The waaaaaaay back

If you want to read this in order, scroll down to the prior entries and work up.  All the pictures are found here.

So we were back on I-10 again, heading east.  On the way back through New Mexico we were going to take a detour to stop at the White Sands National Park.  Teresa told us how cool it was so even though we were anxious to get home, we wanted to make sure to see this on the way.  We had to climb a massive hill on the way there.  The van could barely maintain 50 mph as it approached the summit. We also ran across a cool little souvenir store along route 10 in New Mexico that had this VW in front of it.

Inside they had a bunch of interesting things along with a MASSIVE fireworks display.  They had 700 dollar firework packs!  When I was a kid and traveled with my dad out west I remember all the fireworks and I remember wanting to buy them all.  For whatever reason, I had no desire to buy any of these monster rockets that I can’t get in Florida, just doesn’t appeal to me.  We did however find a few nice souvenirs that we picked up, our first real souvenirs from the trip.

As we neared the park we also saw the White Sands Missle Range which I had heard of before.  Again it was something we could have stopped and toured but with the dog I figured it wouldn’t work out. We also went through another border patrol checkpoint.  It was the 2nd or 3rd that we went through.  They basically divert all of the traffic under this pavilion, you roll down your window, the guard looks at you, asks if you are a US citizen, you say yes and you are on your way.  If you are hispanic I think the inquisition is more severe.  When we left they had a tractor trailer pulled over and a dog sniffing around it.

Finally we arrived at the park and stopped at the visitor center to use the bathroom and look around.

We loaded back up and drove down the road to the entrance to the park.  We paid our small entry fee and headed into the park.  Along the side of the road were little info boards that you could pull up to and read various info about the park.  We stopped at every one.

Not far up the road there was a sign for a nature trail.  We parked in the empty lot and headed into the trail, taking one of the pamphlets they had there as a guide.  Nicki was leading the way, excited to check out something totally new to her (and us).  The sand was so white that it was cool to the touch, even with a very warm sun beating down on us.  We stopped every few minutes to get Nicki out of the sun and to try to get her to drink.  The one mile jaunt took us maybe a half hour to complete.  It offered us some fantastic views as well as being very informative.  It was very interesting to learn how this huge snow white desert came to be.

We drove back further into the park.  They had some picnic areas, a spot for a sunset tour, camping and plenty of bathrooms. It was wild driving this route.  They had to plow the sand because it blows over the road.  It gave the effect of a winter road, from the pictures we took you would think we were driving through a snowy area.

We got to the back edge of the park and parked there against some very steep dunes with lots of foot prints.  Nicki and Ali went up first and I followed.  Once we got to the top we were blown away by the views, they were simply spectacular.

The dunes seemed to go on forever.  It was a shame that some people decided to deface the perfect sand by carving their names into it.  You could see spots where people used a saucer to sled down the sand.  For some reason it felt much cooler on top of these dunes.  Ali, Nicki and I all took turns sitting down in the sand, it was incredibly cool to the touch.  We spent a decent amount of time just looking at the beauty of the area.  Although we took a ton of awesome pictures during the trip, I think the best of the bunch are the ones we took at this park.  It was simply amazing.

There was a storm on it’s way so we decided to get going.  It was funny watching Nicki scamper back down the steep dune.  She really was having a blast.  We took more pictures on the way out.  I stopped and snapped this picture of one of the picnic benches.  Don’t ask me why, but I think it may be my favorite picture from the trip.

Both Ali and I were very glad that we made the effort to see this place.  It was unforgettable.

Our detour took a decent chunk out of our day.  Originally we talked about stopping at Fort Stockton in Texas but instead opted for El Paso.  It was a smart move.  We wound up staying in another one of the newer, fancier LaQuinta’s.  They are really nice, can’t beat it for 66 bucks.

There isn’t much more to describe about the time on the road since it was highway we had traveled before.  The one difference was we drove through TONS of rain on the way back.  It turns out we drove through what later became Hurricane Humberto, we were very lucky to have cleared it before it got really bad.  I had hoped to clear Texas entirely the next day but I was just too tired and we wound up stopping in a town east of Houston called Bayview. This La Quinta was not nice.  The room smelled musty, the bathroom wasn’t particularly clean, and the shower head in the tub only came up to mid-chest on me. Oh well it was a bed.

From Bayview we pushed through 3 states and returned back to the La Quinta in Tallahassee.  We knew what to expect and in truth, it was better the second time, the room was better.  We got up Thursday morning excited knowing we would be home later that day.  We did the trip back in the same 4 days it took us to go out although coming back we traveled a longer distance and were consistently losing time as we crossed back over the time zones.  The stopping times on the trip back were much later, as late as 11pm some nights.

We pulled into home right around dinner time at 5pm.  The odometer had just crossed 5000 miles.

The house looked intact except for the long grass from two weeks of growth.  The pots out front were wilted badly, evidently we didn’t get consistent rain.  It felt weird walking in the door, it felt weird being back in our house.  I don’t know why.  All I know is it was good to be home.

There ya go a monumental wrap up.  The trip was great.  It showed me all sorts of things I never saw before.  My time in Monticello made me appreciate people taking the time to recognize each other’s existence.  It showed me I could survive day to day without being plugged in, without being constantly sitting in front of a computer or tv.  The trip refreshed my spirits and made me appreciate how there is just so much out there to see and how little of it I have scratched the surface of.  I got to know my brother-in-law much better and benefited from it.  His outlook on life in some ways are enviable to me.  He just puts it out there.  Ali and I generally got along very well during the endless hours in the van with only little conflicts here and there.  We travel well together. I think we will be doing more road trips.

Now my favorite part, the out of order, random thoughts that come to mind about the trip.

– The cheapest gas on the trip was $2.45, right around Houston

– In total we spent somewhere around $1700 bucks on the trip, about $800 of that was spent on gas, not bad for a two week jaunt.

– In Texas on the way back there was gas station that was overrun by crickets. Some guy came over with a small aquarium with a tarantula in it and brushed some crickets into it for his pet.

– I felt like we ate like shit during the trip.  On the way out we had Subway three or four times.  It seemed every meal we were stuffing ourselves with carbs (bread, chips, pasta, etc)  I was so sick of drinking diet soda.  I could not believe it when we got home and I weighed myself.  I LOST 5 pounds.

– McDonald’s is not nearly as shitty food choice-wise as it used to be.  Although the junk is still there, they also have a number of healthier options now.  A couple times I had their salads, they were fresh and tasty.  Their coffee is no longer road tar either, I actually preferred it to the Dunkin Dounts stuff I drink everyday.

– Nicki may have eaten her supper half of the the days we were away.  When we were on the road she basically existed on treats alone, she just wouldn’t eat her dog food.

– When faced at staying at a motel/hotel that has exterior doors versus interior doors, take the interior doors every time.

– Some gas stations won’t allow you to buy more than $75 dollars worth of gas.  With a 30 gallon tank and 3 dollar a gallon gas they may want to rethink this policy.

– a theater room is incredibly cool. 

– watching the Eagles lose on a huge screen doesn’t make the loss any easier

– During the trip I watched all 9 hours of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy plus two or three other movies

– I got to do very little conventional exercise, I was on a treadmill a bit the one night, a few sets of push ups here and there, not much else.

– We saw no rattlesnakes at my dad’s place.  We did see a few spiders skittering about.

– People in Pie Town are bad spellers

I’m sure there are other things that will pop into my mind as time goes on.  As mentioned several times before, check out the pictures, they do say a 1000 words after all…..