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Total Mileage: approx: 5649

License Plate Total: 48

Howdy y’all!

Get ready for our most exciting post yet….just kidding. Our drive from Amarillo to Dallas was about as exciting as our trip to Reno. We woke up and grabbed breakfast at the Donut Stop, The doughnuts were so fresh and good that we are now Texas doughnut fans. No other doughnut can hold a candle to Texas doughnuts. After the short 5 and a half hour trip we arrived in Dallas. We then hung out in our hotel room getting sucked into the OWN channel until we went out to dinner for burgers. We ate at Twisted Root Burger Company that has been featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. So as you can gather the day was good but not a lot happened besides driving and eating. While driving to dinner we were able to get some good pictures of the Dallas skyline at sunset. 

-Cassie


PS: While we don't have very many exciting pictures in this post our next 2 days in Dallas were much more eventful)

(American Airlines Entertainment Center)

(One of my favorite pics of the trip)

(Opera House) 

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Total Mileage: approx. 5290

License Plate Total: 48 

We left Albuquerque and traveled an hour north to Santa Fe to see the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. I did an 8^th grade research project on her so I was really looking forward to seeing some of her work up close. The artwork was inspiring, especially after seeing her subject in person. Afterwards we grabbed lunch at a cute and small family run restaurant called Tia Sophia’s. Rachel got their Chicken Enchiladas and I got their famous Atrisco plate. Both came with plain sopaipilla that were dipped in my green chili stew. Santa Fe was a cute town that with the typical Southwest Adobe houses. We then got back on the road to Amarillo, TX. A few miles outside of Amarillo is Cadillac Ranch. Where 10 Cadillacs are stuck vertically in the ground. You’re allowed to spray paint the cars. While we didn’t come prepared with spray paint we were able to find a bottle on the ground to write our initials on the cars. For dinner we headed to Amarillo’s famous Big Texan Steak Ranch. It’s home of the famous 72oz steak dinner that if you’re able to eat in an hour it’s free. Needless to say we did not get that for dinner. The place screamed Texas with all the employees in cowboy boots, cowboy hats and plaid shirts. It was a great place to kick off our few days in Texas. 

-Cassie 

(There was a small art show on the walk to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum)

(Georgia O'Keeffe Museum)

(A cool looking door in Santa Fe)

(Our lunch)

 

(Cadillac Ranch)

(The insides of the Cadillacs all looked like this)

(The Big Texan Steak Ranch)

(The Texas version of the LLBean Boot Outside the restaurant)

(The main dining room from our view in the balcony)

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Total Mileage: 4786
License Plate Total: 48

(Clockwise from top left: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona)

Today was one of our travel days on our way to Texas. We left the Grand Canyon this morning and headed northeast to the Four Corners Monument. The monument is run by the Navajo Nation so there were a lot of stalls set up around the monument selling Native American goods and food. The monument was fairly crowded and it was basically impossible to take any pictures without other people in the background. Everyone, including the two of us, we so eager to get a picture being in four places at once. It was nice to be able to stand and walk around in Colorado for a bit since we didn't get to drive through it during the trip. To get our fill of Colorado before continuing on to Albuquerwue for the night we bought fry bread from one of the vendors on the Colorado quarter of the monument and took a bite so now we can say that we walked around and had a meal in Colorado.

- Rachel

(Fry Bread)

(The mess Cassie made on the floor of our hotel while trying to find her wallet)

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Total Mileage: 4294
License Plate Total: 48

(Dinner in the dark)

Today was our full day at the Grand Canyon. Since we only had today we didn't hike down into the canyon since its an overnight hike and instead hiked part of the Southern Rim trail. The Grand Canyon has bus service to trails from various locations around the park so we took the Red Route down Hermits Road to Hopi Point and hiked .3 miles to Powell Point. Since it was so short and fast we decided to go for a longer hike along the Rim Trail on an unpaved path from Monument Creek Vista back to Powell Point where we could get the bus back to our campground.

The second hike was 3.4 miles long which took us around 2.5 hours to complete and offered amazing views of the inner canyon and the Colorado River. As the day went on the heat became more intense but its a good thing we were only along the rim because the tempertures in the inner canyon can be up to 30 degrees warmer than the rim. Mohave Point at the middle of the trail had the best views of the Colorado River. The river looked narrow from the rim which is around 6,000 feet above the canyon floor but it's actually as wide a football field is long. We were curious as to why river looks copper so Cassie and I did some investigating and we think that it's that color because there is silt suspended in the water and there have been have been forced floods of the river to "recreate a healthier eco-system" since it is dammed in many areas (http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=155777834, http://www.crateinc.com/run-wild-run-rivers/2011/08/why-is-the-little-colorado-river-turquoise-blue/).

We got back to the campground in the early evening and we weren't ready for dinner yet so we decided to do our laundry since we were both running out of clothes. The laundry took a bit longer than expected we ended up having to cook dinner in the dark by the light of a booklight and a citronella candle.

- Rachel

(Part of the Rim Trail path)

(Colorado River)

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Total Mileage: approx. 4294

License Plate Total: 48 (We messed up the numbers it was actually 47 but we saw Hawaii on the way to the Grand Canyon)

After a day of sight seeing in Los Angeles it was time for us to move onto the Grand Canyon. It was another 8-hour day in the car but with the road changes the trip seemed shorter. We didn’t end up being able to stop for lunch until later in the afternoon because there are barely any rest stops or picnic areas on the way to the Grand Canyon. We stopped in Williams, Arizona (American’s Main St) before making the rest of the trip to the park entrance. Upon entering the park we were really surprised by the amount of vegetation and trees that were in the park. We also were surprised at how commercialized the town before the park was and even parts of the park. We stopped at the Mather Vista Point before setting up our campsite at the Mather campground. Our campsite was much nicer than the one at Yellowstone. It was really shaded and we weren’t right on top of our neighbors. We turned in early for the night since we were tired from the long day of driving and wanted to be rested for a day of hiking the Rim. 

-Cassie