Not the most comfortable accommodations, I don't have anywhere to sit comfortably and use my laptop, except on this twin futon if I prop pillows up against the uncomfortable arms and lie crosswise on it. I can't access the internet while I'm doing this because the phone line doesn't reach, but it's dialup anyway and there's only one line and Montgomery Burns (the doghating version) will yell if he can't call to check the weather.

It is like a prison here, literally. I am in an approx. 10x12 room with two windows that I can't see out of because it's in a basement and there's those stupid plastic bubbles over them. The irony is that this is an improvement over what it was prior to 2004. Back then, I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the living/dining room, no privacy. And before I figured out that the mattress on the floor was actually more comfortable, I was sleeping on a rollaway cot that squeaked and was lumpy. The things I will endure just to see friends.

We almost got a motel for the rest of what would have been an extremely abbreviated stay, because the hot water heater broke. Had I not complained very loudly about the tepidly cold shower, they would've continued to use as is, rationalizing (if you can call it that) "the water is cold because it's cold outside", each shower becoming progressively colder and colder, and shorter and shorter, until finally they took no more showers and just washed in the sink and boiled hot water on the stove.

The above paragraph is supposed to be read in a Garrison Keilor voice. A Scary Home Companion.

So here's what went down so far.

Monday, March 24: Left Madison and went to Galena, IL. Disappointment. The rock shop in town has closed forever. I wanted mass quantities of Fluorite and Galena mined from this town, but instead will have to buy it in Colorado and elsewhere that imports rocks and minerals mined from Galena, IL. The irony. I like hills, but Galena is too hilly. Would not want to live there. Old mining towns are creepy. It reminded me a bit of Bisbee, AZ, but creepier. Since we didn't stay long there, we headed down the road and stayed in Lincoln, NE for the night. Not at our usual haunts because that one was going downhill the last time we passed through (coming back from Arizona a year ago), but this time at a Super 8 so I could take advantage of my Trip Rewards (which I should've signed up for over a year ago). It was near the stairwell over the lobby so it was loud, and although it was a non-smoking room, the room across wasn't and the occupants kept the door open and it stunk. Not a lot of sleep.

Tuesday, March 25: Got coffee at the best coffee shop in the world. Stan felt lousy...he was coming down with a cold. We both felt dessicated and were drinking mass quantities of fluids. I was about to come down with a cold, so I didn't feel my best either. Lots of interstate rest stops. Nebraska. Boring. Eastern Colorado. Boring. Hot. Dry. When I arrived in Fort Collins, my mom had found a Coty Sweet Earth Woods perfume compact for me. This was possibly a rosebud. I don't know if this was THE one I had, or one she had. If it was mine, where were the other two? The smells instantly brought back memories, and now I know why I thought they all smelled alike. In my final analysis, I think the Vermont Country Store's version actually has more distinction between the scents than the originals did.

Wednesday, March 26: Can't remember what happened that day other than buying a cactus at Fossil Creek Nursery. shopping at Sunflower Market. and going into a Mexican grocery to get some juices (Jumex...my favorite). We also went downtown to see if I could find some scents at the Tibetan store, but ended up buying blue coffee mugs that said "Namaste" (LOST reference) because there are no coffee cups at the Burns residence that are of a normal size. Every utensil, every cup is miniature in size, so in order to eat with a normal size spoon, one has to use their version of a tablespoon. It's like some sort of weird Alice in Wonderland through the looking glass alternative world where everything has shrunk in size. Went to Mellow Yellow in search of Frangipani. Found nothing. Went out to eat with Bill at El Burrito that night.

Thursday, March 27: I was sick. I felt awful. I stayed in the prison practically the entire day until I got bored out of my freaking mind (no tv, no radio, that's pretty unbearable when you're sick) and Stan took me for a ride in the evening.

Friday, March 28: This was the morning of the cold shower. At first I thought it was one of Montgomery Burns' money-saving methods of setting the hot water heater down so low that one can't take a shower for more than a minute without being frozen. But Stan checked the heater and it was set pretty high. I convinced them it was a problem with the hot water heater, and that it was old and needed to be replaced. They amazingly got someone over here to fix it...on a Friday afternoon. No way that could have been accomplished in Madison. Earlier in the day, Stan and I went to Bath, Fort Collins Nursery, and Gulley Greenhouse to get some cactuses. After that we came back to deal with the hot water heater guy and meddling Mr. Burns. After that I seriously had to have a Margarita with Bill at El Burrito. I don't drink much anymore because of the pain in my jaw it causes me, plus it makes me unproductive. But when I'm on vacation, productivity is not an issue.

Saturday, March 29: I was not exactly hung over (I only had one margarita the night before), but not exactly well-rested either. Went to the Longmont/Boulder area to see our friends Russ and Lamya and their two kids. On the way stopped at a greenhouse outside of Loveland to get cactus. We ate at a nice restaurant in Boulder that serves South American cuisine, like Cerviche. (sp?) I had a Mojito to drink which was delicious. Stan had a Margarita. We drove back to Fort Colins about 9:30 pm, but when we got back, we were dead. We used to do this all the time, and much later in the night. What has become of us? We are getting old. Unfortunately, this would have been *the* day to go for a bike ride had we not been out of town, unfortunately we couldn't have the nice weather on Saturday come later the next week.

