Day 7, Fri, May 14 - Flagstaff, AZ, to Vegas, baby!

Having overloaded on the majesty of a natural wonder, the Grand Canyon, it was time to head to a man-made wonder, Las Vegas. But first, the man-made wonder that made the man-made wonder of Vegas possible - Hoover Dam.

The travel from Arizona to Vegas took us along I-40 to Kingman, where we cut up and over on highway 93. The landscape got a little craggier looking, and as we got closer and closer to Hoover Dam, there was more and more construction on the roadway, with many parts funneling down to one lane in both directions. (The first shot is for Debbie.)

Hoover Dam is really neat. The first time I went (1994), I hadn't realized that you could actually drive over the actual dam. It's a pretty spectacular sight. On I-40, before you get on to highway 93, there are signs every few feet (it seems) that say "no commercial trucks," "no trailers," basically only cars are allowed across the dam, and all vehicles are subject to inspection. After 9/11, Homeland Security determined that the dam could be a significant target for terrorists, and so there is now a vehicle checkpoint before you're allowed to cross it.

The last funneling point wasn't for construction purposes, it was the inspection station, so we made our way through the checkpoint and over the crest of the hill, switch-backing our way down to one of the upper parking lots that overlook Lake Mead and the four intake towers. Pretty damn impressive even from this distance. We walked down through the lower parking areas and onto the dam itself. Looking out to the north at the intake towers and Lake Mead, we could see the huge canyon and mountains, with lots of boats and ski-doos. Very pretty, but really... the big show is on the other side of the road.

We walked along that way, crossing over into Nevada, and to the monuments to the workers who gave their lives to make this piece of magnificence. We took the escalator down to the lower level of the Visitor Center where we signed up for a power plant tour. (After 9/11, they stopped giving interior tours of the dam for a while; they recently started doing them again, after installing metal detectors and scanning machines like they have at airports.)

We watched the movie about the making of the dam, then followed our guide into the bowels of the beast. He first took us to one of the diversion tubes they had to build to divert the river while they were making the dam - a 2-year process, necessary before they could even start work on the dam itself. He then took us to one of the observation stations where we could see 7 of the turbines, spinning away, making a bajillion kilo-gigo-megawatts of power for California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Mexico. We made our way back up to the observation platform on the top of the Visitor Center, and here's where you really get a feel for the magnitude of the structure. Holy cow (I said that a lot here, too.)

The bridge in the photos is the new by-pass road, being built so that they can stop traffic from driving over the dam. This will eliminate the need for the inspection stations (unless you're actually going to visit the dam itself) that clog up traffic so much. The bridge and bypass is scheduled to open in November of this year; a pretty amazing feat in itself.

After gawking at the dam for about 2 hours, we hiked back up to the car and joined the conga line to continue on to Las Vegas, the man-made wonder made possible by the Hoover Dam.

We made our way around McCarren Airport and entered Las Vegas Blvd ("The Strip") at its far south end. Normally, we'd just bypass the Strip to avoid traffic, but we wanted to get a picture of the famous Vegas sign. We toodled up the Strip, on the lookout for our hotel's entrance, which we had heard was poorly marked, and was pleasantly surprised to see it clearly identified. We pulled in, had the valet deal with the car, and made our way in to Aria at City Center.

City Center is MGM's newest endeavor on the Strip. It takes up the entire space between Bellagio and Monte Carlo, on what used to be the Holiday Inn Boardwalk property and a skanky strip mall with a dirt patch out back that used to be used for helicopter tours. Now, it is home to 4 hotels (3 of which are open), some residential units, and grossly upscale shopping (think Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, etc.). It's shiny and glitzy and glassy, with design elements that are Frank Gehry-esque - random angles and curves, elements that look like they won't work together but do. It's so big that, like the Grand Canyon, it was difficult to get a good shot of the whole thing.

Our room was electronically programmed so that when you walked in, the curtains opened, the lights came on, and the TV turned on to a user controller panel. Because we got a special rate, we overlooked the back of the hotel, which aimed us towards the western mountains and Vdara, one of the other City Center hotels. We could also see the City Center tram, which goes from Monte Carlo at the south end, to Bellagio on the north.

We played with the room controls for a bit (not very intuitive, even for us comfortable-with-technology types), then made our way down to scope out the casino. Very pretty, very modern feeling... and packed! The place was mobbed! Did someone say there was a recession? Not here, not this weekend! As we took the tram to Bellagio then walked to Caesar's Palace, we kept saying, "look at all the people!" When we were there around this time last year, there were enough tourists, but it was definitely not to capacity. This time, crowds, crowds, everywhere.

