Within 50 miles, we touched 4 states. The difference between 5 days to drive across Texas and 1 day in New England: 9 states, 1 day.
New York border!!!!
Within 50 miles, we touched 4 states. The difference between 5 days to drive across Texas and 1 day in New England: 9 states, 1 day.
New York border!!!!
Another long day on the road home.
We discovered a real tourist attraction on Rout 66 in Winslow Arizona. We have even attended an Eagles concert in Boston, years ago.
We traveled through 3 states yesterday: New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.
We left the spring snow storm in Portsmouth and headed to Las Vegas.
Thank you to one of my Brownies from Little Harbour school in the late 70's; Leslie kept my car for two weeks!
We left the Winnebago in Kingsman and drove to Las Vegas for our flight home.
We had no idea that we were only 50 minutes from the Grand Canyon Skywalk!
360 view of the canyon
Our Portsmouth friend, Ray Carter, was a marksman on the 1984 Olympic team. Later he was a coach for the Olympic rifle team. Over the years he has continued to compete with SASS. We were fortunate to catch up with him at the 25th anniversary of "Winterrange" Cowboy shooting competitions this weekend in Cave Creek, Arizona.
Ray was warming up before the competition on stage 1
Shooters tote their rifles, pistols, shot guns and amo from stage to stage with interesting and varied carts.
We thought this was amazing! Riding and shooting targets at the same time.
Yesterday we took the scenic drive through the Sonoran desert outside of Tuscon. We spent the day at the Tuscon Museum of the Desert and the Saguaro National park.
Biosphere 2 was built nearly 30 years ago to develop technologies for humans living in space and other worlds like Mars. Today it's mission is to help plan for Earth's (Bosphere 1), near future. Four women and four men, known as biospherians lived from 1991 to 1993 sealed inside the ecosystem. We are very interested in this project because of Shaklee's participation in the project.
Today inside the amazing steel and glass structure, the size of three football fields, is an ocean, a desert, a Savannah, and a rainforest.
It is a giant enclosed scientific experiment.
The site is owned and operated by the University of Arizona and is open daily for tours.
Researchers and students are studying climate change and are focused on what is happening to Earth now not on a future in space.
"Model City" is the name of the sustainability study of how we use electricity and water.
Tombstone is a national historic landmark located in Cochese county, Arizona. It was one of the last wide-open frontier boom towns in the American old west. It was a major silver mining town but is best known for the gun fight at the OK Corral. The town reached its pinnacle of riches and then faded all within the span of eight years. Today it is a tourist town and the historic gun fight is re-enacted several times a day at several locations. If you remember your history or saw the movie you will remember that the Earp brothers: Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan along with Doc Holliday had a feud that culminated in a "street brawl" with the "Cowboys" Billy Clanton, Tom & Frank McLaury.
We decided to take it easy and spend another day in Anthony, Texas.
Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico with stalactites, stalagmites, and an incredible variety of other formations began over 500,000 years ago. It happened slowly, drip by drip.
In the late 1800's. Young 16 year old cowboy, Jim White, discovered the main cave when he noticed thousands of bats rising up out of the ground at dusk. He entered the natural entrance on a rope with a lantern and the rest is history. Early on the cave was mined for guano (bat poop) as a natural fertilizer.
In 1923 Carlsbad caverns was proclaimed a national monument. In 1930 it became a national park.
After a 1995 National Geographic article the site was designated a World Heritage site with over 100 other caves spanning 146,766 acres.
Cave scientists and experienced cave explorers have received permission to explore these other caves and their ecosystems. They are not open to the public.
But we are warm and anxiously awaiting our flight back to El Paso next week!
Marty Snortum and Nevena Christi shared their home with us and we discovered that we had a mutual friend who impacted both of our lives. I knew him as Barry, the hairdresser; and they knew him as Tyler, the cowboy. Marty did the photography for Tyler's cowboy boot book. I have an autographed copy!
Their back yard collection of vintage trailers.
We would like to thank Nevena, Marty, and Trip for making this leg of our journey a feast for our souls.
The area was founded by Franciscan friars in 1850 at an important mountain pass, and it became an agricultural producer. The city was incorporated in 1873 and today is a sprawling growing community with a population over 649,000. The Rio Grande River forms the international boundary.
Nevena is an extremely talented artist; just give her your idea and she can transform them into a pair of custom boots. I was able to view drawings of wedding boots, dragon flies, and yes even snakes.
Seminole Canyon received it's name in honor of the US Army's Seminole-Negro Indian scouts, garrisoned at Fort Clark. The scouts protected the West Texas frontier from maurading Apache and Comanche bands between 1872 and 1914. Known for their exceptional cunning and toughness, no scout was ever wounded or killed in combat, and four earned the prestigious Medal of Honor.