December 17, 2006

Running with the Big Rigs

3,290 miles from NH to AZ


The beads were packed
and I left NH
on November 27, 2006.


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This trip I was fortunate to have a co-driver. Bob had never been to some of the Western states and having someone else split the driving allowed me do some sight seeing of my own.





We headed directly south to escape any bad weather that might crop up in the East. This year there was no snow storms to delay the beginning of the trip - only some rain.

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We made a side trip to Gettysburg and spent some time looking around. It was an erie feeling of history, walking through all of the monuments, markers and head stones.


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I had an invite to stay with a beader in Jonesborough TN that I'd never met before. What a wonderful community of people the beaders on the Internet are! We were greeted with great Southern hospitality by Vivian & Bill. Vivian is a great cook and no one goes away from her table hungry. She & I talked beads and bead crochet and we all made some wonderful new friends.
We spent only a night in Memphis with Mel & Mark and their furry companions. In the morning we collected a new beader, Libby, and all of us caravaned across the Mississippi to Gilmer Texas and a bead cave, "The Gilmer Getaway" at Marcie's house. More on the bead cave doings in a later post. We spent several days in Gilmer while I beaded with my friends and Bob took a side trip to LA, a state he'd never visited before.

This year we broke the bead cave rule of "no men allowed". Dave and Bob suffered through several days with six crazy beading women, some wild conversations and much hysterical laughter.

As usual, the shared cooking produced memorable meals.

Leaving Gilmer TX, we headed out across the rest of the state. Two days of West Texas is..... well, just miles and miles of more of the same.......

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........ now who's confused?

We knew where we were going......



A side trip to Truth or Consequences NM gave me an insight into one of life's great pleasures - Hot Springs! We didn't know they were there and we took the opportunity to take a soak in one of the funky local bath houses. Heaven is buoyant, 109 degree water. I didn't want to get out and do more driving.


When we left T or C we continued through New Mexico on secondary roads and drove through the Gila National Forest - what beautiful views from above the snow line on roads that twisted back and forth on themselves. I'm sure glad I wasn't driving and could just look out over the scenery.

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We got into Tombstone Arizona late on December 6th, left everything in the car and put our feet up - glad that all of that driving was over for a short while. The next day the beads went into their winter home, I re-stocked the pantry and we enjoyed relaxing on my back porch.


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I'm suffering with a dial-up connection here in my Winter Studio and will continue later with photos and comments on the bead cave and the whirlwind Arizona sight seeing tour I gave Bob before he returned to New Hampshire.

2 comments:

  1. Glad to see you made it safe and sound! And it looks like the two of you survived the traveling together as well. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:59 PM

    What great fun! I envy your yearly ritual.

    ReplyDelete