Tidbits from our Travels

We've hit the major stops along the way of our trip to California, but we didn't really talk about the trip there. And here's the remedy.

We actually started our three day journey one day late due to the movers. They arrived very late, midnight in fact, and weren't done loading the truck until 5:45 am, much to the chagrin of our neighbors. But what could we do? We needed to be out of there the afternoon before. So after staying up all night, although Christina did take a 2 hour nap in the car while they were loading, we set off.

Jacob started driving, but it came very clear very fast (40 minutes or so) that he was not going to make it. So Christina took over, and basically drove the rest of the way to our first destination, Carlsbad Caverns.

Jacob did take over for a little bit. Much to our surprise, the speed limit was like none we had ever seen.


We were crossing the Texas/New Mexico border, and Christina tried (and failed) to take a picture of the welcome sign. Mind you, this was in a speeding car and using our camera of total greatness.

After our tour, we needed a place to stay, so we decided to stay in Roswell. It was really a neat little town, and it was a shame that we were so tired we couldn't enjoy it. But here are some pictures of the quirkiness that makes Roswell fun. (Now just a disclaimer, it was night time, and my camera does not do well at night.)



And then we were off again. We didn't stay in any other real neat places like Roswell, but we did manage to get some nice pictures of nowhere in particular. Take a look.


Here's an attempt at the New Mexico/Arizona border.


Here's an attempt at the Arizona/California border.


It's sad to say that in all of the states we passed through, we weren't able to get one decent picture of the road signs. It became a joke whenever one came up. "Whup...missed that one...oh...car's in the way...whoa...sun's too bright..." Oh well, it was entertaining trying.

The road was long, tiring, but ultimately, a lot of fun. We had many new experiences with each other that we wouldn't trade for anything. You can't say that about a plane ride.

The Grand Canyon

Our final stop was to the Grand Canyon. When we arrived, we had a little trouble finding a place to park. We ended up parking on the side of the road, where several other people had parked their cars. We had to walk through a little bit of woods to get to the rim of the Grand Canyon, but when we did, we snapped a picture.

It amazed us how much the Grand Canyon looked like the pictures, but the pictures don't really give you any idea how vastly large it is.

We knew the canyon was made by the Colorado River, but we had some trouble seeing it. Here's the picture of the very tiny piece we did see.

More scenic views from the rim.

More from the rim.

Jacob really wanted to go on a trail down into the Canyon, but we were not really prepared for such a trek. The map and newspaper they gave us at the entrance said that you need to make sure you have plenty of water and snacks for even a one hour trail, neither of which we had. They also warned that it could get up to 100+ degrees once you were down into the Canyon. Still, Jacob wanted to go. So we bought some liters of water and some snacks, and since we didn't have a backpack or bag to carry this stuff in, we bought a reuseable grocery bag, which Jacob carried on his shoulder...very woodmansy, huh? We didn't have too much time, since we still had to make it to Los Angeles that night, so we gave ourselves 1 hour to go down the trail and the approximately 2 hours to go back up.

Here's a picture from partially down in the canyon.

Jacob's dad requested that we get our picture taken by someone else, and when someone offered to do it, we couldn't pass it up. Christina's wearing jeans because it was much cooler at the top of the canyon, and she didn't realized that she was going to be hiking when she got there.

Another view from partially down the canyon.

This sign was kinda funny, so Christina wanted a picture of herself trying to mimic it.

There's a lodge on this cliff, but you can't see it very well in the picture. You can stay at that lodge if you plan on being at the Grand Canyon for several days. The ticket you buy at the gate is good for a week, so there must be a reason.

Jacob, king of the mountain, er, canyon.

This was a weird squirrel we found while hiking down. It was soooooo noisy. It was standing on its hind legs and making this cheeping sound over and over again. But it was still kinda cute.

This was about how far we got down the mountain before we had to turn around; we just didn't have enough time. Christina told Jacob we could come back and try again, this time with proper supplies. The trip back up wasn't too bad, and it didn't take us as long as we thought it would. It actually took less time to go up then to go down, but that was mostly because Christina was leading and she was ready to eat lunch. If you know her, you know you don't get in the way of her and her meals.

It was a good trip, but it would have been nice to not be so rushed. There was much more to see, but we just didn't have time. It's only a day's trip away from us now, so maybe we'll make it back there soon. We'll see.

The Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest... Stubble

Our next stop, which was one that we made on the fly, was to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. We entered the park, and at our first opportunity to take pictures, my camera died. I needed new batteries, and I didn't have any more. So we had to promptly turn around, leave the park (much to the surprise of the park attendant), and buy some batteries. Luckily, there was little shop at the park that sold batteries. So a few minutes later, we reentered the park and took in the sights, this time with working camera in hand.

The trail we went on is approximately 26 miles long, and it starts in the painted desert. Don't worry, this was all by car. We were not walking this. We're not crazy!
This was the very first picture we took once we got there. Pretty colorful, huh?

More color from the painted desert.

We had to throw ourselves in some pictures, too, so here's Christina.

And Jacob acting goofy.

The next stop on the trail was part of historic Route 66. The road itself wasn't there, but there were some telephone polls that followed were the road used to be. This is also where our picture for the top of the blog was taken.

The telephone poles.

Next up was some ruins of an old settlement. The ruins weren't much, but there was some hieroglyphs.
This is the barely remains of an building of some sort, probably a home.


The pictures were pretty entertaining. This one has a bird that seems to be either eating a man on a frog. Not sure which.

This one shows some neat patterns, and there's a cross to the right as well.

This one is pretty fun. That face just cracked us up.

We did see one bit of wildlife.
This was as far as our camera could zoom in, so you probably can't see it too well. But Jacob thought they had funny noses.

And finally, we made it to the Petrified Forest. But Christina was pretty disappointed cause it was no forest at all. It was more like a collection of stubble. See for yourself.
That doesn't look like a forest to us.

Here's an up close view of a petrified log.

Christina trying to look happy with a piece of old wood.

Jacob and a pile of it.

A particularly colorful piece of wood.

By the time we got to the petrified forest part of the trail, we were ready to leave. It was quite a long way, and it took a long time to look at everything. And since we had a tight schedule, we did not look at everything the park had to offer. But the hieroglyphs were really cool. There was a part that had a whole bunch of them, but our camera is simply not good enough to be able to get a picture of it.

All in all, though, it was an interesting experience; one for the checklist.

Carlsbad ain't so bad

On our pilgrimage from Texas to Los Angeles, we made the effort to stop at some national monuments. The first one on the trip was Carlsbad Caverns.

We arrived there shortly after 3:30, which meant that we could not go in the natural entrance, but we were able to visit the cavern by means of a seventy story elevator down.

It was quite dark and quite cold in the cavern. So we tried our best to get some photos, but we only had my little camera, which isn't so good. Nevertheless, we tried, and here's what we saw, only you have to imagine it in at least 10 times more splendor.


They called the one on the top the lion's tail, but we thought it looked more like the cave's uvula. The one on the bottom is a column, which extends from ceiling to floor.

The one on the top is just a collection of different formations. The one on the bottom shows some of the detailed dripping formations.


The top one is a little creepy but cool. It's our attempt to get a picture of a cave within a cave. The bottom one is our attempt to show some of the vastness of the cave. It really was a giant hole in the ground which our pictures do no justice of showing.

Some more formations.


And some more.

My camera really did struggle, but hopefully you can see a little bit of what we saw. The loop we took around the cavern was about a mile long, so there was much to see. We thought it was interesting, but if you go, make sure you have a jacket. About 3/4 of the way through, you stop focusing on what you're seeing and only focusing on how incredibly cold you are.