Wow! Three months since my last update. No excuses at all, kids. None.
Since I’m sick at home, I figured I’d make your life miserable, too, with an update, and I might as well finish off the vacation from September.
So after the day of the dinosaurs, we had to make our way back to Albuquerque as we were flying out in two days. We left Gallup and got on the road. (One thing of note, the hotel we stayed in the night prior was next to a classic looking Route 66 motel. One day I’m going to take 66 through and through and stay in these motels.)
We had our complimentary breakfast and jumped on 40E for 100 or so miles, when I started noticing billboards for a place we just had to stop. Fortunately for me, my uncle was a big proponent for stopping at this particular establishment. My dad was ho-hum about it, and my aunt was cool as long as we didn’t stay too long. I can’t really blame her, these joints are all over the place, but this particular version of it was a must visit for me.
Yeah, I might have lost $100 at the Route 66 Casino, but it was worth every penny. Plus, I got a couple trinkets for signing up for the player’s club, which also guarantees frequent post cards asking me to come back. Totally worth it.
After about an hour or so at the slots, we piled back in the SUV and kept heading west until we arrived at our next destination: Madrid, New Mexico.
Madrid is a quaint little town about an hour northeast of Albuquerque. Populated by artists and hippies, there is a lot to see in this small town, as it seems every house on its main street is an artist’s shop. I’m not big into art, by any stretch, but Madrid had enough variety to keep me interested.
We had lunch at the Mine Shaft Tavern. I think I might have had a burger to go along with the green chili I had to try. I found their green chili to be okay, but it was no contest for the bowl I had at the Church Street Cafe. Say this, though: The Mine Shaft Tavern had one of the coolest atmosphere’s of all the restaurant’s I ate it on the trip. This is exactly type of bar you expect a cowboy to walk in, and everyone gets quiet. It probably helps that it has the longest stand-up bar in New Mexico.
Oh, and parts of the film Wild Hogs was filmed in Madrid. I hadn’t seen the movie before I went to the town, and I have seen it since. Skip the movie and visit the town.
Like I said, while artsy fartsy towns really aren’t my thing, I’m glad we stopped at Madrid. Hell, I even picked up a cool ass picture inspired by Dia de los Muertos.
We left Madrid and drove about an hour north for our final destination of the day: Santa Fe.
Santa Fe is another big art town in New Mexico. Apparently, this little town is second to New York for art sales in the U.S. (according to the trolley tour we took the next day, anyway).
The thing I liked about Santa Fe is there was more to it than just art. As an obvious tourist city, it had a little something for everyone. There were art stores next to dime stores, and architecturally, it was a pretty slick city just to wander around in.
I don’t remember much about Santa Fe at this point except for three things: The awesome deal my uncle got for us on what was basically a town house ($100 for all four of us, and everyone got a room — except me who took the couch), the various hats my aunt and uncle were trying on at the dime store and the blowjob Indians being passed off as “art.”
Aaah, good times.
We spent one more day in Santa Fe, but that is another blog. Hopefully one that won’t take three months to get here.
As per usual, if you are just joining us, you may want to start here.
On the fifth day of our Southwest adventure, we were going to hit what I suspect is one of the biggest travel spots Arizona has to offer: The Grand Canyon. We packed our bags, jumped in the car and got on 64E to see what this big hole had to offer.
As you can see from the sign on the left, Arizona is home to GIANT DEER (in addition to the jackalope, of course). I kept my eyes peeled for these freaks of nature during my drive, but sadly these elusive beasts were nowhere to be found.
After about an hour and a half drive, and a brief stop where we picked up our pass to the park (using my dad’s VIP AARP discount, FTW!), we took a drive around the canyon.
Now, let me say, the Grand Canyon is impressive as hell, there is no doubt about it. But I can see where people are coming from when they say Sedona is the better visit. Sedona has an edge over the canyon because Sedona has color, something the canyon is missing. Sure, its sheer size is amazing, but at there is no green to be found. And its all pretty much one shade of brown. To a small degree, the painted desert has slightly more to offer. That’s not to say the Grand Canyon is overrated, but considering what I had seen the days before it, I wasn’t blown away by it. That didn’t stop me from taking a thousand pictures, though.
That picture on the right, that there is the epitome of my trip. That’s Big Les groping at my father, as my aunt Fame completely ignores. Make no mistake, she knows what he’s doing, but after years of living with him, I suspect she just finds it easier to act like everything is normal. Is there any wonder why I used to love spending summers up there as a kid?