We walked to Caesar's, then over to the Venetian, then back to our own hotel, where we had dinner at the 24-hour restaurant, Cafe Vettro. Quite yum. We rested a bit, then wandered back outside again, this time taking in the nighttime neon and gathering all my player's club cards (which I had left in the car which was now safely valeted). I shot my gambling wad for the day and we headed back to the hotel - with the glorious thought in our heads that we would be staying here for TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW! This felt like an unbelievable luxury after "hotel hopping" for the previous week!

Tomorrow, more Vegas!

Day 6, Thurs, May 13 - Gallup, NM, to Flagstaff, AZ

We got on the road fairly early (for us) after a breakfast at Crackerbarrel. Our plan was to get to Flagstaff between 12:30 and 1:00, so we could check in to the hotel (if they had our room ready) and then scoot over to the Grand Canyon.

A continuation of what we were seeing in western New Mexico, eastern Arizona's viewscape was different, with lots of big rocks and beautiful colors. It was a very pretty ride, slowly changing from rocks to scrubby trees to big trees.

During our ride we looked at our phones and saw that it was an hour earlier than we expected. We had forgotten that because Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time, when we crossed the border, we gained another hour! We pulled into the Fort Tuthill Air Force Recreation Area at 11:30. Oh joy, oh rapture! We had another hour to enjoy the Grand Canyon! Luckily the hotel had a room for us (no problem, actually; this is their shoulder season and there were only 6 other people checking in!), so we dropped our bags and headed out.

It took an hour to drive from Fort Tuthill (just outside Flagstaff) to the South Rim via Williams on I-40. The drive would have been boring, were it not for the frantic texts and phone calls with the title company back in Florida, trying desperately to get a payoff amount for our aunt's mortgage on her condo from Wachovia Bank. Good heavens, you'd think that when you're trying to give a bank over $30,000, they wouldn't fight you so much... well, that's another story.

Anyway, except for the banking issues, the ride was uneventful along the road north from Williams. The landscape was unremarkable, with no hint that there would soon be a big hole in our way. I could easily see how the first people to travel this way could have been lulled into thinking their passage north or west would have been easy.

I found myself actually getting more and more excited as we got to the town outside the park and then finally into the park itself. We parked the car at the South Rim visitor center - still having no idea that there's a gaping hole in store - and followed the crowd along the detour to the Rim Trail (it's being upgraded).

Once I stepped onto the main part of the trail, all I said for the next two hours was some variation on "wow!" or "holy cow!" For those of you who haven't been there yet, you must go; there are simply no words to describe its beauty and no photographs that can capture the feeling. For those of you who have gone, I think you probably know what I'm talking about. I was catching flies with my jaw dropping and mouth gaping so much.

We walked the Rim Trail to the Havasupi station and a little bit beyond to the west, then backtracked and went as far as we could go to the east (this was where the trail was being upgraded). We walked out to the promontories with little ledges (and fences) and pretty much just stared at all the beauty. We used the binoculars in the Havasupi station to find 2 hikers on a trail 'waaaaaaay down below, little specks even with the binoculars; virtually unfindable without them.

We sat, we looked, we walked, we sat, we took pictures, we looked. We were there for about an hour-and-a-half, then got back in the car and left the park. We didn't back-track the same way we came, but instead headed east, to visit the Desert View station and exit the east gate to connect with highway 89.

The Desert View station has a tall building, the Watchtower, which was built, not by the native Americans (although that's what it was designed to look like), but by a souvenir company specifically to entice tourists! You can climb up to the top of this structure and get an even further view of the surrounding area, which had a totally different look and feel from the South Rim. To the east, it was relatively flat; the Painted Desert. To the north, you could more easily see the Colorado River, which looked far wider than it was at the South Rim. The vegetation was different and there was more of it. I really enjoyed this different look, too.

The ride east was more scenic than the ride north to the Rim was. Vast fields, broken up by deep canyons, and scattered houses on the edges of cliffs overlooking magnificent vistas. And since we were on Indian reservation land (Navajo and Hopi, I think), every scenic vista parking area had booths with native art and jewelry.

Once back on the main road (highway 89) heading back to Flagstaff, we finally realized that we were hungry - we had been so excited to get to the Grand Canyon, we hadn't eaten since breakfast in Gallup - so we scouted out a local Mexican restaurant, Kachina, in downtown Flagstaff. Pretty good, with tasty margaritas. Back at the hotel, we did our final load of laundry on the trip, and crashed pretty hard into bed.

