• Today is Monday and is the last night of our road trip.  We started the day in Santa Fe, New Mexico, checked out of the hotel and went to the historic downtown area to see a few more sights and grab a bite before heading Westward to Arizona.  We could have driven straight to LA, but didn’t really want to drive 13+ hours.  The plan was to head to Flagstaff, AZ for the night and finish the trek, but Lalig came up with a good plan of heading to Sedona, AZ for the night instead of Flagstaff.  We stopped for dinner in Flagstaff at a place called Collin’s, an Irish pub.  We felt it appropriate to eat there since Kieran had called us from overseas that morning!  After dinner, we drove about 30 miles to Sedona through a very cool and very winding road through the mountains, arriving here around 11:30pm.  We checked in to the hotel and then went out to take some pictures of the night sky.  The sky is unbelieveable here - with countless stars.  We saw several shooting stars but weren’t able to capture any of them on film.
• Items of Note for today:
  • Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the US and is the highest state capital in terms of elevation.
  • We stopped at a scenic overlook off of Route 40 near Laguna, NM that overlooked a town that had an old Spanish Mission Church - we think it was called the San Gabriel Mission - but I’ll have to do some more research to find out exactly what it was.
  • We crossed through the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in NM.
  • Once again, no one we meet is from around here.  We met a woman who worked at an Indian Trading Post store along the highway and it turns out she is from Ipswich, MA.  She didn’t seem to want to tell us how she ended up in NM, but she said she misses the seafood the most.
  • We passed the town of Continental Divide, NM, which runs along the Continental Divide of North America.  The Continental Divide is the name given to the line that separates water that flows to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
  • We drove through Winslow, Arizona - which made me think of the Eagles song “Take It Easy”
  • Flagstaff, AZ has a very cool and funky historic area that was filled with shops and restaurants.  We were surprised when we found it and it seemed like a good place to check out sometime in the future.
  • That’s all for now.  Goodnight from Sedona, Arizona!

• Today is Sunday - we’ve been on the road a week and a day.  This morning, we left Truth or Consequences, NM and drove north on I-25 to Santa Fe, NM.  Santa Fe is pretty developed - we are staying at a Fairfield Inn and are surrounded by strip malls and big-box retail stores.  But the the historic downtown area is really nice, filled with galleries, shops selling all sorts of southwestern stuff, and several restaurants.  We walked around a bit, then came back to the hotel, chilled out for a bit, then headed out to a few of the Indian casinos in the area.  We didn’t do as well as we had hoped!
• Things of Note for today:
  • Everything in NM has some sort of chili on it - usually green chili’s.
  • There are a ton of shops in the area, many of them selling the same type of stuff.
  • We went to Sonic for the first time, ordered at the drive up & park window and got our food delivered by a dude on rollers skates.  We both try to avoid fast food as much as possible, but we made an exception just to try it out and experience the Sonic scene.
  • Once again, we are finding that most of the people we meet aren’t originally from around here.
  • From the time we left Boston, until today in Santa Fe, we only saw 2 Toyota FJ Cruisers on the road.  Lots of folks down south and along the way here tend to look at my truck as if they have never seen it before.  We saw a couple here in Santa Fe and a Toyota dealership.
  • On the way to Truth or Consequences from Las Cruces, we took a rock to the windshield and it put a small circular crack in it.  I was watching it today to see if it is going to start to develop crack lines in the glass - it was raining outside and cold, so we had the heat on and I had to put it on defrost so the frost on the windshield would go away - so far so good.
  • The plants are holding up well.  In case you didn’t know, we are traveling with a bin with 3 plants that were my grandmothers.  I’ve been bringing them into the hotels each night so they won’t be out in the freezing weather.  The Christmas Cactus actually has one bud on it and it looks like it’s going to flower right after we get to L.A.  People look at me funny when I walk into the hotel with a tray of plants - and I’ve had to mention that we are driving cross country with them.  The plants should be happy and very “zen-like” today because last night I left them in the bath house room at the spa resort we stayed at.  There was some moisture in the air, it was fairly warm and there was New Age music playing all night long while the plants slept.  I expect them to grow by leaps and bounds now that they had their own spa vacation and mingled with the other spa plants!