Like I said, impressive, sure, but the canyon just doesn’t have the beauty the other places I’d been on this visit. I’m still glad I went, though. I can say I’ve been. And if I didn’t go, that lizard would have been giving some other fool the evil eye.
After we saw all we wanted to see, we hopped back into the car and headed East, back in to the general direction of Albuquerque. We were in no hurry, but that’s where the flights were leaving from in a few days, so we figured we better start going in that general direction.
On the way, my pops and I decided to take a quick jump off the highway to check out Meteor Crater. We had seen the exit on the way out West a couple days before, and we figured what the hell, let’s stop. We paid our $15 and checked out “The first proven, best-preserved meteorite crater on Earth.” That sucker was impressive, and man I’m glad I stopped.
Okay, you can’t see it, but down in that white circle in the center stands a man (not a real man, a man cut out of wood) holding a 6′ tall American flag. The pic on the right with the people kind of gives you a perspective of how huge this crater is. It’s 4,000 feet across. I think you could have like 20 football fields fit into it. It was pretty spectacular.
The last stop we made for the evening was a gift shop just off the highway that offered A FREE PIECE OF PETRIFIED WOOD! (one per car).
Free is free, and they had dinosaurs and Indians outside on their lot. Honestly, how can you resist a store that has dinosaurs AND Indians on their parking lot. You can’t.
So while the rest of my family was in the store checking out the goods and getting their FREE PETRIFIED ROCK, I, like a child, went down to check out the T-Rex and Teepee. I would have certainly regretted it if I didn’t.
Soon enough we left, and headed for parts unknown. We had two more full days left on this jaunt, and we were going to make the most of them, come hell or high water.
Day four of the Southwest excursion was probably one of my favorite days out there, for two reasons, the first being Sedona.
Hitting the various tourist spots you always run into, well, other tourists. And once you got to talking to some of them, there was a general consensus that a visit to Sedona, Arizona was an absolute must if it’s in the general direction of where you were heading. I also heard from more than one person that Sedona is more impressive than the Grand Canyon — something which I tend to agree with, but that will come later.
We pulled off 40 west and jumped on Arizona 89A about 9 (or maybe 10) on the fourth day. This road was going to take us right down to Sedona, but it was most definitely the scenic route. At the first pull off, the first thing I noticed was a temperature board by the bathrooms. In Flagstaff the temperature was going to be about 75º. In Sedona, the temperature was going to be 93º. Flagstaff and Sedona are about 30 miles away from each other. A damn 20º difference in about 30 miles. That’s almost as insane as the view from that first stop.
I wish I remembered the name of that first stop, but it slips my mind. It was one of the memorable of the scenic overlooks we’ve hit, though. (So memorable I can’t remember what it was called, right?)
After spending a bit of time checking out the sites and the vendor’s wares (yes, there was a string of vendors set up at the overlook having some sort of flea market. Everything was 100% INDIAN CRAFTED and 100% AUTHENTIC. Everywhere we went had 100% INDIAN CRAFTED and 100% AUTHENTIC trinkets. Most of it looked the same. Some of it was the same thing from vendor to vendor. I think they all buy from the same warehouse.
As we headed south on 89A, we pulled off at various points to snap some pictures. Okay, I took most of the pictures. I was averaging about 100 pictures a day on this trip, but I figured the more pictures I took, the better chance I would have of a great one in the mix. This one on the left, while not necessarily a great picture, was one of the more cool ones (without me in it, of course) that I took.
When you are checking out the scenery, and you see a face in the cliffs, you have to take a picture. I think I have five more of this one, but I posted the best one.
I saw another shape in the cliff, and I snagged a picture of that one, too. However, on this one, no one I was with saw what I was seeing — which was kind of a horse.
If you look close (at least in my head), you can see the right eye (his left) of a horse, and the nostril. If you can’t see it, let me know and I’ll draw lines and shit with microsoft paint. It’s there. Trust me.
Moving on, 89A runs right smack into the town of Sedona, which was a gigantic tourist trap (not that that is a bad thing).
