East to West coast road trip

[LeicesterLuke]

Just a quick message to reassure anyone following this (I'm guessing the count is close to zero) that I will be finishing this, I'm just a bit busy with the first few weeks of looking after this "little bundle of joy". Although born at 10lb12oz she's not so little!



As soon as she decides to sleep for more than half an hour at a time I'll get back to my tiresome ramblings, so watch this space!

[Lifemagician]

Be assured that there are more than zero'' following this thread. I had started to wonder what had happened. But now I have the answer.

Take your time, you obviously have more important things on which your time is to be spent.

Thanks for the news, and lovely photos.

Lifey

[Southwest Dave]

Yes Congratulations on the new arrival !! You can see the number of views you have had to the right of your thread, currently over 3800 of them so we will look forward to updates as and when you can, but for now enjoy your new bundle of joy.

Dave.

[LeicesterLuke]

Day 18
Albuquerque! That's where we were. Most people (from outside the US anyway) will associate Albuquerque with Breaking Bad; I am also one of these people. But after doing a bit of research I found that it's more than just a town that Route 66 passes through, and we struggled to fit everything in to the short time we were there. The original plan was to take a hot air balloon ride at sunrise, but found out that isn't a good idea during pregnancy. We had really wanted to fly around the Sandias, but it wasn't to be. And to be honest it was probably for the best, as I think getting up that early would have been a bit much.

Second on the list (first on the revised list) was a ride on the Sandia Peak Tramway, the longest cable car system in the world! Except it's not, it's the second longest, but they don't like to talk about that. I'm sure the longest is in Armenia or something like that, and instead of changing all of the advertising as the longest, they just ignore it! Although after checking just now, apparently it's the third longest! It was very impressive regardless. It's a 2.7 mile trip up to an elevation of over 10,000ft, and it gives a breathtaking view of Albuquerque and the surrounding area. We'd been advised that it's colder at the top, but considering how hot it was at the bottom, it was comfortably warm. There are plenty of trails to follow, and after taking in the view and taking plenty of photos, we picked a relatively short route due to the lack of time.



We took the tram back down, and enjoyed the equally stunning view down. The cars are pretty crowded, and it's difficult to get a good space next to a window, but I managed to shimmy my way into a good spot.



We headed back to the hotel to pick up all of our stuff and went to go and get the car washed... at the car wash from Breaking Bad. The car was filthy, but it was as much to say we'd been there as anything else. They did a good job, and we were also told to have an A1 day which was a nice touch. After that we went to Twisters, aka Los Pollos Hermanos (another Breaking Bad location). The neighbourhoods we passed through on the way became progressively more and more sketchy until we arrived there. We sat in the car park working out the route for the day when a police car turned up and some officers rushed in with their guns out. We decided that now would probably not be the best time to go inside, so we left sharpish and drove to our final destination in Albuquerque; the Rattlesnake Museum.



We expected the Rattlesnake Museum to be a quirky little place in the middle of the old town with about 5 minutes entertainment, but we were wrong! There were all kinds of rattlesnake as well as other wildlife found in the area. Rach got to hold her first snake, and I spent about 10 minutes watching a snapping turtle trying to catch a goldfish. He came close a few times but didn't manage it before we had to leave. The place was interesting, educational, and the staff were very friendly and helpful.



The museum was so good that we left much later than planned. Leaving late seemed to be a recurring theme of this trip, so we rushed away from Albuquerque heading towards Goosenecks State Park; a winding valley 300 miles Northwest of Albuquerque. The drive up was great, passing tabletop mountains and desert; the kind of scenery I've seen on the TV but never experienced. The roads were quiet and we went long periods without seeing any other traffic, but I had to constantly fight the urge to put my foot down, as any police on the side of the road would see me coming miles away. And sure enough, we did see a couple of police cars at the side of the road. After a few hours we stopped in a small town called Farmington for something to eat at Dad's Diner. Just before we arrived there, we saw this great sign next to the Adult Video store, informing people that Jesus was watching them. You could take that a few ways, but we found it hilarious anyway.