  • We hoped for snow this evening so we could see the historic area with fresh snowfall, but all we got was rain.
  • When we go to the downtown area, there was an event going on in the park.  I thought it was a Christmas performance, but it turns out that it was a Hanukah event hosted by the Jewish Community of Santa Fe.
  • We saw several shooting stars here - and they looked big and close.  We aren’t exactly sure why there were so many and why they seemed so low.  The Google will help clear things up for us.
  • Tomorrow we’ll head back to the downtown area to do a bit of shopping, then head out of Santa Fe and begin the trek to LA.  We’ll stop and visit some old Pueblos and do a bit more sightseeing as we go through Arizona.  We hope to be in LA sometime on Tuesday.
  • Nice to see the Pats won.  I heard it wasn’t a pretty win, but a win is a win regardless.
  • That’s all for now…….check back tomorrow.

• Today was a fun, relaxing day which didn’t involve too much driving.  We stayed last night at the Riverbend Hot Springs and had a reservation for a 9am soak in the private bath “Rio”, which was very hot!  The sun was up and the view was nice, but the water was almost too hot and we cut short the soak and moved over to the public pool, which was a bit cooler and allowed us to sit and soak for a bit longer.  Afterwards, we checked out and decided that since it was too early to check in to the next place, that we’d do some exploring.  It ended up being quite a fun day as we drove about 40 miles or so to a “ghost town” called Chloride.   It was an at times windy road that took us up and around some mountains.  Lots of really beautiful scenery, horses and cattle along the drive.  We checked out the town, came back and checked in to the next spa, La Paloma Hot Springs.  It’s nice - this place has indoor tubs, unlike Riverbend which let you soak and look up at the stars.  But the tubs are nice and we’ve already had a soak - with one more tonight and maybe one in the morning.
• THINGS OF NOTE FOR THE DAY:
  • On the way to Chloride we stopped in at Elephant Butte Lake State Park, which is a lake formed when they built a dam on the Rio Grande.  Lots of boats and water activities.  We didn’t really drive around the park since we wanted to check out the ghost town.
  • We got to Chloride by taking NM Route 52, which basically ended in Chloride.  At the end of the road was a museum, called The Pioneer Store Museum.  It was really an oasis in the desert for us - the museum consisted of an old store that was closed up in 1927, and remained closed with all the inventory still in it until a family bought it in 1995.  95% of the items in the place today were there when the store closed.  The family that owned it from 1927 to 1995 maintained the roof of the building, but didn’t do anything else to the place.  It was really wild to see all that stuff in there and to know that it sat there for 70 years.  The woman who owned the place said her parents bought it when they discovered the town in the early 90’s and have spent their time and money fixing up the old historic buildings in the town.
  • Other things to note in Chloride - there are 10 people living there now - there was once between 2000 and 3000 at the heyday of the silver rush, but when the price of silver plummeted overnight back in the early 1900’s, the town was deserted almost overnight.  The two women we spoke with (one who ran the artist co-op store and the other who ran the museum) both said the traveled to Truth or Consequences either once a week or once a month, and spent the rest of their time in Chloride.  How amazing it must be to live like that - it was really remote!
  • We saw some cool old cars on the side of the road coming and going to Chloride.  We also saw what we thought was a speed trap in one of the small towns along the way - and it turned out to be an old police car with 2 dummies in it holding a hairdryer made to look like a radar gun.  I guess they don’t want people speeding through the town.