The best part of Sedona was Buck Thornton’s World of Jerky store. When I went on my Texas road trip a year or so ago, one thing I didn’t-buy-but-wish-I-had was some Alligator jerky I saw at a truck stop. Ever since that trip, I’d been half ass looking for it at random truck stops. At one point during this trip, I had asked someone who was selling jerky if they had Gator jerky, and my uncle overheard me and laughed at me, saying that people wouldn’t have it. Well, low and behold, the jerky store not only had Gator jerky (which, yes, I did buy and it was delicious), but also Ostrich, Salmon, Buffalo and Elk jerky. I picked up Ostrich jerky, too, but it wasn’t as good as the Gator. Big Les didn’t have much to say about the jerky. The particular brand I had was Buffalo Bob’s. If you ever see it, I highly recommend it.
The people we had spoken to about Sedona were right, if you are passing near, absolutely stop. Amazing views and a cool little town with friendly people makes the stop worth it. Another very cool thing about the town of Sedona is the damn view from it. I could get behind living in a town that has the scenery Sedona has.
We got back on the road and headed for Williams, Arizona, which would be the last stop for the evening. We were planning to go to the Grand Canyon the next day, and Williams is a town far enough away from the Grand Canyon to have reasonably priced hotel rooms, but not too far away where you have to drive forever to get there (not that I would have minded, I was in heaven with all the driving I was doing).
Williams is also a town that probably hasn’t changed much since the ’50s. Located right smack on Route 66, this was pure enjoyment for me. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do was drive 66 from beginning to end. While I didn’t do that this trip, we did a lot of traveling of that historic highway.
We got our rooms just on the edge of town, unpacked, and decided to grab a beer or two at a bar we had passed, then explore the town a little. The bar, Cruisers 66, was exactly the type of place I wanted to have a beer at, as it screamed Route 66, from the sign on down to the awesome atmosphere.
Now, by this time, I wasn’t the only one with a cowboy hat. My dad had mentioned that he liked mine, and I convinced him to buy one when we were in Sedona. I was getting a lot of goodhearted ribbing from my uncle about mine (which if it wasn’t the hat, it would have been something else, and that’s how my family is, anyway), and I think my pops knew he would be hearing it too. But, in the end, he cared as much as what Big Les was going to say as I did, and picked up his own hat in Sedona. Oh, holy hell, did Big Les go at him with guns blazing, and immediately coined my pops “The Sheriff.” And not only did he let my father know that he was The Sheriff, he let waiters, waitresses, salespeople…well, anyone that would listen, that my dad was The Sheriff and not to mess with him. And I was The Deputy. Good Lord did he have us laughing.
After a few beers (which were brewed on site, and quite tasty), we tooled around the (very small) town a bit, checking out the souvenir stores. Shockingly, I don’t think any of us bought anything this night. We eventually headed back to the hotel to call it at night, as the next day held another adventure.
This is a much belated post of day three of the 2009 Southwest Road Trip (parts one and two). I’m not even half way finished yet, so I’m going to try to get off my ass and finish it out. Yeah. We all know how that goes.
Anyways, I can’t remember where we stayed the evening of day two, but I’m confident we got up at the butt crack of dawn on day three. We got up early every morning on that trip. The old people I was with didn’t like to sleep in, they are terrified of missing something the last days of their lives. When my ass gets old, I’m just going to sleep. That’s why I’m working now, so I can sleep late when I retire. Damn old people.
We probably didn’t have a plan on where we were going that day, as long as we were heading further west. As I said before, we had general places of interest we wanted to see, but everything in between was bonus. So we packed up the rental and got the hell out of Dodge (or where ever the hell we were that morning).
One of the first things we saw on the road that morning was a damn cow right up on the edge of the road. I can’t remember what road it was, but it was a two laner. I also think think this was one of the times I was texting and driving and freaking the folks I was with out. I remember telling them something along the lines of “THERE’S NOT EVEN ANYONE DRIVING ON THIS ROAD!”
Then, of course, we come over a rise and that stupid cow was damn near in the street. I hate when that shit happens.
As you can see, the cow — like the one we saw the day before — had an attitude. Those cows in the Southwest don’t take kindly to strangers.
At one point that morning, we took one of the numerous side stops we had been making on the trip to stop at one of the souvenir stores that are littered throughout the Southwest. As we were coming out, I noticed a Continental Divide sign. I had flown over the Continental Divide numerous times in my life, but I never knew exactly what it was. Unless the sign is lying to me, it’s the point where the rain fall divides, and flows to the west to the Pacific and to the east to the Atlantic. THIS WAS A LEARNING TRIP, TOO, PEOPLE!
