Sin City

Is it New York?

Is it Paris?

No... we're in Vegas Baby! Pete's first time and I haven't been in over 10 years. We had Great Tour guides, Pete's parents met us in Vegas and tried to show us the whole thing in just 2 and a half days!

We started Thursday night at an Area 51's baseball game. It's a pretty park and it was a good game, we lucked into Dollar Beer night, so double the fun! The park looked like any other AAA park and you would never know that you were blocks from down-town and only a few minutes further from the strip. After the game we had a late breakfast and then explored the MGM Casino and started on New York New York before at least three of the four of us started to fall asleep (although it looked like day in the Casinos, it was almost 3a)

Friday we had lunch in the Hard Rock Cafe - Los Vegas and then did some more exploring of the strip. We saw acrobats and played lots of carnival games at Circus Circus and then went back to rest for a few minutes with the puppies before we went to our Anniversary present - dinner in Paris and a production of Spamalot. It was very funny. Now we want to go back and watch the movie again - the play was very lovingly adapted from the movie - right down to the killer rabbit. And dinner was unbelievable. The buffet is broken down by regions of france and the room is the streets of a french villiage. The food was amazing and it's a good time we were a little pushed for time or we could have spent another hour making pigs of ourselves.

California, the rest of the story

Tuesday Pete and I were on our own, so we prowled around Venice Beach with the puppies and then headed off to a Long Beach Armada game. We chose this team because it was the closest to Abby's house at only 18 miles. Of course it still took us just over an hour to get there!

The game was fun - we were sitting right behind the opposing team dug-out and you could hear all of their conversations including an on-going theme of disparaging remarks about the strike zone! Here's a fun picture Pete took of me with the Armada's mascot - Arby I. Parrot.



Wednesday we had our tour guide back and headed in to Hollywood. We saw the new Fantastic Four movie in a big theater downtown and then walked around Hollywood doing the tourist thing, we went to Grauman's and looked at all the foot/hand prints, took our pictures of the Hollywood sign, and had icecream at the Disney studio store and soda fountain. It was very good. We rounded out the evening with dinner at Mel's drive-in with my friend Chuck who I haven't seen in about 12 years. Chuck and I worked together in Rockford at the Starlight theater back in the mid-80s, yikes!

We couldn't leave the California area without trying the much acclaimed Fish Tacos, so Abby took us to lunch at one of her favorite haunts on our way out of town on Thursday. Fish tacos are good!! Who knew!

The LA Angels of Aneheim...in Orange County...California...Home of Disney Land...and Micky Mouse

We finally made it to the coast! We're in LA staying with my good friend Abby. She took us on a little driving tour of the area - we saw Venice Beach, Sony studios and some other sites, Pete and I will be on our own all day Tuesday to do some really touristy things and meeting my friend Chuck in Hollywood Wednesday for more super-tourist activity!


We went to an Angels game last night - the park is beautiful and PACKED for a Monday night
It was an excellent game too - the Angels were leading 4-1 and the Asstros came back and pulled ahead to a 9-4 lead (bummer) THEN the Angels caught up!

Love these pictures - major league smog (there's mountains in there somewhere!) and the sun setting through the ball park.

The score was 9-9 going in to the bottom of the 9th and we thought we might be in for extra innings when Chone Figgins hit an RBI triple to score the winning run from first base. That triple gave him 6 hits for 6 at bats during this game! He said in a press conference later that he's never even done that in a video game, much less real play! It was a great time and our Major league park of the summer... checked off the list!

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree national forest in Southern California (new state for us!) is by far the prettiest and most peaceful part of the trip. We spent two days there and had an extremely relaxing time. We had our own Joshua tree right in our campsite. This is really high desert country so we spent most of our day trying to stay hydrated and in the shade. We got a tip from one of the rangers when we arrived about this campground called Jumbo Rocks, and you can see why! She said that there might be some afternoon shade here. We were really happy, there were very few people around all weekend and we could just relax and let the desert sort-of wash over us.




We found a little alcove where we could put the tent and get a little shade from the "trees" (really more shrubs) inthe afternoon and the jumbo rock in the morning. It was the perfect place. Because there was really no thought that there would be any rain, we left the rain fly off of the tent and had a view of the sky when we woke up in the morning, but more spectacular was the view of the night sky. Our second night there, we went to a star party - members of the local andromeda club hauled out their GIANT telescopes and set them up for us to look at planets and galaxys. It was pretty cool to see saturne so clearly that it looked fake! But later that night looking through the roof of our tent we could make out several constelations AND a swirly galaxy. Beautiful. We hated to leave, but there were those seveal hours of the day where you couldn't do anything but follow the example of the lizards and hide in the shade!

London Bridge

Yes, someone actually bought London Bridge and moved it to the desert in Arizona. So now, instead of spanning the Thames, it spans the Colorado River. The joke was still on the buyer, he thought he was getting the Tower Bridge! We thought we might camp in the little town where the bridge is, but it was too hot to even think about setting up camp and there was no cover to be found anywhere, so we took our pictures and moved on. We drove until the sun was starting to set and then found a place on the Colorado river to camp for the night. It wasn't glamorous, but it was just for one night and we COULD walk down and put our feet in the river. The last picture is Mojo at London Bridge, that's how hot it was, he just walked in and lay down in the water.

