Episode 15: San Francisco to White Sands National Monument
After viewing the tall tree we headed a couple hours south to Monterey. We spent the night with Julie again. This time we sampled the Monterey nightlife. We were feeling pathetic because we hadn't gone out anywhere on the trip. So, we went to hear a blues band at a bar on Cannery Row with some school friends of Julie's and had a good time. Then we dragged Julie to another bar in town that was much less entertaining (sorry, Julie) and decided one dose of nightlife was enough.
In the morning we headed off for Phoenix, but not before a stop at our new favorite store, Trader Joe's, to stock up on things we can't get in Ohio. We chose a slightly different route back south than the one we had taken up. It proved to be a good idea because we got to see even more new types of landscapes. Different-looking mountains. We didn't realize there were so many different types of mountains. Lots of different types of agriculture, too.
After some all night driving and a little rest stop snoozing, we passed through Quartzsite, Arizona again. Of course, this required a stop. We spent a couple hours perusing interesting and scary stuff and made a few interesting and scary purchases. Missy dined on a gourmet corn dog and Jenny partook of the soup and pie special - Italian wedding soup and rhubarb pie, a delicious combination. Interestingly, we saw our first fellow Ohioans of the entire trip - two cars from different counties, parked right next to us in the parking lot. Hmmm, the only place we see people from Ohio is Quartzsite....?
We rolled on to Sun City and spent the night with Jen's grandparents again. Missy and Jen's grandpa changing the distributor cap and rotor on the car that night. This was something Missy had been meaning to do before we left Akron, but decided to wait until we were somewhere warm to do it (to protect her princess hands). In the morning, Missy also did a much-needed oil change. Missy received the ultimate compliment from Grandpa, "She's a good little mechanic".
We stopped at the main branch of the Phoenix Public Library on the way out of town. This building rivals LA for best library. Very post-modern and industrial-looking. Glass elevators. Very sassy. From Phoenix, we headed for Las Cruces, but not before a stop at the world's worst Denny's.
The world's worst Denny's did offer a great sunset, however.
In Las Cruces, we stayed at a real hotel (thanks, Jen's mom). In the morning, we headed an hour north to go to White Sands National Monument. But not before Jen left a backpack lying in the parking lot. We didn't realize it until we got to White Sands. If Missy hadn't requested her hairbrush at White Sands (to primp before hiking???), who knows when we would have discovered it was missing. Luckily, the hotel had found it and we were passing back through Las Cruces. See what happens when we stay in a real hotel!!!! (Jen hangs head in shame)
White Sands was great. We definitely needed a lot more time. The park is composed of thousands of pure white dunes of gypsum particles (technically not sand). We hiked for a couple hours and climbed some of the dunes and played around in the sand. We also made a few movies with the digital camera (we also have some from Monterey, starring your tour guide Julie). We were hoping we could put the movies on the website, but it won't accept the files (since we are only qualified to use geocities' remedial page builder!). If you'd like to see them, let us know and we'll e-mail them and you can play them with any video player.
