Things We Learned

In no particular order:

1. California still offers cash discounts on paying for gas (though I read on msn.com this may be coming to Georgia soon!)

2. Not every state has a welcome center-- even on a major interstate! I guess not everyone is happy to have you visit their state??

3. There are about 5 times as many semi trucks on I-40 west between Memphis and Little Rock than there are all other vehicles (you were SO right, Carrie!).

4. Oklahoma and Arkansas have the WORST roads-- although parts of Arizona gave them a run for their money.

5. There is a sign on the highway just north of Las Vegas that we found very amusing-- it said, "No Hitchhiking-- Prison Nearby"... apparently they are not very confident in the security of said prison?!

6. Speaking of signs, Californians must need extra help finding the interstate because every entrance ramp to the highway (or FREEWAY as they call them out there) in California had one of these:

7. Showers cost $5.00 per person in Yosemite if you are a camper. That's right-- it would have cost our family $20 just to BATHE!! So we opted out... well, not really-- we just used the RV shower and refilled the tank-- a little more of a hassle but WAY cheaper!

8. You have to pay for hot water in the showers at California State Parks-- however, at only 25 cents per 2 minutes, this was a bargain compared to Yosemite's showers!

9. There is a LOT of desert out west... a LOT!!! And it has flies... lots of flies (at least in Barstow). And 'dry heat' is not any better than 'humid heat'-- it's hotter and as one of Michael's co-workers commented, it feels like you are breathing into a hair dryer!

10. The rest area restrooms in Missouri are cutting edge! Washing your hands is entirely a hands-free experience-- soap, water and the dryer are all automatic and fully contained in one opening in the wall!

11. Gas is cheaper in Alabama and Mississippi than in Georgia-- every other state (except California) was just about the same as here. Even in Oklahoma and Texas with all of their oil wells-- that really surprised me!

12. A GPS is a great tool... but even with one (and an atlas and computer software maping program), you can still get lost... sometimes good old road signs still give the best directions!

13. You can log 6100+ miles in 19 days and still be on speaking terms with the 5 other people who accompanied you on the trip!

The Traveling Pants... Part 2

Well, today 'the Pants' returned home-- that's right, we gave them back to 104.7 the FISH. What was cool, though, was that Michael arranged for us to return them in person and we got the opportunity to meet Kevin & Taylor as well as get a tour of their studio!

They were super nice and spent over 30 minutes with us, chatting about the trip and their show. They even had 'goodie bags' for us full of FISH stuff (t-shirts, pens, stickers, etc.), new release dvd's for the girls and a book for Michael ("This Old Spouse"-- ha ha ha... this was from Kevin to Michael because he had told them about my coming birthday). It was a great way to wind up that portion of our trip. Taking 'the Pants' along definitely added a neat element to the trip (although it was sometimes embarassing- like trying to get your picture taken on a crowded Las Vegas street!).

Thanks so much Kevin & Taylor and all the folks at the FISH Atlanta!!

The Traveling Pants

I have removed the "Pants slide show" in the interest of not making you listen to the "I've been everywhere, man" song endlessly whenever you log into my blog!

However, you can still click on this link and see the show: http://www.slide.com/r/hPmkeRZW2D_gWU6N9cLnFkBewZ1o6tEu?view=original

Getting back to normal

I've been without internet access since Monday (our wireless router died) -- which has been KILLING me! The upside is that I have nearly everything washed and put away from our trip, there are groceries in the kitchen and I've made at least a small dent in the yardwork (i.e., weed pulling!) that needs to be done. The girls and I have also been to the pool for the past two days and Abbie's completed 3 days of Tennis Camp in the neighborhood. Whew! I think I need another vacation!!

I have a few more 'wrap up' things that I want to do from the trip so check back in a day or so for a very special slide show as well as an 'interesting things we learned' list... Also, we found out yesterday that we get to do something very fun on Monday morning... so be sure to check back next week for more details about that (I'll give you a hint-- it's related to 'the pants'!)

Home Sweet Home

We arrived home at 8:30-ish (Georgia time!)... we are all exhausted but extremely thankful for a safe trip! Thanks again to everyone who has been praying for us!

I've got a few more posts before I wrap up the "Summer Travel Adventure of 2008" portion of this blog so stay tuned...

Sunrise...Sunset (subtitle: My Homesick Husband)

This is when we started the day on the road (although actually the sun was not yet up):

This is when we ended the day on the road (although the sun was actually set when we stopped):

And there was a lot of this in between:

Michael says he can "smell Georgia" now that he's within less than 2000 miles so he felt like we needed to make a major push toward home today. We drove 585 miles from Colorado Springs to meet up with my nice Kansas farmer to get my wheat and he gave us a tour around his home (a dome) and showed us how he cleans wheat.

Then we were back on the road again for almost 400 more miles!!! We are all pretty tired since some of us were awake almost an hour before the 4:15 a.m. alarm! We are 8 miles from our overnight destination-- the Flying J Truck stop in Warrenton, Missouri-- aren't you jealous??! Michael has wanted to 'boondock' (for those of you not familiar with RV-lingo, that means to spend the night for free somewhere-- think Wal-mart/Cracker Barrel/or Flying J truckstop!)

