Mobile, Alabama tonight!

Mile 2532

Our first night of the trip in a real bed! It's Saturday night and we have checked into a Motel 6 in Mobile, Alabama. Here's what's happened since our last post on Friday afternoon:


At Wayne's suggestion, we took a nice early evening drive off the Interstate up to Austin via Highways 281 and 290. A very nice city that is said to own the nation's largest state capitol building. We also took a cruise down the famous 6th Street to soak in the college town atmosphere of the University of Texas.

From there we continued east along Highway 71 and stopped for dinner at a restaurant called the Roadhouse in the town of Bastrop. They boast having hamburgers voted the best of '03, '04 and '05 according to the t-shirts they wore. Of course, we haven't been to a restaurant yet that didn't claim to have something voted the best. And you never know exactly who did the voting. At least this place gave years for when the voting took place so at least you know it wasn't decades ago. So we had the deep-fried cod. There was man playing some live blues/country/rock. He did pretty well with the Johnny Cash stuff.

Continuing on 71, we eventually met back up with I-10 leading us to Houston. We pulled over at mile 1970 in Pasadena, a suburb of Houston, to spend the night. The weather is starting to turn ugly. Very hot and humid. Welcome to the deep South!


Bright and early at 6am on Saturday morning, we made our way just southeast of Houston to the Johnson Space Center. Nothing was open yet, but we just wanted to take a look. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can see from the front of the building. We returned back up north into downtown Houston just to take a quick look around before continuing our eastward trek.


We stopped at a Waffle House in Port Arthur, TX for breakfast before crossing over the state line into Louisiana around 11am at mile 2138. When we got to the capitol city of Baton Rouge, it was Yvette's first trip east of the Mississippi. The capitol building itself is said to be the tallest one in the nation.


We got to New Orleans just before 4pm and drove by the Superdome, home of the Saints. It still has the "We're Back!" banner on it from the city's celebration of the team's return to post-Katrina New Orleans. On our approach to the city, things seemed to be either pretty well fixed or hidden to the casual visitor. If you didn't already know what had happened to the city, you might not even realize what they had been through. The French Quarter seems to be back in full swing with all the activity on Bourbon Street as well as everywhere else. We managed to chow down on some real N'Awlins dinners of red beans and rice with sausage and chicken jambalaya before taking off.

Leaving New Orleans to the east was quite a different story. Their seemed to be miles of abandoned neighborhoods. Not just buildings, but whole neighborhoods. Of course we didn't have time to visit any of the badly hurricane damaged areas (not that we wanted to) but I'm sure there had to be much worse then what we could see from the Interstate. Very sad.

Crossing the border into Mississippi at mile 2424 show us even worse. We made a detour off of I-10 to the Gulfport and Biloxi region on the Gulf Coast. Almost every building across the street from the beach seemed to have been wiped away. Empty foundations, shells of buildings and even a few piles a rubble where still there to be found almost two years post-Katrina. The buildings that are now standing on the beach are obviously brand new, condos and hotels mostly. Even though we were there to see it, it was very hard to wrap your mind around the level of the devastation that had occurred there.

We crossed into the state of Alabama at mile 2511 at 8pm and quickly made our way to Motel 6. Looking forward to a hot shower and a comfortable night's sleep!

We are in San Antonio, Texas!

Mile 1674

Sorry, we had some battery issues and weren't able to get an internet connection until now. It is Friday afternoon and we are in San Antonio, Texas. Our friend Wayne was kind enough to let us rest up, get a couple of showers and recharge our batteries (literally!) at his house here. We haven't had a chance to recharge anything since we've been on the road. So the laptop, digital camera, cell phones and DVD player were all running quite low on power. Our only regret was that Wayne wasn't around at the time. He left a key for us to let ourselves in, but we never got to see him. A lot has happened since leaving Las Cruces, so here's the latest:


After our last post at Milagro Coffee on Thursday morning, we headed straight for White Sands National Monument in southwest New Mexico. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but once you drive in... wow! What an amazing place! We had tons of fun racing up and down the dunes of finely ground, pure white sand! It looks like snow! It was very empty too. You could pick your own spot, park the car and not see anyone else around at all. White Sands is the world's largest surface deposit of gypsum, the mineral from which plaster of Paris is made. Most desert sands are composed of quartz and are much more coarse than the fine, powdery consistency of White Sands. Also, unlike other desert sands, they are cool to the touch, due to the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture and also to the fact that the sands reflect, rather than absorb, the sun's rays. Didn't think you'd be getting a science lesson here, did you? If you ever get the chance, White Sands is very much worth the detour off of Interstate 10.


