Here are some photos of Gambit in the backseat of the Mini. Fun fact about Gamby- he doesn't like his picture being taken and will often look away when he knows you're taking a picture of him:
July 24th had us going through Arkansas and Oklahoma after we crossed the Mississippi River. As I drove over it, I thought a little about Mark Twain's novels, how the river was much larger than I really expected, and how at 25 years old, I still spell Mississippi like I learned in elementary school (M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I with the little jingle still included). Arkansas, or Arkan-sass as I like to call it, was really nice to drive through. I enjoy routes that have a lot of trees and scenic landscapes, so it was much more enjoyable for me to drive those long hours. Cameron, I discovered, was not as much of a fan of Arkansas as I was. We stopped late in Oklahoma City after seeing a bunch of Indian casino signs next to I-40.
Here are some photos of Cameron and Gambit at a rest stop in Arkansas. It was the biggest rest stop I've ever stopped at!
The one quirky story from Oklahoma is when we stopped for dinner, we saw a raccoon rifling through the trash. Now, I felt like a complete dork grabbing my camera (and putting the zoom lens on it) to take a photo of a raccoon. But, I've never seen a live one before, so I figured, "hey, something for the blog."
July 25th discovery: Oklahoma is boring to drive through. Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. There are a bunch of casinos smattered about, but for the most part, it's not a particularly exciting place to drive through. Texas, at least the northern part, was actually rather interesting. I always imagined all of Texas to look like the scenes from old Western movies, but this part was rather lush and green. There were certain spots that looked like mini Grand Canyons. There were some wind turbines rather close to the interstate; they were huge! Not that I expected them to be small, but their overall size was intimidating in a small Mini Cooper. New Mexico started showing some of the Southwestern landscape I expected. I started to get a little sad when I thought about the Native American populations we have, and how they seem to be relegated to just this area and in stereotypical fashions. It's a shame we don't look more and appreciate more of the heritage of our nation than we do currently. We stopped for a few hours in Albuquerque, NM to have dinner with one of Will's friends before heading on to the stop for the night in Gallup, New Mexico- a town a lot larger than the first glimpse of it allows.
Here are the wind turbines. The photo doesn't make them look too big, but I swear they looked huge in person!
The Welcome to New Mexico sign!
I didn't stop at the Welcome to New Mexico rest stop, but Cameron and Will did, and this is what they saw:
July 26th was the big stop: the Grand Canyon. We had to drive about four hours from Gallup to reach the park. Flagstaff, AZ is on the interstate, and the park is about 1.5 hours north of Flagstaff. When we finally moseyed up to the park at about 2:30pm, we were met with an intense rain storm, complete with hail. Not something you expect in July and in Arizona. Luckily the storm passed after 30 minutes, and we all (Gambit included) were able to stretch our legs for an hour looking at the sights and walking around. After the storm, the weather cooled down to about 60 degrees; a bit chilly. I always forget how cold the desert can get, and so did many people by the looks of randomly tossed on clothing by the different patrons of the park. I had been to the Grand Canyon once before a few years ago with my mom and my best friend, but was still surprised by the amount of foreign languages heard walking around. I forget that the Grand Canyon is a huge vacation spot- not just for Americans, but also for foreigners who are visiting America on their own vacation time. I never really think about people from Europe coming to the States for vacation, though I'm sure that's far more common than I think it is. Gambit was a big hit at the Grand Canyon. Cameron wasn't too comfortable taking him onto one of the view points because of the amount of people there; since I had been there once before and none of the guys had, I offered to stay with le pooch on the main walkway while the guys took in the sights. Gambit got a bunch of compliments and I was asked by passing people if they could take a picture of Gambit. Apparently, he's photo worthy. Maybe he'll be the one the make it big in LA by getting discovered? I mean, we do live in Hollywood.
We saw a lot of these signs in Arizona; it's to celebrate their 100 years as a state:
After the Grand Canyon, we continued on to our last stop: Barstow, CA. On the drive there, shortly after we crossed the California state line, we came to an inspection station. Robert, Gambit, and I were waved through rather quickly, but Cameron and Will were stopped at the inspection station. Later, Cameron told me that the inspection station was for bugs. The officials were looking for house plants and such crossing the state line that could potentially carry invasive species. Our guess is because California holds such a large part in the nation's agriculture that they aren't taking any chances in impacting it.
We arrived at our new home on July 27th in the early afternoon! Once we get the apartment settled to our liking (there are still boxes lying around and I'm still pulling some clothes out of my suitcases), I'll post a walk through of our place and what we've been up to.
To hold you over until then, here are some more pictures of Gambit. And, yes, that is a purple unicorn pillowpet he is sleeping on.
No comments:
Post a Comment