Sunset Volcano - Wupoki Ruins

We camped a night outside Flagstaff, it was a beautiful park with tall Ponderosa pine trees, but because it was at the base of an old volcano, the ground was completely covered in black cinder. It was very strange, kind of like black sand. But we had a beautiful site.



You can't climb to the top of Sunset Crater anymore, but we were able to climb to the ridge of the Tempe crater, a half mile hike, straight up in this sand-like cinder. But we made it. It wasn't what we expected, I suppose it has been dormant for almost a thousand years! But you can see the lava flow and also, this black basin is the actual crater of the volcano.






The highlight of this stop was the ruins. Unlike Homolovi, there are actual structures in this park. This one, they had even reinforced so that tourists could explore in and on the actual ruin site. It was very cool.

Ruins and Jackson Brown

We left Albequerque and headed West. We didn't think we could make it all the way to Flagstaff or Sedona so we picked a park on the map - the Homolovi state park. It was chilly and a little drizzly, but it was the desert, so we thought it would pass. We had a very nice site with a nice view, we got set up in the wind... again. But we were able to have a fire and it was a great fire that took the chill off a little! The rain didn't stop and as the fire died down we moved into the tent to play some cards and try to stay warm. It rained half the night and didn't get any warmer, luckily we have two furry little furnaces to keep us warm! It was good and warm once the sun came up though and we had a little bit of time to explore the Homolovi ruins, we saw some pot shards and lots of amazing rock formations.



























Then, because we were there, we had to stop in town - here's a picture of Pete "Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona" He has some of me too!


We drove on to Sedona/Flagstaff, the parks here are a little crazy so we're staying in Flagstaff today we'll check out an old volcano crater before continuing West.

Albequerque continued

It wasn't all baseball in Albequerque, we had a strange campsite, it was very small, but it was secluded and felt a little like we were camping in a tree! The puppies loved it though and hung out in the trees (or whenever we got up, in our chairs). We went out exploring and saw Albequerque's Old Town, an open square with lots of shops and street venders and live music. We also happened on a dog park so the puppies got to run around with some of the Albequerque dogs.


On our way out of town we stopped at the Petroglyph national monument and saw a couple carvings. But the trail was a two hour hike and it was pretty hot in the sun so we moved on toward Flagstaff.

Albequerque Isotopes

So finally we're in Albequerque! Being the Simpsons fans that we are, we have long wanted to see an Albequerque Isotopes game. It's a great park, unlike Colorado Springs, there's actually a view of the mountains. It's beautiful. They have a great Mascot, named Orbit. It's some kind of space dog and very cute. We met up with the sister of a good friend of ours, she was a blast. The Isotopes were playing our own Memphis Redbirds, so it was fun. We got to see John Rodreguez, Skip Schumaker and Rick Ankiel, along with a lot of player that we have seen work their way up through the ranks. Also, milwaukee is no longer unique in racing mascots, this park featured a race between Taco, a hot pepper and a green chili. There was a lot of animosity between the Taco and the pepper, so it wasn't always a clean race.

We saw two games in Albequerque, the red birds lost the first one and won the second game. Both games were a blast.

Roswell, NM

We made the long drive into the desert to Roswell New Mexico, home of the UFO conspiracy theorys and sitings. In 1948, there was a supposed crash of an alien space craft on a sheep farm outside Roswell. It was followed by a supposed mass government cover-up, then movies, a TV show and lots of fun.



Aside from being the UFO capital of the US, Roswell is beautiful. We found a campsite at Bottomless Lake state park, a gorgeous spot. We set up camp as the winds continued and had dinner watching a beautiful sunset over the lake. Then we spent a nice day reading and relaxing and moving around the campsite trying to stay in the shade. We took a swim in the ice-cold bottomless lake and when the sun moved behind the tent, and things cooled off a little, we headed in to town to explore the UFO museum. Again, the word of the trip... Cheesy, but a lot of fun and some interesting things.















Another night free of Alien sitings and with Dog as my co-pilot (ha ha) we're off to Albequerque.

Meade Lake - Four states in four hours

We packed up and headed out on a driving day - just half way to our next stop - Tutumcari, NM. For the day though we just drove to Meade Lake, KS. A beautiful park, we had a secluded site surrounded by trees and a great lake. We set up camp and then went for a swim in the sun-warmed sand bottom lake. It was the perfect end to a fairly uneventful day.


Reluctantly we packed up our Meade lake site, had another quick swim and headed to New Mexico. This was our four states in four hours day, we drove through the rest of Kansas stopping shortly in Liberty Kansas to see 'Dorothy's house' from the Wizard of OZ, cute a tourist trap, but worth a few minute stop! We drove on through the pan handle of Oklahoma and the pan handle of Texas (stopping to pick up groceries and lunch since it was all we did in Texas! and on into New Mexico.


Some friends had told us we had to stop in Tutumcari NM and we ad found a state park outside the city on the map, but were never able to find it in the car! We wound up IN Tutumcari for the windyest night we've spent yet. We had a great view of the mountain, but the wind was crazy and exhausting. Neither of us got much sleep as we watched the tent whip around and waited to be blown back to Kansas (or OZ). But it never happened, it's a good tent and OK City must have been quite a storm.

Tomorrow... Aliens!