Okay, maybe it wasn't quite 5000 miles, but it was well over 4000 miles. We are back from a 17 day road trip that took us to Phoenix and back. Our destination was a 5 day Road Scholar Program featuring golf and Arizona culture.
We left home on February 1st amid news of a devastating storm that was supposed to bring snow from Texas to Chicago and beyond and there was threat of large scale ice damage through Oklahoma and Missouri. I had joked to our friends that we can predict storms, because whatever date we chose to set out on a car trip, there is bound to be bad weather forecast! This was no exception.
As it turned out, we were lucky that first day, because the storm was nasty, but it was well west of us. We did have mostly clouds and about an hour of rain west of Nashville, but we easily made our destination of Little Rock, AR, and didn't see any snow. It was cold, however, so we skipped our planned visit to Hot Springs and instead toured the Clinton Presidential Library. That was a treat. We had an excellent docent, a retired history teacher who knows Clinton and she was able to share lots of interesting stories with us. Because of the frigid weather, there were very few people there vying for her attention.
By a little after noon, we were heading west again on Rt. 40 and almost as soon as we hit the Oklahoma border we ran into the remnants of the storm that dumped over a foot of snow on the state. I don't believe the entire state of OK owns a plow, because the highway was rutted with snow and ice and we had a pretty treacherous 150 miles at 30 MPH... pretty much just us and the tractor trailers. We did make it to Oklahoma City, but then had a bit of trouble finding a restaurant that was open. Apparently the whole city was paralyzed by the snowfall and cooks and waitstaff couldn't make it in to work, so many restaurants couldn't open or closed early.
Day three brought us west to Albuquerque on remarkably clear roads. It was sunny and clear, but still very cold. We were glad we brought our heavy coats for sight-seeing in Albuquerque on day 4. We went up the tram to get a nice panoramic view of the area and hiked at the
Petroglyph National Monument. We also visited a couple of Route 66 Diners/Malt Shops on Historic 66. We didn't see any of those hot air balloons that Albuquerque is famous for... I guess it was just too cold, but we did spend a little time and a little money in Old Town.
The next day we traveled to Phoenix and once we headed south from Rt. 40 which is desert and mesa country, we ran into some interesting terrain, some forested areas and finally some pretty mountains as we approached Phoenix. Actually, we were headed to Mesa, where we spent the next 6 mights at the
Dobson Ranch Best Western.
We had an opportunity to visit the Desert Botanical Gardens which were really nice before meeting our Road Scholar group on Sunday evening.
From Sunday through Friday morning, we were pretty fully scheduled with golf at three different courses, two 3 hour group golf lesson sessions, classes on Arizona history, culture, creepy-crawlers, Indians, and golf. We had about 25 in our group and Russ and I were happy to be partnered for golf sessions with Betty from Illinois and a couple of the RS coordinators.
Friday afternoon, 2/11, brought us to Tucson, the first stop on our way home. We toured the mission San Xavier
del Boc, and did a drive through the Saguaro National Park, but the real highlight of the day was spending time with my mother's girlhood friend, also a Dorothy, who has lived in Tucson since about 1955! She is a delightful lady who had lots of interesting stories about her move from Buffalo to the southwest with her young family all those years ago, to reminisces about growing up next door to my grandparents and great grandparents. She insisted that we have dinner with her and her friend Pat who was also visiting from out of town. So that was a pleasant and unexpected treat!
The next day was mostly spent in the car. We did have an interesting conversation with a Navajo silversmith who was selling his wares at a rest stop somewhere in AZ or NM and I bought Russ a
bolo for his collection. Our destination for the night was Pecos, TX.
The next two nights were spent in Dallas, TX. We enjoyed the Dallas Botanical Gardens on Highland Lake and we also toured the very well done museum at the Kennedy assassination site. That certainly stirred up memories.
The next night was spent at Meridian, MI,
enroute to our final sight-seeing stop, Birmingham, AL. In Birmingham, we visited yet another Botanical Garden (wonderful Japanese garden area) and also Vulcan Park which includes a nice museum about Birmingham history and the largest cast iron statue in the world, Vulcan, which overlooks the city. Vulcan stands on a pedestal and there is an observation platform at the top of the pedestal. It's really a nice attraction and we had a wonderful view on a clear, sunny day. We had hoped we'd have time to go to the Civil Rights Institute across the street from the 16
th Street Baptist Church, but that will have to wait until the next visit.
From Birmingham, it was a reasonably short day of travel to get home.
A surprise find was Russell's Diner and Car Museum just over the TX/NM border on Route 40 which has replaced the old two-lane Route 66. We had lunch at the diner (new building, but made to look vintage) and then took in the wonderful museum. What a treat!
In Albuquerque we located two Route 66 restaurants on Rt. 66. The diner has been in it's present location all along, but the Malt Shop has recently moved to a new home. Both are a trip down memory lane!
