Aliens motivate us go "GO HOME"

Did I say how nice it was to stay with Marcia. I hope so, we absolutely had a great time with her and her hospitality was neverending. Of course that's been the underlying story of this trip, Heidi and Adam went all out for us. Adam let me basically destroy his tool box, it'll probably take him a month to put everything back in the right place, Heidi and my Mom made dinner everynight for all of us. It was awesome and I appreciate all of them so much, so if I haven't said it enough yet. THANK YOU.

From Marcia's after a killer breakfast she made us we head west on the 380. Not the main road, this is the road that was the road before the main road came. So it's filled with small towns, most without even one stop sign, that supply the local farmers. The drive was beautifull and I doubt it took any more time because we couldn't go any faster than about 70 anyway so we were doing about the speed we would have done on the highway but had much more interesting scenery.

The only way to experience the country is through the side roads, corporate america owns the highways, the side roads belong to main street. Take a shot, experience it, it's worth it.

We pulled into Roswell, NM about 7:30 at night and decided to spend a little extra for a Holiday Inn express with the indoor pool and hot breakfast. Well worth it. This time we got the free internet and breakfast even though we paid over $100.00 which is usually the rule, over 100 no

extra's, under 100 lots of free stuff.

I was expecting more from Roswell, being the Alien capital of the world. I thought this religion had believers! Anyway we went to the International UFO Museum and looked at all the parafinalia in around the idea that Alien's have visited our planet. I saw a lot of Aliens, but I think they were of the illegal sort.

Out of Roswell we had a choice, Highway or Biway. We were tired and ready for home and thought that the highway might be faster but ultimately elected to continue on the 380 through backroads of NM on the way to phoenix. Google had the road taking an additional hour but the miles driven was about 50 less.

The road was nice, a little slow at times but we went through Capitan NM which Kari thinks was where Smokey the Bear got it's beginnings. I'd research it to see if she was right but let's just assume she is!

More small towns with neat 'Main Street' style down towns, some with all brick roads which really slowed you down as it was like cobblestone. Most of the towns weren't tooo run down as I kind of expected but none of them catered to the traveler and I was dissapointed that I couldn't find any good dried fruit stands or vegetable stands, kind of weird considering we were in farm country. The other neat thing is that every small town seemed to have one house that looked like Dorothy's house after it was dropped back in Kansas.

We really liked crossing the continental divide at 7750 feet in NM we came across Pie Town we'd been licking our lips for 100 miles expecting to be able to sample some great local pies when we pulled into town and discovered te two Pie places in town which doubled as either a post office or grocery store were closed. One's sign ironically read "Pie town was created when weary travellers crossing the divide needed a break and the local pie's earned a reputation for being fantastic." Turns out that there's only a demand on Fri, Sat, or Sunday.

The trip down from the divide led us through the Valley of Fire and then onto Show Low where all the street names were named after Poker hands, it took me a while to put the too together. Show Low is surrounded by vacation ranches and we really loved the country, matter of fact I always think of NM as Hot Desert, but most of this trip was above 6000 feet and the outside temperature in the first days of August never rose above 85 degrees. It's only about 8 hours from our house so this actually might be a possiblity for us. I think we'll try renting a cabin up there first!

Finally our decent into Phoenix through White Mountains, a beautifull red rock and Pine Forest drive through Eastern Arizona. Upon getting to Phoenix we decided that there's nothing in Phoenix we want to see because our attempt to contact friends that live there failed and we decided to push on the last 4 hours to get home to our own bed. After a stop at Cracker Barrel for dinner, something Kari's been hinting at the whole trip, we hit the road and headed home.

This is familiar territory so just get on the 10 and get home, nothing to see here. Kari drove for the first time a bit after dinner and was a little uncomfortable with the size of the rig, but she settled in behind a truck running at a good speed for her and did just fine. Matter of fact because she kept it slow and drafted I think she got 2 MPG better during her drive than I did at any point. While she drove I tried to sleep, unable to I usedthe Aircard once more to watch some TV on the laptop. Man that thing works great and was able to hand Hulu television most of the time.

We finally arrived home at 2:30 after a freeway closure, detour, and switching drivers several times because we were both hitting sleep walls barely able to keep our eyes open after 15 hours of driving. All in all this was a great trip, no trip is truly grand without it's difficulties and the car problems are classic. I am closer than ever to my wife and son as they make the best travel companions, the car thing will work itself out and I'll update you if it's anything interesting. Toyota Corolla POS $3,250. Trying to fix the car $1,200.00, Renting a Uhaul + gas to get home $1800.00. Seven More shot glasses to add to your collection, PRICELESS!