On the road (June 3-5)

Like any trip, I made plan upon plan for this vacation. I had expectations of how I would document the experience. We would stop at every Welcome Center. We would take pictures at every sign. I would photograph everything.

Well, like any good vacation should this one kicked my expectations out the door. My goal of pictures at Welcome Centers died when we hit Colorado and the rest area was closed (in New Mexico all we got was a sign on the side of the road). By the time we reached eastern South Dakota my camera was stowed (there still isn't any evidence that we were in Minnesota), and it came out infrequently after that.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I guess I had hoped that the images would tell a story, and instead there are a lot of gaps. In reality, if I actually uploaded all of the pictures I took--even with gaps--there would be way too many. I've resolved instead to pick some of the best (with the entire set at the end).

Ready for the road.

We start our engine.

We blazed across Alabama and into Mississippi, where we spent the night at Wall Doxey State Park. There are no pictures of us at the campground, which is a blessing, sweaty and irritated do not make for good pictures. The next morning we hit Memphis and stopped at The Lorraine Motel, home of the Civil Right's Museum. MLK Day was a big deal at Grace's school this year, so she understood why this location was so important.



In all other aspects, Memphis and our drive through Arkansas were unmemorable.

However, at least I can prove we were in Arkansas (sorry, Minnesota).

I should mention that Grace woke us at 4am that morning (3am central time) and never went back to sleep. Hence the following image, one of the rarest sights we saw all vacation long.



We pushed it that day to within 60 miles of the Texas border. It was a tremendous haul, but we wanted to get to our destination, Great Sand Dunes National Park, by June 5. Once we hit the western side of Oklahoma City, the change in landscape was noticeable. We had entered the plains.

A land populated with mile after mile of wind turbines.

The next morning we entered Texas, simultaneously beautiful and stark, and I understood how one might imagine falling off the edge of the earth. The land goes on forever and then disappears. And while we started the day in good spirits,



we still had to drive 500 miles to southern Colorado. By the time we reached New Mexico, in all it's desolation near the Texas panhandle, the girls were cooked.



Of course, we did make it and were welcomed with a Colorado hail storm (not a good introduction to camping for Julia), but that story and the rest of our trip will come later.

Here's the entire set of photos: