Flying Home Tonight

by Jane

I've packed my bags and given them the 'weigh' with Dad's little hand-held bag weighing machine.  Think they're within limits though I've had to use my nice new Tom Bihn Tristar bag (bought on-line, had it delivered to Pete's place in Laguna Niguel) as my cabin bag otherwise my main bag is not only slightly overweight but it couldn't be zipped up.

My new bag is also carrying a heavy book I bought, my 'admin' folder which includes all my Ragdoll photocopying, and a few clothes.  The former two are reducing weight in the main bag, the latter reducing bulk.

Anyway, I think I have it all right now.

Not feeling at all stressed about this plane flight - not like I was on the way up - so can only guess that (a) I'm past caring and just want to get home, or (b) my flying phobia was cured on the outward trip.

I'm leaning toward (a).

In half an hour's time we'll pick Dad up from his motel in Dana Point (very flash) and then have lunch at Pete's before taking to the road again for the last time ... 1.5 hours drive to LAX.

Looking forward to being back in NZ and the cooler weather on the 29th October, and then driving home from Auckland on the 30th.


Jane
in Laguna

Phoenix, and on to Yuma

by Jane

Phoenix was my last cat research stop so we had two nights there.

Here are some photos of the cat history collections I got to delve into - but there wasn't enough time to do more than peek and admire.

Drawers of papers

Boxes of papers

Boxes of photos

I am definitely going to have to come back to Phoenix to do more research!

* * * *

But I/we won't be staying at the same motel.  It's not that we didn't enjoy having K-Mart just through the parking lot.  That would be K-Mart with a huge area dedicated to Christmas:

One side of the Christmas annexe

Blue decorations

Oh! Can we take these home?

Purple ... I bought purple

I actually made three visits to the Christmas area, the last one including finding a small-ish box that was being thrown out that I could use to (hopefully) get my decorations home safely to New Zealand in my bag.

* * * *

Sunrise from the motel room

But back to the motel.  As if having the most miserable complimentary breakfast we'd encountered on our trip wasn't enough to object to, we also had the drama of a woman coming to the motel to catch her husband of seven years with his girlfriend.  Suffice to say it was not a quiet event and we know heaps more details than we really wanted to. ;o)

And then, on our way to breakfast on the second morning, we noticed a whole collection of police folk patrolling the second floor balcony.  Never mind.  Breakfast was more important.  They appeared to be gone when we went back to our rooms but as our drive wasn't a long one we had time to fill in before we left so were still in our rooms when the police came back.

I sent a text message to Dad:

Stay in your room until the police have put their guns away.

The text would have been slightly more useful if Dad hadn't left his phone behind at the previous motel and so, at the time, it was being couriered off to Pete's place in Laguna.

While we waited for the situation to resolve itself we read the reviews for the motel.  Hmm.  A number of them did mention the police.

* * * *

And then we hit the road to Yuma.  Lots of very, very arid landscape but when it was irrigated suddenly there were lush green crops.  Quite a contrast.

Sandy with great rocky hills/mountains

And the same on the other side of the car

Lots of wide open spaces

We stopped at the Space Age restaurant for lunch. (I am not shouting drill instructions at my Dad as Gary believes.  Just yawning.)

Off for lunch

And since the day's drive was such a short one we stopped a few other places so Gary could explore.  Doing the driving he doesn't always get a chance to have a good look at the landscape and this was certainly different from what we'd find in New Zealand.

Gary heads off to explore

Waves from the top of the hill

And heads down the other side

It was only when we got settled in the motel in Yuma and looked at his photos that he showed us this photo he took:

Warning sign

Gary, I have the feeling that jandals (flip-flops) are not entirely appropriate footwear for exploring in this part of the world.


Jane
in Yuma

The Grand Canyon (Flagstaff - Phoenix)

by Jane

As we left the motel in Flagstaff we did come across a sign that was just made for Gary and I managed to snap a photo of:

Route 66

* * * *

The Grand Canyon was never going to be a great location for Dad and I as we both dislike 'edges'.  Even balconies on the second floor motel rooms give us trouble so there wasn't much chance we were going to be skipping around the edge of the Grand Canyon.

But Gary did and here are some of his photos.

A hoodoo

Canyon-y bits

Crazy folk

Self-portrait

I did take a photo or two - from a long way back from the edge.

Dad taking photos

Jane
in Phoenix

Reading - the Kindle and the Car

by Jane

Never thought I'd want a Kindle (or any ereader) as I love books themselves, as well as reading their contents.

But then the trip to the US was coming up and since the biggest weight in my luggage is nearly always the books I want to read on the trip it looked like we would have to take a small library along to last out the 55 days or so we would be away from home.  So I bought a Kindle, in the end, a couple of months before we left.  (Needed time to get used to it, didn't I?)

It was a huge success from the first.  I always take books out with me when I walk around the neighbourhood with the cats (Ragdolls Sam and Mocha, also known as 'the Royal Princes' by our house cat sitters) but the Kindle was better than books!  I had bought a cover with a light and now I could read anywhere outside in the darkness of our early morning or late night walks, instead of either having to loiter under the street lights or wave my hands until the neighbours' security lights came on.

I read through most of the books I put on it 'for the trip' even before we reached September and also discovered that the Kindle was the ultimate tool for feeding the book buying addiction ... I could buy books in the middle of the night when I was in bed!

Anyway, off on the trip.  Once we were on the road I discovered something new:  I COULD READ IN THE CAR.  (Yes, those were shouting letters.)

I have never been able to read in the car - and have envied one of my friends who could.  To be honest I'm still not sure I'll be able to read in the car on New Zealand roads, but certainly here I can pull out my Kindle and read, read, read.

Read, read, read.  Read, read, read.

I've had to buy more and more books for the Kindle as we've gone along.  Spent my entire book budget for September and October, in fact, though I think I might finally have cracked it and have enough onboard to see me home.

And what have I been reading?

For September and October (the trip months) my reading records show I've read the following:

Childrens:

Birdsall, Jeanne ~ Penderwicks on Gardam Street, The
Digby, Anne ~ Second Term at Trebizon
Digby, Anne ~ Summer Term at Trebizon
Digby, Anne ~ Boy Trouble at Trebizon
Hobbs, Will ~ Take Me To the River
Pratchett, Terry ~ Wintersmith
Pratchett, Terry ~ I Shall Wear Midnight
Riordan, Rick ~ Lightning Thief, The
Riordan, Rick ~ Sea of Monsters
Wrede, Patricia C. ~ Shadow Magic
Wrede, Patricia C. ~ Daughter of Witches


Not-Childrens:

Blair, Annette ~ Larceny and Lace
Blair, Annette ~ Death by Diamonds
Bourbon, Melissa ~ Fitting End, A
Dunn, Carola ~ Winter Garden Mystery, The
Dunn, Carola ~ Requiem for a Mezzo
Dunn, Carola ~ Murder on the Flying Scotsman
Dunn, Carola ~ Damsel in Distress
Dunn, Carola ~ Dead in the Water
Dunn, Carola ~ Styx and Stones
Dunn, Carola ~ Rattle His Bones
Dunn, Carola ~ Case of the Murdered Muckraker, The
Dunn, Carola ~ Gone West
Pratchett, Terry ~ Colour of Magic, The
Watt-Evans, Lawrence ~ Misenchanted Sword, The
Watt-Evans, Lawrence ~ With a Single Spell
Watt-Evans, Lawrence ~ Unwilling Warlord, The
Watt-Evans, Lawrence ~ Blood of a Dragon, The

Plus a couple more I haven't quite got around to adding to the reading database.


Jane
in Flagsatff

Albuquerque to Flagstaff

Today [ Tuesday, October, 20] we travelled from Albuquerque to Flagstaff about 320 miles.

