Lions and Tigers But No Bears, oh my - the trip home

We headed down I-15 to SanDiego, stopping in Oceanside along the way to gas up and to use the bathroom - of course they didn't have a bathroom at the gas station so I had to sneak into KFC. We decided to pass on Legoland because we had taken a longer breakfast in LA with Richard (to play our fourth game that weekend of Settlers of Cataan, everyone's favorite dork gathering game). Our other little disappointment was that Susan who we were heading to stay with had come down with Bronchitis, so we could stay with her but she wasn't going to be able to hang out at all. We ate that night at a local mexican restaurant, which was okay, and then saw THE CONSTANT GARDENER, which I'll review next week, but in short it's pretty good with some flaws, a B, maybe B+.

THe next day, Colin ate 8 eggo waffles... that's right, 8. I had two and some fruit. I just point that out for later. THen we went to the San Diego Wildlife Park, which is really something. We started with this hour long train ride around the park with a tour guide who seemed to know absolutely everything. Highlights include baby elephants, two rhinos who seemed to think they were in a production of THE FANTASTICS, and learning about bachelor herds (when one male has taken control of the females, the other males have to band together for support). We walked around and saw canadian condors, which are really fricking ugly! After visiting lions and tigers I realized that this zoo had no bears. Colin says its cause the emphasis was on africa and asia but how can you have a zoo without bears. I guess they might at the main zoo, but I like bears. I adopted one at saveourbears.org. Then we had lunch. Colin's lunch was chilli cheese fries. THat's it. He said he wasn't really hungry, I wonder why. After visiting the lemurs (and reminiscing about the movie Madgascar) and the meerkats, we were back on the road. Well, for a moment. COlin spent the rest of the day with food poisoning. He thinks the chilli maybe wasn't kept warm enough... who knows. But I had to do a good deal of driving from there on.

The only highlight of the drive was going up into the mountians 4000 feet and then back down to sea level in a matter of a few miles. We stayed in Tucson at a Ramada, the nicest hotel of the trip. The next day we headed out to the San Xavier Del Bac Mission, the best preserved mission in the southwest. It was unfortunately receiving an outer restoration but inside was amazing... It had one of the those creepy life size wooden statues with clothing that people pinned their prayers to... a little on the pagan side I think for most religions but hey, whatever makes the people happy, right? Up a hill nearby they was a grotto where they had been a 'visitation' in the past. We rode out of Tucson and east, because Colin refused to go to the Biosphere, which I was really excited about... but oh well.

And Rolled into Tombstone. WHich is a great little tourist site, lots of small shops and little museums without being out of control tacky. There is also a bit of charm in the fact that the city most important landmark, the OK Corral, looks like it hasn;t received a tourism makover since 1955. The 'historama' features narration by Vincent Price' and a rotation animatronic mountain full of figurines that play out the storied past of the town. The other facet of the OK Corral is a full scale reenactment which is actually not done on the location of the the original shootout, but a hundred feet away on a little stage with a fake city backdrop... can't really explain that one. On the location of the actual shootout there are 4 ft tall anamatronic figures that lift and point guns to a prerecorded soundtrack. We ate at Big Nose Kate's Saloon, the location of the hotel (and Brothel) owned by Doc Holliday's girlfriend. We ate pizza (which was not, fortunately, the frozen variety of the tombstone name) and were served by a 'buxom' lass dressed up ... well... I think they were taking the brothel heritage into the present business. There was also this great singer/guitarist who sang Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and had to get up in the middle of his set because they were going to town his car.

The final stop of the day, and really of the trip, was THE THING IN THE DESSERT, this crazy tacky idea to get people off the expressway into a gas station. Basically, about 20 miles before the exit, we ware bombarded with billboards, one every 500 feet or so, advertising THE THING, with sayings such as 'you don't know who you are until you are faced with the thing" and also advertising the gas station gift shop and Dairy Queen. Anyway. you pay your dollar and head back through a series of metal storage sheds, each filled with a variety of interesting items, including classic cars, wood sculptures and full size diarama of a torture chamber... you certainly get your dollars worth just out of the strangeness of it all, and the capitalistic brilliance of creating the elaborate non-attraction just to get people off the road. Anyway, in the final storage shed is the THING. And it is pretty non-impressive. And not really worth a dollar. But the whole experience is. I don't feel I should reveal what the thing is... if you are ever near the arizona/new mexico border on I-10 you should check it out.

Anyway, we stayed the night in Las Cruces and at this great local Tex-Mex place LA POSTA, which was originally a boarding stop for the wells fargo wargo and pony express and other such entities. It's been serving food since 1939 and was writtin up in Life Magazine in 1957 as one of the 50 restaurants in the country you should visit on a driving tour of america. Needless to say, it was good. And had something that was close to Queso, which at this point I am missing like crazy.

The next day we drove back to austin, El Paso has got to be the largest city in America in terms of land area, the exits 17 to 38 were all El Paso. At exit 477 we finally turned off I-10, man Texas is big, and headed through Fredericksburg and Johnson City, back to my baby in Austin. Hey, don't drive around Texas for fun. Just some advice.

Anyway, here's the final tally:
Total Mileage: 4030
States Visited: 7
State Peed by the side of the Road in: 7
Best Hotel: Ramada Limited, Tucson
Worst Hotel: Octillo Inn, Carlsbad
Best Food: The Italian Restaraunt in Marina Del Ray
Worst Food: Ft. Stockton
Most Impressive Natural Site: Grand Canyon (duh)
Least Impressive Natural Site: Four Corners
Most Impressive Manmade Site: The Strip in Vegas
Least Impressive: The Thing in the Desert (duh)
Most Heard Song: Sloop John B, the Beach Boys
Casualites of the Drive: Colin's watch (somewhere in Tucson), Rick's bottle of face wash (Susan's House), Rick's Watch (Richard's house), Colin's Sunglasses (broke while on his face), The shampoo we took from the Stratosphere Hotel (also at Susan's)
Total Expenditure on Gas: $571
Cost per mile traveled: approximately 14 cents