http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/csjolander/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from csjolander en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:35:02 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:35:02 +0000 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 600 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 c http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Tennessee/Seiverville/blog-303885.html 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 t http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arkansas/Hot-Springs/blog-303892.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/Austin/blog-304963.html 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 roa http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/San-Antonio/blog-304965.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-Mexico/Soccoro/blog-305168.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Tennessee/Seiverville/blog-303880.html We got up early today because we had reservations for the 900 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-Mexico/Carlsbad/blog-304973.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/North-Carolina/Asheville/blog-303005.html 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 par http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Tennessee/Lenoir-City/blog-303877.html I got up early and did some laundry before we hit the road. Since we got out late after a quick breakfast in the hotel we set with a goal to get to our next destination Memphis early enough to visit Graceland. We got there about 300 and after checking into the Heartbreak Hotel we walked over to see The King's estate. We got the audio self tour and it was quite well done. As none of us a http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arkansas/Conway/blog-303463.html After a difficult evening and not much sleep we took to the road a bit later than usual in search of breakfast. Fortunately we found a diner en route with coffee which lightened the mood a bit. This was to be another long day of driving because our goal was to reach the campgrounds by midafternoon. We pulled in about 530 or so local time we forgot that Tennessee covers 2 time zones and http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Tennessee/Memphis/blog-303002.html We got up early and rushed over to the Flying Ranch office. The owner's daughter Christina was set to take us all on a guided horseback ride through the ranch. None of us were experienced riders so we opted for an hour ride through the country side. Both of the kids did really well on horse back and we all had a great time. After the ride the owner took us all in his pick up truck out in http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oklahoma/Sayre/blog-303451.html Many of the famous sites on Route 66 are in the short Texas piece so we only planned to cover 250 or so miles today so we could make all of our stops. The first was Glenrio a small ghost town which gave us an excuse to get out of the car and take some pictures. From there we went to Adrian the midway point of Route 66 and stopped for a late breakfast at the Midway Cafe. If you go there h http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-Mexico/Tucumcari/blog-302992.html On the way to Gallup we'd seen signs for the Zuni Pueblo outside of town. Our handy AAA guidebook even if your car never needs towing a membership in AAA is worth it just for these handy guides said that this was a very worthwhile sight so we set out early in the morning to see if even though it wasn't in our plans. I was very interested in seeing an active pueblo and was pretty excited. W http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-Mexico/Gallup/blog-302069.html After months of planning the Road Crew Gabriel Rece Samantha and I loaded up our rented Town and Country van with all of our travel stuff and hit the road. A brief and incomplete inventory 5 digital cameras 1 radar detector 2 laptop computers 3 cell phones 3 mp3 iPod players 12 complete MRE meals 4 sleeping bags 2 tents 4 lawn chairs 4 duffel bags suitcases snacks drinks a http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Costa-Mesa/blog-302065.html 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 prot http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Green-Valley/blog-305174.html