I think it was at this stop I bought one of the two Indian blankets I ended up with. (If you’ve ever gone to a boardwalk, you know exactly the blanket I’m talking about. They are like horse blankets, but not that itchy.) I thought I was getting a good deal at $7, because I had seen them going for about $12 at most other places we had stopped. At the time, I figured they weren’t going to get cheaper. I should have thought twice, since we were hitting about every shop on the road, after all.
About an hour after we passed the Continental Divide, we stopped in Gallup, New Mexico, for lunch at one of the destinations my uncle wanted to see. We weren’t quite hungry yet, so we dropped Big Les (my uncle) off at the casino, and me, Fame (my aunt) and my pops headed up to the Red Rock State Park to catch some of the sites.
Red Rock Park was okay, but not awe inspiring. In its defense, we only tooled around for an hour or so, and it was certainly pretty, but nothing really jumped out at me. Well, a prairie dog jumped out of his hole and eyeballed me when I stopped at the post office on the park’s site. These Southwest animals had attitude.
On the way out, I pulled the rental over the side and snagged a picture of something you just don’t see every day (at least on the East Coast).
Hell, I guess since grass is so sparse out there, you added some color wherever you could. I imagine it also makes it easier when giving someone directions to your house. “It’s the third blue roof on your left (just past the green one).”
After we left the park, we picked up Big Les and made our way to where he wanted to stop for lunch: The El Rancho Hotel. Apparently the hotel is famous mostly for the sheer amount of movie stars that stayed in it back in the day. It had a pretty impressive interior, and the food was decent (I had burritos with green chili, but their green chili could not touch the bowl I had in Old Town Albuquerque), but it really did nothing for me. Maybe if it was The Stanley in Colorado it would have. But no way I minded. I saw a piece of history I otherwise wouldn’t have.
Our stomachs full, we jumped into the car, headed west on Route 40. Within the hour, we crossed into Arizona, where we stopped at the Tomahawk Indian Store. Its claim to fame was it was the biggest teepee in Arizona. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, I was there. I know it may come as a shock, but I have a picture to prove it.
There were a couple things I had on my list to do when I got out to New Mexico and Arizona. That cowboy hat was one of them. I got a lot of shit for it from my uncle, including this conversation directly after I bought it from a Love’s Truck Stop (yeah, that hat is authentic redneck, bitches!).
“So what are you going to do when you get home?” He asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The hat, what are you going to do when you get home?”
“I don’t know what you mean?” I said, repeating myself.
“Are you going to wear it?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He laughed. I laughed. My friend Zig said, “You just replaced one hat your friends don’t like with another.” Zig is no doubt referring to my awesome blue bucket hat. My male friends make fun of my cowboy hat, my pretty lady friends compliment my cowboy hat. My male friends can go to hell. Pretty ladies overrule my stupid friends.
My dad liked my cowboy hat so much, he bought one, too. More on that later.
Moving along with the trip, after some dicking around (and buying another blanket, this time for five dollars (:mad:) , we headed onward.
After just over an hour on the road, we hit our final destination for the evening: The Petrified Forest. Part of the painted desert, this park was absolutely breathtaking. We didn’t have much time to go through it, but the time we spent was memorable. If I ever get back out there, that is one place I plan on returning to.
We spent about an hour in the park, driving through and pulling off at various scenic locations, each one seemingly better than the next.
A spectacular sunset ended the day, as we drove to the nearest town to find a place to crash for the evening. So far, this vacation was turning out pretty damn amazing.
If you are just joining us, Day One of the Southwest vacation is right here.
Day two of the Southwest vacation started a lot earlier than I would have wanted. The old folks I was with wanted to be on the road by 7, by I managed to talked them up to 8ish. My ideal time would have been closer to noon, but my father explained that old people know that they they don’t have much time left, so they appreciate the time they do. Whatever. When I’m old I’m going to sleep longer because I can.
We decided on Wednesday (day one) that on Thursday we would hit a place I always wanted to go to — Roswell (cue X-Files opening). It was the furthest east of any place we were going, so my Aunt Fame made the plan to do that first, then loop back around to our next destination (which was still up in the air) stopping whenever we felt like it. Sounded like a plan to me.
One place I love stopping at on road trips is truck stops. I don’t know why, but there’s something about a place where you can get fudge, coffee, t-shirts, jerky and other assorted tchotchke’s just appeals to me. Maybe it’s the whole Americana thing, maybe it’s just a place to get cool shirts. Either way, I stop when I see them, and I liked the look of this particular truck stop’s sign. Very ’50sish.
