04/07/14 What a way to spend a birthday . . .drivin' to Mississippi

Starting with a picture I took last night after I wrote the blog for the day.

Al writing the geocaching logs.














The rain had moved East by this morning and we started the day with clear sunny skies. The goal for the day was to drive from Van Buren, AR to Tupelo, MS

 I got the picture when we crossed into Tennessee but my camera batteries died when I went to get the Mississippi State sign . . . bummer. Al drove the whole way . . . it was his choice. I was prepared to drive and let him have his birthday off.

I found a really good local rib place for his birthday dinner. I even tried the ribs and I'm not much of a rib person. Al had local brewed beer called Naked Pig from Back Forty Beer Co. Of course I had to have some dessert . . . .homemade Hostess Cupcake Cake . . . .so good. The rest of the evening is relaxing back at the hotel.


Tomorrow we head to Georgia and a visit with Chrissy.

04/06/14 Drivin' East - Just driving into the rain

The day started like most of our days have with breakfast at the hotel. The sun was shinning but it was only 48 degrees when we started out. We crossed into Texas

and headed toward the Cadillac Ranch. The Cadillac Ranch is a tourist attraction just off I-40 near Amarillo Texas. In 1974 Stanley Marsh III collected 10 Cadillacs and planted them nose first into the dirt. People from all over come and see the Cadillacs and they are allowed to paint them Graffiti Style.

Just East of Amarillo is a similar exhibit of VW Bugs. We first saw the bugs in 2007 when we were traveling back from our trip to Utah. We thought we would stop by today as long as we were in the area and see if our signature was still visible.

 The Bugs in 2007

Our graffiti on the bug in 2007

Al by the bugs today but we couldn't find our signature anymore.










We crossed into Oklahoma but Al missed the photo op and we continued  to drive. The skies got gray and by the time we reached OK City it was raining. The rain continued the rest of the day. We crossed into Arkansas and stopped in Van Buren for the night.

Tomorrow is another driving day and the goal is Tupelo, Mississippi. It is also Al's Birthday!

04/05/14 On the road again . . . Tucumcari bound.

The Best Western where we stayed last night  had a very nice breakfast: eggs, bacon, hash browns as well as fruit and cereals or oatmeal so we were well fed as we headed out on a day of driving East. The day had all variations of weather: mostly cloudy, sometimes it would rain then some snow showers then the sun would be back out and the temp went from 50's to 60's to 40's and back to the 50's again . . . I guess we are really leaving the desert and heading back to home.

 Mesas are everywhere you look out here.

 Back to New Mexico . . . It's called the Land Of Enchantment but I'm not buying it. 

A quick stop at what we thought was the Continental Divide . . . it turns out the sign is not actually at the highest point though. The elevation was higher about a half mile down the road. Good thing we checked it out with the GPS

Last pic of the day . . . the Historic Route 66 POW WOW Restaurant where we had dinner tonight. There are so many towns that were thriving communities before they put the Interstate in and rerouted the traffic around the towns. Many are nearly ghost towns . . . .others have businesses that are deserted and most struggle to survive. Progress is sometimes sad.

Tomorrow is another driving day through the pan handle of Texas and all of Oklahoma.

04/04/14 California to Arizonia with a Hoover Dam visit detour

One final breakfast at our hotel and we were on the road again.

 We were headed North on I15 near the Nevada line when we saw The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility (the silver area in the left side of the picture) It opened in February and will eventually produce 392Megawatts of power. Impressive.

The we were back in Nevada again this time making a turn to the East to see Hoover Dam

 But first we stopped to look around Boulder City. The city was built to house the workers and their families when the dam was built. Today it is a quaint clean town with many nice parks that have neat sculptures. The also have art sculptures around the town on various intersections.

     Al is posing by a turbine runner from the power dam

View from the back side

 We were amazed at the number of people here because it was a weekday in April. We could hardly find a place to park.

 The bridge in the distance is the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. It is the highest and longest arched concrete bridge in the Western Hemisphere. It is 890 feet above the Colorado River and was built to reroute traffic from passing over the dam. The only traffic now that is allowed on the dam is tourists and then only after you go through a checkpoint. 

 Another view of the inlet towers

 This is the front side of the dam with Lake Mead in the back ground taken from the walk way on the Tillman Bridge.

 Another view looking down into the canyon.

A magnificent feat of engineering in 1935. . . .no computer generated models or calculations . . . just the work of 5000 men.