Just as we left we saw several hot air balloons. Just the pervious week Albuquerque had had their big ballon festival. We thought we had missed all the balloons, but luckily no.

After watching the ballons for awhile we set off.....

through the city. On the outskirts were some large houses sitting prize locatioins over looking the city. Even these homes had desert style gravel gardens

Once out of the city we saw the large desert space we were to travell through.

It wasn't long before we saw our first train.

Then the next and the next until we lost count. Trains travelling in both directions. Trains pulling onto sidings to let others pass. These trains were large, possible a mile long. In the first hours I counted nine trains. We passed one travelling east and within fifteen minutes another following it.

This next photo taken from the meteor crater parking lot shows the length of the trains.

Finally we we got to Flagstaff our hotel was by the railway line and we found the trains seemed to run continuously.

We travelled across the last bit of New Mexico into Arizona. the following sequence shows the GPS before and after crossing the boarder. On outward trip we discovered that it had no Arizonz maps!.

Now back to the days drive. Those re-used town names came up again. We stopped to take some photos of Luguna--obviously not the California one!

Some more scenery. The sort of bluff that in cowboy films the indians would suddenly appear looking down on the calvary. Usually outnumbered 20:1 the cavalry always seemed to win--except for Custer!

Other scenery along the way..

Across the border in Arizona we were in Indian land and a lot of outlets....

During the trip we have passed many truck tractors being delivered. They just stack them front wheels on the back of the tractor in front.

A coal fired power station. The heaps of coal in the front would have been supplied o by one of the many caol trains we had seen.

Finally before reaching Flagstaff we made a six mile detour to see a large meteor impact crater. First the information centre at the crater....

then the crater.....

and in the bottom of the crater the remains of shaft sunk looking for the meteorite. In the early part of last centrury they spent 25 years searching for the meteorite, not knowing it would have been vaporised on impact.

After spending some time here learning about meteors and their impact we drove on to Flagstaff.

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Awesome! Amarillo to Albuquerque

by Jane

Long, long ago I laid plans to get back to visit the South West. Gary said he wasn't interested in driving through a desert with the air-conditioning going on full.

So, today [Friday, 19th October] we drove from Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle and down into New Mexico. There were three distinct sorts of landscape (okay, they were all a bit dry and quite open) the first in Texas where farming was still going on, then we seemed to drop down to a new sort of landscape, more desert-like and with small mountains on the plains. This was pretty barren looking land. And then as we got closer to Albuquerque there were real mountain ranges bounding the plains and people were living all over the place.

Our first stop was the Caddilac Ranch (no photos from me - I refused to get out of the car).

Cadillacs - Gary's photo

Cadillac close-up - Gray's photo

* * * *


Inserted by Don: Gary the Graffiti artist--Gary picked up one of the hundreds of empty spray cans and found that it still had some paint left. Strange how such a simple action can trigger the 'garaffiti gene'. We went back to car leaving a grey GD behind.

* * * *  
 
Then we had lunch in Tucumcari, soup and salad at a very nice restaurant, and then on their small historical museum. One thing I was particularly taken with there were the gates, which had obviously been designed locally as they had images reflecting life in the area.

Right gate

Left gate

Left gate detail - Route 66

Sadly the gates were padlocked open and so I couldn't shut them to get a photo of the pair of part-circles that would have been joined at the centre when the gates were closed, the left circle with the characteristic shrubs and cacti and the other showing Tucumcari Mountain.

I don't have any very good photos of the landscape as mine were taken through the windows of the car. I might add some of Dad's or Gary's later.

Closer to Albuquerque - the cloud was red

I just love all the of the scenery and and awed by the location of Albuquerque itself. Huge plains out one side, mountains on the other. High rise buildings poking up through a city that seems to be full of trees.




Jane
in Albuquerque
(Who knew I would ever learn to spell such a tricky word! ;o)

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