Welcome to my Southwest USA travelogue! This travelogue will detail the sights I saw, the places in which I stayed, and the restaurants where I ate during my trip across Arizona, New Mexico, and a tiny bit of Colorado. This trip was taken from October 3, 2001 until October 13, 2001. As is always the case, how I ended up in this part of the world is a story in itself.
As all three of you long-time readers know, I got married in February, 2001. When it came time for us to plan a vacation, we knew we wouldn’t be going to Europe because we had been there for our honeymoon. Instead, my wife (Dianne) wanted to go to Boston. She had been to Boston a few years ago and had very fond memories of that visit. I mentioned going to Reading, Pennsylvania to see my friend, and former travel partner, Tom Marihart. Once I mentioned visiting Tom, she wanted to add a trip to visit a friend in Binghamton, New York. So, we planned a trip that would allow us to both visit all of these places, and see some spectacular fall scenery. We were going to start out in Albany, drive to Montreal for a two day stay, then go to Boston for four days, head out to Reading for a three day stay, move up to Binghamton for a weekend, and then spend a couple of days in Albany before flying back. We bought the plane tickets, lined up the hotels, and geared up to go.
And then September 11th happened. Once our initial shock passed, we began to realize that it might not be the best time to take an East Coast trip. It wasn’t the fear of something happening on the flight that made us hesitant to go (although the events of September 11th did nothing for my fear of flying). Instead, we were concerned that we’d be stuck on the East Coast, much as other folks were just after September 11th. I remembered being in England during Princess Diana’s funeral and stressing about how I was going to make it back to the States. I didn’t want that kind of stress prevalent over a trip, especially since it seemed likely that the United States would begin retaliating for the attack. Still, we wanted to get out of the Valley and see some other part of the country.
We came up with two possible trips. The first was a mission tour up the California coast. This trip would start in San Diego and ending in Sonoma. We ended up not going on that trip because we wanted to get out of California. The other trip was a drive through Arizona and New Mexico. I had spent a day driving through New Mexico in 1996, and thought it was beautiful. I had wanted to spend some more time in that state, and now seemed like a good time to do it. Of course, I had little idea about what to see in either Arizona or New Mexico. Other than the Grand Canyon, I wasn’t aware of any other attractions that might fill up our time. Fortunately, Lonely Planet had a Southwest USA guide (2nd Edition). After reading that, and doing a little follow-up research on the Internet, we were able to come up with an itinerary that filled up our two weeks. We cancelled our plane tickets and hotels for the initial trip, and rented a car for our Southwest swing.
It turned out to be a good trip. I think our enthusiasm was slightly tempered by the uncertainty that permeated over the country. Still, we found that the Southwest has many attractions that are worth visiting, and a few that one could avoid. The main thing we learned is that driving is the only way to see the Southwest. We were able to get into some very interesting places and enjoy some wonderful scenery that we couldn’t have experienced with public transportation. So, the main piece of advice for anyone planning a Southwest trip is to rent a car and get a good road map before leaving.
The format for this travelogue is similar to the one I used in my Greece travelogue. A diary entry is available for each day. It is on these daily write-ups that you’ll find information on hotels where we stayed and restaurants that we visited. The tourist spots have their own pages, where I give my impressions and information about those particular attractions. Finally, there is a “Fast Facts” page for those of you who want the information, but don’t want to read my ramblings about a particular site or day.
I hope you enjoy the latest installment of my travels. Yes, there is another trip planned already. This one will be a trip to celebrate our one-year anniversary with the rest of the world (hint, hint). Until I write about that trip, please enjoy this travelogue. Oh yes, please write with comments, insults, or suggestions about this site. I enjoy and appreciate every note I get.
This site is featured on Travel-Library.com and Travelpod.com, the premier addresses on the Web for travel information.
Flag icons from Flags of the World.
Background image from The Absolute Background Textures Archive.
Unless otherwise noted, all pictures and text are copyright Michael Lima. You can contact me at mikvs@ix.netcom.com.
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page