Sunday, March 30: Dead to the world after the Mojito and the long night (up until all of 10:30, well, 11:30 Madison time) before. Went to Avo's to check our email on their free hi-speed internet. Had an absolutely delicious Creamation omelette. Went to East West Imports and found a Persian Attar scent, plus some Asian rice crackers to munch on for road tripping. I also broke down and went to the place in town I swore I'd never go to again, ever. The dreaded Whole Foods. I just wanted to see if they had more Kuumba Made scents available than they do in Madison. Bought some Tunisian Amber and Black Copium, plus some Vetiver essential oil and Jojoba oil to use as a carrier oil, and an empty roll-on vial so I can make my own Vetiver perfume. This might be the "smokier" more molassesy Vetiver that I'm not used to as much as the other kind I got as crystal resin from Eden Botanicals. I felt pretty dead the whole day. We got drive-thru food that night and drove around a lot. Nights are pretty much spent driving around until we're tired of it or have exhausted all the places to see, and then we come back here and hole up in the prison while the TV blares upstairs. If they would just turn the tv off and have conversations with us, that would be fine (non-judgmental, non-worrywart, non-persnickety conversations, that is), but no, the TV is all important. And loud tv too. Just shoot me if I ever get that way. I know I have my favorites like LOST and No Reservations, but if I had guests, the guests would take priority. But maybe that's just me.

Monday, March 31: Met my friend Barb for lunch and got to see where she worked, which ironically is in the same building where I had Driver's Ed in high school. Her boss had someone over that day who came from Baraboo, WI and knew Madison quite well. Coincidences and Ironies. We went with Barb and her sister, Nancy, to the Ethiopian restaurant we ate at with Bill last time we were out. It is so delicious there. We took some food "home" with us to eat for dinner, and even cold, it was still delicious. In the afternoon and evening we drove to Waverly, Wellington (scary), Owl Canyon, Bellevue, Masonville and back through Loveland. Anything to get us out of the house and Monty Burns and the LOUD TV.

Tuesday, April 1: Apollo's 8-month birthday. We took off and went to Denver in search of Dardano's Flowerland and Isis Books. We couldn't find Evans, where Dardano's is located. It's been ages. We found Isis's former location on East Colfax, but they have now moved to South Broadway. On the way to their new location, we came across Evans, fortunately. At Isis I got Heliotrope, Cypress and Wisteria essential oils, and Frangipani, one of my rosebud scents from ages ago that I have since stupidly lost. What an idiot I am. Stan only found one cactus at Dardano's. I remember them having so much more when I went there in the 80s. Maybe it's the time of year. After Dardano's it was still fairly early in the day, so I got the crazy idea to go to Casa Bonita. We haven't been there since the 80s either. Now back in the 70s when I was first introduced to CB, probably in the company of Barb's family and later with Stan, I thought it was delicious. People would say "Casa Bonita, the food's not very good, but you go there for the experience." I didn't understand what was wrong with the food...compared what I was used to, it was quite a treat! Now I know why they say the food wasn't very good. It's not. You can't compare it to any family-run Mexican restaurant. But when you don't know anything better and your family never takes you out to eat good food, what have you got to go by? But yes, the experience is fun, even if it's just in a cheesey "oh, I remember that!" way. I feel so sorry for the "performers." I had no idea what was going on...some Black Bart and a She-Sherrif... really stupid act and horrible PA system that's probably not been fixed since the 70s. After that, Stan drove by his Grandmother's old homestead which looked nothing like how we remembered it, and we took the dogs for a walk on a bike path. We have to take the dogs with us on these long day excursions. Monty Burns and Co. are completely incapable of dealing with dogs in their house while we're gone longer than a couple hours. Of course we always have to kennel them in the basement, hell forbid we have them LOOSE in the house. On the way back, we found a greenhouse in Lafayette and Stan got some things there. After I got back to the prison, I added the essential oils to jojoba in empty vials. I used medicine droppers and rinsed the droppers out in a little water and that water smelled so good. Who would've thought the combo of those four oils would smell so great? Now I really want to try my hand at perfumery when I get home.

Wednesday, April 2: We'll go up to Bill's later. Thursday we'll see Stan's sister, and Friday, I think we'll split the scene. Not only does the weather look the best for Friday as far as travelling across the mountains on I-70, but I'm going stark-raving loonie here. Even though the TV will be loud in Montrose, and sometimes I really feel like an outsider there, at least there'll be a beautiful window I can gaze out of with a beautiful scene of the San Juans. Bill said he's fixing up a room downstairs, so maybe in the future Stan and I can stay here instead of at our cell at the Montgomery Burns State Penn. I guess we could chip in for propane, as Bill keeps the place very cold.

Labels: LOST, Scents, This Boring Life, Vacation

Unbelievable...I no sooner post about the unfortunate flooding in Missouri, but then hear there's a horrible wildfire in the mountains near Bisbee, Arizona. Southern Arizona was the post-Route 66 part of our vacation last spring, and we spent a morning in Bisbee and Tombstone.

So glad we're not doing that trip this year.

We're getting a blizzard today, but it'll all be melted by the time we leave.

Labels: Vacation

We are so lucky we took our Route 66 trip last spring and not this one. There is much flooding in Missouri that would have effected us. We got lost around St. Louis as it was. I'll never forget all the Redbud trees blooming throughout the beautiful hillsides.

