Drives of a Lifetime!
If you have any interest in traveling, please bookmark the National Geographic Traveler Drives of a Lifetime web page, then start saving your pennies and your vacation days and make plans to visit as many of these as possible.

My friend, Linda mentioned the list to me the other day and I couldn't wait to get home and check it out. Terry and I have subscribed to NG Traveler since the very first magazine was published. It's one that we save and refer to over and over again. An absolute wealth of information! Even if you've never seen it, you can imagine the quality, since it comes from the same publisher as its wonderful yellow-trimmed predecessor National Geographic magazine.

So, now that we've established the quality of the resource, let's take a peek at the list of 50 drives that NGT considers "not to be missed". Since you can obviously read the list for yourself, I'll just highlight a few of the drives that we've had the privilege of enjoying to give you my personal perspective.

British Columbia Drive - (pictured above) Terry and I have covered a fair amount of this drive and would definitely rate it in our top 10. Whistler and Victoria were a couple of the highlights of our trip. We would jump at the chance to return again to the beauty of this area.

Hallowed Ground Virginia - Another area where we've experienced portions of the drive described. I would say that Gettysburg was the highlight of our time in that area. Even if you're not a history buff, this is an amazing place to relive a pivotal point in our nation's history.

Hana Highway - We were thrilled to be able to visit this location just last December and the photo in my header was taken on our helicopter ride of that very highway. It's a gorgeous, lush green slice of Maui with amazing Rainbow Eucalyptus trees, wild roosters and so much more. Here's a link to my post about our Hana Highway trip, although in looking at it again, it really doesn't do it justice at all. Maybe I'll go back sometime and post more pics and details.

Mount Hood, Oregon - We've enjoyed bits and pieces of this drive and can confirm that there is some beautiful countryside to be seen. Even if you only have a small slice of your day, Multnomah Falls (shown here) is well worth a visit any time of year. Here's a link to my post about the time we spent in that area.

New Old West Arizona - Of the places we've visited on this drive, I would say that Bisbee is definitely worth the trip. This eclectic little town is a wonderful variety of history, art, and fun. I was going to link to my post about our visit there in December a few years ago, but I can't believe that I didn't post any pics of the town itself and I have some really fun ones. I'm realizing that my best intentions of posting are often thwarted by the reality of life and limits of time.

Personally, I'd pass on Tombstone, since it's quite touristy, but it all depends on what you're looking for. Kartchner Caverns has been high on our list of places to visit since we moved back to AZ, so someday we'll get there, I'm sure.

O.k., so I've listed 5 of the 50 drives. In looking at the list there are at least 5 more that we've been able to travel, so I'll save those for another day. What a blessing to be able to see so much of God's awesome creation! I look forward to checking a few more of these off our list in the coming years as well. Do you want to come along? We're always looking for traveling companions to enjoy the journey with us.

Scenic Photos from Vacation

I am slowly but surely getting thru my photos from vacation and will continue to post about the activities and people that we shared our time with. I was working on putting together some scenery slides for another purpose, so thought I'd share those with you now.

There aren't any people in these shots, so if that's what you're looking for you'll need to wait a little longer. Hopefully you'll enjoy these for the simple beauty of God's creation, which is absolutely amazing.

Enjoy!

Arches National Park - Day 1 - Part 2


We arrived at Arches between 4:30 and 5:00 pm and for some reason we thought that sunset was going to be around 6:30. Because of that we felt a bit rushed trying to get thru as much of the park as possible before it got too dark to see anything.

Needless to say, we rushed around to see all the sights but didn't take time to hike to any of the arches or follow many of the trails except the one that got us a little closer to Delicate Arch. When it got to be around 6:30 we realized that it wasn't anywhere close to sunset. It turned out that the sun didn't set until about 8 pm. That was good news! We still had more time.

As I look at these photos I realize that we ran the gamut of weather during the short time we were there. Blue skies, then a bit of clouds, darker sky, black sky, rain, rainbows, then it all cleared up again. This last photo below was taken near the end of the day, just before sunset.

This is definitely a place where we would like to return again, since we didn't have time to really investigate the heart and soul of the park.

So, not much narration on this one. I think the photos speak for themselves in revealing the amazing beauty of Gods' creation! I hope you enjoy them.

Glimpses of the Southwest...Day 1 (part 1)

I can't believe it's already Day 3 of our vacation and I haven't posted anything yet. I guess when you see what we've been doing, you'll forgive the delay. We've been busy! Since we covered so much ground on day 1, I'll split it into two posts so as not to overwhelm you.

As mentioned in my previous post, we left the house on Friday morning. I mentioned that we were aiming for 8 am, but later Terry said he'd like to leave earlier, so we were actually targeting 6 am. No problem for me since he usually drives and I can sleep as soon as I get in the car if I need to. In reality after picking up our Starbucks treat for the road and topping off the gas tank, we crossed out of the city limits probably more like 7 am. Not a bad start to the day...it was a long day.

Since I'm sure you don't want a blow by blow account of our 560+ mile drive (on day 1), I'll just give you some glimpses into the highlights of the trip.

Tuba City, AZ - Have you ever heard of Tuba City? I'm guessing that most people haven't. It's part of the Navajo Nation in northeastern AZ. A small town of about 8000 people, and for our household, their biggest claim to fame is the fact that their High School Cross Country Team "kicked the butts" or more acurately "totally dominated" Terry's little Bourgade Catholic High School Team (and many others for that matter) at the Arizona State Cross Country meets. If you look at the high school link above, you'll see just how many times the boys' team has won the State Championship. 19 times since 1970! Quite impressive, I must say! I guess there's not much more to do in Tuba City.

After driving thru the town that brought back so many unfortunate memories for Terry, we were once again in the open desert. Unfortunately, there were road crews working on the highway and we ended up stuck in the middle of a traffic stop for at least half an hour! Yuch! So what did I do? Opened up the sun roof, stood on the seat and took pictures, of course. I didn't want to get out of the car in case traffic started up and I would be stranded in the desert forever.

When we were finally back in motion, we had the privilege of witnessing a summer storm cross right in front of us in the distance. The haze on the right side of this photo is rain. Note the blue sky on the left. Very cool! Lovin' the raindrops kissing the windshield with the blue sky in the background.

Whenever we drive thru the southwest, I'm always in awe of the wide open spaces that are virtually unchanged after hundreds of years. Can you imagine real estate prices around here? I'm not sure I could live in some of these areas, but others are quite gorgeous and welcoming. Talk about a slower pace than the big city...do you think you could handle it?

At 2:30 or so, we came upon a tiny little place called Mexican Hat, Utah - kind of a fun name for a funky town of less than 100 people right on the San Juan river. Here's the town's namesake - THE Mexican Hat rock formation. Can't you just see the little guy peeking out from under the sombrero? Pretty sweet, huh!

And even though we didn't have time to drive thru Monument Valley, we saw some beautiful rock formations all along the drive. In fact, just around the next curve we saw a little known, but equally interesting formation called "Charlie Brown's Shirt" Mountain. Click to enlarge and see the zigzag striations in the rock. (Actually Terry named this formation so you might not find it when you look it up.)

About two and a half hours later we were almost to Arches National Park and came upon this awesome site called Wilson Arch right beside the highway. If you enlarge the photo you'll see the people standing inside the arch. Unfortunately, we were running out of daylight (we thought) so didn't have time to climb up there ourselves. We wanted to get to Arches NP, so just snapped a few pics and moved on.

We'll call this the end to part one, since we covered a lot more ground pictorially in the park. Check back for those tomorrow...still Day 1 - wow!