!
April 29 was another very windy day on the road! We settled in for the night at Drury Plaza Hotel at the Arch in St. Louis - the same place we stayed on the way west. We had a nice lunch at Cracker Barrel near Joplin (I had their new Low Country Boil, which was very good but a bit spicier than I'd expected) and an excellent, albeit quite expensive, dinner at Carmine's Steakhouse adjacent to the hotel. Even with the car's GPS, I managed to drive in circles about 20 minutes before finally getting the right exit to get to the hotel. St. Louis traffic is a nightmare, especially near rush hour!
I had hoped to go up Gateway Arch in the morning before heading back home, but my digestive system had different ideas. :-( Except for both of us having digestive problems during the last week of our trip, it was great! Until a month before, I really thought an extended road trip like this was just a pipe dream that would never happen, but since the Florida trip went so well, we decided to give it a try and we're both glad we did. Pat isn't ready to do it again anytime soon, though. ;-)
After 3 weeks, 4 days, and 4,675.9 miles, we got back home April 30! And it felt good. ;-) All three cats were glad to see us. Thanks immensely to our neighbor who cared for them while we were gone.
* We bought a lifetime Seniors National Parks pass for $10 while visiting the Everglades in February, which has paid for itself many times over already in the two months we've had it, but was useless at Meteor Crater.
You may download a roughly 42 minute MP4 video here. The file is 720x400 resolution and about 745MB. It can be played with Apple's free QuickTime player or the free VLC media player available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Even though the video resolution isn't very high, it scales reasonably well to full 1020x1080 HD, so view it full screen. Pat thinks 42 minutes is way too long, and maybe she's right, but it's less than two minutes per day of our trip! Or just under 1.5 seconds of video per mile! Some of the still photos are in this directory. I apologize for not having a convenient way to display them in sequence yet, and the lack of any photos of the last week. I plan to rectify both soon.