I was craving a Creamation today, and then I realized, in a week, I can have one. I think Avo's and I will be friends a lot during this trip...they have WiFi and there's just only so much of my parent's single phone line dialup I can handle.

Labels: This Boring Life, Vacation

Hills south of Gila Bend heading toward Organ Pipe National Monument. Do you hear Ennio Morricone music? I think I see The Man with No Name riding on a horse with a wide brimmed hat, cape and cigar.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 7, morning, Gila Bend: Space Age Lodge and Restaurant. Here was the space place that was a bit too pricey for us to spend the night...but that didn't prevent us from eating breakfast there the next morning. I look a little funny in the picture because I'm sticking my tongue out at Stan. The restaurant supposedly burned down a few years ago and what you see now is a rebuilt version. I love the blue tile. Next time, I think I will splurge on a room. In fact, I want the whole restaurant as my kitchen.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 7, morning, Gila Bend, AZ: This is the Yucca Motel where we stayed the night before, plus a scene of its surrounding area with native plantlife. Now supposedly we stayed here 20 years ago on our big circular trip around the west in late May and early June of 1987, however, that might be disputable, now that some time has passed and I've had time to think. On the other end of the main business drag, there was a motel, now closed down, called "Desert Inn" which also has a pool in front, well, had. When we would've pulled in to Gila Bend late at night back in '87 after a very long drive across the California desert after the very horrible border crossing experience at San Ysidro earlier in the day, the Desert Inn would've been the first motel to greet us traveling east as we entered the main business loop off the interstate. Could it be that we actually stayed at The Desert Inn rather than the Yucca Motel? I didn't keep a journal back then, so there'd be no way to know. Stan says he remembers that it was the Yucca, and I honestly don't know.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 6, northeast Phoenix, Arizona, late afternoon. A shot from the car window at some interesting rock formations with assorted cactii. We spent this entire day driving all around the Phoenix metropolitan area trying to find greenhouses Stan had tracked down on the web. The first one was the most successful.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 6, Rest Stop in Arizona, morning. The previous night we had tried to get a place to stay in Flagstaff, but the prices scared us off. One hotel clerk said they were getting filled up with vacationing Californians. So we headed on down the road to Camp Verde, which was a very nice, and a little less expensive, stay. In the morning we headed south to Phoenix and stopped at this Rest Stop on I-17. (we are not on Route 66 anymore with the remaining photos). This is definitely one of my top 3 rest stops, the other two being the Wisconsin Welcome Center on US-151 before you get to Dubuque, IA--the dogs LOVE this place because there's a big dewey meadow to run around in early in the morning on our trips to Colorado, and the Iowa Welcome Center in Council Bluffs at exit 1B on I-80 which features natural prairie plantings, a zillion crickets and butterflies and WiFi access. This rest stop overlooks a valley filled with plants that are transitional between the hot desert of Phoenix and the northern forests of Flagstaff. Going south past the rest stop on the other side of the hill, the Pines change to Saguaros. Stan had taken a couple pictures of me, but I was squinting, so I decided to use my picture of him instead.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

Here's the cactus Stan mentioned in his comment in the post below--he wanted me to post it. It's smaller than a baseball and bigger than a golfball. It was cute.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 5: Meteor Crater, inbetween Winslow and Flagstaff. We got there very late in the afternoon, shortly before they closed. We've been by here before, in 1987 and in 1999. In 1999 it was raining torrents, so that's why we didn't stop then. I'm not sure what was up in 1987--maybe we didn't know about it. We didn't want to miss it this time, despite the late afternoon time. I would've liked to take more time, but that was not to be. The crater was huge, much too big to stand at the viewing dock and get it all in one shot, hence the two small shots on top (not a perfectly seamless panorama, sorry). There were some kinds of scientific instruments at the bottom, which are in the pictures at the left. We bought some space food sticks in the gift shop....very pricey, but yummy. We ate them later at assorted times in assorted hotel rooms.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

"
This is the cheesey part of the trip
This is the trip, the cheesey part
I really cringe
What'd he say?
Yeah!
Yeah, right!
Pretty cheesey, huh
Huh!
Yeah, I'm embarrassed to be a part of this number"*

oops...paraphrased wrong LA-based band there...

Allright, how about:

Well, Im a standing on a corner...


In winslow, arizona
And such a fine sight to see


Its a girl, my lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin down to take a look at me

OK, how about...


Well, Im a standing on a corner
In Windblown Arizona
And such a welcome sight to see


Its a dog, my lord, in a flatbed
Ford


slowin down to take a look at me

Yes, this was Winslow, Arizona, and they dedicated this corner on Route 66 to that Eagles song. There is no picture of me here so that I couldn't be blackmailed by punks and serious music people from my past, plus, I was having a really bad hair day. Trust me, you don't want to see a picture of me standing next to that skinny bronze sculpture. I hate bronze sculptures...whether they're skinny pseudo rockstars or the multitude of gleeful children in the Fort Collins/Loveland area. Their faces look deformed. Anyway, I much prefer the skinny wooden cowboy when it comes to cheesey Route 66 images, but most of all, I love the bulldog. But what was that about? A bulldog in a flatbed ford? Is it a takeoff on the girl-in-the-ford "window reflection" painting on the side of the building? It was right there, on the side street just a few feet away from starving bronze rockstar dude. There were also a lot of people (tourists) milling around trying to get a picture of themselves with bronzeboy, so fortunately we didn't accidentally shoot anyone...heh.

