Palm Springs, CA

Good morning from beautiful Palm Springs, CA. We drove in late last night after dark, and didn’t even realize we rode into a time travel vortex from the 1990s. Oh yes, our fancy Hyatt Regency hotel looks like it was the set for the 1990 hit, Pretty Woman.

More importantly, yesterday was our big big day at the Grand Canyon!! DANG!, that is some kind of natural wonder! Our minds were sufficiently blown by the majesty. Once again, we took 100000 photos but we haven’t uploaded any of them yet. Here are a few quick cell phone shots to tide you over.

Here’s a shot of our shadows holding hands at Grandview Overlook.

Here we are, being newlyweds, at the Grandview Overlook.

We also saw a meteorite crater yesterday (50,000 years old! DANG!) and the Little Colorado River Gorge, which was our “training canyon” to “warm us up” for the majesty of the real big thing. Our theme yesterday was obviously GIANT HOLES IN THE GROUND. We tried to see the Sunset Crater but just plain ran out of time. We watched the sunset over the Western Arizona mountains. Today we’re driving north through California, from Palm Springs to the Bay Area, and we have a few exciting stops planned along the way.

We miss you so much, but I can’t believe we are more than halfway through this trip. I never want it to end! Even though I’m tired of the 3 outfits I have, I am really enjoying living in my car with Krista.

Arizona

We made it safely to Holbrook, AZ. between the Petrified National Forest (we didn’t see this due to the limited visibility in the pitch black night) and the Grand Canyon. Today was a pretty magical day. We covered about 800 miles today, one of our longest driving days, but we had such a great time! So far we have traveled appx. 2,192 miles and visited PA, WV, VA, TN, AR, OK, TX, NM, and AZ. Yes, 9 states in 5 days!

We had a great time in Oklahoma visiting my parents & brother, the dogs and horses. I got to show Krista the sno-cone stand in my hometown, where we got shaved ice in the flavors of Purple Rain & Silver Fox. We visited my old high school & middle school & the public library where I read way too many books as a child. It was remodeled recently, and looks amazing! I wish I could have gone inside, but they are closed on Sundays. It was especially nice to spend some time with my folks, and for them to meet Krista! My mom made us so much vegan food! It was like an all-day vegan feast, starting with vegan pancakes for brunch, and delicious stuffed butternut squash for dinner. Also, she made blueberry muffins, brownies, and tomato/basil pasta salad for the road — what a lifesaver to have easy, delicious accessible vegan food when two hungry newlyweds are crossing the meat-loving Southwest. Thanks, mom! We already miss my family so much, thankfully they are visiting in a few weeks so we don’t have to miss them for long. Krista even got to see all the baby pictures she’s been waiting for, including a baby Jessica wearing a “Where’s the Beef?” t-shirt.

Socks was especially sweet to me. I’m sure he missed me a lot.

Krista said, “Please don’t let them kill me!” when the horses ganged up on her.

My father & the special little lady in his life.

We left early this morning, and drove all the way across Oklahoma & watched it turn into the high plains of the West Texas panhandle. We stopped at a museum in McLean, TX that was half Route66 museum, and half “Devil’s Rope” (aka barbed wire) museum. Yes, we went to a barbed wire museum, and it was pretty awesome actually. We tried to go to an antique mall in McLean, but our plans were foiled by their hours – we were also blocked from visiting an antique mall in Clinton, OK too! Why can’t the antique malls be open on Mondays? We did, however, see the first Phillips 66 retail outlet in Texas – so cute!

We continued on to Amarillo, heading south on HW27 to see the Huge Pair of Legs and the Cadillac Ranch, both art projects from Texas millionaire artist, Stanley Marsh 3. I had such a fantastic time at both of these spots, and Krista took some amazing pictures! We stopped at Walmart – we don’t usually stop there but we were ill-prepared and there was nowhere else around to shop – to buy spray paint, and added our own “JUST MARRIED” graffiti to the Cadillac Ranch. It was more fun than I could have imagined, high up on the list of recommended sites.

We crossed into New Mexico, and were speechless for mile after mile as we just stared at the endless, completely flat landscape. We stopped at Tucumcari Mountain to take some more photos. We drove towards Albuquerque and the Sandia Mountains at sunset. It was impossible to take a picture that did this sunset any kind of justice, but it was without question the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. Previously, the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen was from the top of a Mayan temple in Tikal, Guatemala, so my standards are pretty high!

We drove in the dark for a lot of hours, missing most of western New Mexico much to our great sadness & dismay. However, we want to go to the Grand Canyon early in the morning, so we needed to make it across the Arizona state line, which we did! We’re staying in Holbrook, AZ tonight, and hope to leave for the big hole in the ground early early early! Then we’re driving southwest to Palm Springs, where we’ll stay the night tomorrow.

OH! I am so tired. I promise to write more about all the weird stuff we’ve been up to, and some time after we get home we will update with tons of photos & more stories! xoxoxo