Enjoying the pics Sam.

Keep em comming.

 

More pics to come, but I think my wife and I are having a contest to see who can get the cheapest hotel. We're alternating nights. Last night I picked a $52 hotel in Amarillo, which actually turned out to be a decent hotel. Tonight my wife picked a $40 motel in Roswell. It's pretty bad, but is has wireless internet! We went swimming in the pool even though it was kinda slimy. We're driving a car that some people consider an "exotic". I'm wearing a watch that cost almost as much as the car. But we're staying in a FORTY DOLLAR MOTEL! LMAO!

 

my wife takes forever to get ready each morning. It's almost 9:00. That's like 11:00 eastern time! It's like lunch time for me but we're still at the hotel.

 

Have you ever considered just drive away - for 5-10 min then come back? I did that to an ex girlfriend once - and she was none too happy about it. Hey - I was just a guy trying to make a point ......

No wonder I am still single .......

Speaking of cheap lodging - ever thought about hostels? I did that often right after I was done with grad school .... There was a great one ... when I had the whole Pigeon Point lighthouse for myself, not so good one ... when I had a room on old creepy/spooky ex-barrack @ San Pedro .... and the really awkward one ... when I had to be the lone guy on a 12-bunk co-ed room with 11 high school co-eds.


Bob

 

Sounds like something I have done.

Awkward? Sounds like a good time to me!

 

It has been a while since we've seen some photo updates. Is that because you were traveling through West Texas?

I'm curious when you are traveling through Flagstaff, AZ. if it is anytime this weekend perhaps a few Phoenix area forum members could meet you for breakfast or lunch. - Phoenix peeps are any of you up for that?

 

Today was a great day! But let me back up to yesterday, first. We drove from Roswell, NM to Ruidoso, NM, which is up in the mountains. We drove as high as you can go on Sierra Blanca, which is about 10,500 feet above sea level. The top of the mountain is about 12K feet, but the road only goes to 10.5K. Here's the road that goes there. Lots and lots of switchbacks.



And here's the XK8 at the highest drivable point. It was rainy so the view wasn't as good as I was hoping for. That little peak in the background isn't real peak. The real peak is above the tree line.



Then we went hiking, but you guys don't care about our hiking pictures.

Today we left Ruidoso and drove to a town called Cloudcroft. The town is at an elevation of about 8000 feet and it was 73 degrees there according to the Jag's thermometer. The town is almost like an old west movie set. Here's a pic of the downtown area. There are several blocks just like this but I couldn't fit them all in the picture.



Next we drove down out of the mountains to White Sands National Monument. That drive is incredible. The highway goes down this steep gorge with some stunning views. It took about 30 minutes to go from the cool mountains to the hot desert. The temp went from 73 to 92 in less than half an hour. Here's a pic of the Jag in the canyon. By the way... this picture doesn't do justice to the canyon. It's the best I could do with my camera, though.



Next we went to White Sands, which is a whole bunch of white sand dunes.They seem to go on forever. Here's the Jag in the dunes.



After leaving the dunes we drove north to a town called Carrizozo and then turned west to go to Arizona. Just past Carrizozo there is a huge lava field called El Malpais. Here's a pic of the Jag in the lava field. You can't really see much of the lava in the pic, but if you want to see how big it is just go to Google maps and look for the giant black blob just west of Carrizozo.



Then we crossed the Rio Grand (which is essentially dry) and headed out across the high plains of western New Mexico. That was one of the most incredible drives I've ever driven. The plains are at an elevation of around 7000 to 8000 feet so the temp was in the 70's. There are mountains everywhere. We crossed a couple of 8500 foot passes. And there is virtually no other traffic on the road. It's 153 miles from Soccoro, New Mexico to Springerville, AZ where we are tonight. In that 153 miles we probably saw a total of 20 cars. It was desolate! I'm thankful we didn't have car trouble because we might have ended up sleeping in the car. There is no cell service for most of the way, either.

As we were driving along we came across the "Very Large Array", which is a place where about 40 radio telescopes all point up at the sky. They put this array out in the middle of nowhere to reduce interference from terrestrial radio sources. Here's a pic I took of the array from the road.



Then a few minutes later we were in a slightly mountainous area and we saw a herd of about 50 elk! They were about 200 meters off the road. I zoomed in to get this pic. There were actually many more elk there, but I couldn't both zoom in to see them and get them all in the pic at the same time. They didn't seem to care that we were stopped on the road watching them. We saw three more smaller groups of elk over the next couple of hours. By the way... I've seen many deer crossing signs before, but never an elk crossing sign. We saw 6 or 8 of them along this road.



And that's about it. Todays drive was the highlight of the trip so far. It was just indescribably beautiful. And the fact that we weren't surrounded by other tourists all fighting for the best view made it so much better. The views I saw along US-60 were as good or better than the views I've seen in Yellowstone or Smokey Mountains National Parks. And we were the only people within miles!!!

