<– Day 5 – Thu. Apr. 16th: Meth and Science | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 7 – Sat. Apr. 18th: No Scum Allowed –>

Thursday night I came down with a light cold (or something), so I took it easy yesterday. By the evening I felt good enough to join Ann and her uncle Fred for a visit Alamogordo’s art fair. Fred is president of Otero County’s STEM program. He and his wife are also deeply involved in First Robotics and judge robotic competitions all over the country. As leader of Otero Stem, Fred organized a demonstration at the local art fair. It gave the kids a chance to show off the their robots to the public, while Fred and the other leaders introduced STEM to many parents who attended the fair.

Fred and I loading the high school kids’ robot.

The Junior High School aged kids robot is on the left.

Fred’s always in trouble with the police 🙂

There are as many girls as boys involved in the Otero program. Both Fred and Cindy are Mechanical Engineers and worked for Boeing. So, they believe in Engineering as a career.

While we were at the fair, Smokey Bear stopped by for a visit. Why would Smoke Bear be attending the event? Smokey is/was a local bear, but I’ll save that for a later update.

<– Day 5 – Thu. Apr. 16th: Meth and Science | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 7 – Sat. Apr. 18th: No Scum Allowed –>

<– Day 4 – Wed. Apr. 15th: Salmon and Subway | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 6 – Fri. Apr. 17th: Art Fair in Alamogordo, NM –>

Ann in front of ‘her’ plane, a B-52 (though technically not this model). Back in her Air Force Days before Bin Laden blew her up, she used to load it with weapons. @ the National Museum of Nuclear Science and Technology.

For years I”d read and heard about the television series Breaking Bad. This past summer, lacking any good TV, Ann and I decided to watch the episode’s pilot to see if we’d enjoy it. We were hooked from the very beginning. Within a couple weeks we watched the entire six-year series. In case you haven’t seen it, the show is about an Albuquerue science teacher named Walter White who feels forced to produce meth to save his family’s finances. If you haven’t watched the show and don’t want to know the ending, leave the post now!

With that background in mind, our first item of business was to find the real gravestone marker for the mythical Walter White. The headstone was initially put into a real cemetary, but some reasonable complaints caused it to be moved to a small strip mall. When we arrived at the mall, the location of the headstone wasn’t obvious. We had to look around before spotting it in an outdoor alcove. Ann was particularly pleased, because this was her idea.

There are both guide-tours and self-guided tours of Breaking Bad film sites in Albuquerque. You can learn all kinds of things here.

Following that quick stop we headed to the touristy area of old town Albuquerque. Anchored by a church established in 1702, the area is typical of New Mexican town squares. In the center is a square bordered on all sides by a road with shops/restaurants lining the road. I was surprised to see that the square was much quieter and subdued than the square in Santa Fe (or it was on this day).

Perhaps the most striking difference between the Santa Fe and Albuquerque shops are the proliferation of Break Bad memorabilia. There were also some Better Caul Saul shirts as well, the prequel to Breaking Bad.

Believe it or not, there are some confederate soldiers buried in Albuquerque.

Continue reading →

<– Day 3 – Tues. Apr. 14th: Winds and more Winds | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 5 – Thu. Apr. 16th: Meth and Science –>

I now have an additional reason to eat Subway sandwiches! This truck was in Albuquerque off of Wyoming Blvd.

Today was a breather day. Our simple goal was to make the four hour drive from Durango south to Albuquerque. Without anything planned, we let chance be our guide.

It turned out ‘chance’ liked jeeps on this day. On our way out of Durango we saw a flat fender, a cj-5, and a beautifully rusted truck (orange-red patina). Unfortunately, we were on a two-lane busy road with no pull-offs. All we could do was shout to one another, ‘there’s another jeep!”

After taking a wrong turn in Cortez, we found ourselves in Farmington, New Mexico, where we spotted two unusual vehicles. The first reminded me of a Tour FC with it’s white and red top.

The second was a limoseum parked out front of Farmington’s museum.

Despite the cool car, we didn’t go inside the museum. Instead, we got back on track and headed east for Bloomfield. That’s where we saw the strangest sign: SALMON RUINS. As you can imagine, we didn’t expect to find any salmon bones, carcasses or ruins in New Mexico. So, naturally, we had to investigate.

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<– Day 2 – Mon. Apr. 13th: Rocks, Tracks & Dusty Roads | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 4 – Wed. Apr. 15th: Salmon and Subway –>

Those arrows barely missed us!

Today we drove from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Durango, Colorado. Brisk winds hounded us over our entire route. At one point as we approached Moab a huge dust devil stacked with tumbleweeds blew across the road in front of us; what a spectacular site! I’m really glad it didn’t blow into us!!

Today we drive from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Durango, Colorado.

