San Diego has a great rep – and it’s easy to see why. Beautiful weather, on the ocean, what’s not to love? Location, location, location – and it works for me. I’m not sure why it is, but the West Coast has always had me under its spell. Continue reading
We gave Arizona short shrift, although some might say that by taking in the Grand Canyon, we’d seen the best the state has to offer. Tucson and Tombstone will have to wait for another day. Texas is dry, New Mexico is dry and Arizona is drier still … our bodies needed to get out of the dry and get quenched Continue reading
In my lifetime, I must have seen hundreds of pictures of the Grand Canyon, each different from the last, each quintessential. If a picture does indeed speak a thousand words, I’ve read volumes on this place. And yet I knew nothing of it. The more pictures I saw, the more mysterious this place became. Continue reading
At some point back in Albuquerque, we’d made a change of travel plans. Plan A had been to carve our way north through New Mexico from White Sands to Albuquerque, on to Santa Fe and Taos, then head up to Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet at one point. Continue reading
Santa Fe – the mecca of the southwest. Given its history, it’s amazing that Santa Fe didn’t turn into a ghost town, let alone become a mecca. Continue reading
You know how it is when you book into a hotel, especially the kind we book ourselves into, there’s a rack of stuff to do in the area: DINOSAUR MUSEUM! THE LOUVRE! bus tours, skydiving, ballooning – you know the stuff. That rack is like a babe magnet to me. I take all the maps I can get – I love maps, especially the kind I can hold in my hands, and I’m always up for ideas that don’t charge admission. EconoLodge always has a full rack of this stuff, and as is my want, I was rummaging through it when I found something that scored on both counts: a map and no charge for admission. The map is for the Turquoise Trail, a back road that takes you from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and if you don’t stop to shop on the way, you can get by with nothing more than the price of gas. Continue reading
As we head north from White Sands on Hwy 70, we don’t really have any set plans. New Mexico has been on my go-see list for a long, long time – I’m not sure why, but it has something to do with the turquoise jewelry and adobe architecture. I’d like to see what it is that drew D.H. Lawrence to the area, to find out if there is indeed some magic in the New Mexico air. Continue reading
Friday morning, heading north out of El Paso into New Mexico on I-10, we play hide and seek with the Rio Grande, but we have to say “Adios, big river, we’ll see you in a couple of days in Albuquerque” as we make a detour onto Hwy 70, heading northwest to White Sands. Continue reading
Our last stop in Texas – El Paso – up in the northwest corner of the state, is a 577-mile scenic drive from Austin. Scenic, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. We were warned that it was a long and boring drive, but we found lots to look at and admire on the eight hour drive. Continue reading
About 80 miles south of Austin, San Antonio beckoned as a day trip. The seventh-largest city in the United States with a population of 1.3 million, it’s impossible to see everything in a day, but a day is all I had, so Judy Fowler and I headed down there to see just a few of the city’s highlights. First stop, downtown, home to the Alamo, the Gunter Hotel and the Riverwalk. Continue reading