*paraphrased from The Doors' Soft Parade during one of Jim's stream of conscience ramblings.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

These are the red cliffs on the border of New Mexico and Arizona. I had a great dream several years ago about this area, that I was flying down I-40, through these hills. It was a great dream. I've been through here a couple times before this, so it wasn't like it was a psychic dream or anything.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

Red Cliffs on the mountains in northwestern New Mexico heading west on Route 66 toward Gallup. Not a bad picture considering I shot this through the car window while we were moving about 60 mph!

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

The night before last I dreamt I had found a really cool rock with white quartz-like crystals surrounded by thin fibre-like hematite crystals.

I also dreamt there were two children Stan and I were going to adopt because they didn't have anywhere else to go. It wouldn't have cost us anything, except we'd be in debt having to support two children.

Unfortunately, the first dream wasn't true. Fortunately, the last dream wasn't true either.

Yesterday we left the graveyard-like silent hotel (I'm considering using a Super 8 next time rather than this old standby that seems to degenerate each time it changes management and ownership) and got some of the world's most delicious coffee for the road. We stopped at a rest stop in Iowa and tried to call Camp K9 where our animals are being boarded to let them know we'll be picking them up on Saturday. We could not get through...a pre-recorded message came on the phone that said "this line is being checked for trouble". WTF? Naturally, when you're 400 some miles away, the last thing you want to hear is that there's trouble with the place you're trying to get ahold of, where your precious furbabies are. I tried to tell myself that it's just their phone that's having trouble, not the place itself. Nonetheless, I was worried and my stomach was turning somersaults, especially with the huge amount of caffeine I was ingesting that I hadn't experienced the whole trip. Had Madison's late spring snow storm damaged storm lines? What if there was a fire? What if there was some disaster? Finally as we got closer to Des Moines, Stan finally reached them. Yes, it was just the phone lines. Why on earth does the phone company use such language? "This line is being checked for trouble?" Why not problems instead of trouble? That's a less severe sounding word, and problems does sound more like technical issues with the phone line itself whereas trouble sounds more serious, and not necessarily just phone-line/technical issues related.

Anyway, we got our animals back. Persephone, who greeted us when we came home yesterday, wouldn't shut up. She was non-stop catterwauling (sp?) all night long, so much that Stan had to use earplugs. I slept through it, but her wails and cries mutated into shapes in my dozing mind, starfish and swirling stars and anemones, piled on top of eachother like her successive meows.

When we brought the other animals home from camp this morning, she shut up. Maybe the only reason she kept meowing was to tell us the rest of her family was missing.

I have a bunch of work to catch up on now that I'm home, but I'll try to post the rest of the pictures as I have time. This should keep everyone amused for quite a few more days to come, even though the trip is now over.

One last thing...we had the absolute most PERFECT weather the whole time! Maybe a few drops of rain while we were driving for the entire trip, only a couple threatening skies that never did anything. You couldn't have imagined or asked for better weather, especially with all the BAD weather the rest of the country was having! Madison got hammered with a big snowfall this past Wednesday, but when we got home, most of it had melted. Then, parts of the country where we had been--Albuquerque through Kansas--had a stormfront pass through it a day after we left. We were very lucky. I guess it made up for last fall when Stan and I had beautiful weather in Montrose while we had to stay and help his mom after surgery, but after she got more independent and we could take day trips, it rained and got cold.

Labels: Dreams, Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 3, morning: Although we actually saw this roadside attraction in Conway, Texas prior to Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, I decided to post the other one first since this is a parody of it. This is "Bug Ranch", and the planted cars are VW Beetles.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

We're almost home! Oklahoma's panhandle was cold waking up to, with cloud cover and wet streets...it must have rained overnight but I heard nothing. We drove to Liberal, KS, which is the "adopted" home of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (no mention was ever made in the book or movie to exactly *where* she lived other than in SW KS). Although Stan bought me a ruby slippers pin (so I can get out of Kansas and back home to my Emerald City), we didn't do other touristy things there, neither did we in Dodge City, other than take photos of the museum outside made to look like an old western town. Just as well we didn't--it took a long time to drive through KS and up to Lincoln, NE to get the best coffee in the world and a room for the night. I could've used that coffee 10 hours ago. I dozed practically all the way here (no, I was not driving). It's just that...a combination of no caffeine, ibuprofen, and Kansas landscape makes for a somniforous drive.

We stocked up on bags of beans at Panache the coffeehouse and got two big drinks to go. Mine was practically a meal by itself, so I only got a side salad at the Perkins by our hotel. Stan has this weird personality trait I refer to as "food swings". He has this thing against Iceberg lettuce, like serious antagonism toward it. Like, I envision his fantasies of him taking an ancient medieval Japanese sword and chopping airborne heads of iceberg like an angry John Belushi Samurai Chef as they fly past his head. I know it's not the healthiest green you can eat, but it's better for you than, say, a chicken and cheese quesadilla, which is what Stan ordered instead of some large chef's salad because they were out of Romaine lettuce. Whatever.

