Spring Break 1999 seemed a good
time to go West to places we'd never been before! Becky, Paul and Danny started out
on Friday morning from Sugar Land and drove to Lubbock to pick Angela up from school.
We spent the first night in her dorm room (sorry, no party.) Other than a
brief delay by a hail storm the first leg of our trip was uneventful.
Our goal Saturday was to travel through Muleshoe, Texas
and visit the National Mule Memorial.
We'd seen pictures of this mule since we arrived in Texas back in 1981.
Paul was quite anxious to add this mule to the list of statues we've visited,
including "Paisano Pete" the Roadrunner, "Big Sam" a giant statue of
Sam Houston, The San Jacinto Monument, and several collections of large dinosaurs.
With this impressive collection of larger than life visits, we were
quite disappointed that this mule was actually much smaller than life! In fact, we
drove by it without seeing it and had to turn around. To make matters worse, Paul
forgot his tripod so the camera had to be placed on the edge of a dumpster for the
obligatory family picture.
After our few forgettable moments in Mulshoe, we headed Northwest into
New Mexico, where we took a side-trip to visit what's claimed to be "The
Authentic Grave of Billy The Kid," about 5 miles South of Fort
Sumner, New Mexico.
It's not quite in
the middle of nowhere, but it's close. There are a few other graves in the small
graveyard, and a small museum/giftshop which we did not bother to visit. We'll just assume
this IS his real grave so we can say we've been there.
Next it was back on the road to breeze through Albuquerque,
over the Continental Divide, then into Holbrook, Arizona
to spend the night. The next morning and part of the afternoon was spent touring Petrified Forest National Park. (Click the link to the
left for pictures) where we saw not only petrified wood but ancient hand carvings on rocks
and the southern edge of the Painted Desert.
Holbrook is located in the path of the famous highway Route 66 and makes
a big deal out of it. One of the highway's most familiar sights, The Wigwam
Motel is located here. It's located just west of what Holbrook signs claim is the
highway's only 90-degree turn. The temperature in Holbrook dropped into the low
40's, quite cold for Texas campers. But that was only a taste of what was to come!
Without regard to the rising price of gasoline or common sense, we now
pushed Westward toward our ultimate goal: The Grand Canyon. Of course, a Van House
road trip would be incomplete without some side trips along the way!
Another "middle of nowhere" stop
was Meteor Crater, about 10 miles south of Two Guns, Arizona.
This 570 foot deep by 4100 foot wide hole was formed by a meteor that smashed into
the desert 49,000 years ago. This crater was used to teach Apollo Astronauts about
crater geology and train them in traveling on lunar-like surfaces in their bulky space
suits. There is a museum full of information and displays relating the the space
program, as well as information on meteors and a 1400 pound meteorite found several years
ago.
After lunch in Flagstaff,
we visited Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, about 20 miles North
of Flagstaff. The eerie scenery is highlighted by black ash and one-mile long river
of brownish colored lava, the result of a 100-year long eruption that ended in the mid
12th century. A seismometer in the ranger station is one of a world wide network of
earthquake sensing devices used to pinpoint the location and intensity of earthquakes
around the world. The ranger showed us a "picture" of a quake that
happened the day before in central Mexico.
The volcano's crater is the depression
in the mountain peek. The brownish
chunks in the foreground are lava.
|
The black covering on the right side of
the mountain is black ash, remnants of
the volcano's eruption.
|
We continued to head north into higher elevations on our way to the
Grand Canyon. After several miles of forests and fields, the greenery gave way to
awesome views of the Painted Desert to the East. Photographs do not
do justice to the myriad of colors visible in this desolate area -- but of course we
snapped several! Two more shots of the painted desert can be seen with the Petrified Forest Pictures.
This view looks East over the "Little Colorado River Canyon"
with the Painted Desert in the background
|
We were sure this huge canyon was part of the Grand Canyon, but the
signs said otherwise. We were still several miles from the "official"
entrance to the Grand Canyon, which was our next stop. Click
here for photos of this amazing area!
Because of the cold (we're Texans, after all) we cut our visit to the
Grand Canyon short to head for warmer areas. Angela thought it would be fun to
attend a baseball Spring Training game in Phoenix. The trip to Phoenix took several
hours, and if it was heat we were looking for, we soon discovered we were in luck!
 |
Shade was sparse, but the cactus
didn't seem to mind!
|
It would have been unbearable without air conditioning, but once evening approached, it
cooled down considerably. Our lack of knowledge about Phoenix geography, however,
had us camping 25 miles east of downtown Phoenix, while the baseball game was located 15
miles Northwest of Phoenix!
It was time to head home (yes, we did all this in one week!) The
trip home took us through Tucson, where we drove through a truly bizarre
area, Saguaro National Park, home to a large
collection of huge armed cactus. Click the link to see pictures.
We continued to drive East through Arizona and New Mexico on Interstate
10 before finally turning Northeast at Las Cruces, New Mexico. We
also traveled by the White Sands Missile Range and White Sands
National Monument but stopped only briefly (pictures are still in Paul's camera).
After dinner and a flat trailer tire in Almagordo, New Mexico, we
drove through Roswell, New Mexico (without seeing any aliens) and finally
arrived back in Lubbock at 3 in the morning.
We dragged up to Angela's dorm with sleeping bags in our arms only to
discover her room-mate had already returned! Becky, Paul and Danny then had to go back
downstairs and find a Motel!
Our trip was made complete when Paul had to do some repair work on the
van and broke his thumbnail in half in the process!
