In The Beginning There Was The Van
This is a scan of a pencil sketch I did of the travel vehicle. Other than making martinis, it was the one creative thing I did on the road. The vehicle, a 1999 Sportsmobile 4WD pop-top camper van, worked out great. It's a heavy-duty long-bed Ford with a V-10 engine and Quigley 4WD conversion. It has plenty of room in which to move around when the top is popped and plenty of power to haul all Lorri's stuff around. If you want to see more of the van click here. also, Sportsmobile has a great web site at www.sportsmobile.com.
We started from San Diego and headed up through the desert toward the lovely town of Topock, AZ, where Lorri's sister lives. Here's a photo of us on their front porch. Terri has become famous for being the first person to use gold spray-painted cow pies as decorative wall hangings. "They're like finger prints; no two are the same!"
That's me, Ted, Terri and Lorri.
Next we went to Laughlin, NV, for a couple nights of R&R. (After all, we had been on the road for 5 or 6 hours already.) This was our first trip to Laughlin which is a small gambling Mecca in the southern tip of Nevada on the west side of the Colorado River. As we headed back into Arizona, I took this photo out the van window looking back toward the casinos along "the river". By the way, for you folks back east, when ever anyone from SoCal refers to "the river", they mean the Colorado River, which by back east standards is a poor excuse for a river but out here, it's the only water course that actually usually has water in it most of the time.
Beautiful Downtown Laughlin, NV
Leaving Laughlin, we cut over to I-40 and started barreling toward Arkansas. I-40 goes through Flagstaff and a bunch of other towns that all sprung up in the 1880's when the railroad came through. A little later US Route 66 came through and then I-40 which somehow turned Rte 66 into a major tourist attraction. Most of the towns along I-40 have preserved sections of 66 in order to have places for souvenir shops, McDonald's, Jiffy Lubes, and other such icons of American roadside culture. Below is a photo taken in Seligman (I think) of Lorri and an old Edsel. Actually I think the Edsel and Lorri are about the same age but of course Lorri looks MUCH younger.
Lorri Does Route 66
The first place we actually camped (if you call what we do camping) was Homolovi Ruins State Park, somewhere near Winslow, AZ. This was wide open, fairly new (1993) facility built around some Anasazi ruins. It got Lorri's highest rating (5 out of 5) for restroom facilities and cleanliness. Here is a photo of our campsite. As you can see, it was not very crowded and this photo must have been taken early in the afternoon as no martinis are visible on the picnic table yet.
Our First Campsite on The Trip
heading east through New Mexico, we stayed at a couple NM State Parks, Red Rock and Santa Rosa, and stopped by Old Town Albuquerque for a bison burger and a beer. Lorri decided that Old Town Albuquerque was a lot better than Old Town San Diego because of the abundance and variety of shops. I captured Lorri posing demurely on a street corner there. Check the tongue action.
Lorri on a Street Corner
Our next highlight was The Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, TX, where a series of Cadillacs have miraculously grown up out of the prairie. I'll let these photo speak for themselves.
The Ranch, Jack adds to graffiti, L&J posing
We spent a night in a hotel in Amarillo to get ready for the next phase of the trip. The next day we were off through OK and headed into ARKANSAS, home of Bill Clinton, and proud of it! You may now proceed to the next page....