Needless to say, the winds squashed any desire we had to jump out and take photos. Besides, we’ve capture the look and feel of this area, as well as the jeeps, during our 2013 trip when we photographed the CJ-2A on Ivan’s sign just south of Moab and the jeep that sits atop Hole in the Rock.

I’d pretty much given up on photos, but then we spotted two jeeps and a bunch of arrows. The winds had subsided, so we got some pics while the shooting was good.

The first jeep I spotted was this CJ-2A, which appeared to be a VEC. It sits off the Colorado State Highway 160 just east of Mesa Verde National Park (which we decided not to visit due to the winds and the fact that we’d both been there).

The next jeep we spotted was this CJ-2A in Manco, Colorado. It’s on the east side of town along the main street.

Continue reading →

<– Day 1 –  Sun. Apr. 12th: On the Road Again, Finally | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 3 – Tues. Apr. 14th: Winds and more Winds –>

City of Rocks National Reserve

Today’s goal was to drive from Twin Falls to Salt Lake City, which normally takes about 3 hours. I’ve traveled this route so many times that I mark my progress by familiar cracks in the road. And, every time I pass by a sign that announces the exit for City of Rocks, I tell myself I’m going to take that some day. Well, that ‘some’ day was today.

Knowing that at least some of the roads would be unpaved (turns out most were), I calculated the drive would be much longer than three hours. In fact, the drive took 9 hours, some of which included map checks, photo ops, and very short walks. I don’t advise doing this trip unless you have good maps. We lacked cell coverage for most of the day and there are very few helpful signs (not many roads either).

Today we drove from Twin Falls to Salt Lake City via the City of Rocks and lots of gravel roads.

We took off about 8am from Twin Falls and drove east on I-84, before turning on State Highway 77. We quickly found ourselves following the old California Trail, a spur taken by wagon trains that left the Oregon Trail for California.

The first interesting town we encountered was Albion. Near the entrance to the town an old and abandoned Normal School loomed eerily by the road. We weren’t a bit surprised the a nearby sign boasted how spooky the place was. However, if this is your thing, you should check out this website.

Haunted? Easy to believe.

Normal? She’s trying awfully hard to make me believe that!

When we got to the City of Rocks area, we stopped by the visitor’s center.

The ranger was friendly and helpful. She explained that travelers heading west on the California Trail found the City of Rocks a unique diversion from the long travels. Wagon trains would camp among the lower rocks. Several of the large rocks have carvings dating as far back as the 1840s.

As for rocks inside the visitors center, we didn’t find many. However, we did find this unexpected gem:

Idaho State Park poster with a Willys Wagon!

Continue reading →

<– Trip Overview | Day 2 – Mon. Apr. 13th: Rocks, Tracks & Dusty Roads –>

Shoshone Falls Park near Twin Falls, Idaho. When the falls are gushing the water thunders over the areas to the right and left of Ann.

It took most of the morning, but I finally wrangled Ann into the jeep so we could get the heck out of Pasco. Our goal was to make it to Twin Falls, Idaho. It’s not much of a stretch (only 6+ hours), but we did have a specific place to visit: Shoshone Falls, a place I’ve been promising we’d see.

Yesterday we drove from Pasco, Washington, to Twin Falls, Idaho.

Since we’ve covered much of the Pasco to Idaho trip in past photos, we won’t bore you with them here — in fact, we didn’t take any of the drive. However, we did have some excitement, which happens whenever my wife drives. Once she is behind the wheel she just goes …. she doesn’t really pay too much attention to signs (though she does follow the speed limit). On more than one occasion she’s driven happily past an exit. This time, we came close to missing the exit, but fortunately I looked up from my eWillys updates just in time to avoid an unplanned detour. She add’s endless unpredictability to our adventures 🙂

We reached the city of Twin Falls just in time to get to Shoshone Falls State Park with some sun left. We’d never visited the park and found it a literal oasis in the desert. We snapped a few photos before quickly realizing our selfie tactics were rusty. We shall work to improve those, so don’t pan us too loudly for our narcissistic desire to self-photograph . . . we are just practicing! Here are a few practice shots at the falls:

The park was surprisingly beautiful kept with clean grassy landscapes.

This cool platform rests on a rock peninsula that provides wonderful views of the upstream falls and downstream Snake River.

Me practicing the art of the selfie. I’d forgotten to move my hand slightly to increase the number of potential views. This is hard work I’m telling’ ya! Now if you look down the river about a half mile you can seen (you really can’t see, you have to imagine) where Evel Knievel tried to jump the river (see video below … not sure why it is age-restricted).

As the sunset, we retired to our motel in Twin Falls.

Tomorrow we will veer off the interstate for our first foray to the City of Rocks, a little known gem in a remote part of southwest Idaho.

