Today we got an early start because we wanted to pack in A LOT of sightseeing....Sunset Crater, Wupatki Ruins and Grand Canyon. We ate a quick breakfast at the Sedona McDonalds. This McDonalds is famous for having teal arches instead of golden arches. The Sedona city government wouldn't allow McDonalds to use the gold color because they insist that all buildings in Sedona have a Southwestern color scheme. We decided to enter the Grand Canyon Park at the eastern entrance so we could visit Sunset Crater and Wupatki Ruins along the way. Sunset Crater is what is left of an old [View Full Entry]

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Today we started out having breakfast at the famous "Coffee Pot" Restaurant....I say it's famous because the parking lot is always overflowing with cars AND there are tons of autographed pictures from celebrities that have eaten there. Some of the celebrities include Elvis, Matt LaBlanc and Melissa Etheridge. There are 101 omelette varieties on the menu. Kim had a #3 (3 cheeses) and I had a #10 (ham, cheese, green peppers and onions). I wonder what Elvis ate? Hmmm....they DID have a peanut butter, jelly and banana omelette on the menu....coincidence???? We then drove about 25-30 miles to [View Full Entry]

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We began the day around 8:00am and had a quiet breakfast in downtown Sedona. We did a little shopping at Sinagua Plaza which had many different shops ranging from New Age Psychics to Indian Trading Posts. We bought the usual postcards and momentos and browsed A LOT. We then drove to Montezuma's Castle via Highway 179 which was a scenic drive with lots of red rock formations....AND per our usual vacation tradition....road construction. So, it was red rocks and orange construction cones for quite a while. Kim had fun trying to take pictures from the car as we sped along at [View Full Entry]

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Today Kim and I drove from Las Vegas, NV to Sedona, AZ to begin our 2007 Fall vacation. As we drove over Hoover Dam we noticed that the Hoover Dam bypass has made some progress. The new route will be quite a distance above the Hoover Dam as you can see by the pictures Kim took as we drove over Hoover Dam. The drive from Las Vegas to Flagstaff was pretty uneventful. Not too much traffic and great weather. The route to Sedona (SR 89A) is a beautiful drive. Many pine trees, lots of grass, wildflowers and shady areas on the [View Full Entry]

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Ivan flew in from OKC to enjoy 4 nights in Las Vegas with Kim and I. We had a blast.....and missed WAY TOO MUCH sleep. That is what a Vegas vacation is all about....staying up too late, gambling a little, eating too much, drinking a little and just having fun. The vacation was a blur....but I'll do my best to remember LOL. OCT 2 Sunday Ivan arrived around 3:30pm and we headed to our first hotel.....The Luxor. Kim and I had checked in early and had a bottle of Asti Spumanti waiting on ice....so we could toast our vacation. Kim and [View Full Entry]

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Well, we made it to Las Vegas. We left Phoenix early on the morning of September 25 and drove through Sun City, Wickenburg and then through the desert to Kingman AZ. The scenery was wonderful. There were beautiful mountains, saguaros, cholla and joshua trees. The road was a 2 lane highway for most of the drive through Arizona and there were passing lanes only occasionally so we pretty much were stuck in a pack of cars for most of the morning. Then in Kingman, AZ we were back to a divided highway all the way to Las Vegas. We drove over [View Full Entry]

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Wow...September 24th was a doozy of a day. We visited the Phoenix Zoo and wanted to get an early start because the temperatures were supposed to top 100 degrees. Well, the weather forecast was right....it was over 100 degrees with a bright, hot unrelenting sun today. Absolutely NO breeze whatsoever. We arrived at the zoo shortly after it opened at 9:00am and it was already in the high 80's low 90's. The zoo was nice....there is an open African Savannah where giraffes, oxen, ostriches, etc roamed around together. The zoo has nice, wide paths and they allow people to bring their [View Full Entry]

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On September 23rd Kim and I took a nice side trip to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. There are wonderful exhibits explaining the plants, animals and geology of Arizona and the Sonora Desert. The museum is located in the mountains on the west side of Tucson. We drove through Saguaro National Park on the way....what breathtaking scenery. The back roads were very challenging to drive....curvy, swervy, and narrow. And did I mention NO guard rails? YIKES! Even though this is called a Museum....that's a little misleading. It's an outside 'living' museum with live animal exhibits in their na [View Full Entry]

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Tucson/Tombstone Kim and I drove from Roswell, NM to Tucson, AZ in about 8 hours. We left at 3:00am so we could beat the heat and majority of the traffic. It was eerily quiet driving through the mountains outside of Roswell in a town named Ruidoso Downs. We were the only car on the road for miles and miles. We were lucky enough to see the sunrise over the mountains and enjoyed every minute of it. What a sight! We arrived in Tucson around 11:00am and were able to check in to our hotel early. It’s a good thing because we [View Full Entry]

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We had a long travel day today. We drove from OKC to Roswell, NM which is roughly 460 miles but a lot of the day we were on a small highway that went through a lot of small towns in Texas and New Mexico. So we didn't drive over 60 m.p.h. for a lot of the trip. The scenery totally changed today....a lot of WIDE open spaces, ranches, windmills, cows and trains. We left OKC around 6:30am and arrived in Roswell around 2:00pm. We ate lunch at the "Nuthin' Fancy Diner" in Roswell which is famous around here because President George [View Full Entry]

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