"Exploring" Hilton Head

So, first I'll admit, I was the late sleeper today. After getting in when we did I crashed, and wasn't ready to leave the bed until around 11:30 the next morning. To me this was a bonus day as I thought we'd still be driving here. So that's how I justify getting up late and pretty much wasting half the day. So after I got my ass up we walked across the parking lot and ate brunch. We ate at The Plantation Cafe, good food, nothing spectacular but they had solid coffee and the food was exactly what we needed. Deb had bunion surgery in June and has been struggling finding comfortable shoes that didn't make her foot hurt and swell up. So we went to a local outlet mall and spent time looking for a good pair of shoes at various stores.

Heading to Hilton Head

Deb and I headed out this morning. In my head we were going to drive for a good while before stopping to eat and decide then how much farther we'd go before stopping. We did not book a room, possibly the only good thing to come from the Covid pandemic this year is there's no trouble getting last minute hotel rooms. So we drove until hungry, ended up at the Limestone Inn in Mount Vernon, KY. My chicken fried chicken was pretty good (it's fried, and it's chicken). Also had a really good sweet potato and corn cakes, which are basically thin pancakes made from cornbread, I guess. Funny thing is I asked what kind of beer they had and the woman said "We just got a new one, called "Fat Tire"". Sold! I ordered one, not realizing when she said they just got it in, they JUST got it in. So it was pretty much room temperature, the frosted glass only did so much to help with that. But overall I liked my meal, unfortunately my darling's chicken panini was slimy. Anyway, when I asked how much more she had in her, she said "Aren't we driving straight through?" Sure, why not? I had both a White Sox and a Hawks playoff game to listen to. Still, that's a long drive and long story short, I was able to change our reservation to come in early and we rolled into Hilton Head at 2:30 AM. That's about it for the day, a lot of driving, but we're here!

Drive home

We drove home from Amarillo over 2 days, with an overnight stop in Springfield, MO. Not much to say other than we're home. Got in about 6:30 PM. I think the highlights of this trip were White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns, although we enjoyed everything we saw and visited. There's still more to see in New Mexico. I think in the future we may do a trip through southern Colorado and on to northern AZ, we could hit Taos, Los Alamos and Sky City (if it's open ) on a trip like that. In total we visited Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma on this trip. For those who might be wondering, we put 4,375 miles on the car during this trip. The car worked perfectly and rode nice and smooth. Also gas is much cheaper out west than in Illinois, but you probably could have guessed that. Oh, and yes, our marriage survived 15 days of just the 2 of us together!

Roswell and Cadillac Ranch

Today was the last day in New Mexico and the first leg of the trip home. We drove up to Roswell, where it's all aliens, all the time. Pretty much what you would expect, lots of hokey stuff and also the "Official UFO Museum", where they explain the crash in 1947 that many people claim was a UFO. All that we got out of it is that something did crash and the government didn't want to tell people what it was. I also got a "compression chair massage" for $15 that got rid of the back pain I woke up with as an after-effect of the hotel bed and the hike in the caverns and also helped some with my sore feet. After Roswell we drove towards Amarillo, TX on the beginning of our trio home. We stopped on the outskirts of Amarillo to see Cadillac Ranch, which is 10 Cadillacs stuck front end down in a farm field that people spray paint, how can you NOT stop for that?

Carlsbad Caverns

This place can be summed up with "Wow, wow, wow..." and "that's a lot of freaking bats" We made the 3 hour drive from Las Cruces to Carlsbad Caverns today. A couple of days ago I described White Sands as feeling like you're on another planet. Carlsbad Caverns also gives this feeling, for me it felt like I was walking through the Mines of Moria (dorky Lord of the Rings reference). Every time you turn a corner you see another awe-inspiring site. There's just cool views everywhere down there. Pictures do not do it justice, but I took about 147 billion anyway. We also came back to see the bats leave the cave at dusk. Question: How long does it take half a million bats to leave a cave? Answer: We left after 40 minutes. Yes, that's a lot of freaking bats, really neat to see in person. However the ride back out from the cave at night is pretty butt-clenchy since you know there's a steep drop-off about 3 feet from the road but you can't see it. Good day, highly recommend this. A long walk down and my toes may never forgive me, but hey, they wanted to be part of the foot, so it's their own fault.

Gila Cliff Dwellings

Today we drove up past Silver City to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. We had the Ranger guided "tour", which was really just a kid telling us stuff that he wasn't sure was true. He gave a lot of "probably" answers and even said "I saw one in a gift shop that had 2 levels" when talking about what one of the rooms might have been. So, it was really cool to see the cliff dwellings, but the ranger was not the greatest guide in the world. No cell service anywhere near the place, so we got a little lost going home before I stopped to look at the map on the brochure to determine that we had to turn around and find the right state route. Thank the almighty for our ability to read a map, and a compass on our rear view mirror. Stopped in Deming for dinner in someone's garage, actually a place we entered from an alley called "Elisa's House of Pies and Restaurant". We were the only ones in the place except for the older black couple that ran it. The wife took our orders and the husband went in back and cooked. The food was really good, it felt like eating at a family party. We sat and talked to the couple for about 30 minutes after we were done. Very interesting people, they retired and then got bored so they started selling pies and then opened the restaurant.

White Sands National Monument

There are places where you really feel like you're on another planet. White Sands is definitely one of them. After breakfast at Our Country Kitchen, which is in a converted house in a neighborhood, we drove the 20 minutes to White Sands today. With a landscape that reminds you of the moon and a temperature that brings Venus to mind, otherworldly is the best way to describe this place. We did luck out with the weather as it was "only" 94 and there were clouds passing by that blocked out the sun. What is interesting is the sand was really not that hot, I guess the fact that it's white results in it reflecting the heat rather than absorbing it. The sand is comprised of Gypsum from the mountains that surround this area, which gives it the white color and also results in it being more fine than what you would typically find on a beach. We drove to one of the picnic areas which look a little like something from a sci-fi movie with the shelters and how they are surrounded by the white sand dunes on every side. Unbelievably, some people were actually having picnics in these picnic areas. All we wanted to do was go play in the sand a bit and then get back into our A/C. We rented a saucer and tried sledding down the dunes. While this was neat to do, as a sledding experience, it reminded me of trying to sled in melting snow. You don't move real quick, unless you're a little kid. But it was fun. Overall the place kind of seemed like it was covered in snow, but it was sand, and really hot out. They even plow the sand off the roads, and that looks like snow plowed to the side. We then drove down to Las Cruces where the front desk clerk recommended we eat at La Posta de Mesilla, which is a really cool (and big) restaurant. The food was good and we ate too much of it. Also, we had the rarest of experiences, the wife had two drinks and I had one. Although I'm pretty sure my margarita consisted of Tequila mixed with another Tequila with a splash of Triple Sec. So now we're back in the hotel room, holding our bellies and getting ready to call it a night. Gila Cliff Dwellings tomorrow!