Santa Fe to Vegas - Textbook Scenery

Day 4 - 615 miles - December 30, 2011
Left Santa Fe at 9am, Arrived in Vegas at 9:30pm
Conditions: Sunny, 44 degrees when we left, got up to 60 degrees


Once again Michelle started the drive.  We were able to see a lot more of the landscape of New Mexico in the daylight.  It was a little like going back in time.  The things we learned in elementary school about Pueblos, houses made of Adobe, came right back to us.  It was exciting to see them in person out of textbooks.  It made for a neat drive out of town.

The scenery along this part of the trip was my favorite.  It felt like we were in an earlier time period and it opened our eyes to the fact that people in our own country still do live these lifestyles.  The pictures do not do it justice, especially from my cheapo camera and taking them through the car window's glass.

You don't see this along the PA turnpike.

Driving through big boulders

This is very hard to see, but it is a colorful boxcar train.  We saw a few of these that would cut through the landscape and looked like toys.

More New Mexican Landscape

Tee Pee stores along the highway.  N.B.D.

Can you imagine going to your shopping plaza with that background?

Horrible picture of sign welcoming us to Arizona!

The landscape of Arizona went from beautiful red rock mountains to flat desert.  I forgot to mention that we had toyed with the notion of visiting the Four Corners, the only place in the US that you can be in 4 states at one time - New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado.  It is close to nothing else and would add hours to our drive, so we ultimately decided not to do it. Our next stop for lunch was planned for Flagstaff, AZ.  No, we didn't get to the Grand Canyon either, but Michelle has already done that trip and I would want to make a whole day of it.


Flagstaff was a neat little town with people bustling down the streets.  Mostly everyone was dressed in preppy clothes and a puffy vest.  Then there were a couple people wearing ugly sweaters from 1981 or tube top sundresses, not sure of the decade or the temperature.  As you can see from the photos, it was sunny, but chilly.  The mountains that surround the town have snow covered peaks.

Flagstaff with mountains in the way back

In front of the historic Weatherford Hotel, across from the restaurant where we ate.  They drop a pine cone at midnight on New Year's and the clock below shows the countdown.  There were 32 hours and 18 minutes left when we took this picture.  This street turns into a mini Times Square - click here to see!

We had lunch at Monsoon on the Rim and Michelle asked our waiter to tell us some interesting facts about Flagstaff.  He told her they are famous for discovering Pluto in the Lowell Observatory right up the road.  On the way out we tried to visit the Observatory, but I was in the wrong lane and it was rush hour and I got directed off the path.  Oops.


We gained another hour in Arizona and are now on Mountain Time.  We left Flagstaff and were back to following the little nugget on Michelle's phone GPS.  We kept seeing signs for the elevation levels.  We were at 7,000 feet in Santa Fe and when we left Flagstaff we were around 3,000 feet.   Our ears would pop every now and then.


Eventually we made it to Nevada.  We saw another beautiful sunset into nightfall.  In Nevada you could see from the headlights on the curvy roads that we were driving through big gray rocked boulder things.  I could see this weird glow in the distance when we would drive through an area without the big rocks.  I said I bet you that glow is from the lights of Vegas.  We were at least 2 hours away still.  It got brighter and bigger as we got closer.  It was alien-like.  A subtle orange glow coming from a valley of the earth.  Amazing the energy it must take to light this city in the middle of the desert.


We made it to Vegas and saw not only the strip, but all of the casinos and hotels that aren't on the strip.  I have been to Vegas before, but this was definitely a whole new perspective.  I didn't realize how huge and expansive it really is.  We were not looking for the Vegas experience and found a cheap room at the La Quinta by the Las Vegas airport.  It was $89 per night and included breakfast.  It is also the company our new road friend Cory from PA was going to work for. We checked in and went right to bed.  I tried doing a blog post, but halfway through the internet stopped working and I lost everything.  So annoying.  In the morning we found there were more problems then just the internet. The sink would clog if you put the drain in, the shower would not drain and felt a little grimy, and the breakfast was standard, but packed and hot with a lot of weird and grimy people. We hardly ate, grabbed a banana each for the road, packed up and checked out.  Day 4 accomplished!