Dec 30-Our Flight Out

Phoenix to Cleveland, Ohio to Norfolk, Virginia (aka home).
No problems at all. As a matter of fact, we were fed on the flight.

Dec 29-Hard Rock Cafe - Phoenix

Emi had to get a tshirt so I bought her one.

We then went to the bar and had some exotic Margaritas and watched a few minutes of THE game, Patriots vs. Giants.
The bartender, Javi, from Juarez, Mexico, was really cool and spoke to us for a few minutes about his love of the Miami Dolphins. Imagine that.

Dec 29-Road to Phoenix

On our way back to Phoenix Emi found out about this spectacular light show that was at McCormick Rail Park in Scottsdale - ritzy city right next to Phoenix - anyways, we got there and noticed a huge line there and found out that, for two dollars, we could ride the train to see the light show. So we asked how long did they think that line was and they told us an hour to an hour and a half, we did not take the ride but we did walk around and see some of the light display.

Dec 29-Old Tucson Movie Studios

Another tourist trap that was the location for over 100 movies.
We had lunch here and even though it was expensive, it was very filling.
A very fun place but you can finish everything quickly if it weren't for their schedule of events. John Wayne filmed four movies here including Rio Bravo and McClintock.

Dec 29-Saguaro National Park - West

A continuation of Saguaro East - just on the other side of town from Tucson. Played with a real live tarantula - for some reason though Emi did not want to hold her - did I mention that it was a female and her name was Charlotte (as in Charlotte's Web).

Dec 28-Chiricahua National Monument

A “Wonderland of Rocks”

Dec 28-Saguaro National Park - East

Info coming soon...

Dec 28-Mama Louisa's Restaurant

We read about this restaurant in a local newspaper as being one of the best in the area.

Dec 27-Dinner in Tucson

Takamatsu Korean/Japanese Restaurant. Great food.

Dec 27-Dinner in Tucson

Takamatsu Korean/Japanese Restaurant. Great food.

Dec 27-Road to Sedona (Part II)

We started the day early and headed for the ghost town of Jerome - famous billion dollar copper mine all but deserted now. They say it is a town full of artisans and writers - but honestly, all we saw were old rundown buildings. We did see something that was odd there. The car we had rented had Arizona plates on it and the license plate number was something like 308TLZ. When we came out of the Jerome Visitor Center there was another identical rental car parked right next to us and it's tag number was 310TLZ. Same make, model, and color. Coming out of a place labeled as a ghost town I thought it odd. But it was just a coincidence.












Then we went to a place called Tuzigoot National Monument where we got to walk around a real pueblo that was made by the Secagua Indians in the 1300's. That was very interesting.


Afterward, we headed over to Red Rock Crossing where we took some amazing pics of Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock.
Then we went back into Sedona proper. We thought we would see some cool shopping places but it was 99% tourist trinkets and hard-core pushy resort salespeople. So we left and headed for Tucson, our next stop.
We arrived in Tucson and headed to a restaurant called Takamatsu. We have no idea how good or bad the food will be but it turned put great until Emi found some egg in her food. LOL!
Our hotel was only two miles away so we called it a night after that.

Dec 26-Road to Sedona, AZ

This is the road into Sedona, Arizona. We took a picture of this because it appeared to curve very much through the mountains. If you can go to Google maps and look for Sedona, AZ then follow route 89A out of Sedona to the north. You will a pretty straight road for the most part until you get to the spaghetti turns. It was fun driving them.



First we went to visitor center and spoke to a volunteer named Doug who was extremely helpful. He told us about the following places:

1- The Chapel of the Holy Cross

2- Sedona Airport - funny idea but the view was amazing. The airport sits approximately 500 feet above the city so the views are amazing.


3- Red Rock Loop - beautiful


This, ladies and gentelmen, is a house. It is currently for sale. This pic was taken from a view while standing outside the chapel. If you notice the dome on this house you may notice that it is an observatory. We have no idea how much they were asking but since my mother is a Realtor, I thought that she would get a kick out of it. If anyone finds out how much they want for this and posts it in our comments section I will add it here. Just in case you want to look it up it is in Sedona Arizona and is almost right next to the Chapel of the Holy Cross Church.


Then we went to dinner at a place called Javelina Cantina - good food - fish tacos and blackened scallops salad.

That night we heard some very interesting sounds coming from the next room. The next morning when we got up and saw the couple from the next room we were amazed, they were both about 60 years old. LOL!!

Dec 26-Meteor Crater

Five hundred fifty feet deep, 4,000 feet across and you have an idea of how big this thing is.
A huge hole in the ground. Watch the video. If the video takes too long then check out the pics below.






It is so immense.


Emi trying not to fall in.


Boiler Plate #29 - used on December 10th, 1965 to simulate the flotation capabilities of a space craft.

Dec 26-Petrified National Forest

Entre Nous...amazing place and story about how all of this wood became petrified.


The painted desert. Believe me, it is truly beautiful in person.


A petrified log on it's side. If you click on it you can see where things crystallized.


Agate bridge - a natural agate bridge that has since had human supports put under it.


Indian petroglyphs - petro meaning rock and glyph meaning drawing.


Odd Note: There was a crazy family (sounded to me like they were from Pakistan or India - at least how I hear them) and they were driving two cars and decided to pass us at very high speeds within the park grounds - they were very disrespectful of not only us, but of the park itself.