During dinner, I managed to put a large gash in my lip because my tooth slipped on a crouton. We felt it was a very Seinfeld moment. Elaine, Jerry, George and Kramer are sitting around discussing times when they've accidentally inflicted severe pain on themselves. The guys are describing really macho, painful activities, and Elaine says, "Well one time I was eating a big salad and my tooth slipped on a crouton and it put a huge gash in my lip. It was really painful. I couldn't drink orange juice for days." There's a moment of silence while the guys stare dumfounded at Elaine and make fun of her because that's just not as painful as ways they've hurt themselves. Suddenly, George's face puckers into a mangled expression, and wouldn't you know it, his tooth slipped on the T-bone of his steak and he put a huge gash in his lip. George can't talk properly now, his lip is in pain. He has a job interview scheduled for the next day, which he does go to, but his lip is swollen, it looks like he has an oral herpes, and he's speaking like Kramer on Novocaine. Naturally, George doesn't get the job and Elaine gets the last laugh...until she injures herself in a very macho way.

Tomorrow will be like any day in the fall coming back from a Colorado trip...except it will be spring. We'll stop at Harvey's in Iowa, not that we didn't get enough cactii in Arizona, but this is for the spring garden instead.

And I miss my dogs terribly.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

This morning we headed out to Magdelena, NM (sp?). Supposedly there was a place there where you could pay a fee to enter an area to find rocks. We never did it. The road was 13 miles long, rocky (4WD material) and with no cellphone service. Maybe if we had a 4WD, but we don't. We found a rockshop on the edge of town where we found a few small things anyway. So we headed to Albuquerque. We decided to take the remaining Route 66 that we missed on the way in last Thursday, and we're so glad we did! We found *the* rockshop, Southwestern Minerals located right on that route in Albuquerque, and I finally got my Rainbow Calcite! Not a cut gem (that would've been hugely expensive, no doubt!) but a nice rectangular specimen piece (they cleave in rectangular shapes). We decided on the spur of the moment not to take the interstates 40-44-55-35 back, but to take 40 to Highway 54 in Tucumcari, and head on up to Dodge City, KS tomorrow. We tried staying the night in Dalhart, Texas, but rooms were outrageously expensive for a little town with not much business. Plus one of the desk clerks creeped me out. So we decided to head up the road to Guymon, OK, which is significant because that's where Stan's sister lived for 10-15 years or so. Rooms were a little cheaper than the Super 8 in Dalhart, and definitely worth it to get away from a crusty hotel clerk, but also it gets us further down the highway and a better start on the morning. Texas definitely doesn't want us. Supposedly there's some "Dorothy's House" (Oz) in Liberal, KS, and I've been wanting to see Dodge City (Marshal Dillon! Miss Kitty! Festus!) for quite a while now, even if it is just a little hole in the wall tourist trap like Tombstone. Later, we'll head up to Lincoln, NE so we can get the best coffee in the world. Even somewhat good coffee was sorely lacking on this trip! When all this is over with, we will have driven through 10 states (counting Wisconsin)!

No time to post pictures tonight...we barely got a room and settled in in time for LOST.

Labels: LOST, Route-66-Part2, Vacation

Nothing much at all happened today, except for finding a few rocks at a rockshop in Deming, NM. It was very windy on both I-10 and I-25. We decided to take I-25 north up to Socorro rather than going around White Sands again, just because we've never seen that part of the state. Well, next time, we won't. This has got to be some of the most boring parts of New Mexico. Just over the mountain ridge by White Sands and Alamagordo, it's very interesting with nut orchards and varied topography. We got the same hotel, EconoLodge in Socorro, where we stayed at in 2005 coming back from Roswell, and where the wind is still howling like a banshee just like that first night. We ate dinner at the ElCamino next door, my biggest meal so far this trip (Chile Relleno and Cheese Enchilada). Maybe we'll find some place to get rocks tomorrow, maybe not. We've lucked out a little so far in that department.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

April 4, around 2:30 pm, Amarillo, TX:

The famous not-to-be-missed Cadillac Ranch isn't actually on Route 66, but it's not far away. This is an ever-changing exhibit of planted Caddies that would make all my former art professors cringe in horror (yes!) as it changes its colors periodically thanks to anyone armed with a can of paint or a marker. Darn, I forgot to bring my spray can supply on this trip....I guess there's always something you forget to take with you.

The display is located out in a cow pasture, and there's some strange artifacts you can find on the ground other than discarded markers and spray can tops, one of which was a gold spray-painted cowpie. I've always wanted to do that, but with gold leaf.

Labels: Route-66-Part2, Vacation

File under "Day 5, April 6 morning." I forgot to add this: we kept the window open in the hotel that night, even though most other guests used their air conditioners. I like the feel of natural air, and since we were on the 2nd floor and no one could see in, I also kept the drapes open. I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out at the sky, and again i saw the strange circular formation of stars that I saw in Montrose, CO this past fall. I have no idea what this phenomenon is. Is there really some strange formation in the sky? I think the window in the motel faced east, but in Montrose it faced south. Is it my eyes playing tricks on me? I vote for that one, except wouldn't they play tricks at me at home when I wake up and stare into darkness? It only happens with open windows. Stan says it has something to do with the spirit world getting in touch with me. I don't know.

