On our last morning, we had one more stop planned. We headed over to the Titan Missile Museum right in Green Valley. This is the last missile silo still in existance (minus the warhead of course) and when it was decommissioned, it was turned into a museum. It was interesting to learn that the glass lid over the missile was more the let the Soviets verify that it was still in place than to protect it from visitors. We went on the guided tour down into the control room and into the actual silo. Samantha got to play the part of [View Full Entry]

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On this overcast day, we headed out into the desert to see the Very Large Array of radio telescopes used to search the skies. This is the same array featured in the movie contact with Jodie Foster. It's a set of 27 radio antenna that are arranged in 3 branches of 9. When spread out, each arm can spread 13 miles. A rather reluctant PhD student took us out and answered all of our questions. It was really impressive to see these massive things, built decades ago, that we're still using. They're just now getting updated with new computers and systems [View Full Entry]

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We got up early today because we had reservations for the 9:00 a.m. Left Hand Tunnel tour of Carlsbad Caverns. Our tour guide took us down into a less frequently used area with lanterns and answered a bunch of questions for us. Sam and Rece were more interested in this than most of the things on the trip. Sam asked lots of questions about the caves and what it was like to be a ranger. We spent a lot of time over in the Big Hall, too. It was fascinating. Gabe took lots of pictures but my camera won't capture anything [View Full Entry]

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We knew we were in for a long drive today (455 miles) so we had a few cache stops planned. We drove across some really desolate spots in Texas. One of the most fun things about this day was the 80 MPH speed limit. In the afternoon, we went through a lot of thunderstorms which was really interesting in the desert. The rain seemed to bring out the tarantulas - Gabe kept seeing them cross the road. Once, i was brave and got out of the car to take a picture. But based upon the number we saw on the road, [View Full Entry]

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Gabe got up early and headed over to do the client work while Rece, Samantha and I got the car packed up. We'd picked up frozen breakfast sandwiches which we microwaved into barely edible form. We giggled a lot when the directions were completely unhelpful. I'd never seen an analog microwave either - it had dials for the time. Those, plus some soy milk, and we were on our way. As I'd claimed "brownie points" for being so understanding about stopping for a work-related event in Austin, the original meaning of "brownie points" was questioned: According to wikipedia, Brownie points are [View Full Entry]

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Sam and I got up early and headed over the Buckstaff Bath House. There, we each got a traditional bath package including a mineral bath, steam and massage. It was a unique experience for each of us - we both came out "glowing" in the words of the guys. It was a nice relaxing way to start of the day before our next long drive. We had decided to extend the drive on this day to almost 500 miles to get us all the way to Austin. Gabe has a client there who, in exchange for a bit of work, agreed [View Full Entry]

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We got up early and loaded up the van in order to get back on the road. We had a long drive ahead - 600 miles or so - to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As we'd already done a lot of the drive, we made great progress. We arrived in Hot Springs about 6:00 p.m. We checked into the famous Park Hotel and decided to take a walk around the town. Hot Springs National Park is the only national park that is completely within city limits. We had a nice walk through the promenade and then walked by all of the old [View Full Entry]

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After letting Savannah back in the house (she'd gotten locked out talking to her boyfriend outside on the phone), we set settled in to sleep. Everyone in the house all got moving relatively early, had breakfast and we all set out to Danny and Mary's house to pick them up. We rounded up all the kids and adults and headed out to a nearby park to take a walk. It was a gorgeous morning - if you don't mind near 90% humidity - and the 1/2 mile walk seemed much longer to us Californians. But the scenery was pretty and it [View Full Entry]

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We woke up to pretty heavy rain. We Californian's were pretty pleased to see it for once. We spent a short time wandering around the grounds - the kids fed the catfish and played with the dogs - before the yummy pancake breakfast Alynne made for us all. After breakfast, we all piled back into the car and headed to North Carolina to Gabe's sister, Joanne (and Tom's) house in Asheville. Once we got there, Gabe and Rece had a chance to catch up with family. Mary, Danny's partner, brought their young kids (Ely and Lilly) over and they kept everyone [View Full Entry]

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Waking up mostly rested from our night in the van, upon the return from the rest room, Sam and I learned that the others hadn't slept well at all so the decision NOT to camp the second night was made. We broke camp and headed over the the event of the day. We were a bit late in getting out of camp and hadn't yet had breakfast. We drove into town and discovered we blocked by the 4th of July parade. After several attempts to naviagate the neighborhood to find someplace yummy for breakfast, we gave up and headed towards the [View Full Entry]

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