Dec 25-Movie Time

Theater was packed. National Treasure 2. On Xmas day - whodathought.

Dec 25-Merry Christmas

Woke up here in Holbrook Arizona this morning. Our purpose in this town is to go and visit the Petrified National Forest but you will have to check out tomorrow's post to see anything about that. Everything is closed except Denny's and a movie theater about 50 miles away. We will hit the movies and then come back here.

Dec 24-Canyon de Chelly National Park

Canyon de Chelly National Park (pronounced da Shay)

Amazing, beautiful and any other adjective you can say about a beautiful place - this place has it.
We spent all day here and saw about 90% of it all.


We hiked down into the canyon to view the 'white house ruins'. These ruins date from about 1200 and are some of the oldest in the canyon. The one mile trail is rocky and steep in places but well-maintained and not too difficult - it takes between 25 and 50 minutes to get down, depending on your fitness. (Gold's Gym has nothing on walking down into a canyon and then back up to the top.)



There are a couple of short tunnels, plenty of cacti and lizards, and the track passes a farm and an orchard before crossing the stream to the ruins. Near the stream, just before the second tunnel, there is an interesting short-cut down a narrow gully, using old foot-holes carved in the sandstone walls.


Spider Rock - over 800 feet tall.

We left for Holbrook, Arizona and arrived in the evening - dinner was at Denny's - Emi felt a little sick afterwards.

Dec 23-Maria's Restaurant

We heard from one of Emi's co-workers that this was a good restaurant to eat at.

The food was good and the service was great. The margaritas were amazing. Only two each and we were ripped. They say the altitude gets you drunk much faster than at sea level. I would say that we firmly believe that statement.

Dec 23-El Santuario de Chimayo

We visited Chimayo, New Mexico to see this famous sanctuary.



Chimayó is known throughout the region and internationally for its privately-built chapel, the Santuario de Nuestro Señor de Esquípulas.

Soil from a hole in the sanctuary's dirt floor is considered holy by some, capable of bringing about miraculous cures of ill health through the practice of geophagy.



Funny note: Emi noticed a modern drawing of Jesus and said that "that priest in the drawing was drawn very handsome." I had to tell her that it was Jesus. LOL!

Dec 23-Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo - Very interesting place.


This is what is known as the north house.


Here is the old church. Back in the 1800's this is the church where all the women, children and older people went for safety. The church was burned down to the ground with all those people inside. The graves are of those who died inside.


Here is Emi posing in front of their new chapel/church entry way.

No electricity, running water, or other amenities we are all used to.
We took the self-guided tour and met a lot of very nice Taos Indians.


There was also a really cool dog that was having a blast playing with me.

Dec 22-Bobcat Bite

A recommendation by my good friend Mark. Thanks guy.
Great world-famous burgers and they were out of hamburger.
We arrived right at closing and they welcomed us like neighbors and served us a great meal.

The Bobcat Bite is a very famous hamburger place in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Click here to read more about it.


Here is Emi with the current owner of the Bobcat Bite, Bonnie Eckre.

Now it's off to Santa Fe proper.

Dec 22-What UFO's??

Roswell, New Mexico - we had no intentions of actually stopping or doing anything here. It was just in the path of our journey. We only stopped for gas here. Quite a big city actually considering that all of the stuff we ever saw on TV about Roswell showed this little bitty desert town with tumbleweeds all about.

Dec 22-Carlsbad Caverns

We are took a couple of tours here. First, we took the King's Palace Tour. This was a paid tour and we had to reserve tickets online before we arrived. After we took that tour there was a free walk on your own tour that we took called the Big Room Tour. Both were amazing and on the King's tour we had a great guide. Probably the most amazing underground cavern in the world. The one truly amazing difference about the Carlsbad Caverns and all other underground caverns in the world - it was not created by running water.


Here I am holding up the railing.

I know you can't tell from this but this thing is about 40 feet tall.

The natural formations of this cave were beautiful and strange at the same time.

Here is the entrance to the Natural Cave and it is world-famous for being the location to watch the millions of bats come out at sunset each day. They were hibernating while we were there.

Dec 21-White Sands Nat'l. Monument

What a cool looking place. Just a little pueblo-looking building with some very friendly park rangers. It was quite cold on top of the gypsum hills and very windy.


I do not recommend wearing contacts if you use them. Very, very white and bright.


Drove to Carlsbad afterwards.

Dec 21 - Our Flight In

We woke at 3 am. I actually awoke at about 3:15 (I always stretch that out just a bit).
Got to the airport and our flight was delayed because of a broken coffee pot. Can you believe that? With all of the airport security issues our plane was grounded because an "FAA Certified Signature" was not on a document stating that a certain coffee pot was broken. The fact that we knew we only had about 40 minutes between flights was no consolation either.
Flight was ok. I was very restless and could not sleep. I finally got a few z's in and napped for about an hour or so. Sunrise in an airplane is a beautiful sight.
Arrived in Dallas late and we had to take a train (oh, the irony) to catch our flight. We barely made it. The only question is - did our luggage make it?
NO it did not! The luggage did not make it. It was delayed like we were. Fortunately, it did show up about an hour later.
We then went to get ou rental car. We had a "wildcard" reservation which meant that we would or should get a decent car. We actually got a 2008 Subaru Forrester. Nice car and I highly recommend it. No problems.

Our Trip to the Southwest

We had been planning this trip for about three months now and here is how it all wound up...
The posts are in order by date and time of event.