<– Trip Overview | Day 2 – Mon. Apr. 13th: Rocks, Tracks & Dusty Roads –>

Getting this Texas trip going proved to be a challenge. Multiple issues kept us from leaving for weeks, then additional issues along the way added unforeseen obstacles, from an ill grandfather prior to departure, to me getting ill early on in the trip, to an emergency trip flight for Ann back to see her grandfather late in the trip.

Just the same, we managed to meet some wonderful folks, dine one some great food, and enjoy the hospitality of Texas. We look for ward to going returning (ed note: which we did briefly in late 2016).

Our trip tipped the odometer at just over 10,000 miles and 54 days. We explored the west, south, east, central, north and panhandle areas of Texas; yet there was still more we couldn’t see. We saw the Rio Grande, ate Texas BBQ, dipped our toes into the Caribbean on South Padre Island, rode a glass bottom boat, explored the Alamo, saw our first Buc’ees, visited a wide variety of museums, and much more. We even took a side trip to Omaha, Nebraska!

We arrived home just in time to celebrate my 50th birthday. Hopefully, the next half century will be as interesting as the first half.

Here’s an overall map of our trip:

eWillys Texas trip from late April – early June 2015.

Here are the posts related to the trip:

1. Overview: Texas Trip 2015 summary
2. Day 1 – Sun. Apr. 12th: On the Road Again, Finally
3. Day 2 – Mon. Apr. 13th: Rocks, Tracks & Dusty Roads
4. Day 3 – Tues. Apr. 14th: Winds and more Winds
5. Day 4 – Wed. Apr. 15th: Salmon and Subway
6. Day 5 – Thu. Apr. 16th: Meth and Science
7. Day 6 – Fri. Apr. 17th: Art Fair in Alamogordo, NM
8. Day 7 – Sat. Apr. 18th: No Scum Allowed
9. Day 8 – Sun. Apr. 19th: Resting and Recovery
10. Day 9 – Mon. Apr. 20th: Recovering from the Plague
11. Day 10 – Tue. Apr. 21st:  Another One Bites the Dust
12. Day 11 & 12 – Wed. & Thurs Apr. 22nd & 23rd:  Road to Recovery
13. Day 13 – Fri. Apr. 24th: We Made it to Texas
14. Day 14 – Sat. Apr. 25th: Saddleblankets to Prada
15. Day 15 – Sun. Apr. 26th: Parks and Wind
16. Day 16 – Mon. Apr. 27th: Frontier Texas
17. Day 17 – Tue. Apr. 28th: Dr. Peppers & Texas Rangers
18. Day 18 – Wed. Apr. 29th: Power Wagons & Pecans
19. Day 19 – Thu. Apr. 30th: Texas Justice, Pacific War, & a Comfy Bed
20. Day 20 – Fri. May 1st: Luckenbach, Texas
21. Day 21 – Sat. May 2nd: Ingram Rocks, but Kerrville Robots
22. Day 22 – Sun. May 3rd: Buc’s, Boats, Bats & a Batmobile
23. Day 23 – Mon. May 4th: Keeping Austin Weird
24. Day 24 – Tue. May 5th: San Antonio’s Riverwalk
25. Day 25 – Wed. May 6th: Beyond San Antonio’s Riverwalk
26. Day 26 – Thu. May 7th: Rainbow Flight & Texas Border Towns
27. Day 27 – Fri. May 8th: The King Ranch
28. Day 28 – Sat. May 9th: A Big Boat (Ship)
29. Day 29 – Sun. May 10th: Breaking up the Beatles?? Not again!!
30. Day 30 – Mon. May 11th: Three-nap Kind of Day
31. Day 31 – Tue. May 12th: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
32. Day 32 – Wed. May 13th: No Raining on Murphy’s Parade
33. Day 33 – Thu. May 14th: Leaving On a Jet Plane
34. Day 34 – Fri. May 15th: High Plains Drifter
35. Day 35 – Sat. May 16th: The End of Texas
36. Day 36 – Sun. May 17th: Tracking the Ore
37. Day 37-40 – May 18th-21st: Research
38. Day 41-43 – May 22nd-24th: Omaha-Bound
39. Day 44 – Mon. May 25th: Pioneer Village
40. Day 45 – Tue. May 26th: South Park
41. Day 46 – Wed. May 27th: Georgetown Loop Train
42. Day 47 – Thu. May 28th: Back to the Springs
43. Day 48 – Fri. May 29th: Pikes Peak International Raceway
44. Day 49-50 – May 30th-31st: Last Dollar & Madonna
45. Day 51 – Mon. Jun. 1st: Black Canyon of the Gunnison
46. Day 52 – Tue. Jun. 2nd: Navigating the Book Cliffs
47. Day 53-54 – June 3rd-4th: The Journey Home