If I remember correctly, our trip was basically:
Dodge City
Petrified Forest
San Diego
Los Angeles
Las Vegas
Grand Canyon
Four Corners
Royal Gorge
Seven Falls
Denver and home
Now, it'd been like 18 years since I'd been out west and weather was the last thing I ever considered. Us simple folk what swim in corn just figure it's always warm out Californee way. So we started our February honeymoon in Dodge City, which was completely out of season. Oh, it was open all right, they were happy to take my money, but no one was there...no cowboys, no dance hall girls, no nothing, just cold. I think there might have been one other group show up while we were there. All was not lost however...the next morning we had Kentucky Fried Chicken lunch buffet on the way out of town!!! The drive in and around Albuquerque was pretty sweet in the dark and I think we stopped early that night somewhere in New Mexico. The next day we drove through The Petrified Forest. Again, it was very nice and we had fun, but I think maybe we ran into 2 other cars the whole way through. I'm not complaining, we do like our privacy, but sometimes it's nice to know that you're not the only two people in a 218,000 acre park. Anyone who knows us knows that we prefer to stay off the beaten path whenever possible, so that night we ended up staying somewhere in the middle of a forest in Arizona, Payson I think. We had a bamboo looking canopy bed, a fireplace and a hot tub. As a matter of fact, pictures exist of My treasure in that hot tub with a waterproof vibra.....err, nevermind, that's another story. The room was very nice, but getting there, not so much. We drove over 5000 miles on this trip, only about 100 of them by her. Sadly, the one night I felt too tired to drive was the night we drove straight down a hundred mile, 90 degree, 9 inch wide road through an evil, enchanted forest with 181 degree switchbacks and idiots in semis going 75 MPH.....in the dark. She did well though, and we lived. Had there actually been a place, however, anywhere, to pull over, I think we would have probably switched back. So the next day we drove to San Diego. After we got checked in, we went for supper and headed back to the hotel. Apparently, no one told me it was a game night for what I assume was San Diego State, and it took us an hour to go from one on-ramp to the next exit. Sigh. San Diego Zoo was next up on our agenda, and it was awesome...well, until early afternoon when it rained a foot an hour, so we bought our 40 dollar garbage bag rain coats and went zooing dammit...and we zood until the cows came home. The next day we went and saw some ships, drove around, got screamed at by a Hyacinth McCaw...not sure what else but I seem to remember the day we did nothing being gorgeous weather. We drove to LA, well, we drove through LA, literally, all the way through, 'cause we're crazy like that and we usually avoid the freeway if possible. You see nothing on the freeway. We found a great hotel about 3 blocks from the Kodak Theater. From there, we walked the Boulevard, took a great bus tour, and even somehow got roped into sitting through some Scientology bullshit. I attribute the latter to exaustion and shitty weather, because, you guessed it, it rained every day we were there. The day we left LA we planned to head up to San Francisco, but it was raining so hard we didn't want to drive that much farther north so we opted to head right to Las vegas from LA.....via Topanga Canyon Boulevard...which seemed more like a hiking trail than a road, especially in a gullywasher. Like I said, we like to stay off the beaten path, but we usually do prefer roads to deer paths. We drove past a huge air force base that seemed to go on for days and ended up that night in Barstow, CA. That night we ordered Papa John's pizza and it was most delicious. It's amazing the weird shit a person remembers. The next day it was off to Las Vegas. That was the day we saw one of the most amazing sights we've ever seen. Somewhere around the area where California turns into Nevada, there was a spot where you absoultely couldn't tell the ground from the sky. It was surreal. I'll never forget that. We got to Vegas, onyl to find out that there was some lame fight that weekend so we had to settle for a hotel about a block...a BIG block...off the strip. It was OK, just kind of a shitty hotel and an added walk on top of the ridiculous walks already ahead of us. I like the walks...My girl, not so much. Las vegas actually gave us a bit of a reprieve on the rain, although I believe it did rain every day we were there, just not as much as the rest of the trip up to that point. We walked through pretty much every casino on the strip, we shopped, we walked some more, we shopped some more, I found some awesome penny slots, we ate, we even drank and bed merry once. The highlight of Vegas was the fountain at The Bellagio. I could have sat there every night for another week and not gotten bored. Ya, we got rained on there too, but for once, I just didn't care. After a few days of Vegas, we headed toward the big hole, but not before I got me the grandfather of all hot dogs, for a whopping 2.49. That was also the place where the teller gave us 10 dollars too much. We kept it. The Hoover Dam was OK, windy and cold, and expensive if you really feel the need to see it up close, so we gazed briefly from afar and headed out. We pulled up to the Grand Canyon gate and a sign said zero visibility. They would be happy to take our money, but we would likely see nothing. We disagreed, because it's such a big hole, you'd have to be able to see SOMETHING. We were wrong. Zero visibility. They had a second day free deal, so we decided to opt for that and stick around for a night. As it turned out, we'd have had no choice as we ended up driving through a whiteout just to go a few blocks to the hotel. We had a very nice, romantic dinner at that hotel and hit the canyon the next morning. Zero visibility. Wait, I can see the bottom, fucking awesome what I can see of it...oh wait, nevermind, zero visibility again. My treasure was, unfortunately, sitting in the car when the fog lifted for a minute and you could actually see a tiny bit of the bottom. So we headed back east and found some overturned car frames and some trail that I walked down. She didn't feel up to the walk so I took some pictures. I think it was some part of the Grand Canyon, but like, a tiny part, way out at the end maybe. It's been a long time and I can't remember now. What I do remember is no fences and a couple hundred foot drop! Next stop was gonna be The Four Corners. ...was...gonna...be... Apparently, the "Four Corners Monument" is owned by Navajo and you have a window of 9 seconds per day when it's actually open. So...after I flipped off the gate a half dozen times and screamed expletives at some redskins over a couple wasted hours of driving, we headed on toward The Royal Gorge. Yep, it's open, thank you for your money, but nothing is going on. One gift shop was open and not a single damn other thing was operational. I walked half way out on the bridge or so, took some pictures and we hit the road once again. Next stop, Seven Falls. The sign says the falls are frozen over, admission is half price. Woohoo, we get to see nothing again, but this time we get a discount!!! We drove in, looked at some rock formations, took the elevator up and listened to a lot of rushing water that we presumed was under all that ice. Unlike the Gorge, where we did actually have company, there wasn't another soul at Seven Falls for the bulk of the time we spent there. I'd seen all these things before, on a family vacation, but My girl hadn't. I felt terrible that I planned so poorly, but we made the best of it. We could prolly entertain ourselves for a month in an empty barn if we had to. So our final stop was Casa Bonita in Denver, my favorite restaurant on the planet. We ate, walked around and looked at everything and got the coolest charicature of us drawn. That will hang in our home forever, as well as the cement hand prints from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. I almost forgot, somewhere along our route in Colorado, we drove through another blizzard and had to stop in Durango. I believe we were stranded there for 2 nights. When we finally got back out and saw the cliffs we drove by in the blizzardy night, we all but shit ourselves. Because of road conditions, and on the advice of the hotel clerk, we drove several more hours out of our way, back down to New Mexico and around so we wouldn't have to drive Wolf Creek Pass. I'm told it's a lot better than it used to be, but we'd seen enough scenery for one trip, we opted to live. Snowed in twice, rained on almost every day and half our stops barren or closed. We had a blast. If anyone finds a Buick hubcap in Kansas, give us a holler, it might be ours.
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