Dad's Diner was exactly how I'd pictured a small town diner: completely made of aluminium, neon signs, and old style booths. Everyone in there seemed to know each other but didn't have a "this is a local shop for local people" type vibe. I ordered a bucket of meat, which turned out to be pretty literal. A plate full of chips, some ribs, and a bucket... full of a variety of meat and seafood. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I probably shouldn't have eaten it all myself. The sun was setting and we still had 130 miles to go so we jumped in the car and carried on our way... then stopped for the morning sickness to reclaim Rach's meal... then carried on our way again. We passed the Four Corners Monument which we didn't have time to see (and was also in Breaking Bad!) as it gradually got darker and darker until I could see nothing in my rear view mirror but darkness. It had cooled down so we drove with the roof down for a while, and watched as the stars became brighter and brighter. I'd heard about how clear the sky is at night there with it being so far in the middle of nowhere, but nothing could prepare me for the amount of stars we could see. There were a few large clouds about that were threatening to ruin the view, but after driving around the windiest and pretty scary roads where you could see absolutely nothing else, we finally made it, and to a clear sky!



It was incredibly disorientating, as there were no lights, and I could only see whatever was directly in front of the car. I had to be careful to avoid the large rocks that formed the border of the car park, and slowly made my way around the car park until we reached the main camping part. There were a few RVs about, so we kept going until we were a good distance away from them. Because we couldn't see anything, and the weather was quite pleasant, we decided to just sleep in the car with the roof down. This was one of my favourite moments of the whole trip; the view was difficult to describe. Because the UK is such a crowded place, and I've always lived in cities, I've never seen the night sky clearly. I thought I had when I camped in the Scottish Highlands, but it was absolutely nothing compared to this. The stars were so bright and numerous, that we could we could actually see the Milky Way! I spent hours just staring at the sky until I eventually fell asleep. The car was so uncomfortable to sleep in that I was soon awake, but I didn't mind at all. Waking up to that view is something I'd never get bored of.

I eventually woke to see a small glimpse of light showing over the horizon, and decided to give up on trying to sleep and just watch the sun rise. The sky changed through an array of colours, from a yellowy glow, changing to orange as the sun got closer, before changing to a pink, and finally blue. It was an incredible sight, made better by the fact that it was lighting up the Goosenecks canyon.



Goosenecks is a winding canyon 1km deep, cut out by the San Juan river, and I'm sure there was something like 6 miles of river in a 1 mile stretch, and provides some absolutely stunning views. We also found out that unfortunately, it's home to millions of flying bugs. Quite large ones, that turn up just after sunrise. So after admiring the spectacular view, we quickly put the roof back up and fought off the bugs that had made it inside. We spent the next half an hour running around outside whilst waiting for breakfast to cook. After admiring the view for a while longer, and when we couldn't bare the bugs any more, we left for Monument Valley.

[Lifemagician]

Just before we arrived there, we saw this great sign next to the Adult Video store, informing people that Jesus was watching them. You could take that a few ways, but we found it hilarious anyway.

He's looking the other way!

Lifey

[Visa711]

Thanks so much for sharing! I love hearing a UK perspective on some things that seem so routine to us but are clearly not normal everywhere!

[Lifemagician]

Hi Visa and Welcome to the Great American Roadtrip Forum.

Glad you are enjoying this report, the next best thing to your own roadtrip, is reading the report from others. As you noted, even in that, you pick up those things which are different to one's norm. One of the best ways of designing one's own trip is reading of the experiences of others.

Lifey

[Mark Sedenquist]

As we approached Manhattan, I woke Rach and got the kind of response you'd expect from a tired grumpy pregnant woman,...

That seems like an authentic response!

Mark

[bodger]

Luke, congrats on the baby! Really looking forward to the rest of your report! We're just planning an East - West road trip for later this year so it has been helpful (and really fun to read)!

[LeicesterLuke]

Thanks everyone. Yeah I noticed that there's a lot of differences between the British and Americans!

Day 19
I started the day with the last post so I feel disorientated now. Ok so we were leaving Goosenecks. We left fairly early for Monument Valley, which was only a 40 min drive, where we'd drive around the trail before heading to the Grand Canyon. The first thing we saw was the Mexican Hat, which I'd actually been able to see from Goosenecks.



The drive up to monument valley was a familiar one, as it's where the famous scene of Forrest Gump deciding he's had enough of running was filmed.





