National Lampoon's: Gomez Vacation

The drive was amazing, I had no idea our country's landscape was so diverse and beautiful. We left on Dec 27th. The first few days were a little rough - we were not big fans of "middle America". Milton's worst fears were realized. We did stop at the Arch in St. Louis - cool, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it.
Maybe we were just excited to get to New Mexico so didn't appreciate the beauty??

We met up with our friend Mike Mapes (amazing driver of Milton's car) and his friend, Austin, in Santa Fe, NM on Dec 30th. Santa Fe was great. The town was so cute. Architecture was interesting and different, adobe style - all sand colors, sprawling and nothing higher than 3 levels. The four of us went out to a great dinner with a waitress that referred to us as "sweetie", "honey", "love" and "darling", but all seemed so right. The next morning we headed for Flagstaff, AZ.

Milton and I stopped by Sandia Peak just outside Albequerque, NM on the way . It is 10,378 feet above sea level. It was breath-taking at the top. Literally, 20% less oxygen than at sea level. I think that is the highest I have ever been outside of an airplane. I felt like you could see the entire mid-west up there. They say you can see 3 miles if you are at sea level when the land is flat... How many miles can you see if the land is flat except for the 10,000 foot mountain you are standing on. I don't know the answer, but I encourage you to experience it.

We headed west toward Flagstaff for the big New Years Eve bash. Before we arrived at Flagstaff, we pulled off the highway and drove 6 miles south to see the famous "Meteor Crater." Well, turns out we arrived 12 minutes after closing so could not see the mile wide, 500 ft deep crater in the earth caused by a meteor thousands of years ago... Milton almost pulled a Clark W. Griswald on the security guard.

We reached Flagstaff with a sour taste in our mouth form the crater experience. But lucky for us, we had the Pine Cone Drop to look forward to. In case you didn't know, Flagstaff has a big Pine Cone drop at midnight to ring in the new year (kinda like the ball in Times Square, but it's a pine cone, and it's only from about 2 1/2 stories up) - it is off the hook! (not really, but we had a good time! And yes, that is the pine cone in the background.)

Off to the Grand Canyon on new year's day. There really isn't a lot to say. It is a Natural Wonder of the world for a good reason. We stopped at a few of the look out points. We are now really anxious to plan a trip there later this year, to camp and hike. We welcome you to join us. We did see a really huge elk too.

After a little bit of debate, we headed to Vegas for the last night of our trip. Is there a better introduction to the left side of the country? I was surprisingly mesmerized by Vegas! I loved it! We stayed at the Mirage, walked the strip, gambled enough to pay for our room and doubled down! VEGAS BABY, VEGAS!

We left Vegas just before noon with the hopes of walking into our new apartment in the day light. Always best to see a new apartment (that you have already signed a lease for, but have never actually seen) in the light of day. But...Holiday weekend in Vegas = crazy traffic back to CA. One road in and one road out. 9 hours later (should've been a 4 hour drive) we arrived in Manhattan Beach, CA. The silver lining while sitting in traffic in the Mojave Desert was that we found a Williams & Sonoma Outlet. What are the chances? Slim! There are only 6 in the country... and one is in the middle of the desert. A small spending spree later on dishes, glasses and other stuff we didn't bring with us, energized me for the rest of the drive :) Not to mention the amazing sunset over the desert. The west coast had just experienced torrential rains over the previous 3 days and had major flood damage. The sky opened up a couple of hours into California and gave us an amazing show. I must have said WOW! 400 times in 1 hour.

I was nervous as hell, and honestly I started to freak out a little about 3 hours outside of CA. "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M. came on the radio - I had myself a good cry and then charged forward into the unknown. We arrived to our new apartment around 10pm... about 6 hours after we had planned. Damned traffic!!! We emptied out our car, blew up our air mattress and settled into our new apartment for the night. Anxious to see where we will be living... in the daylight!