In which we drive to California

We had planned to leave on Friday at noon for our Epic 10th Anniversary Road Trip.  But then, we ended up travelling back to Ohio for Pap Pap's funeral, and our plane wasn't due to land until 2:30 pm on Friday afternoon.  But we decided to go ahead with our plans.  I packed up two sets of suitcases before our first trip, and we were just going to stop at home for a little while to switch our luggage, and then be on our way, only a few hours later.

But then, when we picked up our SUV at the airport, you know, the one we were planning to drive all the way to California right away, we noticed that something was not right.  It was misfiring, and we needed to have it repaired.  I don't know about where you live, but it's hard to get someone to do anything around here on a Friday, much less a Friday afternoon.  But, we got lucky, and we got three of the coils in the engine cylinders replaced, and we were able to leave home sometime between 5 and 6 pm.  Which was only a few hours later than our few hours later plan.

Okay, so it was pretty late, but we made it work.  And now there will be pictures.

The first interesting place we drove through was Hereford.  Now, we are quite familiar with Hereford here in Amarillo, because it isn't too far away, and when the wind blows from that direction, you can smell it.  But even the smell we get here was nothing like the smell that was there.  We rolled the window down for just a second, and that was a mistake for sure!





Hereford:  Population 15,370 (human) and 1.5 MILLION COWS



Click on the photo above, and enlarge it.  That black field is nothing but cows.



More than half of the cows and beef produced in the entire United States are right here.  The fields of cows seemed endless.



The next really cool place that we drove through was Roswell, New Mexico.  We had wanted to stop at one of the little UFO Museums, but the entire city seems to shut down at 5 pm, so we weren't able to.  We were able to find one little gift shop that hadn't closed yet, and the kids and I spent some time browsing through all the alien-touristy-things we could ever want.



While we were driving in the desert, a little roadrunner darted across the highway right in front of our car.  It made it to the other side of the road safely, and both Kevin and I were impressed with it's quickness.  Later on, we saw this huge road runner statute on the side of the road.



We spent the first night in El Paso, Texas.  We arrived at our hotel sometime in the middle of the night, but the Neon Desert Music Festival was going on downtown right next to our hotel, so there were people everywhere.  In fact, we could see the festival from our hotel room windows, and the flashing laser lights, and we could hear the pounding base until probably 3 am.  But we were so tired (having gotten up at 5 am Eastern Time, and having traveled by plane from Pittsburgh to Vegas to Amarillo, and then having driven all the way to El Paso) that we slept right through it.

Anyways, I think I would really like to spend some more time in El Paso.  It seemed like a really great city.



Here's Lex, ready for the second day of driving!



And here's Connor!  What did they do during the long drive?  Well, they each had their iPad and their Nintendo 2DS, and I had also bought them a ton of brand new movies to watch in the car.



Funny story, actually.  I had ordered all these new movies for the trip, and the day before we left, the portable DVD player broke.  So, one of the last things we did before we got on the plane for Pap Pap's funeral was to run into Walmart and buy a new DVD player for the car.



I really liked these Mexican Day of the Dead ceramic dolls that I found in a gift shop in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Finally, after driving through Texas and New Mexico and Texas and New Mexico again, we made it to Arizona!



We drove along I-10, and we were surprised at how many times we had to slow down and/or stop for the Department of Homeland Security Border stations.  I mean, we were in the United States the entire time. We never left, and we never came back, but they are very much watching that southern interstate because it does get so close to the Mexican border.



We drove through Texas Canyon in Arizona, and I think it got it's name because the rocks there are enormous!

We made it all the way to the California coast that second day, and towards the end of the trip, we found a huge windfarm in the mountains near Devil's Canyon,





Eventually we made it to San Diego, and we got all the way to Coronado Island, were we checked into our hotel on the beach.