Welcome to Gaia! ::

eeew, im sorry

you should

hello everybody biggrin

3nodding hello 3nodding

how was it? where did you go? start from the top please

it kinda was.
My mom and I drove from Peoria, IL to Phoenix, AZ.... so yeah it was a two day straight drive getting there. We stayed the night in this little dinky town in OK nearly right on the border with Texas. The guy overcharged us for a room, but it was okay because we couldn't drive any more that night anyway. That day I learned I hate Oklahoma roads and drivers.
The next day we drove through the panhandle of Texas, all the way through to Albaquerque, where we stopped for gas and a break. We saw some of the petroglyphs, too, because the monument is right off I40. There was a lot of vandalism at the petroglyph monuments, it made me sad that someone could do that so carelessly because it cannot be restored in any way.
New Mexico, surprisingly, is a large state to drive through, but I liked it. We stopped somewhere else in NM to get gas (probably before ABQ, but I don't remember) and took some pictures of an old broken down mission. It had grafitti on the back wall that said something in spanish about the blood of christ, but I couldn't make out all the words.
We made Arizona around dusk and stopped in this gorgeous little town called Holbrook for gas and some ice cream at this DQ that was lit up sorta like an old diner.
I drove the rest of the way to Flagstaff at night. We stopped there again for gas (we made more stops than necessary because we weren't sure where the next town might be). Flagstaff is not a tourist friendly town by night. It's dark and if you're not getting sick from altitude sickness, you will be soon (Flagstaff is over 7,000 ft, and you go up very fast from 3,000ft). We got lost, missed our turn twice because of road construction detours that were not even lit up or marked with reflective tape whatsoever. We wasted half an hour circling our exit and finally found it. When we got back out on the road, there were these idiot semi drivers racing down the mountainside at 80mph+, meanwhile there are these signs for "Runaway Semi Ramps". It was scary... but we made it to Phoenix after probably less than 2 hrs. Which sucks because Phoenix is at 2,000ft and you're only supposed to decend or acend in elevation 1,000ft or so every hour. So to say the least, all that night I was insanely ill and couldn't get more than an hours worth of sleep. We bunked at my Aunt's place.
I finally got better around dawn when everybody else was waking up and took some sleepy time medicine and didn't really wake up again until 2pm. So that day I did nothing but lounge around and get better. I didn't even eat much because I was still nauseated from the elevation sickness.
The first day we actually did anything of import, we went to Cave Creek and saw this ritzy shopping center called the Pedregal. We got some neat stuff and saw a neat museum on one really famous Amer-Indian artist. It was cool... I have the flier somewhere. Then we ate at this biker bar and grill called The Horny Toad. Good food. I was still not able to eat food without minor nausea, however, and had to take the rest home. Which is fine because I'm supposed to be on a diet and eating less calories and fat anyway, so it worked out.
Hmmm.... I wrote a lot for this book I'm working on, saw some relatives.... spent way too much time in the hot tub and got a rash because it was far too chlorinated and I had my silver necklace on like the dumbass I am and got the rash (really, it was a chemical burn and it didn't stop itching until yesterday actually).
I went to a flea market in Mesa, which was neat. Got some cheap stuff. Gonna have to go back there again sometime.
I saw a real Renaissance village. So we walked around for a couple hours and got some neat stuff. We were both tired and hot by the time we were done shopping that we didn't feel like pushing our way into one of the shows. But I got a couple of neat souveneirs.
We went to the Phoenix Art Museum and saw a few exhibits. The first one was called Curves of Steel and had a bunch of streamline cars. It even had two of the more modern cars, one of which was a Mclaren (which is awesome because I've always wanted to see one up close). We weren't supposed to take pictures with our cell phones, but we did anyway.
The next exhibit was Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art. So yes, I actually got to see some Rembrandt. No, we didn't take pictures-- that would have been irresponsible. But I did write a list of everything I saw that day.
One of the other exhibits we saw was called A Hundred Years of the Evening Gown or some such.... they had all sorts of designer dresses, so I got to see a real CoCo Chanel and an Oscar up close.
Later, we went to a shopping mall because mom wanted to see what a Saks Fifth Avenue was like. Stupidly overpriced, a lot of stuff was comparable quality, which is sad because of the ridiculous markups. 400 bucks for a pair of plain strappy sandals, I believe, is frivolous no matter who the hell designed them.
We ate at a Cheesecake Factory, a really nice one. I finally was able to eat without being sick, so I pigged out a little.
The next day we went on a mini roadtrip to see Jerome and Sedona. Jerome is an old mining town located on the precipice of a mountainside. It's a tourist town, and in another 20 years, no one will probably live there because the whole place has been considered "historic" for about 20 years now, which means no one can renovate any of the buildings. The problem is, the whole town slides an inch downhill every year, so there's a lot of structural damage. It was a really neat town, though. We were going to see the nearby ghost town, but it was a tourist trap and we didn't feel like paying 20+ bucks to go on a guided tour of something we couldn't see from the shop.
The bar we ate at for lunch was neat. It's called the Mile High Hotel, because, well, Jerome sits roughly around a mile above sea level. (I also think the people who live and work in Jerome are major stoners). Anyway, the hotel is apparently haunted and we got to hear some stories about how some of the stuff would rearrange itself and customers would hear banging on the doors and walls in the middle of the night.
Sedona was really neat. We went to this ritzy shopping mall called Tlaquepaque. Really cool artzy place. Really incredibly overpriced. I didn't care for it much. Later, we stopped at a nice occult shop and I got some black tourmaline and a piece of nice quartz.
The next day we started the drive home, stopped in Sedona again because we liked it so much. Beautiful place, full of red cliffs and such. Somehow, when we stopped to look at one of the buttes, my cell phone fell out of my lap and it got ran over by a car, apparently. When I finally found it again, it was totally destroyed, but that's somewhat okay because I can get a new one now (we payed for the insurance).
We saw some neat places in Sedona by actual daylight instead of at dusk so I was somewhat satisfied. We left and stopped in Flagstaff by daylight for a hot dog on route 66 (I40 goes right along it). This guy at the stand talked our ears off. We wasted the better part of that day. We stopped to try to see Meteor Crator, but it was going to be 30 bucks for the both of us, and we needed the money for a hotel that night so we decided not to see it. Which was fine.
We stayed the night in Albaquerque, which was so gorgeous by night. About 20 miles out, you could still see every star in the sky undimmed by the city lights. Then, as we approached the crest (ABQ sits in a valley), we saw all the city stretched out like a river of light. And the moon was rising on the other side of the crest while we were decending towards ABQ. So cool. That night, we were so starving so we both scarfed down McDonalds probably faster than we ordered it. We had to haul all of our stuff upstairs to our room because the hotel next door was shady and we didn't want anything to get stolen.
The next night, we had to stop because it was snowing in Oklahoma. Remember what I said about Oklahoma, now, because it is important: THE ROADS SUCK AND THE DRIVERS ARE INSANE! Not only was it snowing badly, but there was road construction with no overhead lights or reflective tape, reduced down to one badly paved lane in either direction, being blinded by oncoming traffic and the idiots behind us were riding our asses. We literally thought we were going to die. So we finally found an exit (44 is a major tollway, so fewer exits), and got a hotel in Big Bear, I think... or Bear Cabin or something like that.
The next day wasn't so bad. We drove all the way home with little incident.

eek you must really tyoe fast or something. yumm, cheesecake. sounds like you had fun heart