Some of our final adventures in California involved another night of "Cruisin' the Grand" and a day trip to Las Angelis to visit Universal Studios with Rose Vidal and some of her relatives. Rose is Tracy’s mother. We took a shuttle tour of the movie set where a lot of movies have been filmed and also a lot of TV shows. They also showed a lot of special effects and involved us in some of it. It was very interesting and a lot of fun. Bruce and I also went to the animal show where they showed how they trained some of the pets for different shows and how they used animation for some of the movies.
I went on the Mummy’s Tomb ride which was pretty exciting but very short for the long wait in line.
We went through a museum of some of the historical artifacts, saw a live demonstration of Water World, and some of us did the 3-D movie of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator with special effects and live action.
Saturday, after church we had lunch at Sonic Burger where the waitresses and waiters come to your car on roller skates. The food was very good, too. From there we went to Oceanside Beach for a while where I got to dip my feet in the Pacific Ocean--feels just like the Atlantic. Finally, we went to San Luis Rey Mission where they were having a festival of sorts for earth day. Breanna and I got to pet every dog the Humane Society had there for adoption--mostly pit bulls. There was a beautiful flower garden there and the oldest pepper tree in California. There was some stuff for kids to do. Breanna made a sand painting of a road runner. This was baby Chloe’s first outing, and she did very well, was a real hit with all the grandma’s along the way.
Sadly, we had to leave the beautiful state of CA and our last set of kids and grand kids. We left Monday noon and headed for Las Vegas. Bruce had wanted to go to a car museum there but changed his mind because he thought all the good cars were gone! We found a Wal-Mart to camp at and spent a good night there.
Next we headed to the Grand Canyon, got there in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day checking it out. We took the shuttle bus along the south rim and got off at various points to check it out and take pictures. What an awesome site! We could have spent a lot more time there, but have to get home some time. We camped in a trailer park there and took off the next morning. There was also a prediction of snow in that area! I did get to see a very pretty bluebird--first one since LA.
We started out Wednesday morning and soon noticed that it was very windy. A little past Flagstaff it was not only windy but very dusty. We got stopped in a traffic jam road block between Flagstaff and Winslow because of the dust storm. Visibility was ¼ mile or less and there was a serious accident farther along. Three people were killed and 15 injured. We saw a boat trailer tipped over and wondered at times if our trailer was going to go over. We were stopped about 11:00 a.m. and for awhile were totally stuck between semi trucks. I went to the camper at one time to get some supplies and could hardly shut the door of the car or the camper. The winds were up to 70 MPH and the dust was awful. The car got it inside and out. I must have lost my glasses at one point when I went out because I can’t find them now. We spent the day listening to the radio, played some games, napped, read, called Amanda, etc. We watched the moon come up and then decided we might as well try to sleep in the camper. We were just settling in, trying to pretend that the wind would rock us to sleep as we swayed back and forth, when the traffic started moving and we saw police cars along the way, so we got out, (around 10:00 p.m.). We still couldn’t go on to Winslow so we headed back to Flagstaff where we got a motel for the night and got a chance for a shower to wash the dust off. It took awhile to find a motel because a lot of other drivers had the same idea.
So Thursday we took off again and made it to the painted desert and petrified forest. It was truly awesome--still very windy, but that just made for fewer tourists to compete with. God sure has made some fantastic scenery, and we are so privileged to be able to enjoy it.
We went on through some more beautiful scenery in AZ and at last got to NM. We spent the night in Grant in a Wal Mart. We did see some snow in AZ and even more in NM. Our car had a light coating in the morning. We left there, tried to find a service station, but had to go to Albuquerque to find one. I kept thinking of Bugs Bunny--”I should have taken a right at Albekoiky”.
We spent the rest of the day driving through the ever changing landscape of New Mexico until we were back in Texas! We just had to go through the corner of it, but even that seemed big. We spent the night in a trailer park in Dalhart. I talked to Norm from Minnesota. After breakfast we took off again and were soon in the panhandle of Oklahoma for about 30 miles, then we were in Kansas which reminded us so much of Minnesota with it’s flat farmlands and lots of green wheat fields. The weather was very good, cool but little wind. We made good time, and I was even able to give Bruce a much needed haircut. We met a couple from Whitehall MI in a Wal-mart parking lot and had a nice visit.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, but flat, boring, Nebraska. At least I found a McDonalds that had WiFi, so here I am sending this to all who are interested. We’re heading for Iowa to visit friends there and then to Minnesota before heading back to good old Michigan.
No comments:
Post a Comment