Painted Desert

July 6th 2009.

We drove not too much longer before we got to Arizona. We were to stop for the night at a campground and then continue on to the Grand Canyon the next day. Before we actually got to the campground however we had a small stop to make. The painted desert and the petrified forest. Of course when we got to the National Park that held these two, we found out we only had an hour to go through the 45min drive of the Park. Needless to say we saw a lot of painted desert and only looks out our window of the petrified forest. It was still neat though and I got to take some pictures, at least, of the painted desert and some dwellings
that were also nearby. Later, when we returned to the campground we decided we would go to this rather large shop we had seen early the next morning before we actually left. It sold pieces of petrified wood and other minerals and stones found around the area and also within Arizona.

My Vacation -- Continued

So I left you off at July 3rd, my first day on the road and my last day at camp. Don't worry. It's only boring for the first couple of days.

July 4rth, 2009

We woke up. We got dressed. We hit the road for another 12 hours. We'd wake up at eight and usually not hit a campsite until eight at night. Oh, forgot to mention. My family has a camper, pull-behind. Pretty roomy. Wildcat written across the side with vinyl lettering. Makes it easier that a tent to camp and makes it cheaper than a hotel. Plus we could usually count on being able to find a campground close by and not even have to make reservations to get a spot to pull into for the night. Of course if today hadn't been July 4rth nothing that exciting would have happened. As it were we had only just made it into Arkansas. We started heading towards the campground we had called somewhat earlier on that day, and we were really tempted to turn around. The area we were going through seemed really run-down and empty. We finally came to some train tracks and my mother said, "Maybe we were on the wrong side of the tracks" with a short chuckle. However as we kept moving forward it seemed she had been right. The following area seemed more industrial. Eventually we reached the campground, and the place turned out to be alright. Though rather sparse on any plant-life taller than grass, it was right up next to the Mississippi river on the Arkansas side of course. We could actually see Memphis, Tennessee on the other side. What was cool was that we got to watch the 'tiny' (From our perspective anyway) fireworks that were going off in Memphis. Made for an interesting 4rth of July anyway.

July 5th, 2009

Next day really wasn't all that exciting. We drove across America for another 10 hours, and ended up in the panhandle of Texas. We ended up driving on part of the old route sixty six to get to the campground. What we lucked out on, was the town we had to drive through was actually one of however many that the movie cars was based on. Even cooler was that the Flo's cafe in the movie was based on a specific building in this town. My mother got pictures of it but I don't have them on my computer yet. I'll try to post them up later, or simply edit this post to include them.

Back from Vacation

I only just arrived back from a vacation across the states. From Virginia where I live to L.A. California. Of course we made stops along the way and the entire trip took about two to three weeks. Weeks that I'm going to backtrack on and fill you in on before I start blogging to you about the more mundane things that go on in my life. Not that that can't be interesting either.

We left on July 3rd.

No wait I need to backtrack more than that.

June 29th 2009.

I left for camp. Spent a week there. Wasn't very exciting to say the least. 4-H camp. I'm a counselor there. Had to take care of a room of seven girls. Except six of them came from the same county and knew each other, the seventh did not. She dressed kind of darkly. You'd have thought she was an emo if not for the rest of her friends. She moved out before the second night we'd slept. Or at least, they moved her to a room with her friends. Of course her friends had to keep torturing me and my room. They always seemed to want to pester us and ask my girls if they were glad that the other girl was gone. Unfortunately that wasn't all that happened. Later in the week on of the six girl I had left ended up moving to another room as well. Seems there had been some kind of misunderstanding between her and the rest of the girls in my room. Not that I had been around when it happened. Oh no it happened during the kind of free time we get during the middle of the day.

July 3rd, 2009.

Anyway that nightmare ended on Friday July the 3rd when I got to go home. Or at least go home for five minutes without sleeping in my own bed even one night before being dragged back into a car and out on the road for our first long, long day of travel towards the Grand Canyon in Arizona our main goal for the trip as a whole. Both me and my brother fell asleep in the car for a little while that first day. That night we stayed somewhere in Tennessee as I recall. It might seem like we didn't get far, but believe me Tennessee is a REALLY long state. It took us half the next day to get out of it.