Road Trip - Day 16

6 hrs on the road today...arrived in El Paso, TX about 4pm.  Drove to the home of old neighbor I grew up with, Loren Hodges.  We last saw each other when he was 12, I was 14. We had a lot to catch up on! We called my brother, Alan, and sang happy birthday to him, as tomorrow is his birthday. (they were the same age and went through grade school together) (by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AL)

 We settled downtown El Paso in the famous "Camino Real Hotel" This is the place where, during the Mexican-American War, people would come here, go on the roof and watch the action. There are bullet holes from the famous bandit Poncho Villa on the roof area. Here is the window in the roof of the dining room...colored glass.  What a beautiful place!

Loren wanted to know what kind of food we preferred. DUHHH, we are in Texas...Texas BBQ of course. He took us to the "State Line". This is where you walk in from Texas, walking across the state line into New Mexico to eat. (Not sure which state they cook in)

Now THIS is Texas BBQ....RIBS! (Glad I didn't order the "Big Boy's plate")...

and this is Texas peach cobbler! YUM

and, again, this is our gracious host (who I used to cheat on when we played games) 

Thanks, Loren, we had an awesome evening!

Long trip tomorrow...see ya.

Road Trip - Day 15

Day 15 - Santa Fe

When we went to get the car we hardly recognized it, as it was covered inside and out with dust from Las Vegas, to Phoenix, to Grand Canyon and to Santa Fe...all desert dust! Found a hand wash car wash and got rid of it all...we have our car back!

 Then we headed down to the central Santa Fe area for the day.

 For years, since I heard of it, I have wanted to see this stairway...Here it is. One of my main goals for the trip. The story is that the nuns who ran the school found they had no room for a stairway to get to the upper area. They prayed and one day a man showed up with lumber and tools and built this stairway...he then disappeared. No one can figure how he could engineer such a stairway with no support, yet it works fine. It has dumbfounded those who have tried to figure it out. The state of NM had their experts try to identify the wood, and no one has been able to identify it. Fascinating story, so I had to see for myself...

They have recently added the rails, as there were none when it was built and was that way for many years.

How in the world could he form the wood like this???

After the chapel and a bit of shopping we had lunch. Some of the restaurants are inside courtyards...the food is good.

We then had the WHOLE afternoon for...shopping and looking at galleries (wheee) (This is a home to a LOT of artists) I found Chuck Jones Gallery...Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc. I actually enjoyed this one and...

 Nancy found a friend.

I found the park and rested, then we found a Pizza parlor that overlooked the park and rested and had our dinner...Tooooo much shopping for me, Nancy enjoyed and we called it a good day.

Tomorrow we hit the road to El Paso...see ya then.

Road Trip - days 12, 13, 14

Day12 (Tuesday) - Phoenix 

-  We spent the morning with my College friend (1961!) Stan Baltzo and his wife JoAnna. JoAnna has just had back surgery and was house bound, so Stan went to breakfast with us, we then dropped Nancy off to spend her day resting and shopping as Stan and I spent the entire rest of the day together, including dinner. We really got to catch up with each other and had a blast! Guess who forgot to take his camera...no pictures...SENIOR MOMENT!!!!!

Stan, I guess I need you guys to visit us in Oregon so I can get some pics.

Day 13 - Phoenix

When Nancy was very little her family would pack up and spend the winters in Mesa, AZ. She would attend school there, so we decided that it was a must on our trip to visit Mesa and try to find her landmarks...we had a pretty good lunch downtown and began our search.  Here is the school...

so she took up the pose she had in her 3rd (?) grade picture

 We then searched for the motel...the landmarks were a Dairy Queen and the Mormon Temple. We found the DQ, but it was not near the Mormon Temple, soooo, we had to buy a blizzard and found out the oldest DQ was on the other side of town AND was near the Mormon Temple! Here is what Nancy THINKS might be the motel...she did not want me to say it IS the one (but I think it is...it is the only one that old and right by the DQ...duhhh)

 And guess what...she says that this is definately the DQ. So...

 She had to make sure it tasted like it did then...yup.

 We headed back to our place, changed and went to (surprise...) Surprise, AZ to see our SA school chum, Jerry Dalke and his wife Julanne. They have a very nice home on a lake. They remodeled the entire place and did an AWESOME job.