We will have about 650 miles to drive tomorrow so I'm sure we'll be on the road early, but hopefully not at 4:30 a.m.

Just a bit more from yesterday...

Abbie did a great job reporting on the fun had at Focus on the Family-- it's definitely a 'don't miss' if you are ever near Colorado Springs! We also got to meet the managing editor of the Focus on the Family magazine-- Andrea Vinley Jewel. Her parents and mine were friends back in the late 1970's when we lived in Sarasota. This picture is for you, mom!

After our visit, we stopped in at a nearby Wal-Mart for ice and milk (I think that makes at least 8 or 20 Wal-marts that we have visited during this trip! I will say that they are mostly the same across the country, except that the ones out west don't have groceries AND gas nearly as often the ones in Georgia). We then drove up the interstate about 5 miles on a "FISH/Pants Pictures" errand. Chad Davis, who works at the FISH, had emailed Michael about getting a picture at the Air Force Academy since he had attended school there. It was actually pretty cool and we also got to watch some gliders being towed off the runway and being launched by airplanes.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the campground resting (Michael & Ralph), doing laundry (Ann & I), and swimming (guess who?!). After a dinner on the grill, we headed to bed-- we had a long day of driving ahead of us.

Focus on the Family Fun!

Hi again Abbie here. Friday we visited Focus on the Family headquarters. They also had their own Odyssey right downstairs! After you ride the twisting twirling slide the A-bend-a-go. Well you don't have to, but I did. This is me coming out the end. Wow a 3 story slide that goes outside can be fun.

Then we looked around for awhile and went to Whit's End and had root beer floats.

Then Emma said she wanted to slide on the A-bend-a-go too. (she didn't the first time.) So she slid down to. You have to sit in a sack looking thing.

I've got to say Focus on the Family was one of my favorite places so far.

Good-bye!

Rocky Mountain High

From the first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains on Wednesday through the experience of driving (well—riding for 5 of us—Michael is our designated ‘mountain driver’) through them, we have been just enjoying their majestic beauty.







Crossing the 10, 800 foot “Wolf Creek Pass” brought us face to face with the snow covered peaks. There is still quite a bit of snow at the top. We passed many waterfalls and the rivers are running quite swiftly with the melted snow.



After the barrenness of the desert, the green of the pines and aspens has been a welcome sight.! As much as we enjoyed seeing the uniqueness of the desert, we have a definite preference for the mountains! The scenery in Colorado has been lovely-- we think it is probably overall the prettiest state we have been in.





We arrived in Colorado Springs in time for Michael to visit the RC plane shop of a guy who he has purchased several airplane kits from. (Quick RC airplane lesson-- you can either buy them as kits where you have to assemble them completely from a kit or as 'almost ready to fly'-- this ship makes the kits.) Bill at Stevens AeroModel was super nice and gave us a tour of his shop--we got to see the computer program and fancy laser machines that they use to cut out the wood for the kits. This was a highlight for Michael (who here is surprised??!)



We checked into our campsite at the Garden of the gods campground in Manitou Springs (just outside of Colorado Springs) and rested a bit before heading out to our final destination of the evening- The Flying W Ranch. For those of you with a good memory, this is in fact our second "Flying W Ranch" of the trip (the first was WAY back in Oklahoma!)-- kind of an interesting coincidence, huh?!

This Flying W was a bit different than the other. It is a place that offers chuckwagon dinners and entertainment from their Flying W Wranglers. They also have a little western town wtih lots of antiques and shops that you can walk around while you wait for the dinner bell.

We had a traditional 'cowboy meal' of BBQ beef/chicken or steak, cowboy beans, baked potatoes, homemade applesauce, spice cake and the best biscuits on the planet (sorry Cracker Barrel!). We ate off of tin dishes which the girls loved (very 'Little House on the Prairie'!)

The 'singing cowboys' were great as well--one of them was a 5 time Grand National winning fiddle player. They sang western and gospel songs and what was super cool is that they were all Christians and were NOT afraid/ashamed to admit it from the stage. They have an awesome witness as this place is apparently packed 7 nights per week. We all agreed that it was a trip highlight. Do not miss the Flying W if you are ever in the Colorado Springs area!!



It was a great night... however, the littlest one was fading about halfway through the show and actually fell asleep in the RV before we drove the 5 miles back to our campground!

Something to cool you off!

For all of our friends in "Hot-lanta"-- these are for you!

Snow in June at 10,800 feet! It was icy and hard but snow, nonetheless!

Day 15-- Making alternative plans

After leaving Zion, we drove across the desert of Utah and Arizona—crossing the Colorado River again at the Glen Canyon Dam & Lake Powell (which also looked incredibly low).