Tomorrow, day 7, heading to Vegas, baby!

Day 5, Weds, May 12 - Amarillo, TX, to Gallup, NM

Holy cow. What I remember about this part of the drive is the wind. If we thought it was windy when we got close to Amarillo, it was nothing compared to how windy is was from Amarillo to Gallup. I actually had a little cramp in my hand from hanging on to the steering wheel so tight. I did the first shift driving; when we switched after about 3 hours, I think Kelly thought I was exaggerating a bit... he learned quickly that I wasn't! It was so windy, that while I was a passenger, when I would normally knit, I couldn't. The car was swaying and rocking so badly that I wasn't able to knit comfortably. I was simply bracing myself against the side of the car.

The first part of the drive out of Amarillo was pretty much like the bulk of the drive from Fort Worth to Amarillo. Ranches, fields, silos, cows, trains, wind. Besides the wind, though, one of the high points of the Amarillo-Gallup leg was Route 66. There are still parts of the old Route 66 that are labeled Business-40 and perfectly driveable. One stretch takes you through Aiden, NM, and the Midpoint Cafe - the half-way point on Route 66 between Chicago and San Bernadino.

The other high point was the part of the Continental Divide that crosses I-40 and Route 66 in New Mexico. It was here, too, that we realized the landscape had changed again, and started looking like the "painted desert" pictures I had seen. Very dramatic, very pretty. Still too windy to be fun, though.

Gallup is pretty much a way-station for travelers. Not much going on except chain hotels and chain restaurants. Our chain hotel (Quality Inn) was sandwiched between one chain (Applebee's, where we had dinner) and another (Crackerbarrel, breakfast the next morning). (Yeah, but I like Crackerbarrel's blueberry pancakes...)

Before we started on our journey, Chris and Kelly Ann and June had told us about the deal that the Crackerbarrel has with audio books. Apparently you can buy audio books in one Crackerbarrel for a tiny price (about $3.50), listen to them, then return them to any other Crackerbarrel and get most of your money back. We deliberately didn't get any before we left California, figuring instead that we'd get a few books in Florida before we left. Turns out that there aren't a lot of books on TAPE any more. Welcome to the digital age; all the audio books we found were CDs, and Belinda doesn't have a CD player. Even the Crackerbarrel in New Port Richey only had one cassette book left. We picked it up and had been listening to it intermittently, but it was almost over.

Our Gallup hotel was right next to a Crackerbarrel, so when we ducked in for breakfast, we found their audio book collection - alas, all CDs again. Until the check-out lady pointed us to the sale bin at our feet - filled with tape books! We picked up 3 more so we'd have a supply.

Tomorrow - Gallup, NM, to Flagstaff, AZ!

Day 4, Tuesday, May 11 - Ft. Worth to Amarillo, TX

Well, I'm here to tell you, eastern Texas looks nothing like northwestern Texas and the panhandle. This was another case of the landscape changing so subtly that you don't realize it. Well that, and the fact that the Dallas/Ft.Worth Metroplex (that's what they call it) was plopped in the middle of our trip. But anyway, it was apparent as we made our way catty-corner up to I-40, that this part of the state was the part most folks talk about. Ranches and wheat fields, wheat fields and silos, silos and cows, and very very flat. (Pictures of western Texas tomorrow.)

We passed a lot of meat processing plants, complete with the meat about to be processed milling about in pens outside. We passed a lot of grain silos. We also passed an awful lot of trains hauling coal. Probably "clean coal." It looked clean from road, anyway.

The closer we got to Amarillo, the windier it got. We're both used to heavy cars, Kelly especially, since he's got one of the bigger cars BMW makes. Belinda is a 1998 Toyota Corolla, and despite all our luggage and the stuff we were bringing back with us, we were still hanging on to the steering wheel with a death grip.

We joined I-40 in Amarillo, where we promptly slowed to a crawl, slow enough to read the signs advertising The Big Texan, a well-known steakhouse. Besides the billboards, we had seen this place on various Food and Travel Channel shows. Their enticement is that they have a 72-oz steak dinner that's free. Free, that is, if you can finish the entire dinner in one hour. They also advertised a free limo ride to the restaurant, so after we checked in to our room, we called for a pick-up. "Don," our former-cowboy-turned-limo-driver ("I told mah wife, if I'da knowed how easy it was to make money in the city, I'da quit ranching a long time ago!") picked us up in a classic Caddy-lac limousine, complete with horns on the hood! Talk about driving around in style!