We leave Nevada as we cross the bridge and head to Holbrook Arizona on old US 66 for the night.


Tomorrow is primarily a driving day to Tucumcari, New Mexico and another stop on old US 66

04/02-03/14 Desert Days

After leaving Northern California and missing out on visiting Yosemite and Sequoia National Park we drove to Barstow yesterday. We went out into the desert for some geocaching and to enjoy the warmth and sunshine in the desert this time of year.

Roads that are on Bureau of Land Management Lands are like the road that never ends.  Notice the  blue sky . . . one of the reasons we came here.

 Just checking out where we came from.

 Another view

Snow capped Mountains in the distance. We saw 5 or 6 jack rabbit today but they moved so fast I didn't get a picture. they are very strange looking animals with giant rabbit ears.

 The desert comes alive in the Spring. There are flowers in blown everywhere you look. I absolutely love the desert in the Spring it is so beautiful. In just a couple of  weeks all the flowers will be gone and the area will become oppressively hot . . . that is when I will be glad to be in Vermont but today this place is like paradise . . . sunny and 70.

One last thought for our friends and family who are geocachers. We have all heard of geocaches that migrate but today as we were geocaching near Barstow California in an area called Planes, Trains and Automobiles we found a log that we had signed nearly 2 years ago when we did the Route 66 Power Trail caches  . . . this cache had migrated somewhere between 80 and 120 miles. We had to take a picture of this one.


Tomorrow we leave the desert and head East with a stop at Hoover Dam.

04/01/14 April Fool's

The plan for today was to drive 45 minutes into rising elevation and Yosemite National Park but I think our bad luck is continuing. The skies looked semi clear and I was hopeful until I called the road condition number and found out that in order to drive there today you are required by law to have chains. Some of the roads required them to be on your car. They also warned of changing road conditions in the park. Feeling discouraged but not defeated I called the number for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks . . . but the story was the same. We needed a new plan so we changed a couple of hotels and decided to head back to the desert. As we drove through the agricultural belt of California we noticed some very pretty wild flowers along the road side.

 The entire valley from Modesto to Bakersfield and beyond is mile after mile of orchards and vineyards. So much agriculture all using irrigation methods . . .so much water

 While driving on CA Route 58 to Barstow  through the area Tehachapi we saw one of the largest wind farms I have ever seen. I got on line to read about it . . . Al was driving and I found out it is one of the

original wind farms in the nation. They began to build it in the 1980' s

 We chose a restaurant near the hotel for dinner. My brother in law would have loved the decor. Patches on the wall from Police and Fire Departments all over the country. Fire jackets, helmets, and all sorts of fire related paraphernalia . . .the food was good as well.

 Tomorrow we are going back out to the desert for some more power caching and hopefully no rain.

03/31/14 What's this about a drought?

The day actually started pretty well, we left the hotel about 9:00 knowing that we had a full day of driving in order to get to Mariposa California and be ready for Yosemite tomorrow. We left Oregon and crossed into California

Shortly into California there was a Discount Liquor Store so we stopped and walked out about 30 minutes later with a large box of really great deals. It is a good thing this store is in California or we might be bigger drinkers.





Continuing South we entered the Shasta Valley and although it was cloudy the scenery was beautiful. This was a place for pioneers to settle.

After this vista we started to climb on Interstate 5. Heading toward Mount Shasta there were flashing signs warning of wind gusts for the next 20 miles and it started to rain. This is where our day went bad.

My poor rental car got hit by a car who either hydroplaned or got caught in a wind gust. Thankfully, we were alright and our car is still drive-able. There was  a young former firefighter who saw the whole thing and told us and the cops that the other car was going way too fast for the conditions.

The car in the median looked like it was totaled. The ambulance came but we saw people from the other car walking around. The cops never let us exchange information . . . I guess that is how they do it in California . . . the cops do the report. We were there about an hour in the cold wind and rain and then the cop gave us a collision # and said we could go. Al took over the driving from here but it didn't get any better.

 We were driving South right through the center of the heaviest rain bands. A couple of hundred miles down the road we gassed up and switched back to me driving; by this time it was getting dark. We thought we were out of the rain but it started up again too. We finally arrived at our hotel around  9:30 after some slow driving on a very twisty road and a wrong turn. It must have been my day for talking to the CHP because when I stopped at a little grocery to ask directions there was a CHP there. Hoping for a break in this weather tomorrow so we can see Yosemite but it isn't looking good.