Stopover - Painted Desert/Petrified Forest

On our way from Albuquerque to Flagstaff we made three stops, the first being to the Petrified Forest National Park. The park consists of a 28 mile drive with pull-offs along the way where you can stop and take pictures.

The first 6 miles of the drive was through the Painted Desert. It was just pure stunning landscape full of a million colors which change as the sun hits it at different angles and as shadows cross from the clouds. It was beautiful!



Then we traveled a few more miles down the road and arrived at a section that was similar to the painted desert only the colors were much darker and more gray. Scattered among the dark dunes were petrified wood fragments. We're talking 225 million year old fossilized wood that pre-dates dinosaurs so it's kinda neat.

Random Thoughts - Hair

We've posted a pic of the extremely rare dread rat tail. I also captured a not so rare mullet in the Carlsbad, New Mexico Chili's parking lot.


Hot!

Stopovers - Santa Fe

We got so much done our first afternoon in Albuquerque, we decided to spend half a day checking out Santa Fe.

After getting lost walking around (reading maps are not Sara's strong suit) we found the plaza and dodged a few rain drops by ducking in and out of the stores and galleries. It seems like a very cool artist town with beautiful adobe architecture. After doing some shopping (been doing a lot of that on this trip) back on the highway to drive back to Albuquerque (I know I've typed that word a lot, but it's still a really hard word to remember how to spell correctly).

No picture we've taken so far can do New Mexico justice, but we've tried anyway.


Tomorrow we travel to Arizona with stops in between!

Albuquerque, NM

We wasted no time after arriving in Albuquerque. As soon as we checked into our hotel we were on the move to see some things. Our first activity was a visit to the National Atomic Museum which chronicled the invention and dropping of the atomic bomb and also highlights the good things nuclear power is used for today. It was a very neat museum, with some cool exhibits, but I have to admit it was a little over my head with the physics stuff.

We still had some time to kill before we were hungry again so we went to the Rattlesnake Museum with great trepidation on Sara's part. Note to Max, Jeremy and Liv: Yup your cousin Sara saw live rattlesnakes! They were all behind glass and I was totally afraid of them. They moved and watched us and freaked Sara out, but she earned herself a certificate of bravery from the museum.

Afterwards, another snow cone. The official snack of the Sara/Gale 2008 Roadtrip. Then a little exploring of some of the shops in the Old Town section of Albuquerque. Time to eat!

We stopped into the Church Street Cafe for some New Mexican cuisine and it was delicious! We befriended our server Marcus who gave us free food (we'll be adding that to a Random Thoughts Food Edition post soon) and invited us to see his punk band's first performance that night. So after dinner and relaxation in the hotel we made our way to Atomic Cantina to watch Marcus' band and we had an amazing time. Marcus rocks in many ways! Bandmate Landon not exactly rocking the shiny purse though.


Our second day in Albuquerque was spent checking out another one of our nation's historic monuments, the Petroglyph National monument. At this site there are three relatively quick and easy trails where you can see tons of rock etchings dating way back. It was really cool. Also a little yuck when you see this amazing rock etching right next to an "Irene <3 Chavez" graffitti. I mean seriously?


We relaxed back at the hotel and then walked around the main streets of Albuquerque some more. It's a quiet town during the weekdays, but it definately has a great energy about it. We're digging Albuqueque for sure!

Stopovers - Roswell, NM

This trip is not all about going from city to city. We do make the occasional stop along the way.

One of our stops was on the way from Carlsbad to Albuquerque. We decided to grab breakfast in Roswell, New Mexico. Made famous by shows like The X-Files and some rancher dude who found a UFO on his property.

We didn't plan on stopping here long, but the UFO museum and research center was calling our name.


I just think it's awesome that a tiny New Mexican town built a huge tourist industry on an alien sighting. Even the lamposts were alien heads. We played right into their touristy hands, they probably saw us coming from miles away. Fun town!

Carlsbad, New Mexico

We've now traveled from Texas (it's a big state, thought we'd never reach the border) to beautiful New Mexico. Our first stop was Carlsbad, a quiet town with some awesome nature.

Upon arriving we checked out the town a bit and found this really small beach. Sort of Carlsbad's version of the Riverwalk. They had sand, lifeguards, boats and kids having fun. We decided that we needed some relaxation time there later on.


Before we left New York we looked into drive-in movie theaters along our route since Sara had never been to one. It seemed like a popular thing to do in quiet Carlsbad so we watched "Stepbrothers" at the Fiesta Drive-in and it was very funny. Although a rainstorm threatened in the distance (it's pretty flat land so you can see rain storms from miles away) it was a beautiful night.

