Brenda and Harlan's Trip Blog

Once upon a time in a land far far away
There lived a Prince and a Princess
Who decided to follow their dreams
To love, live and see America
There were good times and bad times
And no matter where they land
The Princess will forever be grateful
And will forever love the Prince

OK, we found one more picture. It’s been uploaded to the trip album.

I also uploaded a few post-trip pictures that Brenda took, but the post-trip pictures are in the top-level album, not in the trip album.

We’re still thinking about visiting Death Valley next week.

The pictures arrived and I have uploaded them.

There are new pictures in the Ladybird Johnson album in the Austin album, and 3 new pictures at the end of the Austin album (some clouds at sunset I really liked).

I’ve also added a bunch more pictures to the Chiricahua album.

I think that’s it for pictures…

We’re trying to decide if we’re going to visit Death Valley soon (probably not over a weekend) because we have heard so many amazing things about the wildflowers there.

Brenda decided it was time to go home. We stopped off at the photo place and since the pictures had not been scanned in yet we asked them to mail them to us – they should be here on either Saturday or Monday.

We took I-10 to the outskirts of LA (the wildflowers were beautiful), and since it was about 3:30 and traffic was getting Heavy we headed north/west on 30, then to I-215, and then on hiway 138 to 14, and took Avenue D over to I-5 for the trip back. On the way, we drove by the Mormon Rocks, which were really pretty.

We picked up our favorite pizza for dinner when we rolled in to Santa Clara about 10pm.

We’re beat – we’ll add more details after we wake up.

We slept in a bit this morning. Brenda woke up feeling pretty good, and Harlan was pretty stiff.

We dropped off the 35mm film at Photographic Works, which seems to be another top-end place for color film (they were recommended by Images, a B&W-only lab Harlan found on the net). The film should be developed and scanned by tomorrow lunchtime. We ran a few errands, and Harlan called around to find a Bowen practitioner for himself and a massage for Brenda. The Bowen person called back and had a time slot, the massage folks did not call back.

Harlan had a Bowen Technique session from Cindy Bruwer, which helped a lot. She recommended Le Bistro for dinner, and it was excellent. She also recommended we try the west bit of Saguaro National Park, as we could also easily visit the living desert museum and the old Tucson film set nearby. We’re going to these places tomorrow, maybe staying in Tucson another night, and maybe heading north.

We didn’t sleep all that well and decided to get out of bed early and get going. We finished breakfast and were on the road before 9am.

Harlan’s plan was to take I-10 west and then go south on 80, and approach Chiricahua National Monument from the back roads at Portal AZ. Brenda vetoed the idea because it is a 24 mile/1.5 hour journey over bumpy, winding, unpaved, and very scenic road. Instead we continued in to AZ, turning south at Bowie to pass by Fort Bowie National Historic Site, and then taking 186 east to Chiricahua. This mostly dirt road was pleasant, and it was a beautiful drive.

We got to Chiricahua around 11:30, and checked with the rangers to see where to hike. We drove to the end of the scenic road to the Massai Point, and prepared for something between 2 and 10+ miles of hiking. We’ll update this with better information when we find the maps, but for now know that Harlan had a mostly fresh roll of 36 exposure film in the camera and another roll of 27 exposure film with him. It wasn’t enough film. After a little while, Brenda took over the digital camera for the hike.

Amazing place – we would love to come back and spend several days here. As we were hiking out, the moon was rising in the east as the sun was setting. Astonishingly beautiful.

We walked about 8.5 miles, and considering it was our first day of hiking since we got sick and we were at 6000-7000′ elevation, we did OK.

We finally found a hotel in Tucson, and will spend at least one more night here. Tomorrow we have some errands to run and want to visit Saguaro National Park.

We woke up and decided to head toward White Sands National Monument. The wind was pretty stiff in the afternoon, and the sand was blowing pretty hard. We learned that the best time to visit is in October and November, as the winds have stopped, the weather is mild, and there is still a good chance of seeing (as opposed to being in) a thunderstorm. Also, every month there is a guided trip to Lake Lucero, and that sounds interesting. We did walk the short Big Dune Trail, as by then the winds had calmed a bit even though it was still a bit cool. On our next visit we’d like to hike the Alkali Flat Trail (this time it was way too windy and cold).

We looked at the map and decided to stay in Lordsburg NM so we could visit Chiricahua National Monument as we head toward the Grand Canyon. The hotel there had no internet access and there was not local AOL modem access either.

We woke up around 9, had breakfast at the restaurant next door, and were on the road by 11:30.

We took I-10 to US 17 toward Ft. Davis, and just before Ft. Davis we took 118 to the McDonald Observatory. We got there too late to do much, but the nice lady at the information desk told us lots of things to do in the area, including visiting Imperial Texas, which sits on top of a salt-water aquifer and they are using that water to grow really good shrimp (she was from New Orleans and knows her shrimp), taking 17 farther south to Marfa, seeing the “Marfa Lights”, taking County Road 2810 SW out of Marfa as far as it goes (the first half is paved, the last half is not) and visiting the border areas around there before heading SE to Big Bend National Park. She said that when we return to the Observatory we should get there on a Tuesday afternoon at 1:30, as there were things to do there until pretty much 9pm on Tuesdays.

We didn’t get to do the 166 portion of the scenic drive that would take us back to Fort Davis, but just stayed on 118 back to I-10. Brenda really liked the road, it was well-paved with no traffic and very nice views. We even thought that heading north of I-10 on 118 would be interesting.

Brenda arranged for a free night (reward points) at a Comfort Suites NW of El Paso (for the usual number of points), and about 45 minutes before we hit El Paso Harlan asked what we should do for Dinner, so Brenda opened up the AAA guide book, and noticed the Cattleman’s Steak House and had the recollection that this was one of the places Jarrett suggested we visit when we were here. Brenda had the best ribeye she has ever had (and Harlan thought it was tops, too, as if that mattered). They have an a mushroom appetizer where the mushrooms are cooked in some white wine and herbs and stuff, and they were also amazing. Definitely a place to visit again.

Tonight we’re checking out the maps for New Mexico and Arizona to figure out where we are going next.

Oh, I’ve uploaded more pictures to the Austin gallery.

We woke up late this morning and Brenda was feeling fine, so we decided to head out today. We packed up and visited Mary at work on the way to pick up the pictures of Enchanted Rock (which are uploading as I am typing). We spoke with Tom a couple of times, and both Tom and Mary warned us about driving west around sunset because of the large number of deer that decide to grab their evening meal on the side of the road. After we got the pictures (and more film), we headed over to Cheryl Gallagher’s house to pick up her latest CD so we’d be able to listen to it on the trip (Harlan met Cheryl on a plane ride a few years ago). Beautiful house and view, west-southwest of Austin. Great album – Brenda loves it.

We decided to take I-35 to San Antonio and pick up I-10 west from there, just to avoid the deer. We made some calls while we could (Cingular service was sometimes unavailable for miles) and discovered that there isn’t much in the way of places we like to stay between San Antonio and Fort Stockton. In fact, the pickings can be so slim that the Comfort Inn properties routinely charge almost triple the reward points for a free stay. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Kerrville, using the ordinary number of reward points for a free stay.

We’re planning to drive to El Paso tomorrow (about 490 miles), and we might decide to take some scenic routes along the way. As this is also the height of the season in Moab and we spent all of our “extra” days recovering in Austin, we will soon be deciding how we’re going to spend the rest of our time here (things like the wildflowers in Death Valley).