------

Sunday: In the morning we went to Colossal Cave which was a little tourist area southeast of Tucson. We got there bright and early to first do some touristy sluicing before an onslaught of brats got there. I'm sure the little packets of rocks you buy are all pre-measured with a good amount of quartz and bits of sodalite and aventurine all pre-planned to make the unknowing think they might get a precious emerald or sapphire. After that, we took the cave tour. This was the first cave where I sweated! All the caves I've seen--Crystal Cave in South Dakota's Badlands, Manitou Cave near Colorado Springs, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Glenwood Cavern in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and Cave of the Mounds in my own backyard, have all been living caves, the stalagtites and stalagmites still in a state of formation, moist with water. They have been cool, 60 degrees or less and have left me with a cold nose. This cave is a dry cave and was a constant 70 degrees, the warmest cave I've ever been in.

After that, we took a drive through Saguaro National Forest on the southeast side of Tucson. Still with some time left in the day, we decided to take a chance on finding the Mineral Museum at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After all, it was a Sunday, Easter, so it might be closed. We were in luck! It was open (but closed on Monday and Tuesday, so this was our only chance!) plus we got to see an interesting Planetarium exhibit as well, although the mineralogical displays were more than worth the price of admission just by themselves. So many beautiful minerals, you could look for days and each time through see something different. But the one thing that will stick in my mind is a gem-cut piece of Calcite. I don't know how many karats, but it was about an inch wide. The remarkable thing about this gem was the way it sparkled. If you've seen iridescent Aurora Borealis coated Cubic Zirconias it was something like that, but it was not man-made. It was Calcite, common but flawless, clear white rainbow Calcite. The way it sparkled was more pastel, but still very rainbow, pinks and greens and purples and yellows. Gorgeous. Why haven't I found any for sale anywhere?

Since it was Easter, the only place to eat was...Denny's. I had a salad. Stan had the cholesterol special.

Monday: Went to Tombstone in the morning. Not much was open, so we got a bite to eat at a local cafe. It said "family restaurant" so I assumed it was a tourist spot, but in fact it was more a locals spot. It was scary. We got stared at. I could only order coffee because I didn't feel like eating under these circumstances, but somehow Stan managed to wolf down his second cholesterol special. While we were getting ready to leave, a tour bus with Oriental calligraphy on the window pulled up to the corner and unloaded Asian tourists. This was one of the oddest sights, all these tourists on a chartered tour from a country far away snapping photos of this rough western town with a facade preserved for tourists. So as a tourist myself, I shot a picture of the tourists shooting pictures. The rock shop we went to Tombstone for was very small, and very closed. So we went on down to Bisbee. The mineral shop we wanted to see, although supposedly open, was also very closed, but I was able to find a couple beautiful and quite inexpensive rings (turquoise and azurite-malachite) at a different rock/jewelry shop. No luck with finding beads with which to *make* jewelry, however, which is really what I wanted to find. We did happen upon a store in a basement of an old town mall which sold beautiful Chinese antiques. Way beyond our price range, of course, and very beautiful.

We had an embarrassing lost tourist moment when we accidentally got on the road to enter Fort Huachuca. It was not clearly marked that civilians could not enter, I mean, after all, the brown highway department signs pointing to Fort Huachuca could be signs pointing to some old historical fort from centuries ago, one of those tourist points of interest, and there was no place to turn around once we realized we were headed the wrong direction. We stopped at the entrance where we had to present our ID for clearance, and when we told them we were lost and wanted to get back on the highway, they stopped traffic the other way for us to turn around and exit and I heard them say "We got a turnaround". They probably get several of those every day. We headed back to Tucson to see the Botanical Gardens. It was not scorching heat, maybe high seventies/low eighties with a partly cloudy sky, so I was able to tolerate being outside to look at all the pretties. Lots of lizards running across the sandy footpaths, and one gave us the time to shoot him, even offering us different poses. But when some nattering chattering clattering older women came by, he quickly knew he was not in friendly territory anymore and skirted under a bush. We ate a good mini lunch at the Gardens' cafe (Stan helped undo his cholesterol madness with a salad), and we stopped at some greenhouses on our way back to Benson. For dinner we actually manage to locate the Beijing Cafe that we couldn't find the previous day and had a small meal (Stan ordered more veggies this time, further reducing the damage of his two previous Heart Attack Special meals).

Tomorrow we leave Arizona for New Mexico for a day or two, and then back home.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 4, morning, McLean, TX: The Cactus Inn. No, we didn't stay there (the motel isn't in the picture), but the sign was photoworthy.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 4, morning: One of the many iconic images of Route 66, The Conoco building in Shamrock, TX.

I just realized that my camera doesn't give accurate readings of the time these pictures were taken, so I'm just guessing at the general times now.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 3, 3:23 PM: Commerce, OK. A little glimpse at a ice cream stand from a bygone era. The only thing giving it away as "now" are the cars parked out front.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

I feel a little silly still titling this "Route 66" when we've been off of Route 66 for a couple days now. Nonetheless, the towns we're staying still have some of that older, mid-century charm. And this really was our "Route 66" trip even though much of the destination was far away from it. Sometimes the trip itself is also the destination.

Well, if you can't afford to spend the night there, at least you can eat there. We ate breakfast at the Space Age Restaurant, attached to the Space Age Lodge. I REALLY WANTED THEIR FLATWARE. It was white with cobalt blue trim and a little flying saucer on the rim. It was so me. Unfortunately, they don't sell their flatware, pity, the colors, the theme, and the fact we desparately need a new set of flatware would have been the perfect souvenir item to come home with. We had to settle with some Space Age Restaurant coffee mugs instead.

