We rolled into our garage yesterday afternoon, which ended the Road Trip, Phase 2, of the Epic 50th Anniversary Grand Adventure Road Trip. The Epic 50th Anniversary Grand Adventure Continues. Our actual anniversary is in December.
We’ve been in the car every day for the last week for a minimum of 5 hours. No 70+ year old body should be subjected to that, and we are starting to feel it more each day. It’ll be good to get in the pool and stretch out in that virtually weightless environment, it’ll feel comforting to sleep in our own bed again, it’ll be invigorating to get back into our walking routine.
Though it’s good to be home, it’s nice to say that after more than 7 weeks, we weren’t itching to get home. There was no time where we said to each other, “I can’t wait to get home.” We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the road trip.
Here’s a recap of the last part of the road trip for you.
Last Sunday night (October 5) we stayed in Kingman, AZ where we unexpectedly found another cool Historic Route 66 town that survived on the more vibrant side of time. We ate at a 60s style diner, drove our car through the corny Route 66 marker, took a lot of photos of nostalgic stuff and just enjoyed great weather.
The next day we drove through the desert of northwest Arizona to Tucson. We didn’t have any particular plans there, but discovered, as we drove past the base entrance, that Tucson is the home to Davis Monthan Air Force Base. That piqued Randy’s interest as Davis Mont (as it’s called by veterans) is home to the Air Force’s aircraft “boneyard. There’s no way to see or visit it (believe me, we tried), but in doing that we also discovered that Tucson, near where we were staying, actually, is also home to the Pima Air and Space Museum. There was no way Randy WASN’T going to take the opportunity to visit it, so we were there the next morning 15 minutes before they opened. He enjoyed the 80 acres of aircraft immensely.
We had a relatively long driving day that day, with Roswell, NM as our destination. I was so looking forward to seeing the International UFO Museum there. This day was one of the only days on the entire trip where we ended up arriving at our hotel after dark. I’m glad we don’t do that often…being out after dark is something that is just not that pleasant anymore when we get to be a certain age.
The UFO Museum was so much more legit than I expected. It surprised me. They had a huge research library with thousands of books and another huge room with meticulously documented newspaper and magazine reports and articles. One section also had detailed eye witness affidavits and testimonies (with photos) hanging on the walls. And that was all before you entered the actual museum and its exhibits. Admission to the museum was very inexpensive ($5 admission for seniors) and nothing at all about it screamed commercialism. It seemed to me that their mission was to simply present evidence and let the public decide. This museum reinforced my belief that there is other intelligent life in our universe, that they have visited earth, and that the government is covering up all kinds of things they think we shouldn’t know.
The next night was a short travel day where we’d planned to visit Carlsbad National Park and Carlsbad Caverns. Sadly, both were closed (as was White Sands National Park which we drove by the day before) because of the government shutdown. We stayed that night in a little town called Monahans, TX. What was most memorable about that day was that it was probably the ugliest drive day of the whole trip. The southeast corner of New Mexico into Texas is nothing but crappy roads filled with tanker trucks, and oil fields. I’m not complaining, mind you. Drill, baby, drill and all that is good for the country and the economy, but it comes with an esthetic price. We did have a great meal at an obscure local steakhouse in Monahans though. There were piles of food at an astonishingly low price. We couldn’t eat everything they served us, and the dinner bill was under $40. For both of us.
On Thursday we drove into San Antonio and met our friend Bunny for lunch and a nice long visit. Bunny is 80 years old, and she is trim and stylin’. She looks fabulous.
We met Bunny and her husband Don when the 4 of us were on the worship team at the Catholic church at Chanute AFB in 1977-1978. Bunny is still the worship leader at her small church, she and her brother own several rental properties (which they are always remodeling and working on with their own 4 hands). She is far busier than Randy and I are these days. I wanna be her when I grow up.
On Friday we were on to Athens, TX where we visited Craig, Randy’s high school buddy and leader of our little 1970s band, Whirlwind. Craig wife, Annette, wasn’t feeling well that day so we didn’t get to see her, but we had a great visit with Craig. Some people never change, and he’s one of them. It was delightful to see him again, reminiscing about the good ole days and figuring out how we might see each other more often in the future. Again, we got a Texas size meal at a very reasonable price at a little local restaurant called The Cotton Patch. We highly recommend it if you’re ever driving through Athens.
Leaving there on Saturday morning we thought we were making a beeline for home. A few things caught our attention on the route though, which is, after all, what a good grand adventure road trip is all about.
In Western Louisiana we passed a sign for the Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum. I had to look that up. Google is INVALUABLE on a road trip. Besides keeping you on track from a map perspective, it’s easy to whip out your phone and get answers every time someone sees something and asks “I wonder….”. We learned so much on this trip! I will probably do one whole post on the interesting and obscure things we looked up as we were driving through this vast, fascinating country we call home.
Shortly after we saw that sign, we saw an unusual car, the very first Rolls Royce we’ve ever seen on the road. I’ll tell you how we recognized what it was in that post about all the things Google taught us on this trip. The RR was cruising down the highway in the middle of nowhere on I-20 in Western Louisiana. Near the Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum sign. Coincidence? Hmmmm.
We also saw a Bentley (automobile) in Florida near Tampa, the first Bentley we’ve ever seen on a road in all our lives. Somehow, I can’t think of Rolls Royce and Bentleys as simply cars….they’re automobiles.
We ended up stopping in West Monroe, Louisiana and visiting the Duck Commander (from Duck Dynasty) headquarters. That was a fun stop. And we detoured a bit to visit some family we hadn’t seen in a couple of years and who meant a lot to us.
As we were driving through Hattiesburg, MS, behind us we noticed a big white truck with Mississippi plates and a Green Bay Packers license plate holder on the front bumper. He was looking at the Packers logo on the back of our car. We thought a Packers fan in Mississippi was pretty unusual until we realized Brett Favre lives in Hattiesburg and there are probably a fair number of Packers fans there because of that.
We took 3 days to drive from Texas to Rotonda West, a nice leisurely drive just like the rest of the trip. Even on the last night where we stayed in a terrific Hilton Home2 Suites hotel, watched a replay of the Packers game played earlier that day, and ate the last meal out of our trusty electric cooler, we didn’t feel like we couldn’t wait to get home. It was so nice to not be so sick of being on the road that we couldn’t wait for it to end. We enjoyed every single day of the Grand Adventure Road Trip (GART).
P.S. I have lots more to tell you about the GART, but for now, the travelogue portion of Part 2 is done. We got a good night’s sleep in our own beds, we’ll spend a few days unpacking and cleaning up after living out of our car for nearly 8 weeks, and we’ll start planning the E50AGART, Part 3, to North Carolina and Washington, DC, as soon as the government shutdown is over. We want to visit the Smithsonian on that leg of the trip.
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