  • We at at Cafe Bellaluca and had a great meal.  Lalig had a veggie pasta dish with white beans and swiss chard - I had brick oven pizza flavored with green chile’s, carmelized onion and mushrooms.  It was expensive for Truth or Consequences and is sort of an “upscale” place - the bill (with 2 beers and a salad) came to $50.
  • One more soak for the night and we’ll call it a day.  Tomorrow we head to Santa Fe for the night and then begin the trek to LA on Monday, most likely getting to Hollywood on Tuesday evening.
  • Until then………

• Today was once again all about New Mexico.  We woke up in Las Cruces and only drove 75 miles to Truth or Consequences, NM - our destination for the next 2 days.  We planned on staying here for a couple of nights because the entire town is built around hot springs from an underground aquifer.  It was well worth the drive to get here.  We already had 2 “soaks” in the hot springs today - one in the public bath and the other in one of the private baths here at Riverbend Hot Springs (we used the “Tiara” pool today - the “Rio” is reserved for tomorrow morning at 9am!)
• Some Items of Note:
  • We ate breakfast in Las Cruces at a place called “The Shed/Old Mesilla Pastry Cafe“, which was very good - I had Huevos Rancheros and Lalig had Chorizo Scrambled Eggs;
  • On the road to Truth or Consequences (ToC), we stopped at a Border Patrol Checkpoint - we confirmed we were US citizens and that we had no one else in the car, and that we were traveling from Boston to Los Angeles and were waved on through;
  • The speed limit on most New Mexico roads is 75 ;
  • We checked in to the hotel (we are sleeping in a converted modular home) and decided to go off-roading for a bit - we followed a dirt road for a bit, and then crossed the Rio Grande in the truck (the water was just below the doors) and proceeded to go down some trails for a little while - the FJ was happy to be off the pavement (as was I!) and we encountered a couple of steep inclines, which was fun going both up and down!;
  • We had a couple of nice “soaks” in the hot springs, which are loaded with minerals including lithium, silver, gold, arsenic, boron, barium, bromine, calcium, cromium, copper, etc. etc. - the pools are fed from underground springs and the temperatures of the various pools ranges from 103 to 109;
  • Today in ToC was the Christmas tree lighting and festival of lights, which consisted of a blocked off  main street with music, food and people walking around.  It wasn’t much of an event from our perspective, but the locals seemed to be enjoying it;
  • We had a beer at a restaurant called “Cafe BellaLuca“, which seemed a bit out of place for the area, but the food smelled great and we are going there for dinner tomorrow;
  • We made fast friends with “Big John”, who is a guy from San Diego that comes here for 5 weeks in November.  He works for lodging and “free soaks” - he paints for 6 hours a day for 3 days, and has 3 days off.  In exchange he is given a place to stay and all the “soaks” he wants!  He was friendly and gave us some good advice - “go eat at BellaLuca” and when I asked him about bars to have a drink, he said “are you bringing your wife?  and if so, do you have a gun?”  He informed us that the local bars are probably not the place we wanted to go!;
  • There are a million stars out here - Lalig and I both saw shooting stars.  Tomorrow we’ll take the camera out at night with the tripod and try to get some good shots;
  • There are a number of stores on Main Street in ToC that make me wonder just how the heck they stay in business.  I’ve never seen more crap in my life!;
  • Everyone is extremely friendly here - there’s always a nod or “howdy” or “how’s it going” to be had;
  • We had a nice lunch at the “Happy Belly Deli”;
  • It seems that most people here in ToC are not from here - many came here from elsewhere;
  • While we were off-roading, we had a roadrunner cross right in front of us.  I was looking for Wile E. Coyote in hot pursuit, but he didn’t show!;
  • A soak in a tub under the stars in New Mexico is an excellent thing!
• That should do it for now…….until tomorrow - happy soaking!