We spent a short time in Organ Pipe looking at the pretty cactuses. The Occotillos (sp?) were the only large ones in bloom, and they're not a cactus by scientific definition (most people don't know, though). Some smaller species that were planted by the visitor's center were blooming, however.

It was a long drive to Tucson through an Indian Nation, and we did manage to find a really good cactus supplier in Tucson. Stan took a long time buying plants while I wilted in the car away from the scorching arid sun. Although we managed to hit southern Arizona on a cooler day than I thought we would---well, relatively cool for this location, which means in the 80s--it's still a scorcher because the sun is more direct than what I'm used to "back home." It is actually fortunate I do feel so hot and scorched so that I do take cover and not try to spend much time under the sun. Had it been 60 degrees outside, I probably would have a severe burn right now. Birth control pills, my blood pressure medication, rosacea and light skin are not a good combination when mixed with sun. I've always been sensitive to the heat though. One time in 5th grade I almost fainted on "earth day" when our class spent the day at a park. My face turned colors and they took me back to school to the nurse's office. Same thing happened a few years ago at Arches. My face turning pink is a sign to get me into shade ASAP before it turns purple and yellow and white and red and blue and green. Yet I digress.

Go with your gut. Lodging looked grim in Tucson. Overpriced, sleazy, poorly placed near road construction and by the interstate (which was fine in Oklahoma City, but it was different...hard to explain). We decided that even though there are things we still want to see in Tucson, to drive about 30 miles down the interstate to Benson, AZ, a town on the highway. Rooms were cheaper, the setting was prettier, the desk clerk friendlier, and I could hear crickets outside. We'll be here for another day or two, using this as our base instead of Tucson. Sure, there's still things we want to see in the bigger city, but I don't want to stay there. Smaller towns are so much better to spend the night in when you're doing the roadtrip. (Unless they're REALLY small and only have really scary rundown motels). Benson is actually midway between Tucson and Bisbee, which supposedly is THE place to get copper-based rocks like Malachite, Chrysocolla and Turquoise. It's also near Tombstone, where I've always wanted to visit. I've been to Arizona twice before and never got to Tombstone. Third time's a charm, I guess.

Remember earlier when I said we only ate at Denny's the entire length of the trip thus far at that point? I forgot to mention the IHOP we ate at in Springfield, MO. Service there was very good, unlike Denny's, which we ate at again tonight (what's wrong with me?) in Benson. Well, they gave a 10% discount with the hotel we're staying at, plus, it's right next door, so... It keeps pulling me back IN! I feel like such a tourist.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 3, 3:00 PM: I do feel really stupid now for not having any pictures of the Ozarks from Missouri, esp. the Redbuds blooming on the hillsides. It was just very hard to pull over it seemed, and then when it's gone you don't realize you have nothing from it. Oh well. The irony is that I do have a picture from Kansas, and Route 66 only goes for 13 miles or so through Kansas! It loops around through a small southeast corner, where stands this restored Marsh Rainbow Arch Bridge (shown with our van in the first picture for size reference).

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 2, 3:39 PM: The "Bel-Air" sign with a bell. Bell Air, get it? Clever modern stuff. All that remains is the sign with a blank, airy message. The motel, or restaurant, is gone. The land is for lease. Soon, there will be a strip mall or some other hideous postmodernstrosity. This is somewhere outside of Saint Louis on the Illinois side, I think. Or was it in Missouri? I'm confused now.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

It was a hot one today in Phoenix. And road construction was unbearable. We ran into it coming in to town, so we quickly exited and found our way to a non-existent gem and mineral museum (directions put it in a bad part of town...it probably got robbed) and then a cactus greenhouse. Stan filled up on pets and retailers and breeders (pets we keep for us, retailers he resells, and breeders he uses to make seeds/offsets). We tried locating some other greenhouses...one was unfindable and the other didn't have what he wanted. At the end of the day, we decided we should find a motel. They're a bit hard to come by, so we decided to head on down to Gila Bend...tomorrow we'll see Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Traffic got horrendously bad on the westbound interstate...totally backed up more than usual, but the eastbound lane was completely empty. Was it some road construction detour? Worse than that--it was an accident. A horrible accident with dead bodies covered up that left such a sad feeling with me...I was holding back tears. Our westbound lane was backed up only because when people stop and stare at an accident, it causes a backlog for hours and miles.

We almost got a $99 room at the Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend. Part of me wishes we would've splurged just to get to spend a night at a funky retro modern landmark, but $99 is an awful lot, especially since this trip is expensive with gas anyway. At least we're saving money eating! We only spent $16 today on a restaurant meal. We ate at an Asian Indian restaurant for late lunch...a couple Dosas and two Lassis cost a little over $16 not counting tip. We are saving money on lodging too...we're spending the night at the Yucca Motel. Not as funky modern, but it is a restored Mom 'n Pop motel, now run by an Asian Indian family (I'm encountering lots of good curry smells today!) And guess what, here's the weird part, 20 years ago, some time in early June of 1987, Ann and Stan spent the night here coming back from California! Now how romantic is that? Plus, it was half the price of the Space Age Lodge. Bill will be disappointed because I think he stayed in Space once and is probably expecting us to, but...$99? That's like Hilton mint on your pillow prices.

