Southwest Roadtrip - Days 1& 2

The great road trip of 2011 started from Bay area on Friday afternoon. We drove 400 miles from home to Barstow in Southern CA where we spent the night. We did stop at Moos creamery in Bakersfield for dinner and some ice cream.

Day 2 started with a grand breakfast in Country Inn & Suites where we stayed. Very impressed with the variety in breakfast and the hotel in general, all in all a nice and comfortable stay. The lady at the counter was thrilled that we were driving to New Mexico and gave us some travel tips.We got ready and started around 10.30AM for a 10 hour drive to Albuquerque in New Mexico. For the most part, our route was through I-40E for about 650 miles and we got to experience different landscapes as we passed from California to Arizona to New Mexico.You can click on the photos for an enlarged view.


The route started with mountains on both sides, with little greenery, possibly because of the winter and the area being desert like in general. In a short time, we saw signs for Mojave national preserve. As much as I would have liked to visit the preserve we didn't want to lengthen our already long day, so had to leave Mojave for another weekend. One thing we didn't account for is the time change traveling from CA to AZ, we lost one hour as AZ is on mountain time.



After couple of more hours of driving, we entered Arizona with newly laid roads greeting us. An hour or so into Arizona, the landscape was changing slowly. We saw ranches, cows grazing, some greenery and then snow.. lots of snow.
We stopped at a small town called Kingman in AZ for a break and coffee. Even though it was a small town, it had a main street with all possible shops include couple of car dealers.


We passed Flagstaff and saw signs for Grand Canyon. Also, saw this beautiful mountain peak covered with snow. We stopped at a town called Winslow for Gas and were thrilled to see the gas price of $2.97/gallon, too good to pass. We also saw lot of bill boards and signs advertizing Native American arts and jewelry. The sun started to set around 6pm Mountain time. The sunset was beautiful with the sky turning into a shade of golden pink and the rays shining across the red rock mountains. I tried to take some photos from the car, but they don't do justice to the fast changing colors of the sky.


As we entered New Mexico, we saw more snow and ice on both sides. Luckily the roads were clear and the traffic was light as it was christmas eve, so we didn't have any big issues while driving. We could say we reached Albuquerque from a far distance, the city was widespread and well lit. We spent the last few miles of the trip picking a name for this blog :). We reached our destination around 10 and were excited when the receptionist at Sheraton upgraded our room and added free breakfast at no charge. Now, this is a perfect ending to an interesting day!