Chickens to Ice Caves

by Diana McCollum

I have traveled to many different places inside our borders and out. This year our big trip will be the Mexican Riviera. Our grandson is getting married in Puerto Vallarta. I’ve never been to Mexico and we will be traveling with 37 family and friends of the bride and groom. We’ll be staying for a week. My daughter has booked a boat excursion to an outlying island for one day. Not sure what else we’ll be doing, besides enjoying good food, snorkeling and catching up with friends.  

 

I have two memorable trips that we have taken in the past. Number one is the visit to our nation’s capital when my son was in the Marine Corps and stationed in WA, DC. We stayed with my son and his marine corps roommates in their rented town house. Everywhere we went we had one or two marines with us. Usually my son for sure. 

 

They took us to restaurants that the locals went to, to little bars for music and where one of my son’s friends was asked to play the piano. It was awesome. When my husband and I were on our own we’d walk the mile from the town house to the museums. The town houses all had little front yards with beautiful wrought iron fences. The architecture was old and beautiful. Front yards full of flowers and everyone we passed would say good morning to us.

 

Then there is the Capital, and the mall, and all the museums! Made me proud to be an American. I remember we sat on a bench on the mall and workers from the capital and offices did their walks at lunch time in office clothes and suits and tennis shoes. The air seemed to vibrate with action, knowing in the building’s around us bills were being debated, sent to committees, researched and maybe one day impacting our lives. The hub of American Democracy. 

 

The second favorite trip was through Arizona and New Mexico. We took many side roads rather than the highways.

 

In New Mexico we pulled over at a small shopping center parking lot to look at our map. In the far corner of the lot was a station wagon with a crowd of a dozen people or so. We walked over to see what was going on.

 

The man who owned the station wagon had cages with chickens in, giant Iguana on his roof top and snakes, ugh. His wife walked around with a boa  around her arms. All these animals were for sale. People were bidding on the live chickens and roosters.

Somewhere in NM we went over a 5,000 ft pass and it was snowing in the summer time!

We saw a collapsed lave tube with stairs, about 20, down to a solid ice cap. The owner said it never melts and the college said it was over 10,000 years old.

 

The museum in Albuquerque, NM, was well worth stopping for and we spent several hours in there. Then on to old town, and fantastic food.

 

We saw the Grand Canyon on this trip also. And Sedona, AZ, beautiful place and as the motel sign said “101 things to see in the area”, I think we saw most of them. Lots of Indian cliff structures, Montezuma’s well, etc.

 

In Arizona we found a state park, no trees just rocks, hills and hiking trails. The sign at the parks entrance  said “You may take only ten lbs. of rocks from this park”, never heard of such a thing. It seemed kind of off. We did fill our backpack with some pretty rocks though.

 

We’ve always tried to find to off the beaten path restaurants and sights to see.

 

Do you plan your trips ahead or just head in the direction of your ultimate goal?