When we arrived at the restaurant, there was one guy who was making the free-dinner attempt. They sit the attemptees on a raised dais with a clock ticking down the time. Let me tell you, a 72-oz steak is big. Huge. Humongous. And the deal isn't that you simply finish the steak; oh, no no no, that would be too easy. No, you have to finish the steak, the salad, the baked potato, the fried shrimp appetizer and the dinner rolls, maybe even some beans and cole slaw for good measure. All in an hour. The guy who was there when we visited was a skinny dude, part of a group traveling cross-country by motorcycle, who were there cheering him on. He didn't have a chance at finishing the steak, much less the entire meal. He probably drew the short straw in the group and was 'volunteered' to be the one to do it! After his hour was up, he sat at their table, which was next to ours, and proceeded to simply stretch out and rub his tummy. He looked uncomfortable. (In the picture, he's almost at the 30-minute mark.)

The place was one big room with the wait staff in cowboy boots and gingham shirts, and traveling cowboys come to your table to sing you a song (we got "The Yellow Rose of Texas"). It was loud, it was fun, and the food was pretty good. When we made our way back to the limo pick-up area, Don was the next driver in line, so he took us back to the hotel, telling us about the people who have attempted the freebie. He told us of big linebacker-types who barely make a dent in the meat, and petite "little ladies" who finish the whole deal in 45 minutes. Joey Chestnutt, the competition eater from San Jose (he's the one who unseated the Japanese guy who used to win the Nathan's hot dog eating contests) ate the meal in just over 8 minutes. My stomach aches just thinking about eating it over the course of 8 hours; I can't imagine doing it in an hour, and 8 minutes is just painful.

Back to the hotel, then tomorrow it's on to Day 5, Wednesday, May 12, Amarillo, TX, to Gallup, NM.

Day 3, Mon., May 10 - Vicksburg, MS, to Ft. Worth, TX

Well, just over the bridge from Vicksburg is Louisiana, and we stayed on I-20 alllllll the way across the state. Skirted around Shreveport (a larger city than I thought it was) and on into Texas, the yee-ha state.

The big event for this leg of the trip was meeting Kelly's son (Christopher) and his wife (Nancy) for dinner in Dallas. I last met Chris in 1996 at our USF graduation ceremony; I think the last time Kelly saw him was 5 or 6 years ago when he came out to California for something like a dentist or eye doctor visit. The exciting part about meeting Chris is that he's just started going to culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu, in Dallas, and his love for what he's doing and learning is showing. He was practically beaming about it the whole time. We had a lovely dinner at the local BJ's Brewhouse with him and Nancy, until he had to get Nancy home so he could go on to school that night.

We continued on to the Navy Lodge at Fort Worth, but not before getting lost and finding a federal penitentiary instead. We finally found the east gate entrance to the Fort Worth facility, and despite seeing 3 signs that said the gate was open, it was closed. We maneuvered our way back to the main road and on to the main gate, where we were directed to the Lodge.

What a surprise! This building was relatively new, maybe 3 or so years old, on a lake and next to a landing strip - where we watched (but mostly heard) some cool jets take off and land. The room was a mini-suite with sitting area, kitchen, and balcony, where we saw a beautiful sunset. We also watched the TV closely because there were tornado warnings for the area, but the storms stayed north of us.

Luckily, the jets weren't running at night, so the evening was quiet and peaceful.

On to Day 4, Ft. Worth to Amarillo, TX!

Day 2, Sun., May 9 - Pensacola, FL, to Vicksburg, MS

We knew that the drive from Pensacola to Vicksburg wouldn't be as long a drive as from New Port Richey to Pensacola, but we still didn't want to dawdle too much. That is, you see, until we found out that the National Museum of Naval Aviation was literally right across the street from the Navy Lodge on board Pensacola NAS.

I like planes, but Kelly's a real airplane buff, especially fighter planes from a war, any war, pick a war. This museum - did I mention it was right there in front of us? - had 150 planes in its collection. There was no way we didn't visit, but had to put a limit on the amount of time we could spend. Anything less than 4 hours was going to hurt, but we agreed to an hour-and-a-half. We had to leave by 10:30 AM.