We were on interstate 285, which is just one long stretch of road between Albuquerque and Roswell. There aren’t many towns along this highway, nor there were many rest stops. We did see one, though, and while it was very clean, I suddenly didn’t need to go as bad as I thought I did.
After about four hours, we finally reached our my destination. Roswell, New Mexico. The Motherland of Geeks everywhere.
As you can see, the above sign is in divider of a relatively busy highway. That did not stop me from pulling over to the side of the road and getting pictures. I suspect the locals are use to jackasses like me, but I still got a few stares regardless. Not that I cared.
A lot of people have asked me if I enjoyed Roswell, because they all, well, know me. And I really did enjoy finally going there, but I also mentally prepared myself for what I was going to see, so I wasn’t at all disappointed, even though I could have very easily have been.
Here’s the thing about Roswell: It’s exactly what you expect it to be. The best way I can describe it (at least for some of you Marylanders) is imagine you’ve always wanted to go to the beach, and you finally got your chance in your mid-to-late 30s…when you went to Ocean City, Maryland.
Yes it’s cool and all and yes you will have a fantastic time, but if you had gone 10 to 15 years earlier, you would have had the time of your life.
That sounds bitter, but it’s not intended to be. I am incredibly happy that I finally got to see the town where the infamous ‘weather balloon’ fell, and after my father and I went through the town museum, I spent a lot of time poking around in the souvenir stores while my family waited patiently in the car (God bless them).
Roswell is a very cool small town, and if you are in the area I suggest you swing by it, if only just to say, “Yeah, I’ve been there.” The town completely embraces the mythology (no doubt to keep tourism business), the museum is pretty cool with a lot of newspaper articles and pictures and the lady that runs the welcoming center is top notch. Once she found out it was my first time to Roswell, she gave me pens and buttons and a goodie bag with all sorts of dorky things.
Even Walmart and McDonalds got into the game.
The aforementioned museum was (as said) pretty damn cool, but one of the best exhibits had to be the setup they had at the end. It was basically a big diorama of a doctor operating on an alien while a man-in-black stood watch.
Okay, so I’m painfully aware of the dork level this blog is at right now (CODE RED, BITCHES!), so we’ll move on.
Eventually, I saw everything I was going to see and bought everything I was going to buy, so it was time to hit the road. And with destinations unknown, we got in the car with a halfass plan. For me, this is always the best kind of plan to have when you are on vacation. Without a firm plan, you are open to see more than you may have originally had in mind. To be honest, I can’t even remember exactly where we were headed. We just jumped on 70 west, in the general direction of Arizona.
There are two things I loved about driving this trip. The first is the scenery. While there is a lot of brown (as far as the land) in both New Mexico and Arizona, I noticed that just as I was getting board with the view, something would slightly change (a mountain or hills would bust out, for example) to keep things from other getting boring.
The other thing I loved were the drivers. Hands down, no contest, New Mexico and Arizona drivers are the best I’ve ever seen. Period. For one simple reason: The know how to properly use the left lane. Not once in my week trip did I have a problem with some dumbass in the left lane pacing the car on its right. Not once. And I drove a LOT that week.
Somewhere along the line, we got off 70W and onto 380W to head through Capitan and Lincoln.
Capitan is where Smokey the Bear was born (and now rests) and Lincoln was the last jail that held Billy the Kid.
Most of the joints were closed by the time we arrived in town, but we did creep through at a slow pace and I did see the Lincoln Count Courthouse. We didn’t stop, though. If they were open, they probably would have. I plan on watching Young Guns again here pretty soon to make up for not stopping.
We did, however, stop at the Smokey The Bear Memorial. It was a shockingly small little thing just off 380, but it was a picture opportunity.
It had a plaque with a bunch of words on it, but I didn’t take a long time studying that. That’s school stuff, and I wasn’t really interested. So I got my picture and I left. We had places to go and things to see.
I can’t remember where we ended up staying the night on day two. I think it was another small town, but I don’t remember for sure. I’m pretty certain that was the rest of the cool stuff for that day, because there aren’t any more pictures.
Oh yeah, there are two more. Some cow gave us the stink eye.
Oddly, while this was the first time a cow gave us a dirty look, it wasn’t the last.
Madrid is a quaint little town about an hour northeast of Albuquerque. Populated by artists and hippies, there is a lot to see in this small town, as it seems every house on its main street is an artist’s shop. I’m not big into art, by any stretch, but Madrid had enough variety to keep me interested.
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