Year Two - Days One Hundred Seven thru One Hundred ??? - end of trip

Our next stop was Tuscon, AZ.  While there, we spent a day visiting the Pima Air and Space Museum and the Boneyard, where all retired military aircraft go. Sam just LOVES airplanes, and this place had several buildings full!  Jim even saw a plane from his same unit while he was in the Marines, so it was a kick for him! This is the Bumblebee, which is the smallest airplane that ever flew.

The Boneyard is only viewable by bus tour, and it was a good one.  This place is enormous, and the tour guide was a retired military man who knew his planes and their history!

Another day, we went to the Zoo in Tucson, which was a small zoo, but it gave us a close and personal encounter with the animals.  Cool place!

We decided to visit the BioSphere 2, which is a totally enclosed environment where scientists enclosed themselves for two years to experiment with self-sufficiency. It was cool to walk around and see all the different environments they were studying, and their living quarters, etc.  It is now owned by a university, and there is a project being built to study erosion.

Our next stop on the road trip was Carlsbad Caverns, NM. This is the most visited cave in the United States.  It was an awesome day spent exploring the cave, with all of its formations.  We had lunch in the cave, and we climbed out to exit the main opening.  Most people take the elevator out, so we were given high fives by the rangers!  :)

Our last stop on the way home San Antonio, TX.  Our first stop was The Alamo, and we spent a day touring it. We also went downtown to walk around at the river walk, and we ate dinner there.  It is such a nice, relaxing atmosphere.

After that, we pretty much drove straight home to take care of business for another winter.  It was a great road trip!!!

Year Two - Days One Hundred Four thru One Hundred Six

On this day we drove down to the town of Williams, just to stroll around, eat some lunch, and do some more geocaching.  Sam climbed around on some trains, and it was a gorgeous day!

One day we drove south to check out a couple of sights in the area:  Meteor Crater and Volcano Crater.  Two totally different environments, and both very interesting.  We hiked around the volcano area, checking out the different rock formations.  The Meteor Crater is a lot bigger than I would have thought, and we spent a little more time there, reading on it’s history and formation.

Our last day at the Grand Canyon, we checked out some more sights, and drove to see some more view points.  We hiked around the rim area some more, and made a point to be there at sunset to see it in the canyon and try to catch some pics.  Pictures just don’t do it justice!

Year Two - Days One Hundred Two thru One Hundred Three

After a recovery day for Jim, (lol) we drove down to check out a place called Bearizona.  It is a wildlife refuge that specializes in bear rescue.  It was a really nice place, with a drive-through safari, as well as a walk-around area like a zoo.  They had several different kinds of animals, and we saw a neat bird show.  The best part was the different young bear areas, where bears were separated out by age groups.  This one area had a cave-like enclosure where viewers could look in from the back, and the baby bears all gathered in there for a while and wrestled and played – it was awesome!  Where else do you get the opportunity to watch baby bears wrestling only inches away?!

Sam and Jim were geocaching as much as possible during this trip, so we stopped in the area to find a couple nearby.

Year Two - Days Ninety Seven thru One Hundred One

We left Vegas and drove to the Grand Canyon, camping is small town that was the closest to the southern gate called Tusayan.  It was so small, I am not sure it qualified as a town, but it had what we needed!  J  It was nice and quiet this time of year.

The first day we drove to the visitor center and walked around the canyon in that area for awhile.  We then drove to Mather Point, and checked out some different views along the drive there and back.

The next couple of days, we hiked down into the canyon for about a mile-and-a-half.  At that point, Sam and I turned around and came back out, but Jim opted to hike down another 2-3 miles (or so he thought at the time).  After Sam and I left him, we talked to a few people, pointing out the area where he wanted to stop, and were told it was about 7 miles in!  Not knowing if he would stop earlier, or go all the way to that point, we opted to come back and pick him up about three hours later, estimating that he would realize at some point that he would not make it all the way to the point he had picked out, and then turn around.  When we came back, we found him at the same place we had parked earlier, and he said he had just gotten there!  Great timing!  He was pretty wiped out, having walked about 13 miles, half of it uphill – whew!

Year Two - Days Ninety thru Ninety-Six

We spent the next few days in Vegas, Baby!  J  No gambling for us, but we enjoyed walking around the strip and checking out all the sights in a lot of the different casinos.  A lot of the big ones have themes and free shows, so we saw a few of those.  There was a cool volcano eruption at the Mirage, and it was especially cool at night.  The light show at the Bellagio was a must, and it was better at night, as well.