• Today was all about New Mexico.  We woke up in Tucumcari, NM and spent the day driving mostly non-interstate highway roads, ending up in Las Cruces via Roswell.  We drove about 3 hours to Roswell, and we decided that rather than staying there for the night, we’d drive more back roads to Las Cruces to give us a jump on our plans for Friday.  We ended up driving through the Lincoln National Forest after dark, which was a long, winding road that took us from 4000 feet to 8000 feet above sea level.  There were lots of Elk Crossing signs and we were glad that we were paying attention as an elk came from the side of the road and momentarily paused in the road in front of us - I slowed quickly from about 50 mph to 25 and the elk crossed by, probably about 10 yards in front of the car.  The rest of the trip was uneventful from a wildlife standpoint, but was a very cool ride through the mountains.  It’s too bad we didn’t get to see it during the daylight though.
• Some items of note:
  • We had an excellent breakfast burrito at Rubee’s Diner in Tucumcari, NM;
  • Driving through New Mexico is very cool when you get off the highway.  There are miles and miles of open roads and the views are spectacular.  Lots and lots of cows and lots and lots of pickup trucks!;
  • On the way to Roswell, we stopped and visited the grave of William H. Bonney, better known as Billy The Kid and visited the “Old Fort Sumner Museum.”  It was slightly interesting, but I’m glad it was on the way and we didn’t drive too far out of our way to get there!;
  • Afterwards, we stopped on the road to the Old Fort Sumner Museum to take some pictures and say hello to some horses.  When we stopped, the horses came over towards the car - and we thought it was cool that they did.  I walked over to where they were and all of them came closer.  I thought they were being friendly, but in fact, I happened to be standing right at the gate that let them out to their pasture, which was covered with green grass.  They weren’t being friendly, they were waiting for me to open the gate for them to move over.  I felt kind of bad that I psyched them out and probably disappointed them as they didn’t get into the pasture - one of the horses was actually nudging the gate with his nose, as if to say - “hey, the latch is right here - just open it and go on your way”;
  • At some point, on the way to Roswell, I saw a large round structure off in the distance.  I thought it seemed too round for a water town so I decided to take the turn and drove down the road to check it out.  Turns out it was an Air Force Radar Station (there’s a base nearby) and I got out of the car and took some pictures of it while Lalig told me to hurry up and get back in the car before the Feds got us!;
  • We saw several large birds in that area as well - they were either hawks or eagles flying around looking for food; Roswell was a disappointment.  We read up about the UFO crash and hoped to find a cool, somewhat quirky/funky town, but only found strip malls and chain stores.  The area of downtown that had some touristy UFO stuff was lame and the UFO museum was closed when we got there. We ended up eating dinner at a mexican buffet that was fairly decent - not the best, but more than acceptable.;
  • Cell service isn’t so good in the Middle of Nowhere, NM - we often looked and saw “NO SERVICE” on our phones - I guess that AT&T 3G commercial wasn’t entirely accurate!;
  • We passed the White Sands Missle Range and also the White Sands National Monument , but didn’t get to stop at either.
  • Tomorrow we head to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico for a couple of days to enjoy the hot springs!

• Day 4 covered a lot of ground, taking us from Little Rock, Arkansas to Tucumcari, NM - a total of 700+ miles for the day.  We went through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas (Panhandle) and about 4o miles over the border into New Mexico.