 It was 106 degree's, but they, like almost everyone, have their own swimming pool and hot tub. What a life. As you see, I did remember the camera...aren't they a great couple!

 Julanne fixed a delicious dinner for us...

 We had a great visit, and headed back to our place.

                                                           Day 14 - Travel day.

 We left a very hot Phoenix and headed for our 10 hour drive to Santa Fe, NM. At one of our "bladder" stops, we saw a sign with an arrow pointing up the road..."Meteor Crater". So, curious as we are we went the 6 miles to see the crater..we had no idea it would be a mile in circumference!

At the bottom was an area where they had mined the earth for more evidence...

 Here is a close up of the camp...

and here is a meteorite...the biggest piece is in a museum in Chicago.

Here we found that the astronauts actually trained here...

I thought this "hole in the wall" was actually a picture, but no, it was just a HOLE IN THE WALL.

We ended the day at Santa Fe. Interesting downtown square where we ate our dinner

We'll do our exploring tomorrow, headed to the motel to "crash".  See you tomorrow!

Road Trip - days 10 & 11

 We arrived in Las Vegas to stay with my long time friend Jack Lowery and his wife Lynn (and of course, "Oreo"") We had a wonderful two days, went to their church, Canyon ridge. What a  neat church...look them up on the internet. I never knew how big Las Vegas is....2 million people!!! Weather was awesome, not as hot as we found when we got to Phoenix.

 Though it was hard to say good-bye, we moved on. Shane, celebrating his birthday asked us to meet him at the Grand Canyon. We found his campground...

 and here is what we found. You cannot grasp this until you are there!

 People are foolish wherever you are. As for me, I get the willies just looking at these hights from a comfortable distance...othere, like these fools...Sheesh.

 You can see in the background the many canyons.

As we headed to Phoenix, we ran into the smoke from a large fire in the distance.

                                      
I had to stop to catch this sunset over the mountains...awesome trip so far!...G'night.

Road Trip - Days 8 and 9

Sorry about yesterday, but we were in the depths of Death Valley where there is no signal for computer, phone or so on. Therefore no downloading pictures or posting any blogs.We left Los Angeles and headed up to "Lone Pine" to visit the Manzanar national park site 

This is one of the barracks in which the Japanese were to live in (Go to third photo to see why)

 This building was the school for the Japanese children. Teachers volunteered to come up and teach them.

 This tells the story of why.

 Here is the look at what greeted them when they arrived.

 The compound, holding 19,000, was surrounded by a fence and guard stations

 One of the gardens they were allowed to build and maintain

   There were several artifacts in the display case...                                
                                     

One of the funeral services held at Manzanar

 This is the monument mentioned above...it was a very solemn place to remember those left there. All but 6 of the bodies were removed to a family location by this time.

 One of the statements they made was "They told us this was for our protection, yet the guns were pointed towards us."

 After a solemn afternoon we proceeded back to Lone Pine for dinner, passing this place...a branch of Lloyds of London????

 and ate across from the....

 Then we headed down, down, down into Death Valley where we spent the night in a tent....yes, I said a tent! Slept on a COT!

 We were greeted by a bright sun and headed to breakfast

 and found the restaurant near the cabins which we COULD have rented instead of a TENT!

 Our view from the restaurant...had a breakfast buffet, saw a Roadrunner but left the camera in the car.

 We ventured across the valley to this lovely place, got some souveniers and...

 Went up to the Mosaic (sp) trail...here we go

 It looks like the trail is a waterway between the mountain peaks in rainy times...do they have rain in Death Valley????

 It is a 2 mile hike up through the canyon, but wow! the colors and formations are phenomenal.

 Heading back to the parking lot.

 Then drove to "artists pallet" 3 mile drive...the colors in the rocks are unbelievable.

 A view down into the valley

 Stopped at Furnace Creek for lunch...105 degrees and 100 ft below sea level

 From there we headed to Las Vegas to see Jack and Lynn Lowery for a delicious BBQ dinner and go to church with them in the morning...yes, they do have some great churches in Las Vegas.
We did wonder though, as this was the first sign we saw as we entered Nevada.