Anyway, I've labeled all the Route 66 stuff in its own special category to make re-reading this easier (just click the "Route 66" label). I'm way behind on Photos, yes, I know, I still need to post photos from the past 5 days. It's just that even though the Arizona clock says 8:47 pm, my Wisconsin body say it's 10:47 pm.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

Not that much to report on today. Left Santa Rosa fairly early and headed toward Albuquerque. We *were* planning on skipping Route 66 in New Mexico's biggest city because of the problem that I described with losing the route easily in big cities, BUT some really awful backed up road construction on the interstate on the east side of Albuquerque had us making an unexpected exit anyway, just to get away from the backlog. This was very fortuitous, as Route 66 is really easy to stay on in this city. There were a lot of mid-century relics along the way on Central Ave throughout. We didn't stop to shoot them (this would've taken forever as there was a lot) but we did pull over to buy Piñon from a roadside vendor. Mmmmm...Piñon. There is something about the kind roasted in the shell found only in New Mexico that is so delicious, but they are high in fat. Oh well, that's pretty much all I ate today. We didn't go to any restaurant at all...just munched stuff in the car. Surprisingly, I didn't stop in Gallup at all, although I thought I would. I really don't need jewelry, what I really need is beads to *make* jewelry*, but I didn't see any stores for that, so maybe I'll try Tucson.

The biggest photo op of the trip is actually a bit embarrassing. It has to do with a certain town in Arizona and a song from the 70s. And I feel like I lost all my indie punk cred for taking such an opportune moment to shoot it (which I probably lost years ago anyway), so maybe this was the nail in the coffin of my cred. I had the worse bad hair day today too...I don't know what I did to it in the shower last night. Maybe it's the dry air straightening it out. All I know was that I was standin' on a corner in Winslow Arid-zona with bad hair, shooting silly statues and street art with Stan, and looking like a total dork.

And thus concludes the Route 66 portion of our travels. Had we stayed on the route, we would've ended up in California. But we have cactus places to see and rock shops to visit in southern Arizona. Pictures to follow, but not yet...I haven't even gotten to Missouri with posting photos! I'm a bit backlogged.

I'm now in Camp Verde, AZ and dealing with a backlog of emails. Hotels were too $$$ in Flagstaff, so we went down the road (literally...steep drop in altitude) a way. Most expensive room I've stayed in (to me, $76 is expensive) but it beats Flagstaff and it beats driving all the way to Phoenix tonight. But it's got two queen size beds...I plan to stretch out a lot. Oh, and the towels are nice...they're an ecru color, not skinny white like most of them.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 2, 1:56 PM: I call this one "Meth Lab School."

Stan calls things like this "Scare the Girl Stuff." (Girl = Me) Yes it's creepy, but it's also too bad these architectural relics couldn't be preserved.

This is in Nilwood, IL.

I'm dead tired now...so I'll post more when I have time and internet access. The Cadillac ranch pictures turned out great! (Thanks Stan!)

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 2, 11:53 AM: Who could resist Giant Hot Dog Guy? He stands, well, I don't know how tall, but there's a tree and a truck bumper there for comparison. We found him in Atlanta, IL.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

April 2, 11:42 AM: This was one of the first old "relics" on route 66 that I saw after we got on the route shortly after Normal, IL. It's in McClean, IL, and I don't know what it was. I realized if I photograph every single relic we find, it'd take us about 33 years to get through our trip, so I decided to limit myself quite a bit after this.

P.S. with all these pictures, click on them for a larger view, then use your back button to return to this page.

Labels: Route-66-Part1, Vacation

Forest Gump: Sometimes the only thing to watch on TV is Forest Gump. I believe it was that way when we took our short Wisconsin trip last spring. The first night we spent the night in Hudson, WI. Forest Gump was on TV. And this Monday in Lebanon, MO, that was the ONLY thing on TV (other than veddy veddy bad network TV). Forest Gump. How weird is that? Because I was a basketcase that night because we'd been up since 4:30 am that morning, and I was dead tired and couldn't even function to read maps anymore and was having plenty of stupid moments, Stan said it fit my frame of mind (Yeah, thanks, Stan :-P). But I wasn't so stupid that I didn't realize the connection between Forest Gump and Route 66. Gary Sinese plays Hank's buddy, the amputee Vietnam vet. Sinese was in the movie "Of Mice and Men", the book written by John Steinbeck who also wrote "The Grapes of Wrath," which features "The Mother Road" which the Joads travel out on from Oklahoma to California. Somehow, it made sense.

Car Trouble: It was about 5 pm or so on Tuesday when we pulled into a Walmart (yes, I went into a Walmart in Oklahoma...please don't laugh) because we had to use the facilities really badly. Sometimes when interstate restrooms aren't aplenty (as it has been in Oklahoma, very much unlike the generous facilities along I-80 which I am used to), one has to make due with McDonald's or large discount department stores. Those I prefer to places like gas stations which I will only use it's life or death. Since we needed some Coke anyway, we decided to stop at the first place we saw where we knew would be restrooms: Walmart. (I know, Walmart. But we were desparate) Before Stan got back in the car, he noticed his tire was getting flat and that there was a nail in it. We quickly tried to find a place to take care of us, but it was a small town and daytime was running out. We stopped at a car dealership, but they didn't fix tires. They gave us directions to another place that we couldn't find, but in searching for that place we found an autoparts store about 10 minutes before they closed. We asked there if they knew anyone. The owner gave a