Monument Valley has a 17 mile loop track that you can drive around (for a reasonable fee) which takes you around the most popular natural monuments. You're given a guide when you enter, so there's sign posted stops that shows you what you're actually looking at. It was all very interesting, and was almost like an alien planet with these huge monuments sticking out the ground. The car we had wasn't ideal, as the track wasn't paved and I did scrape the underside of the car a few times. In fact the car made a strange clicking noise at low speeds after that, so that it sometimes sounded like I was running over a flattened drinks can. I never worked out what it was, but it was all fine in the end.









The drive around was great, and we got some awesome views, although because we were there early, the sun was still pretty low and behind a lot of the monuments so the side we could see was very shaded, and it made it hard to take photos. Also, absolutely everything in the car got covered in red dust, which stayed with us right until the end of the trip. I've probably still got some in my pockets.

There were Navajo stalls selling similar traditional items all the way round. I found it a bit odd, as if you decided not to buy anything from the first 14 stalls, what would make you suddenly to decide to buy from the 15th identical stall.

After we left Monument Valley, we had a 3 or 4 hour drive to the Grand Canyon. We entered from the east side near the Desert View Watchtower, and although was a queue to get in it wasn't too bad, and much much better than the queue we saw to get in from the south side coming up from Flagstaff. We stopped in the car park, and walked along to the Desert View Watchtower, which looks like an old watchtower, but is fairly modern and just built to look old. My first sight of the Grand Canyon is something that I'll never ever forget, as it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. The sheer scale of it left me speechless. I've seen many pictures of it, and every time the photographer has said that the pictures can't capture the scale.







Afterwards we made our way along the side of the valley until we reached Mather Campground where we'd be camping for a couple of nights. We'd bought a cheap tent and camping supplies from a Walmart in Albuquerque, which worked out pretty cheap especially considering we used it again in Yosemite, then managed to sell it on before we left for home. The campsite was great, with a huge plot for each tent which could easily have accommodated a few families. I specifically picked a plot that was on the edge of a loop so that we had a bit more privacy. By the time we set up the tent and worked out where toilets/water etc were, it was beginning to get dark, so we rushed to Mather Point, which is a viewpoint on the edge of the canyon to catch the sunset. It was absolutely packed, but we still got a great view. The sky changed colour as the sun slowly set behind the far end of the canyon, changing the way the canyon lit up. It was a great sight, and made us excited to come back tomorrow and spend much more time around the canyon.





Before we headed back to the tent, we stopped in the shop to pick up some supplies. We noticed there were plenty of deer about, but a surprising amount of people stopped in the middle of the road to take a picture, holding up everyone behind them. The shop was pretty large, with a mixed inventory. There was everything we needed to cook over an open fire including the wood, but very little quality food. At the risk of offending quite a few people, I've noticed that America are terrible at a few things. The first is bread: it tastes like the cheapest of the cheap bread that we get here, but if it had been mixed with a bag of sugar; the second is cheese: in the whole time we were there, I never found anything that even resembled normal cheese; the third was vegetarian food: here we have Quorn (I don't know if they do it in the US, but we never came across it), which is a fairly edible vegetarian alternative to stuff like mince, chicken and sausages. In the US they have Tofurkey, which is a horrendous attempt at making "food" that looks like food, but isn't quite. Rach was struggling to come to terms with eating meat, and wasn't quite ready for a meat bbq, so we thought this would be a good alternative. It wasn't. I'm sure many people would disagree with all three points, but that's just my opinion, so there we go.





Anyway, the point I was making is that I managed to get everything for a bbq, but just not quite the quality I'd hoped for (or at least it wasn't all to my taste). We made it back to the tent with the light disappearing quickly, so I attempted to light the fire as quickly as possible. I'd bought a few fire lighting aids, which didn't really seem to do much, so by the time I had the fire going, the light had all but disappeared. Luckily for me, fire is a source of light (who knew), so I managed to just about see what was going on. Despite all my complaining, I did enjoy the food, as bbq'd food is always better than non-bbq'd food, although Rach's experience with the veggie stuff wasn't quite so positive. After lots of faffing about, we got ready for bed and settled down for the night. I then lay awake getting annoyed at all the noisy people who ignored the 11pm quiet time. I got the impression Rach didn't really appreciate me waking her to tell her how annoying it was that people were being too noisy for me to sleep; but if I hadn't woke her it would have been difficult to justify my lengthy complaining session the next day. I'm sure she understood.