We walked in - did I mention, also, that it's free? - set our phone alarms for 10:30, and started wandering. Holy cow, they had some great planes with lots of descriptions and informational placards all around. I took a bunch of pictures down on the main floor then wandered up to the mezzanine, which had a series of dioramas. One was of a Vietnam base, one was a mock-up of an aircraft carrier, another was of a Main Street 'back home.' It was captivating and fun, and I loved seeing KW having a lot of fun, too. Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels, and had we been there on a Tuesday or a Wednesday (instead of a Saturday/Sunday), we could have watched them practice. Next time, we'll plan better!

On the way to I-20, we found our breakfast restaurant - Waffle House! Eggs and cheese, grits, bacon, raisin toast, and hash browns covered and smothered... yummmmmmy!

Got to I-20 West, crossed the state line into Alabama, made it through Mobile, then headed north on ... some road ... to cut over into Mississippi and connect with I-40 in Jackson, then on to Vicksburg.

Unfortunately, because we had stayed the extra hour-and-a-half at the aviation museum, when we got to Vicksburg, we didn't have time to go visit any of the Civil War battlefield museums. That turned out to be okay, because the hotel we chose, Cedar Grove Mansion, was practically a Civil War museum all by itself. The husband built the house for his wife, who happened to be a cousin of General Sherman. It was a huge white mansion on a hillside with property all the way down to the Mississippi River - and yet it only had about 40 cannonballs shot at it, with fewer actually landing. The prevailing thought is that the wife's ties to Sherman saved the home. The family built more houses on the property for their children, and many of them are also used as hotel rooms.

Because the house was virtually spared during the War, a lot of the furniture and structure is original; in addition, any decoration that isn't actually original to the house is an antique from that same era. We stayed in "Rhett Butler's Penthouse Suite," a quirky room on the 3rd floor, complete with a hole in the closet door where a cannonball came through! There was another cannonball hole in the floor of the main parlor, and just past that hole, there's an actual cannonball jammed into the door frame and wall! Very interesting and very cool.

We were too tired to go off property to find food, so we ate at the hotel's restaurant, which was a real find. The chef did wonderful things with my dish, shrimp and grits in an andouille sausage gravy, and Kelly's, a flatiron steak that had a lovely spicy rub on it and which was cooked to perfection. After the drive and the great meal, we were even to tired to make our way to the river to do some riverboat gambling - yes, just like in Biloxi and Gulfport, casinos are allowed on the water, and we passed two of them on our way to the hotel. Lights out in Rhett's suite was early this night.

On to Day 3, Vicksburg, MS, to Ft. Worth, TX!

Day 1, Sat., May 8 - New Port Richey to Pensacola, FL

Like so many of our "early" morning plans, our attempt to be out of the hotel and on the road by 9:00 AM was thwarted by a s-l-o-o-o-w waitress at the restaurant and a forgotten purchase at CVS before we left. We hit the road around 9:40 AM, heading north on Florida 19.

I was a little apprehensive about taking 19 for such a long way (over 150 miles, I think) because in New Port Richey and for at least a half-hour north, it's non-stop traffic and traffic lights. Sort of like Sunrise Highway on Long Island, or Lawrence Expressway in the Bay Area. Happily, about 45 minutes north, it turned into an open highway with a smattering of towns along the way, tall trees lining the road for most of the ride.

We did find a cool thing at one of the rest stops - they had a windshield washer. You would drive down a lane that triggered a huge splooosh of water onto your windshield! Twice through and most of the bugs were gone!

We followed 19 until it merged into I-20 West, and let Maggie, our Magellan GPS, guide us (somewhat circuitously) to the Pensacola Naval Air Station, where we were to stay our first night after about 8 hours on the road. As a retired Army Master Sergeant, Kelly is able to stay at any military installation that has lodging facilities available. At Pensacola NAS, we stayed at the Navy Lodge, a 1950's era hotel facility right on Pensacola Bay. Our room looked out onto a kid's jungle gym with the bay beyond.

For dinner, we took a drive to Perdido Key, an island that is the latest up-and-coming place for vacationers in the Pensacola/Mobile area. The key is now home to lots and lots and LOTS of tall skyscraper condo and hotel units. I shudder to think of what it will look like when the first real hurricane comes through. Anyway, there were a lot of seafood restaurants (go figure), and we picked the Shrimp Basket. Very tasty; try the deep-fried dill pickles if you're there (don't knock 'em 'til you've tried 'em!).

Back to the Lodge, and an hour or so to do a load of laundry. This was probably the most practical thing we did on the whole trip. Rather than trying to pack for 13 days, we packed for 4 or 5, and planned to do laundry along the way, which worked out fine.

On to Day 2 - Pensacola, FL, to Vicksburg, MS!