Fin.

Arrival!  It feels absolutely wonderful to have made it to California.  We spent all afternoon hanging with the cousins in Monrovia...they've gotten so big!  

We're headed to Universal studios tomorrow and the beach on Saturday (jealous?).  Scott and Chris leave on Monday and I start work on the 1st!  

What a trip.

Final mileage: 4,241.4 miles.  

State Lines Crossed (18): Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California.  

Favorite State Motto: "Drive Friendly-The Texas Way" (Texas obviously)

Favorite City: San Antonio, TX

Favorite Sketchy Pit Stop: Two-way tie between Bayou Lebatre, AL and Somewhere, TN (John 3:16 bible lesson from gas station attendant).  

Temperature Extremes: 115 Degrees while crossing the Hoover Dam

Days with Rain: One (New Jersey for half day and random rain in Las Vegas)

Notable Wildlife: Weasel in Tennessee, 2 deer in Fall Creek Falls, TN, 5 deer in Grand Canyon National Park, 2 pet sheep in pickup truck in Arizona, skunk at Carlsbad, NM (Stacia stops to watch it, Chris tells me to get the hell moving).  

Favorite National Park: Grand Canyon National Park, AZ 

Favorite Roadkill: Coyote in Arizona

Quote of the trip: Scott says while looking at the floor in New Mexico, "If you're in Mexico and you want to buy a rug, are they called Mexican rugs or just...(pause)rugs?"

Individual Low Points: Scott - Camping in Tennessee (for the record, I had a great time). Chris - Puking on shoes and pants (which were thrown away) on Bourbon Street New Orleans, LA. Stacia - Walking 6 miles in the 110 heat index while dehydrated, with no water, and wicked hung over in New Orleans.  

Best (and by best I mean worst) hotel experience:  Carlsbad, NM.  Continental breakfast consists of 2 dozen sketchy donuts. Scott goes to check in and there is only a poodle at the front desk.  Tournament softball team comes back at 11pm and has a party outside our room. 

Favorite Drive: Durham, NC to Fall Creek Falls, TN

Least Favorite Drive: San Antonio, TX to Carlsbad, NM...lets be real, all of Texas and New Mexico was the least bit exciting. 

Favorite Historical Stop: Montgomery, AL - Civil Rights Movement Birth/Memorial

Movies to Watch After/Before Driving Across the Country: Bull Durham, Forest Gump, Vegas Vacation, Blue Crush, The Alamo, Apollo 13.  

Lots of love from sunny California, 

Stacia, Chris, and Scott

vegas baby!

Safe and sound and not (too) broke (yet). Hit up the coyote ugly bar yesterday night and we're all a little tired today. It is hard to believe that we've come all the way and tomorrow will make it to la!

Roadkill on the way; 3 coyotes!

Is that an elk...?

First, it turns out that Arizona is actually on Pacific Time after all.  After about 20 minutes of time confusion we figured it out and will remain on Pacific from here out.

We decided to drive all the way to the Grand Canyon (since it was about the same price as staying in Flagstaff), which was probably one of the best decisions we made.  Since we are so close (one mile from the south entrance to the south rim), we had the privilege of watching the sunset this evening.  Wow.  I'm at a lack of words for what we just saw.  Just like when I watched sunsets/rises in Central Australia, the red rock turned purple as the sun slipped below the horizon.  Absolutely stunning.  You guys will just have to wait until I put the pictures up. 

To top off the night, on the way out of the park, we were stopped by a group of elk chillin' in the road.  Of course we took pictures and well, literally couldn't keep driving for 5-10 minutes as they chewed on some grass.  Great night. 

I'm looking forward to exploring more of the park tomorrow and checking out some of the other scenic overlook locations.  Then, it is off to Vegas for two nights before finishing in LA on Wednesday afternoon/evening.  

Hope everyone is surviving the flood back at home.  We still haven't seen rain since New Jersey...

"Do you think they check what's down there?..." - Spelunking 101

Happy Father's Day!  

Carlsbad Caverns are HUGE.  1.5 hours and 750 feet later, we got to the bottom of the cave.  The winding paved walking packs were on about a 70 degree angle the entire way down.  Quite a site.  One that I wish I had a great camera to document for all of you.  

About 10 minutes before reaching Roswell, NM (home of Area 51) we hit the 3,000 mile mark.  It's hard to believe that we only have 3 more stops before arriving in California on the 26th.  

Scott and I got dinner at El Pinto's.  This authentic New Mexican food restaurant a little bit outside of Albuquerque.  After getting lost for about 25 minutes, we found the place.  Excellent food.  There are pictures of famous people all over the walls.  Everyone from Obama to Mick Jagger.  

Sleeping in tomorrow, before heading to Flagstaff, AZ for the night. 

Are those cactus?

Texas is massive.  Ok, so we all knew it was massive from maps, and "don't mess with Texas ads," but holy crap I didn't think we would ever make it out of there.  The last 4.5 hours were nothing but one straight road west (then north) with small mountains, cactus, and shrubbery.  

Crossing into New Mexico, nothing changed (except the time...we're now on Mountain Time).  

Carlsbad National Park: a must see.  Kind of a big deal, it's set back about a half hour down this windy road through cliffs.  Tonight we saw 400,000 Mexican bats (they migrate here every spring) fly out of the natural entrance of the cave in a counter-clockwise funnel.  They then flew over our heads and broke off into the horizon to feed before they return at dawn.  It was a miraculous site.  Can't wait to get into the cave tomorrow morning!  

Crowd Favorite: San Antonio, Texas

Went to the Johnson Space Center.  Not too exciting, except that we got to see historic mission control, where all the Gemini and Apollo missions were controlled and saw a live video feed of the new mission control (in action, since there is an American at the International Space Station right now).  We then drove 3 hours west to San Antonio.  

Car consensus: Everyone must go to San Antonio at some point in their lives.  

Reasons: 

1. The people are super nice.  

2. The area is clean, yet active, unlike Bourbon Street where people puke on your shoes.  

3. The Alamo.  Located a block from the Riverwalk, it's interesting that it is completely incongruent from the surrounding areas; however, it somehow doesn't seem out of place.  

3a. Davy Crocket died at the battle of the Alamo (secret: I didn't know Davy Crocket was a real person, I kind of thought he was like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseeds).  

4. You can take a boat down the San Antonio River...with booze aboard.  

5. Mexican beer. 

6. Neo-Gothic architecture combined with 1700s Mexican design = beautiful. 

7. Live theater/dance performance highlighting the best of the arts in Mexico/San Antonio.  

7a.  This was performed in an amphitheater in which the stage was separated from the audience by the San Antonio River itself.  

8. Phenomenal accents.  

All in all, a great day.  I have zero fondness for the rest of Texas, it's just a whole lot of nothing, I can't say that Houston was anything to write home about, but culture, architecture, and design of San Antonio caught us all by surprise.  

New Mexico tomorrow (and the crossover into Mountain time - 2 hours behind EST).

Welcome to Texas - "Drive the friendly-The Texas Way"

Phew.  We survived New Orleans and the drive west over the border into Texas.  Nothing to report except a lot of fields and hay circles.

Headed to NASA and the Johnson Space Center tomorrow.  Right now, recovering from the heat and the drive.  San Antonio on after we tour around the space center tomorrow.  

Happy Birthday Andrea!