The desert was…pretty deserted. We drove for miles and miles and miles and saw very little in the way of civilization. Even when we would pass by small communities of houses, there looked to be nothing in the way of retail establishments. The mom in me was thinking “Where do these people get their groceries?” as well as “Can you imagine having to drive hundreds of miles to the nearest Target??!” The more thoughtful part of me was reflecting on the fact that much of this territory was Indian reservations and the fact that the government removed so many people from places like Georgia (full of trees, water, etc.) to these barren lands of sand, scrub bushes and rocky cliffs—and it made me a little bit sad.

We made a much anticipated stop late in the afternoon, just before crossing into Colorado—the Four Corners monument! The girls have been excited about this visit for months! We’d learned about it during our state study this year—it’s the only place in the United States where 4 states touch. Admittedly, it is a tourist trap—they charge $3 per person to get in to take a picture of this unique spot—and plenty of us did it! The girls enjoyed the opportunity to figure out how they could be in all four states at once. We also took the obligatory ‘pants picture’. And we took the opportunity to try Navaho ‘fry bread’—which was kind of a cross between a funnel cake and a big flat donut—yummy!

After the girls spent some of their money on souvenir bracelets, we loaded up the RV and headed toward our (planned) destination for the evening: Mesa Verde National Park. After driving up this little ‘hill’:
we found out that ‘someone’ had ‘somehow’ overbooked all of the full hookup sites for the evening. They offered us a complementary night’s stay in one of their non-hookup sites but after 5 days of that in Sequoia and Yosemite, we are pretty much done with ‘roughing it’. After we declined, they gave us some vague options for campgrounds back down at the bottom of the big hill and sent us on our way. (Someone at Aramark will be getting a strongly worded letter from me once we arrive home—I made those reservations MONTHS ago and they could have at least had the decency to email us before we went all the way up there to let us know about the problem—not to mention working on getting us an alternative site instead of just,”Sorry” and some vague directions to some campground that ‘earlier today had 2 full hookup spaces available’!!!)

Okay, little rant over—it actually really worked out for the best because we were not really going to be able to explore Mesa Verde much or at all so we decided to get a head start on Thursday’s driving and go to at least Durango or Pagosa Springs. After some furious searching online and through the campground books, we decided to eat dinner in Durango and spend the night in Pagosa Springs. After following “TomTom” on a wild goose chase to a steak house that we never found, we settled on dinner at this spot—which was some of the best BBQ we have ever had—Texas BBQ in Colorado—go figure?!

We arrived at our new campground, Elk River Resort, around 8 pm. We had time to walk around a little before dark and enjoy the river views and the girls learned how to play tether ball for the first time. A load of laundry and ‘real showers’ wrapped up the evening.

Another change in plans

Mesa Verde's campground overbooked and we have pressed on to Pagosa Springs, CO for the evening...

Zion National Park

We had a relatively short day on the road today (Tuesday)—only 215 miles total. This turned out to be great because it meant we arrived at our destination, Zion National Park, in plenty of time to see some of the sights. For those of you not familiar with Zion (which would have been me prior to planning this trip!), it is located in the southwest corner of Utah and is famous for it’s tall sandstone cliffs—it is, according to our tour guide, the number two destination for rock climbing after Yosemite. Zion was first settled by Mormons and many of the rock formations in the park have Biblical names—the three Patriarchs, the Great White Throne, Angels landing, etc. Geologically, Zion is in the middle of the “Grand Staircase” of the Colorado Plateau--- above it is Bryce Canyon and below it is the Grand Canyon.

(The Three Patriarchs)

(The Great White Throne)

The National Park Service operates a free shuttle bus through the base of the canyon and you can easily get off and on at about 8 different locations to view the cliffs. This worked out really well for PawPaw as he got to see a good bit of the park without having to walk much. The park is breathtakingly beautiful—the pictures will probably speak for themselves. We felt a bit like we were at the bottom of the Grand Canyon looking up.

Michael says that Zion jumped ahead to his number 2 favorite spot that we’ve seen thus far (just behind Yosemite). I had read that it was a spectacular place and it definitely lived up to the reviews. This was a relief because I had totally picked this as a stop based on those recommendations and not because of any previous knowledge of the Park. So, if you are ever in the southern Utah/northern Arizona area, the Timms family gives an enthusiastic 12 thumbs up for Zion!

The girls were also pleased to be able to add Junior Ranger badge #3 to their collection!

Some "Dam" pictures

After the oil change, we drove east from Las Vegas to visit the Hoover Dam. As you can see from the previous post, we had to stop at a security checkpoint! The photo was all in good fun-- Michael wanted a picture with them and this is the pose they came up with! The Dam was impressive-- the girls and I had studied a bit about the building of it during school this year and it was neat to see it up close.

They are also in the process of building a new bridge WAY up over the current road over the Dam to help alleviate some of the traffic (and to provide a truck route)... You couldn't pay me enough money to be involved on that project!

The water levels in Lake Mead are at (I believe) historic lows which you can see from this picture (the white areas indicate the previous water levels) but the water is still clear blue and beautiful.
Emma and I even visted the "Dam Ladies Room" which is built into one of the big concrete towers-- kind of a funny place for a restroom which is why I took the photo.

After our "Dam visit", we backtracked into Vegas and headed north to Utah and Zion National Park.