Susan Barrett Price's Blog, page 51

Tupelo MS to Franklin KY

Four states today! For two hundred miles we rode the leisurely Natchez Trace Parkway — a two-lane highway, no commercial traffic, 50 mph. Farmers in the Ohio River Valley used to float all their goods down the Mississippi River to Natchez or New Orleans, sold everything (including the lumber to make their barges), then walked all the way back home along this route. The Natchez Trace was an old Indian trail, abandoned for many decades (once steamboats enabled upstream traffic), now managed by ...

Fort Smith AR to Tupelo MS

We planned to take the scenic drive through the Oachita mountains in Arkansas, then mosey on through Hot Springs, etc. over to Mississippi. But the morning's rain dampened our enthusiasm for foggy mountain switchbacks. So we circled north around Little Rock and wound up in rice-growing country. Who knew. I've only seen rice paddies in Asia, where the fluorescent green is dotted by men, women and water buffalo doing whatever it is rice paddy workers do. Here is Arkansas, the fields were...

Amarillo TX to Fort Smith AR

While the Texas panhandle was really quite beautiful, we sped through into Oklahoma on I-40. Just west of Oklahoma City, we swung south to state route 9. Our "blue highway" plan was re-energized by the gorgeous landscape.

I always think of Oklahoma as beige & sage — dust-bowl and oil country. But Rt 9 showed us hilly green ranch country, with a bursts of yellow, red, and white wildflowers. We got over our Rockies snobbery to appreciate the mountains that were only 2500 ft high.

We're having...

Gallup NM to Amarillo TX

Our first photo-free day — clearly we are heading home. Another sign: we decided on a non-Interstate alternate route but, after 50 miles of desert and beaten down semi-ghost-towns, we hightailed it back to the interstate. On I-40, we needed to switch driving every hour or so to keep from dozing off. Another sign of road fatigue. We're feeling dusty.

Grand Canyon AZ to Gallup NM

Today we shifted from the Santa Fe Trail mindset to the Route 66 mindset as we dropped south to Flagstaff, then across Arizona to the Petrified Forest and on to Gallup. Interesting how a lot of the towns are playing up their association with the historic route and refurbishing old diners and "charming" motels (like the one we saw with cabins shaped as giant teepees). (I have to confess, though, that we did a large portion of today's travels on Interstate 40 at 75 mph.)

The Petrified Forest...

Grand Canyon AZ: Jeep Tour Day

Nice to have a day when we turn the driving over to someone else. So we bought into a combo morning/afternoon jeep tour.

The morning tour was a little ho-hum. Drove through the forest, saw a few elk, then wound up at tourist-y Grand Canyon Village and the most popular views, which we could have seen easily on our own steam. It made us itchy enough to cancel tomorrow night's stay here and start working our way back east.

But our afternoon tour was special. Jim and I alone with the driver, drove ...

Grand Canyon: Mesmerizing

Today we did our obligatory drive to all the Grand Canyon viewing spots on the South Rim, east of the Visitors' Center. Cameras glued to our faces, of course. Every once in a while we had to remind ourselves to quit trying to compose great shots and just gaze into the infinite magnificence of the canyon.

The day was sunny and breezy — perfect. As with all over-photographed wonders, the reality of the Grand Canyon was less garish, more subtle than expected. You could just let your spirit fly...

Chinle AZ to Grand Canyon AZ

Got our first thrilling views of Grand Canyon this afternoon, after a beautiful drive through the Painted Desert — Navaho and Hopi Land. Yay! But the continued drive to our hotel seemed a bridge too far and we're bushed. So no poetry today — I'm having a glass of wine and relaxing!

Chinle AZ: Canyon de Chelly Rocks!

Eye popping. Heart stopping. Bone jarring. Hair-raising. Breathtaking. That was our morning in Canyon de Chelly.

You can only enter the canyon with a Navaho guide, so we hired one with an open Jeep Wrangler and headed in.

Imagine riding a raft through swift, shallow, rocky, red-muddy streams and flooded plains. Then imagine that instead of a raft, you're riding a Jeep. That was us. Much to our surprise, we entered a water-world, where the only dry land was deep mud. Ah, the spring season...

Farmington NM to Chinle AZ

I'm calling this a blessing day… and the kind of day that turns car trips into adventures. We have entered Navaholand via the long lonesome highways of northern New Mexico and Arizona.

The scenery of course is mind-boggling — beyond words, and beyond snapshots. The road can be treacherous and mesmerizing… so let's just say we had a bit of a zigzagging adrenaline rush at the outset of a rainstorm… after which we stopped at a trading post for an injection of coffee and chocolate. The cashier...