P.S.

I encourage everyone reading to please subscribe and post comments! I would love to hear from you all back home, both my friends and my dad's and to be able to see who all is reading. 

Also, if you'd like a postcard from the road and I don't already have your address, please send it and I'll be sure to send you something! (You can e-mail it, if you'd like, to amandaaileen9@gmail.com.) Again, this is to both my friends and my dad's. I have already been peppering my homestate with mail, and I'd love to add some others to the list.

Thanks for reading!

Day 9 - In love with Bumblebee.

Sunday morning we woke up to white. Normally, I spend all winter long wishing for snow, but here I was, wishing that it were gone. We each had at least 100 miles to drive, and the roads didn't look promising... or safe. We spent about an hour and a half desnowing our vehicles. My rental looked like a giant snowball, and I had to scrape the whole thing down to be able to see to drive. Rocinante was fine except for the slideout. We had to haul everything out of the back storage compartment to get to the ladder, then repair the adjust-a-brush, and tear up the entire inside of the motorhome looking for my dad's gloves, so that we could then spend the next half-hour scraping down the top of the slideout so that it would slide in. Finally, we were ready. We each drove back down the icy road to the Ranch House Cafe for breakfast. The same waitress who served dinner the night before was serving breakfast, and some of the same people were there eating. In this town, everybody knows everybody, and they all gather around and catch up at this diner, hollering greetings at one other and interjecting in conversations from across the room. For breakfast, I had Ruth's Special, a mound of hashbrowns covered in some type of chili sauce with pieces of pork and topped with cheese. Delicious. My dad had an omelette while he chatted with one of the locals about the road conditions. He made some traveling suggestions for both of us and sketched out a map to Phoenix for me on my napkin. 

From here, my dad and I went our separate ways, me south to Phoenix, and he, on toward Las Vegas. We had decided to split up and do our own thing for a few days, then meet back up in Vegas on Wednesday. Going south on the highway, I had the better driving conditions and was off the icy roads within a half hour. He, on the other hand, had to brave the interstate in a RV on snow-packed roads - not an ideal combination, to say the least. He passed several upturned cars and a helicopter come to rescue the passengers. So it couldn't have been good. We kept calling each other with updates until we got to dry roads. Finally, he got back on Route 66, and I kept driving toward Phoenix. (Now, here is where you get only half the story. My dad will have to fill you in on his adventure.)

My drive was spectacular, with grasslands and mysterious rock formations flashing past and green mountains following me in the distance. Sheets of snow broke loose and fell from the car, to be left behind on the open road, and it felt metaphoric, for the independence I was gaining mile after mile, driving alone toward an unknown city. It felt good to be in a car, zipping across the countryside in a lightweight automobile instead of chugging up the hills. I felt lightweight.

Soon I was driving through the mountains that had been following me for so long along the horizon. The clouds hung low, and despite the cacti that dotted mountainsides, it felt more tropical than desert. The landscape was lush, the plant life abundant. There was an occasional drizzle of rain on my windshield; though it was less like rain than it was driving through the clouds, through the moisture, and absorbing it. 

Right in the heart of this curious landscape, I saw a sign for a town called Bumblebee. I had already seen it on the map, and the name was enough to make me want to stop, but its location made it a necessity. I pulled off the interstate and almost immediately, I saw my first Saguaro cactus. I whipped the car over to the side of the road and sprinted up the hill like a giddy child. Little did I know what was to come... The roads wound me down and around and back up again through this mountain desert and in minutes, I was on "primitive" dirt road. Plain Jane (as she is now called) didn't stay plain for long, but got covered in mud pretty quickly. I bounced along miles of one of the most gorgeous landscapes I have ever seen, pulling Jane over frequently to explore the desert plant life, to marvel at the mountains, and to enjoy this perfect weather and quietude. Bumblebee was just as brambly and wild and sweet as its name. A few trucks passed me, with four-wheelers on their backs, and I came across trailers stopped and abandoned, no doubt, with their drivers and passengers out playing in this desert oasis. It felt like a secret place that only us few had discovered. After about three miles into the five, it got too muddy to keep driving my little white car further on, and I had to turn back for the interstate, but I felt refreshed, returning to the road.