• We were going to stop in Amarillo, TX for the night, but decided in honor of Lee Van Cleef (For A Few Dollars More) and Little Feat (Willin’)
• Some items of note for the day:
  • We had breakfast at Waffle House in Arkansas - Lalig had never been before.  She was a little freaked out by the other patrons - as they all looked like they took a break from hunting and she thought they all had guns on them!  The food was OK but I informed her that no roadtrip is complete without a trip to Waffle House;
  • Arkansas is named for a french translation of a Quapaw word meaning “Land of Downriver People” and the people who the state was named for now live on a reservation in Oklahoma, which happens to be the location of the Tar Creek Superfund Site;
  • There are a lot of horse farms near the Arkansas/Oklahoma Border;
  • We passed the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail;
  • We passed through Chacotah, OK, home of Carrie Underwood;
  • We passed through the Cherokee Nation;
  • There are lots of cows in Oklahoma; We passed through Henrietta, OK - the home of Troy Aikman;
  • No trip through the Texas Panhandle is complete without a fill-up at the Jesus Is Lord Travel Center.  Really - the Jesus Is Lord Travel Center.  We weren’t sure what the hell it was (pun intended) so we turned around went back a couple of exits so we could come back towards it - and of course we had to get gas there - I’m hoping that this heavenly tank of gas gets me a miracle 30 miles per gallon!;
  •  It was 15 degrees in Texas and Oklahoma, but the temperature warmed up to 30 once we got into New Mexico;
  • The switch to Mountain Time occurs right at the Texas/New Mexico border;
  • We are traveling a lot now on the original route 66, which is now I-40.  We ate at a retro diner place called Lucille’s Roadhouse - everything was fried!  Chicken Fried Steak, Fried Pickles, Fried Okra, Hush Puppies - we took Lipitor for dessert!
  • We stopped for the night around Midnight (Mountain Time) at a Best Western in Tucumcari.  The plan for Thursday is to drive to Roswell, New Mexico - should be an interesting day.
  • Stay Tuned…………..

• Day 3 was a most excellent day for sightseeing, not the greatest day for driving!  We woke up to a rainy day in Lynchburg, TN.  After showering and getting ready, we repacked the car to make it more accessible for the passenger to get to the laptop bags, snack bag and misc. things we need during the drive.
• Next we went to downtown Lynchburg and walked around the historic district, which consisted of a number of stores, mostly selling Jack Daniel’s related merchandise.  Oddly enough, Lynchburg is in a dry county, which means there is no alcohol served.
• At 1:00 we had a reservation at Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House for a traditional Tennessee Christmas Dinner, which consisted of Turkey, Stuffing, Fried Okra, Cranberry Sauce, Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans, Mac and Cheese and and Pie for dessert.  We sat family style with a group of people who actually work at the Jack Daniel’s Distillery….which was fun.  They told us a bit about the place and we chit chatted about this and that.  The food was very good, the warm Southern Hospitality was in full force and it was a very enjoyable experience.
• After lunch, we went to the Distillery and took the tour.  It was very interesting to see and we learned a few  things:  Every drop of JD comes from a stream that runs from a cave - EVERY DROP!  The use the cave water because it lacks iron and is filtered by the limestone; Jack Daniels uses a charcoal mellowing process, which consists of taking hardwood, turning into charcoal and filtering the 120 proof clear liquid through it to remove impurities and “mellow” the flavor.  This distinguishes it from regular Bourbon, which doesn’t go through that process.; We weren’t able to taste any due to the dry county restrictions, but were able to buy a commemorative bottle from the gift shop. Not sure if I’ll save it or drink it!
• After the tour, we got in the car to head to Memphis for dinner and eventually get to Little Rock to stop for the night.  As soon as we got in the car, the rain really started and we were in torrential rains for several hours.  Lalig was nervous as there was a “Tornado Watch” in effect for several counties we drove through.  We were both really, really glad we didn’t have a trailer full of our stuff attached to the FJ!  Finally the rain stopped and we continued to Memphis.
• In Memphis, we used Yelp to find a place called Gus’s Fried Chicken, but when we got there it had just closed, which was too bad because it looked like it was a most excellent hole-in-the-wall place.  Another check with Yelp and we ended up on Beale Street, which was full of music joints and quirky stores.  There wasn’t much going on in terms of people, as it was a Tuesday night and evidently 50 degrees in Memphis is considered cold!  We ate some OK barbeque at the Blues City Cafe.  It wasn’t spectacular but wasn’t bad either.  I would have preferred the hole-in-the-wall, but Beale Street was cool and gave us a small taste of the rhythm and spice of Memphis.
