Ever since our first experiment with AirBnB (where we snagged a New York City...
Recent Updates
Canyon de Chelly National Monument
Mummy Cave Ruins, Canyon de Chelly, AZ
After a couple of days at the breathtakingly large Grand Canyon, we were ready for something smaller and more intimate. If visiting the Grand is like going to a huge metropolis (complete with teeming sidewalks), Canyon de Chelly (“Canyon d’SHAY”) feels more like a quaint town. It is so cozy that you can explore the entire area in a single active day.
You access the bulk of Canyon de Chelly via two scenic drives along the North and South rims. You can visit all ten overlooks in about four hours. Budget more time if you want to while away an afternoon basking in the beautiful canyon scenery.
Still Giving Kicks, that Old Route 66
A 1931 Studebaker honors a section of old Route 66, Petrified Forest National Park, AZ
The automobile had so dramatically changed the American way of life that the country’s first paved highway became synonymous with opportunity, adventure and exploration. More than just a road, Route 66 became a part of American culture, spawning hit songs and even a television series.
Connecting Chicago with Los Angeles, the “Main Street of America,” as 66 was once known, served as a major artery for westward migration. Later, its path through Arizona’s Painted Desert and near Grand Canyon established it as a thoroughfare for vacationers. Without the benefit of today’s highway speeds a trip along its 2,448 miles, from the Heartland to the Coast, might have taken a week or more.
Route 66 has since been replaced with a more efficient interstate highway system. But many communities preserved portions of the route as scenic byways or to serve local traffic. In other places, the road is gone but tributes remain – like this 1931 Studebaker that pays homage to the section of road that traversed an area we know today as Petrified Forest National Park.
Petrified Forest National Park
Go for the Fossils. Stay for the Scenery.
Of all the places we’ve visited in our more than two years of continuous travel, Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park has to be the most under-sold. We arrived there expecting to see 225 million year old wood. What we found were some of the most magnificent badland vistas of our trip.
That’s not to say Petrified Forest doesn’t live up to its namesake, too. It does. The place is lousy with fossilized trees. And unlike other fossils, these aren’t impressions of once living creatures in stone. These once living organisms are stone.
Photo of the Day: Sunrise Over Theodore Roosevelt NP
Sunrise Over Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota
Mission San Xavier del Bac
We rounded a corner and, at first, the gleaming white building looked to us like the Taj Mahal. An instant later we recognized the Moorish-inspired structure looming over a sea of green as Mission San Xavier del Bac.
A short drive from downtown Tucson, Arizona, San Xavier stands as one of the most impressive missions we’ve visited in our tour of the Southwest. Its seemingly spotless white façade is a distinct contrast to the more ancient look of the San Antonio Missions. And its ornate architecture sets it apart from the simpler structures we found on El Paso’s Mission Trail.
Everywhere Once 