Dallas and Houston

From Albuquerque, we drove to Amarillo and then south to Dallas. We didn't really spend a lot of time in either Albuquerque or Amarillo, and we did a lot of driving! So far, we have driven from California, through Nevada, the Southwest of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Dallas
On the left is the Texas Schoolbook Depository. John F Kennedy was shot from
the second window from the top right. Dealy Plaza is the park in the foreground.

Design District

We spent most of our time on playgrounds though

We spent a couple of nights in Dallas before continuing to Houston.

We spent three nights in Houston, visiting the city and NASA's Johnson Space Center

Houston Space Center

Driving out of Houston, we were thinking about going south to Galveston. But we changed our minds, and went east to Mississippi to visit Granny and Poppy.

Fam playing on Granny and Poppys living room floor

Flagstaff, Show Low, the Petrified Forrest, and Albuquerque

We have actually learned how to spell Albuquerque, and are quite pleased about that.

From the Grand Canyon, we drove to Flagstaff and spent a night there.

The day after, we went to Show Low to visit Joel.

Show Low is south of Holbrook which is another Route 66 city.

Wigwam hotel in Holbrook

Train

Close to Holbrook, Route 66 passes through the Petrified Forest. The Petrified Forest is located in Navajo and Apache counties in Northeastern Arizona, and includes 200 million year old wood that has become petrified...

... and badlands!

We then drove to Albuquerque and spent one night before moving on to Amarillo.

Texas

Our next goal is Dallas!

 

A lot of driving ahead of us! This is between Holbrook and Show Low 

The Grand Canyon

The North rim was closed during the winter, so we drove in from the south. We drove around it first, though!

Kaibab National Forest

We stopped for lunch. The roads used to be steeper, and early 1900s, the roads were so steep that the gas did not run through to the engine. They solved it by going backwards up the mountains.

The Kaibab National Forest borders both the Grand Canyon rims.

This is not the Grand Canyon...

But we are definitely getting closer:)

After about a hundred pictures and a never ending fear of running out of battery on the camera before we actually reach the Grand Canyon, we were there!

Las Vegas, Zion, and the West

From Yosemite, we drove to Las Vegas and spent a couple of nights in the city. Emi loved the fairytale hotel and the m&m store. We had decided to drive to Grand Canyon from the north, but we took the wrong turn somewhere, and ended up driving through Zion National Park. We drove north on I15 through St George and Hurricane. The park is in the southern part of Utah in the junction between the Colorado plateau, the Great Basin and the Mojave desert.

Zion National Park

After visiting Zion, we drove through Kanab towards the Grand Canyon.  The drive through the Mojave desert and around the Grand Canyon through the Kaibab National Forrest turned out to be amazing! There are endless stretches of semi dessert steppe and grassland plains.

Mojave dessert

We did not drive the old route 66, but we drove a similar route from Flagstaff to Amarillo following the I40, though Arizona, New Mexico and entering Texas.

We have passed through several of the route 66 cities including Barstow, Flagstaff, Holbrook and Albuquerque.

Barstow

Driving from Las Vegas to Kanab

San Francisco and Yosemite

After three days in Napa Valley, we drove back to San Fransisco and stayed for three days.

We spent the days walking around the city:)

We would have liked to stay for a couple of more days, but we have a lot of driving ahead of us. We have decided to go east from San Francisco through Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Albuquerque, south through Texas and then east again to Mississippi. First stop on the way: Yosemite National Park.

We visited the National Park, and stopped by the giant Sequoias. The Sequoias are big, but there have been fewer of these giants over the past century as we have become more sufficient in putting out wild fires. The wild fires suppressed other vegetation, while the Sequoias endured the flames. There were however a large wild fire in the immediate proximity of the Yosemite valley last fall, which was evident from the miles and miles of burned down forrest we passed along the way.