I had planned a lunch stop for Rock Springs Cafe, known for their pies. The cafe opened in a canvas tent in 1918. I'm not sure when they moved into their current location, but that, too, was old and looked like something out of a Western, with tin ceilings and a dimly lit wooden bar. I sat at the lunch counter, on the edge of that line that separates the customer from the reality. As I ate my turkey melt and rhubarb crumble pie, I watched the waitresses scurry from table to counter and stop for a three-minute bowl of soup as they chatted about the overflowing bathroom and what they did the night before. I saw all the different flavors of pie carried out, mounds of cream topping on the cream pies and fruit pies with their crusts fallen in. I picked rhubarb because it's the only one I've never tried and have always been curious about. I did like the taste of the red stalk, but the pie was nothing to write home about. Maybe it was something to the average taster, but to a self-proclaimed pie aficionado, I noticed how the crust was underbaked and lacked enough integrity to hold the rhubarb and how the filling was thickened not by proper cooking, but with cornstarch. Oh well, it was still nice to have a slice of pie before hitting the pavement again.

I got to Phoenix, a sprawling metropolis, about 2:30 and went directly to Mystery Castle, one of three things that drew me to this city. Mystery Castle was built by Boyce Luther Gulley for his daughter, Mary Lou. When diagnosed with tuberculosis, Boyce disappeared from his family and came to live out the rest of his life in Phoenix. He lived longer than the doctors had predicted and actually died a good while later, from cancer. Mary Lou was a toddler when her father left, and her most vivid memory of him was building sandcastles together at the beach. He had always promised her that he would build her a real castle one day, and this is what he spent the rest of his life doing. He built the entire structure by hand, himself, in the 1930's and 40's and incorporated many things he scavenged from the property and from around town, including windows made from glass refrigerator containers and wheels off his car, ceilings from railroad tracks and telephone poles, and patios and walls from cast-off bricks that came off the kiln imperfect and odd-shaped. The home really did look like something created in someone's imagination, with little creative touches everywhere, thirteen fireplaces, a floating staircase, and a looking hole from one of the balconies into the city. Mary Lou didn't know about the house her father was building until his will was read, but she still lives there till this day, and I met her while I was there (in the photo, she's the little white-headed lady on the right). She's quite the artist herself, as you can tell from the things she's collected and used to decorate her house throughout the years. And as we visited, she sat drinking coffee with her artist friend, who had painted a rock collection for her that surrounds her living room fireplace.

After leaving, I picked a hotel from the AAA book and let the GPS direct me through the confusing Phoenix roadways to what would be my home for the next several days. On this trip, I have discovered that my home can be anywhere, that it's something I carry with me. Yet, as I drove along the edge of the city, with it passing by on my right, for a moment, it felt as though as I was driving down Morehead, toward my house back in Charlotte. And for the second time on the trip, a little wave of homesickness set in. It will still be over three weeks until I'm back there, until I see that road again, and I do miss that place and all the people I love who live there too. 

I set my things down in my hotel room and went out to find some groceries to get me through the next few days, and while I was out, I found my home away from home, just the right thing to cure that yearning for North Carolina.... a thrift store! Haha! I finished the night with soup in bed, a Diane Keaton movie, and a call from Paul, and turned in fairly early to a real bed, not in a bag.

Day 8: Running from the snow

First of all, let me say I am behind because night before last we didn't have an internet connection, and last night I just wanted a break. So here's the catch-up...

We got an early start on Day 8 to make up for the day before. We pulled out of the RV park at 7:30AM and went across the street to the doughnut shop to pick up a quick breakfast. The doughnuts were some of the best and freshest we've ever had. We quickly made our way across the Arizona border to our first tourist stop of the day - the Petrified Forest National Monument, also the site of the Painted Desert. The desert was breathtaking - the sheer vastness, the colors, the rock formations. But the best part for me was the interaction of the petrified wood with its landscape. Let me just say, my heart skips a beat for petrified wood. There was petrified wood scattered everywhere! Some were pieces and some were entire logs. It was truly amazing to see. 

A History... 225 million years ago, the area was a floodplain where conifer trees lived in abundance. When the trees fell, flooded streams washed them into the floodplains, and "a mix of silt, mud and volcanic ash buried the logs. This sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs' decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood" (from the park's brochure). As the continental plates shifted, this region was uplifted, and this the tropical environment became today's grassland. As weathering of the land has occurred, the petrified wood (as well as fossilized plants and animals) have been exposed.

