Roadtrip #4: New Mexico and the Albuquerque Balloon Festival

======== DAY 10 (FINAL) ========

Dad had a better intuition than I this morning. He figured it was better to leave at 8:00am MST rather than the 9:00am I was proposing. Since we were all up and ready to go way earlier than usual, I figured OK fine, we may need the extra time (and we did).

We headed out of Sedona, which in our opinion is nice but there's way too many people, even for an off-peak-during-the-week session out there. Overall, the parents were kinda disappointed, but they're trying to compare to when they were there 35 years ago. I think there'll be a difference, hehe.

We kept our southward direction on Hwy 89A towards Prescott, AZ. Even though it's in the general direction of our destination, the overly winding curves kept you from going faster than 25 MPH. There were nice views for sure, but it took 3 hours to get over the 2 passes that carried you through the mountain ranges.

We used Hwy 71 to cut over to Hwy 60 west, which finally dumped us out on I-10 headed back into California. After another hour, we reached the exit that introduced us to the southern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. The Cottonwood Visitor Center was our arrival point, getting there just before 2:00pm PDT.

I had been to this park earlier in the year when I went rock-climbing with some friends, however this was only in the northern Mojave Desert section of the park. I had never seen the southern Colorado Desert portion, and this was my chance to complete everything. I had assumed the entire park looked all alike.

Whoops, yeah. The south side of Joshua Tree NP is pretty much just like what we've been seeing throughout the entire southwest. I didn't realize that the general Colorado Desert extended into this section of the park. As we drove through the barren basin, I kept promising my folks, don't worry, it gets better than this. So yeah, I've seen the southern part, and I probably don't need to see it again.

As we ascended north across the "border" into the Mojave, it quickly turned into a completely different park. Massive piles of boulders hundreds of feet high seemed to spring out of the ground, accompanied with thousands upon thousands of the trademark Joshua Tree yuccas. We stopped at a few of the rock formations (and I got in some basic climbing) and some of the bigger yuccas. It was a little too hot for hiking so we did most of our sight-seeing in the car, which was fine.

We stopped at the main visitor center and a general store around 4:30pm. From there we headed west on Hwy 62 that eventually led us back to the I-10, being overlooked by the plethora of wind turbines dominating the valley. We hit up Guy's Italian Restaurant in Banning, CA before making the usual familiar highway pattern to our residence in San Juan Capistrano, arriving at 8:25pm PDT.

We are done. As before, stats and conclusion will be posted in the next 48 hours. There's a lot to catch up on. Pictures will hopefully come at the same time, although I may put that off until the weekend. I'm glad I have the next 2 days off to get it all sorted out.

I think it's cool that you spent this time with your parents. What precious memories you'll have from this.

I'll look forward to your stats, conclusions, and photos. No hurry. Catch up, rest up, and reflect.

All right boys and girls, I have spent the last 24 hours recuperating and getting everything organized for your viewing pleasure. May I present... the conclusion:

This has been my 4th road trip in as many years, and I'm glad to say that there has not been any major catastrophe on the road as of this writing. I believe this comes with advance planning, preparation, and cautious optimism. The end result can be very rewarding.

Favorite Places: Where else? The Balloon Fiesta! There may have been a lot of people, maybe too many, but it's what helps events flourish. To actually be a part of the action on the field instead of spectating from a distance really makes a ginormous difference. I'm glad the weather didn't completely ruin our chances, as we got to see at least one morning and one evening show. Other honorable mentions during the trip would be Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands.

Least Desirables: I wouldn't say that any of the places were undesirable. If I had to complain about something, I guess it would be the long stretch of I-10 from Tucson, AZ to Las Cruces, NM which was quite uneventful. Also, the southern Colorado Desert portion of Joshua Tree National Park was uninteresting to me. I'm not even sure why they chose to preserve that area when there's so much more of it out there. But hey, I don't run the Department of the Interior.

What's next? Hmm, Roadtrip #5? I'm looking at taking an east coast trip to see all the big cities again. We'd fly into Washington D.C. and spend a few days there, then use a rental to drive up the east coast, through all the big cities and small states, until we hit Maine, and then loop around back down and fly home from D.C. The driving would be less than 1000 miles, since everything is so close together. This, of course, is tentative on a number of things, including the overall economy and affordability at the time.

Here are my stats for the trip:

Total miles: 2,778
Total stops: 20
Total elapsed time: 9 days, 14 hours, 40 minutes
Total states: 4 (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas)
Total national parks: 5 (Saguaro, Guadalupe Mts, Carlsbad Caverns, Petrified Forest, Joshua Tree)
Total national monuments: 1 (White Sands)
Total state monuments: 1 (Lincoln)
Type of rental vehicle: 2008 Chevrolet Uplander
Number of speeding tickets: 0 (Yaaaaaaaaaaay!)
Gallons of fuel: 121.59 (22.85 MPG)
Total cost of trip: $1,014.58 (includes my share of hotels, rental, gas, food, entry fees, and merchandise)

And of course, I have put up an album of pictures from this roadtrip. It's really hard to narrow down to the best 60, especially when you have over 450 to choose from. My selections should suffice for a decent overview of what we saw on the trip. Have fun, and I'll see you again, either on the road or in the RTA forums.

Hi Kinless,

Nice to see you back with us, glad you recovered O.K. ;-)

Some good info there and I enjoyed looking through your photo's, thanks.

Dave.