The next day was time for some of that nature exploring. We went to Carlsbad Caverns. We were a little nervous about the hike because it kept being described as strenuous, but we were taking pictures and taking our time so it was just fine. We descended into the cave about 800 ft. and it was SPECTACULAR! Stalagtites and stalagmites and pools of water so clear it looked like glass. Beautiful! Our pictures didn't come out great because it's a cave and it's dark, you know how it goes, but I encourage anyone who gets the chance to visit. It's awesome! With the help of our audio tour we even learned a few things. For example there is bacteria that live in the cavern that eats rocks and is now being learned also eats cancer cells. Also, country music legend Randy Travis did the opening for the audio tour so Sara's Dad might be happy to know that he's getting work. The best part about the Carlsbad Caverns is that you hike down 800 ft, but they have elevators to take you back up.


BTW, Carlsbad the town is essentially closed for business on Sunday's. Not a lot of anything open. Lame!

After spending most of the day in the cave, we decided to relax on that beach we found yesterday. Fabulous stuff! Then we watched the Olympics, that Phelps kid is something else eh?

San Antonio, TX

First and foremost, all of tonight's posts come courtesy of a wonderful computer in the lobby of Hotel Blue in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not only does this place have fresh baked cookies in the lobby and Tempurpedic matresses, but I don't have to leave to update the blog at some mangy internet cafe. Hotel Blue is good stuff!

Anyway, let me take you way back a few days to our days in San Antonio, Texas. It probably should've disturbed us that no one at our hotel knew anywhere to get breakfast or even how to get to the Alamo. How do you not know that, you're a hotel in San Antonio! *rolleyes*


The thing about San Antonio that everyone should know if you're going to visit there is that you will end up paying between $6-10 for parking everywhere (and there is no re-entry). If we had this knowledge before we started the day, we would've planned things very differently. Or at least tried to figure out the public transportation system.

Was it the2manadvantage or Ozzy Osbourne who pee'd on the Alamo? I dunno, but after visiting we had similar thoughts. We were prepared to be underwhelmed so to speak. We knew it was the church and like a wall or something still around. But we were still disappointed. I'm not sure if it was all the unruly children running around (note to kids, historical sights are great to visit with your family, you can learn something, see really cool things like knives and guns and stuff and have a great time too! But you really need to listen to your parents always, otherwise it won't be so much fun for you or anyone else), or the heat or maybe we were just crankypants that particular day, but it wasn't so awesome. The fact that the powers that be (Daughters of Texas or whoever that runs the Alamo now) decided to build a giant gift shop to look like all the other real true Alamo structures to the point where Gale took about 35 pictures of it like it was something historic was annoying (and kinda funny). The fact that almost everything I learned as a kid about the battle of the Alamo was pretty much myth was annoying. So we were annoyed. However, we did enjoy the "Alamo Superfan" who worked in the cathedral and wore a flashy red vest and while we stood in a line from hell to see two rooms of random stuff, encouraged us with great fervor to stand around a scale model "and surround the fort like the troops did." He was a bright spot, so was seeing Davey Crockett's vest and the famous Bowie knife. That stuff was neat so I'll give the Alamo props for that.


Afterwards we drove outside of the downtown area (keep in mind that whole parking thing again) to visit two of four Spanish missions. We saw the San Jose and Concepcion ones and they were beautiful and very well restored. In fact they are still used and functioning as places to worship to this day. It was funny to find a coke machine in one of the rooms in San Jose. Wha?



We were pretty hot and tired and still a little annoyed at this point so we stopped to eat at the Buckhorn Saloon which claims to be the oldest saloon or something. It's certainly the trip's best tourist traps. hee hee! It had lots of dead animals on the walls and some odd museum. We skipped the museum because we had already seen a two-headed calf in Austin.

After lunch we parked somewhere else to go shopping at Market Square which had lots of cool handmade Mexican crafts and touristy souvenirs and more snow cones. I've eaten more snow cones on this trip than I have in my entire life.

After the market we went in search of parking yet again to check out the Riverwalk. I have to say, the Riverwalk is a super cute "river" (I put that in quotes because I believe it's a diverted canal or something man made, but whatever, I dunno, river works for me) that runs through town with paths along either side and cafes and restaurants and shopping up and down it. It's definately a tourist trap and is full of mall stores and a Hooters and what have you, but it's a cute tourist trap. There are even boat rides that go up and down the river.

So, to sum up San Antonio was not really our cup of tea. We might just be negative nancy's, but we were left kind of eh on this city.