We decided to get out of town and head to a warmer part of the country. So we packed up the car and headed southwest down I-44, also known as Old Route 66. Our first stop was Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City was also having its share of snow and cold, so there wasn't much opportunity for warming up. But we managed to stop for a few geocaches along the way, especially since we'd never gotten a geocache in Oklahoma. The funny thing was, the Oklahoma geocache was attached to the USA Today dispenser right next to the rocking chairs at the Cracker Barrel. Small world, but good place to stop for dinner and a chance to warm up by their fireplace.
The next stop was Amarillo, Texas. The Texas scenery was a bit more varied than the Oklahoma landscape, but not much, plus it was still very, very cold. As we were driving towards Amarillo, we kept seeing signs for a "free" 72-ounce steak at the "Big Texan." Turns out that this is the same restaurant that was featured in the Barbara Streisand/Seth Rogan movie, "Guilt Trip" (Barbara Streisand was the one who ate the steak). You only get the steak for free if you can finish all of it (72 ounces is quite a chunk of meat).
Next - Santa Fe, New Mexico. We actually stayed 3 days in Santa Fe doing some geocaching, hiking and sightseeing. We stayed at a great little hotel called the
Old Santa Fe Inn, right in the heart of the historic downtown area. Our room had a kiva fireplace (those round adobe kind built into the corner of the room).
There were tons of geocaches right outside our door. The fun part of using the GPS was that it took us to all kinds of quirky places that we wouldn't necessarily have seen if we'd stuck to the traditional guidebooks, like Burro Alley where we saw this rusty iron statue. We asked our hotel guy for restaurant recommendations, and he gave us some good Southwestern ones, but people in Santa Fe smother everything in red chile sauce. My mouth is still on fire.
We took a day trip to
Bandelier National Monument. That's where they have the old caves dwellings that the Pueblo Indians used to live in. You could climb up into some of them (which of course we did). One was 140 ft off the ground, accessible only by ladders and some steps carved into the mountain. I was wearing my FitBit step tracker and it said by the end of the day we had climbed the equivalent of 75 flights of steps. I'm not used to that.
Our next stop was Sedona, Arizona. I found a casita on the VRBO website that we rented for 3 weeks. It was cute and fairly big, but a bit eclectic in the decor - kind of a 1980's southwestern style with a splash of Vintage Victorian and Mission Oak.
But we couldn't beat the location. We had gorgeous views right outside our door of Cathedral Rock (the famous red rocks you always see in Arizona advertisements).
We were also smack dab in the middle of the
Coconino National Forest. For the first two weeks, we walked right outside our door to a whole network of hiking trails. We hiked every single trail within this part of the park. Our casita was about where the #6 is on the bottom of the map, and there was a McDonalds at the end of Shelby Road just north of the airport (good place to stop and take a hiking break).
The nights were somewhat cold (temps down in the 30's and 40's), but the days were really nice - sunny and warm, usually in the 60's or 70's. I was tickled to death just to be out of the snow that kept happening at home.
Sedona is known for its rock formations. Many of them are named and if you have a great imagination, you can probably (?) see the shape the rock is named for. Mr Mountain Goat climbed up onto a pretty high set of rocks one day (and of course I followed). He was standing in front of the CoffeePot Rock (way off in the distance).
On our last day in Sedona, we hiked the Boynton Canyon Trail. It was absolutely gorgeous - pretty flat with big rock walls on 3 sides. During the past month we discovered that a lot of people claim to have hiked many different trails, but mostly they just drive up to the trailhead, hike the first 100 feet or so, take several pictures, and then get back in their cars and head off to some other spot. The good thing is, that meant we had the trails to ourselves most of the time once we got past the parking lot. It reminded me of the people who claim they renovated their houses when the most common "tool" they used was the Yellow Pages.
On our final day of the trip, we drove down to Phoenix and had dinner with one of Bruce's co-workers from Boeing. More Southwestern food, but much, much milder than the food we had in Santa Fe. Then Bruce dropped me off at the airport and went back up to Route 66 to head home (what can I say - I used my frequent flyer miles to fly home). It was a great adventure and a perfect year to be away from the Midwest snows.