The park only contains 10% of the wood in the Petrified Forest, so on our way out, we stopped in the gift shop to get a few souvenir pieces. As we drove into the next town, Holbrook, AZ, we saw a shop specializing in the sale of petrified wood, and our attention was piqued by the acres of petrified logs surrounding their parking lot. We had to stop. This was the rock shop of all rock shops. It trumped everything in my rock collecting history. Not only did they have shelf after shelf and bin and bin of every rock and fossil (even some quite beautiful dinosaur poop) you could ever imagine for sale, but they also had a display case that I could have spent the entire day in front of. I picked up a few more things here, including a small piece of petrified wood from Madagascar, and though I was tempted by the dinosaur poop, we went on into Holbrook to find lunch.

We had some burgers from Joe & Aggie's Cafe, an old Route 66 stop. The people here were really nice and, once they found out we were traveling the old route, had lots of suggestions for us. I bought a few postcards here that were sketched by the man who inspired the VW bus character in "Cars." The guy behind the counter said he was quite the kooky hippie. I don't know, but the postcards were pretty cool, but I do tend to like kooky hippies. We also browsed a few shops in Holbrook, hearing tales from more locals, and we made a quick pass of the town museum. On the way out of town, we passed the Wigwam Motel. I had really wanted to spend the night in one of these concrete tepees, but it just wasn't in the cards for that day. We had to keep making our way westward.

Our next stop on the Route was Winslow, AZ, made famous by the Eagle's song "Take It Easy." We did stop at the legendary corner - 2nd Steet and Kinsley - and my dad bought himself a T-shirt along with more Route 66 memorabilia. I bought a few plastic bears of local honey, gathered by a local railroader/beekeeper. I'm signing up for a beekeeping class next month, so lately my interest in honey varieties has grown. 

Our last sightseeing expedition for the day was at Meteor Crater, where 50,000 years ago a meteor traveling 33,000 miles per hour crashed into the Earth, creating a hole 570 feet deep, almost a mile wide, and 3 miles in circumference. Pretty freaking big! There was a fairly large chunk of the meteor on the display inside the exhibits, but about 80% of it vaporized on impact. Still though, all plant and animal life within a 100-mile radius was destroyed as nearly a half-billion tons of rock were gouged from the earth and showered the area. Astronauts did some of their training here in preparation for the moon landing, and some skeptics believe the lunar expeditions were actually filmed on this site.

From here, we had to make our way on in to Flagstaff, which was supposed to be our resting place for the night. But as we drove, we could see dense clouds looming on the horizon, and as we got further into Flagstaff, we learned more of the seriousness of the weather situation. We drove into snow showers as we entered town and came upon a mountain so big, it startled me. The white clouds were so enveloping and low-hanging that there was no warning there was a snow-covered mountain this large ahead! We stopped at the airport to pick up my rental car so that we could split up for the next few days and could hardly find a place to park Rocinante, the snow banks were so massive! So we got the car and kept driving west, trying to get out of the storm and the six inches that were predicted to fall overnight. First, we tried Williams, but the snow was still falling pretty hard, and the office staff at the campground suggested we drive on to Ash Ford. So we did. Despite the lack of a sign, we found a ghetto RV park behind a motel (sans internet) and parked for the night. But as we parked the rental outside the Ranch House Cafe for dinner, the snow started coming down... and kept coming. We ended up with about 4 inches by morning, and they closed the interstate down east of us, between Ash Ford and Flagstaff. We definitely had made the right decision to keep driving.

Day 7: Steak or Burrito

I've had more red meat than I should probably eat in a lifetime. Last night when he hit New Mexico, Mexican food was all we could think about it, and boy was it good. Twenty-four hours later, we're sick of it. We had Mexican again for lunch. This time, crappy Mexican. And for dinner, our choices: Mexican or steak. Practically every restaurant in town has been Mexican, and every non-Mexican menu we've seen still has Mexican on it. So the first place we went for dinner - El Rancho Hotel - had a choice of steak or Mexican (everything else was questionable). My dad threw down a tip for our waters and we left. The second place - The Ranch Kitchen - had a choice of steak or Mexican or ribs. I ordered the ribs. They were out of the pig... So we both had steak. I can't even begin to count how much red meat I have eaten in this cow country. Ok, well I might as well try: chili, chicken-fried steak, a filet, a beef taco, carne asada, another steak. And what am I going to eat for breakfast in the morning? Probably steak (leftover) and eggs... My intestines need a break. Tomorrow, we're cooking pork chops for dinner.

Ok, now let me back up. To the beginning...

We had a rather slow start this morning. I made a pretty hearty breakfast on a two-burner stove. It took about 2 hours to cook it and eat it. And I boiled over some milk, and the pool left standing in the burner extinguished the gas flame. Fun. Then my dad wanted to make a "quick stop" at Camping World across the street. I should have known from many childhood RV trips that those stops are never quick. We pulled out of their parking lot about 12:30. But Rocinante did get some more doctoring, and she just may finally be remedied now, for good.