Roswell, not so much. But to be fair, we didn't spend very much time there at all. Roswell, New Mexico is famous for being the site of an alleged UFO incident in 1947. We got there at about 2:30pm and we were running short on time, so we barely had enough time to snap a quick photo. We went to the UFO Museum and Research Center to take a photo from the outside. After being invited (twice!) to come into the dog-friendly museum, we scored a free stuffed alien to play with from the gift shop lady. Unfortunately, we just didn't have any time to spend there. How ironic that the one place that insisted that dogs were welcome, and we just didn't have the time to stay.

After we made our quick exit from Roswell, we had to hurry because Carlsbad Caverns National Park closes their cave entrance at 5pm. The Carlsbad Caverns are one of the largest networks of underground chambers in the world. We made it just in time at mile 1066 twenty minutes before they stopped letting people into the cave. Of course, no dogs are allowed so we had to stop by the kennel at the visitor center, but we made it in time. And we were so glad we made it! What an amazing, amazing place! We had enough time to hike the "Big Room" at a leisurely pace. The Big Room route, just one of the many tours you take in the caverns, is a one-mile, self-guided underground walk around the perimeter of the largest room in the cave. It takes about an hour to complete. The Big Room, which begins at about 750 feet below the surface, is large enough to hold more than six football fields. The sheer size is mind boggling. It's hard to believe the caverns are natural formations because they look like something you would see on a ride at Disneyland. After the cavern hike we stuck around for a nightly event at the cave entrance. Every night at dusk, what seems like millions of bats exit the cave to feed for the evening. The swarm of bats can go on for over two hours!


Both White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns are must sees if you ever get the chance. They are both relatively close to each other. And while you can't bring your dog into the caverns themselves, you can at least bring your dog along to both places. The dunes provide endless opportunities for "crazy runs" up and down the slopes.


We crossed the border into Texas and the Central time zone at mile 1236 at 8:58pm/9:58pm. Thursday night, we crashed in Ft. Stockton, TX. All of Friday morning was spent driving across the western half of Texas to San Antonio. It takes a looooooooong time to drive across Texas! When we finally got there, we grabbed a quick lunch on the Riverwalk and stopped to visit the Alamo. Much smaller that you might think it would be. After that we took the quick trip south over to Wayne's house.

Arizona and New Mexico

Mile 835

One day and we are already in Las Cruces, New Mexico! We are posting from a place called Milagro Coffee y Espresso just off the New Mexico State U campus. Here's how our first day went:

After picking up our friend Yvette, we hit the road at 6:45am and luckily didn't have to deal with any traffic getting out of Orange County. Yvette is joining us for our trip east just to go for the ride. Like our last trip, we wanted to try to get as far out as possible on the first day before we started doing too much sightseeing since we've seen everything around here.


We made it to the Arizona border (for some cheaper gas!) by 10:21am at mile 225. Sometimes Arizona can be confusing to drive into because you don't know what time it is. Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, so sometimes their time is different from California and sometimes it isn't. Always forget which time of the year it is, and which time it isn't. Hawaii and Arizona (with the exception of the lands of the Navajo Nation in the northeastern part of the state) are the only places in the nation that do not observe Daylight Savings Time. Rolled into Phoenix around lunchtime and visited the state capitol building. One of the least traditional looking ones we've seen. Actually, the original capitol building is a much more elegant structure, but it has been converted to a museum. So in keeping with accuracy, the building shown actually houses the Territorial and State Legislatures, as well as various executive offices. We were also able to go down to Chandler, just southeast of Phoenix to visit briefly with our friend Khanhie on her lunch hour. She moved out here from Orange County last year.

Got to Tucson a couple of hours later where we met our friend Kathy for coffee. Again, just another quick visit and we were on our way.


Just south of Tucson was the town of Tombstone where the famous gunfight at the OK Corral took place in 1881. This picture was taken on Allen Street. The much of the actual gunfight took place on the opposite side of the block on Fremont Street, but the signage was better on the Allen side. Plus, Allen Street is a better preserved (or restored) example of a rugged frontier town of the 1870-80s, and provides a better backdrop representing the Old West. Fremont Street is now also known as Highway 80 and is a paved throughway.

We made it to the New Mexico border by 8:45pm at mile 697 and stayed the night just outside of the town of Las Cruces.

We are on our way!

Mile 0

Bright and early, and we just about to hit the road. We want to get out of Orange County before the traffic gets too bad. Here we go! Woo hoo!

The car is packed!

OK, the car is packed and we are ready to go first thing in the morning! Thanks for following along with us!

If you are interested in reading about our last adventure across the western United States, see the previous blogs below.