 

Nice! I always appreciate the scenery more when there aren't others there to distract, annoy, or ruin the moment. When its quiet, it just feels better.

Seeing my car there (sorry, your car) is strange, like I'm missing something.

Diggin the salt flats pic of the car, that's just unbelievable with the color and lack of vegetation...plus you can drive on it!

 

Here are a few more from today. First, here's another pic of the Jag at White Sands. It's the second car from the left.



When we were at the lava field, I could see a train far in the distance. It was probably 10 miles away. I zoomed in as far as my camera would allow. It has a 10X zoom. Here's the result.



And here's another pic of the Jag with the lava in the background.

 

The sand at White Sands is actually gypsum just like you'd find in sheet rock. There's no way I would have driven my car out there if it was actually salty. And even though the gypsum sand isn't supposed to cause corrosion to cars, I washed my car anyway! I don't want to take any chances.

 

Here's one more from White Sands. We were about a quarter of a mile away and I used the 10X zoom on the camera to zoom in on it from on top of a dune.

 

Oh, by the way. We'll probably be passing through Flagstaff Friday afternoon. If anyone wants to stop by and see how to pack the trunk for a two week trip, just give me a call. 919-219-4581.

 

Great series, the pics give an idea of just how vast the place is.

That train, for example, wow.

 

No camera can even begin to capture how big the American West is. We stopped at a rest stop somewhere north of the Grand Canyon and there was a description of the views from there. It pointed out that a mountain in the distance was 50 miles away and was as clear as could be in the high mountain air.

Deserted? You ought to try the highway from Carlsbad, NM to El Paso, TX . . . 151 miles . . . NO cars. Got a little scary.

 

I've driven that road before! I even got a ticket near the little town of Salt Flat! The sheriff wrote the ticket then told me to follow him to the town to pay my fine at the magistrates office. The magistrate was the sheriff's uncle, and the "office" was the magistrate's house, which was also the gas station. It was just a moneymaking scam.

And believe me, the road from Socorro to Springerville is a LOT more desolate than the one from Carlsbad to El Paso.

 

Sam,

If you have time, you might want to go to some of the Anasazi Indian ruins in northern AZ. I just remembered visiting some of these sites and they were very interesting, and considering you are in AZ during the hottest time of year the tourist population should be much lower.

Glad to hear you are having a great time. You are now in my favorite part of the desert southwest. AZ is probably the most beautiful of the desert states. I am a west coast guy through and through, and I joke that anything east of the three western states is the east coast. But after three years in Phoenix for college, I altered my definition and annexed AZ into the West!

Drive safe and enjoy the drive!

 

I had lousy internet connectivity at the North Rim, so I wasn't able to post road pics. My wife and I are going to dinner right now, but I have a ton of them to post when I get back. Here's a teaser. This is from the top of a mountain pass somewhere in southern Utah. We're at 9600 feet looking back at some spectacular scenery.



More to come later this evening.

 

Isn't that a little... aristocratic... of your Jag? I mean, it is looking down on all of the other cars...

Beautiful pictures! Can't wait for the next ones.

 

OK... after leaving New Mexico we went to Vegas just for one night. We also stopped by Hoover Dam. I have some pics, but I need my wife's permission to post them and she's asleep, so those will have to wait. After Vegas we headed to the Grand Canyon. That's when the car trouble happened. We finally made it to the Grand Canyon, and the scenery was incredible.





And I saw this cute little squirrel gazing at the canyon. I have to wonder what he was thinking.



I only got this pic of the Jag at the canyon. The lighting was bad, but if you look close you can see the canyon in the background.



Oh... I also got this pic, but you can't really tell that I'm at the Grand Canyon.



Today we left the canyon and crossed southern Utah to get to Moab. We drove through Capital Reef National Park and across some really beautiful countryside. We crossed a mountain range at a pass that topped out at 9600 feet. There were lots of storms around and I must have raised and lowered the top 6 or 7 times. I left the tonneau cover off to make it easy to raise the top in a rush.

This one is at the top of the mountain pass.



And I think the mountain range in the background of this pic is the one we crossed. I'm not quite sure, though.



And these roads were STEEP! I'm seen 6% and 8% grades, but never a 10 before.



I was going down an 8% grade when I saw this cow out in front of me while coming around a curve. I had to slam on my brakes. She was right in the middle of the road! She wandered off to the side, but if I hadn't slammed on the brakes I would have hit her. I then started wondering who would be at fault. There are signs on the road warning about cows, but who would be responsible for the damage? Would I have to pay the rancher for his cow, or would he have to pay my repair bills?



Then we got to Capital Reef. Look it up on Wikipedia. It's awesome.





The photos really don't do justice to the scale. It the pic directly above, that cliff is at least 400 feet tall. Here's a pic showing my wife standing under a huge boulder. From the road I thought the boulder was maybe 15 feet tall. In reality it's the size of a house!



That's all for now. I have many more pics to post but I'm exhausted.

 

Can't wait.
Really enjoying the show.
Thanks,
George UK