For lunch, we went to Old Town Albuquerque, which was the original 1706 town settlement. The old homes have now been turned into shops and restaurants. For lunch, we had a choice of Mexican or Mexican, so we had... well, you know the rest of that. Afterwards, we crossed the square to San Felipe De Neri Catholic Church just to look around. We finished off our visit to Old Town with a stop at the Rattlesnake Museum. (I'm not going to lie - this is really why we went to Old Town in the first place). The museum was housed in the back of a little junk store, but a real live snake catcher/keeper ran the place. We saw a photo of him holding the most ginormous live rattlesnake we've ever seen, and he had some kind of snake out in the shop to play with. After paying our $3, we carried our "Special Visitor Certificate of Bravery" to the back and viewed a pretty large snake collection, which included everything from rattlers to copperheads, and all other brands of poisonous, legless creatures. Also included were a few tarantulas, scorpions, a giant frog, some rather interesting looking turtles, a gila monster, and a few lizards. One of the most interesting in the snake zoo was the "Viritrox" Rattlesnake, a mix of a Prairie Rattlesnake and a Western Diamondback. As the placard explained, this doesn't happen often, especially with snakes of different sizes. This snake was caught from a landfill in Albuquerque. I have to confess, it was a bit eerie looking some of these things in the face. The gila monster was my favorite, though. And maybe the Indian Ornamental Tarantula. Out of the snakes, it would have to be the Northwestern Neotropical Rattlesnake (native to Southern Mexico and white with sand-colored flecks). Well... and I also really liked that giant frog.

On our way out of Albuquerque, we stopped at one of the canyons of the Petroglyph National Monument to see some of the 3,500 rock drawings there. However, once we got about 15 minutes into the 1.2 mile trail, SOMEBODY was ready to turn around. I'm not naming any names here... We did see something on 2 rocks, but I wouldn't guarantee that those weren't etched by some kids back in 1992. Guess we'll never know.

From there, we were back on 40, headed west. The drive was gorgeous. Palisades, mesas, all brilliant red in the setting sun. And some snow-capped mountains in the distance. And finally, the further west we got and the higher in elevation, snow on the ground around us. We pulled over and took some photos at the Continental Divide at an elevation of 7,275 feet. What a strange phenomenon, the Continental Divide - on one side the water flows east toward the Atlantic, on the other west toward the Pacific. But why there? Why right there?

Our final stop was Gallup, New Mexico, the last stop we could find with an RV park and far enough to drive for one day. We bought some souvenirs at Richardson's Cash Pawn and Trading Post, just as much a museum as it was a place to shop. I really do wish I would have gotten more pictures there - there was some amazing artisanal work in those glass cases. Oh and when I say "souvenirs," I mean some serious souvenirs. In other words, my mom should be watching out for the arrival of a wooden crate.

For dinner and a Route 66 stop, we tried El Rancho Hotel, whose claim to fame is that it was the home of the stars while they were filming in New Mexico and Arizona. The hotel definitely had a tremendous amount of character, but the restaurant left a little to be desired. So we drove... and drove... and drove... and finally found the other of maybe 4 "real" restaurants in town - The Ranch Kitchen. Really, I still can't get over how every town has all the same kind of food, no matter what kind of place they put it in. Don't people get tired of the same old thing? Haven't these people ever had Italian?! Oh, what I would do for some red sauce that didn't come from a pepper....