The Silverton had a free aquarium to check out, and Mandalay Bay had a very cool aquarium called the Shark Reef.  It was all decorated for Halloween.

We checked out the live flamingos at the The Flamingo, and saw the BIG gold nugget at The Golden Nugget.  At Treasure Island, there was a pretty cool pirate show with a sinking pirate ship and dancers.  Cool indoor gardens at the Bellagio, too.

Although we visited Fremont Street and saw the light show overhead, which was cool as always, the crowd there was REALLY seedy and made me nervous enough to keep one hand on Sam and the other on my back pocket the whole time!

We visited with some friends who live in the area, and it was good to catch up with them over dinner and visit their new house, complete with an array of solar panels – very nice!

One day we drove over to tour the Hoover Dam - it is so massive and awesome!  We toured the inside, and then also drove around to take some pics outside.  They have changed the roads around it a little, making more parking area, and increasing security a lot since 9/11.

While there, we also took a day trip on the bus to visit the Grand Canyon Skywalk.  It was pricey, and a long ride for a quick walk, but it was something that you don’t get the opportunity to do every day!  Awesome views!

Year Two - Days Eighty-One thru Eighty-Nine

The next day, we left Albuquerque and headed to Moab, UT.  The landscape was so different and beautiful – not like anything I had ever seen.  Moab was a small town, basically centered around the tourism industry that had developed from the location so close to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, with lots of beautiful and wild terrain to explore in between.

Sam and I drove to Arches National Park the next day while Jim was working on paperwork.  We hiked around within the park at several points, climbing rocks and checking out some huge natural arches that made us feel really small!  We didn’t make it all the way through the park, so we decided to come back another day with Jim to see the rest.

Another day, we went on a trip to rock crawl on an Unimog tour – our guide had a custom built vehicle that would hold about a dozen people to go extreme four-wheeling.  What a trip!  We climbed up and over rocks that looked impossible to climb before I took this tour!  Going up some of the climbs, there was nothing visible but sky because we were climbing straight up! It was an amazing ride, and our tour guide was the bomb!  We spent about three hours touring, and we were worn out when it was done – true tourists!  LOL

The next day, we went on a boat tour of the Colorado River, checking out some of the gorgeous landscape from a different point of view.  On the bus ride to the boat, we stopped to check out some interesting petroglyphs on the canyon walls right along the river.  These are some well-known petroglyphs, and we have seen several references to them on different television shows.

Along the river, the tour guide pointed out several locations where movie scenes had been shot, including the famous cliff scene in “Thelma and Louise.”  He took us to a spot where we disembarked for a walk to a beautiful grotto.  Once a year, he said there is a local concert given there for charity, and they transport a baby grand piano, among other things, into the location.  All by boat, and then hand carried in – wow!

We also stopped for another walk to check out some petrified wood that had been found in one area.  I also caught a sagebrush lizard checking us out.

The next day, we rented our own Jeep to go four wheeling and tour a different part of the area.  We opted for a drive that would take us to high overlooks with views of the river, and then we drove down into the canyons and followed an old cowboy trail up to the top, which ended up in Canyonlands National Park.  Along the way, we stopped at an overlook where they filmed the last scene in “Thelma and Louise.”  Our boat guide tour had pointed it out, saying that he and lots of folks in the area were watching the filming, and watched a few cars being driven off the cliff and landing facedown on the rocks below. 

We stopped at one area and walked around to check out the terrain, coming across a natural bridge with come great views!

We ended up in Canyonlands National Park, so we stopped for a cool view.

We spent a day doing a day hike to a canyon called Negro Bill Canyon, which ran along a stream and ended up at some cool rock formations and natural bridges.  Since this was not on National Park property, Buster got to go with us, and he had a blast!  It was a seven mile hike round trip, but Buster was a trooper!  I will have to say, though, he spent the whole day on the bed the next day – LOL!

Year Two - Days Seventy-Nine and Eighty

We went a little out of our way for a couple days to catch the end of the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, NM.  We drove down to check it out the evening we arrived, and saw some lighting up at sunset.  The next day was the last day, so we planned on arriving before sunrise and spending the day.

When we got there early the next morning, it was dark and cold – we wrapped up in blankets and staked out a picnic table.  It was awesome watching all the balloon teams arrive and set up.  There was a big sunrise lighting, which was beautiful!  We were right on the front lines, and everyone was allowed to walk among the balloons, and even help them with liftoff!  It was awesome!  Later was the mass ascension, and it was amazing – we took more pics than I could even count!