• We ended the day with a final 2 hour drive to Little Rock, Arkansas and called it a night.
• Things of Note:
  • It’s flat around here…….;
  • Gas prices are around $2.45 for regular unleaded;
  • To go from Lynchburg, TN to Memphis, TN we crossed into Alabama and Mississippi then back into Tennessee - so we covered 3 states to get to 2 destinations in the same state;
  • The FJ has continued to impress us, holding her own in extremely wet and windy conditions;
  • We passed Hellen Keller’s birthplace;
  • We also passed by a sign for  the Coon Dog Cemetery in Alabama (http://www.coondogcemetery.com/);
  • We took the tour of the Distillery with a couple of women from Australia who live in the same town as one of my Aardvark Art customers and I had just that same day gotten another order from another customer in Australia and Lalig had even looked up time zones in Australia that same day.  It was one of those weird coincidence things, whch happen a lot;
  • We’ve had a few deja vu things happen - Lalig had a dream about driving and talking to my brother about directions and the exact scenario happened on Sunday;
  • Lalig had never heard of Waffle House until this trip, but now she’s seen hundreds of them!
  • That’s all for now.  We are currently driving from Little Rock, Arkansas to Amarillo, Texas - driving through Oklahoma.

• It’s the end of Day 2 and we made it from Hagerstown, MD to Lynchburg, TN.  We stopped for dinner in Knoxville, TN at the Downtown Grill and Brewery which was decent - nothing spectacular, but not bad by any means.
• Things of note:  Virgina State Troopers are very polite when handing out tickets.  We learned that firsthand when Lalig got bagged (despite our radar detector!)  He said he was sorry to have met us this way and sorry he had to give us a ticket and wished us well on our trip;  There’s a town in VA called groseclose; The town of Marion exists in many states; There are a lot of Baptist Churches down here; Virgina is a beautiful, picturesque state - lots of farms, cows and horses; There’s a Lebanon and Damascus in Tennessee (and in many other states for that matter) and they are named from stories in the Bible.  There’s also a Cedars of Lebanon State Park here in TN.
• Tomorrow we’ll be walking around Downtown Lynchburg, TN with lunch (Dinner) at Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding house followed by a Jack Daniel Distillery tour.

• So we have departed Boston for the Great Westward Migration to Southern California.  I’ll leave the emotional aspect of me picking up and leaving Boston as well as Lalig’s return home to California for another day….there’s far too much to say and far too many emotions to deal with.  Let’s just say we are both very sad and very excited at the same time. Bittersweet is the only word that comes to mind.
• The blog posts in the coming days will deal mostly with our trip, driving from MA to CA.  We hope to take about 10 days to do it.
• Day 1 began with last minute packing and odds and ends, breakfast with family and friends, watching the Pats lose a tough game (not a great farewell on that front!) and we finally hit the road at 5pm.  We drove through MA, CT, NY, PA and ended in Hagerstown, MD for the night at about 11:30pm, covering approximately 475 miles.
• Things of note along the mostly uneventful ride:   We passed by Frackville (but we didn’t see any Cylons), we crossed the Mason-Dixon line and learned a little about the history of the marking of the Maryland/Pennsylvania border dispute, We passed Dorrance (not to be confused with Torrance), we learned that lots of states have the same city/town names, and many states have the same State Folk Dance (the Square Dance), Dinner happens earlier in the South (and from the sound of people, Maryland is the South!)
• On another note, the FJ is an excellent road trip vehicle.  The electrical plug in the back is most excellent, allowing me to plug in a power strip where I can plug in my laptop (with tethering to my iPhone for  internet access along the way.  I’ll take some pictures of the command center/cockpit and post them later).Today (12/7) we left Hagerstown, MD around 1:00pm and will drive for almost 10 hours to get to Lynchburg, TN tonight.
• More to follow……

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.  I had a a great day with my whole family and we have a lot to be thankful for.