Day 6 - Canyons to Cadillacs

Today was mostly driving, trying to get from Amarillo, TX to Albuquerque, NM, which was a long haul, over 300 miles worth. We did see a few more sights in Amarillo before we left for the day. We drove a little further south to Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the U.S.  A road was actually cut down into the canyon floor - about a 16 mile loop - so we rode that and made a few stops to get out and look around. It was so refreshing to be outside for just a bit. And it was beautiful. I've always been a sucker for sedimentary rock, for all those layers of color and just the idea of it, how it's a timepiece of nature - layer after layer packed down by the weight of time, the color and features telling something of each specific age. This made me nostalgic of my 5th grade egg-crate rock collection. I could always find the most exotic rocks, even in my back yard. I also got to see my first Southwest cactus here, and as I was taking some photos, I even got pricked by a few, just for those extra special memories. As we headed back into Amarillo to catch I-40 west, we drove past Cadillac Ranch, a field with 10 Cadillacs sticking nose-down into dirt, their tail-ends upended to the Texas sky. Our longhorn limo driver told us a little about this Route 66 oddity last night: they were placed there by a crazy local (Stanly March III) who grew up with way too much oil money. Rumor has it when he graduated from high school, his parents gave him a million dollars, and he went off and bought a zoo... and brought all the animals home... to his backyard. Obviously, this didn't exactly fly with the fam, so the animals were sent back. So this is what crazy Texas oil millionaires do in their spare time - bury cars in the ground and let people come and spray paint graffiti on them. Get your kicks on Route 66! So, after smelling way too much spray paint (and about getting doused with some by 2 young kids), we boarded Rocinante and bounded across two states worth of empty, unsettled land. There's not much that can be done with this dry dessert, but it sure is pretty to look at. From Texas into New Mexico, the landscape changed from flat land as far as the eye could see to canyons and rock formations. It's always interesting to me how you can watch this gradual change occur and how it gets more and more pronounced along the way. As we turned our clocks back another hour, we made it into Albuquerque about 4:30PM. We came in on the old Route 66 and looked for a place to eat dinner. A lot was closed because of the new year, but we did find this great little hole-in-the-way Mexican eatery, called Mac's. It was packed with locals, had great old Southwest charm and even better food. Now, friends, by now, you should know the rest. Campground. TV. Music. Typing. Yep, you got it.

Another note... The weather so far has been perfect. We haven't needed more than a light jacket, and the days have been bright and sunny. However, the snow is on its way and has been just behind us, helping to push us further west. It looks like we will meet it in Arizona, so we'll have to wait and see how that goes and how Rocinante can handle it.

Happy trails to you till we meet again...

Day 5: From Oklahoma to Texas

There's nothing like the smell of cow crap after dinner. 

Yep, we're in Texas. 

Amarillo.

We spent more time on Route 66 today, touring more small-town stops in Oklahoma and Texas. A lot of places were closed for New Year's Eve (the National Route 66 Museum, Erik OK's curiosity shop, and the Devil's Rope (barbed wire) Museum, but we did manage to find quite a few original gas stations and motels - some restored, some dilapidated. A border town we went through was completely abandoned, Texola. Between Alanreed and Groom, TX we drove on an old stretch of the Route called the "Jericho Gap," a break in the paved road that was not bypassed until the late 1930's and was feared for its car-trapping mud. My dad feared it more for the dust and quickly turned around and headed for interstate. We saw a few other Route 66 oddities - a leaning water tower (erected as a bet, to see if it would remain standing) and the tallest cross in the western hemisphere. We pulled into our destination town - Amarillo, TX - about 2:00 this afternoon. Amarillo has done a good job of maintaining the historic Route 66 area, so we stopped in a few antique shops along the old strip. My dad was thrilled, so much so that he had to go back to sit down in the motorhome; I picked up an old hat, a fuzzy deer nic-nac, and a book. Though it was a short day, we knew we had a long night with New Year's Eve ahead, so we checked into the campground about 5:00 and saved the rest of the Amarillo sights for the next day.

For our New Year's Eve outing, we chose Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the 72 oz. steak. (If you eat it and all the sides, it's free.) The restaurant sent a longhorn limo to the campground to pick us up (as in horns on the front of the car). The restaurant was on the original Route 66 but had to be moved in the 70's when the road was torn up. Everything about it said Route 66 and Texas. Big. Overdone. Crazy. Perfect. My dad made quick friends with the owner of the gift shop, who may very well come to visit in NC and who also told us not to order the shrimp... or the chicken fried steak... or the barbeque, but that the steak was great. And it was! It was only a 6 0z., but we still couldn't each finish ours. Then after a few photos and some time in the shooting gallery, we boarded the cow limo for "home." And yes, as we exited, the smell of cow crap wafted through the night air.

Now, we wait another 45 minutes until "our" New Year, while those of you back at home are already celebrating. It's bittersweet, and I miss being there to celebrate with you all. I wish you all the best, and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year!

Good night 2008...

A Morning Comparison

We went back to Elk Country Cafe this morning for breakfast, and I had a revelation. It was just like being back at home in Mt. Pleasant. Take away the landscape (Oklahoma has been mostly varying shades of brown, by the way, minus some recent farmland), and everything else says Mt. Pleasant. The accents. The boots and overalls. The hair. The gruff men getting ready to go off to work. The decor (elk/deer wallpaper border, paintings, etc.) Same thing, different place.