Last night when we finally crawled into bed, all the pillows and sheets smelled funny so I blamed the Wigwam. I'm a pillow ho, btw, for those that don't know. I normally sleep with a mountain o'pillows. Whenever I was pregnant, I'd be WORSE because I'd have my mountain plus body pillows on either side of me. Daddy Doc called it my "Great Wall of Pillows." So when we're on a driving trip, I bring my pillow, plus DD likes his own feather king pillow, and the little boys each brought their pillows to have in the car so that means we are hauling four pillows. (I think MG regrets not bringing his own. He tries to snatch mine in the car but I use it to keep the sun off my arms when we're driving.)
This morning before breakfast, we stripped all of our pillow covers and started another load of laundry (on top of the two we did last night.) After breakfast, I moved the laundry to the dryer and by the time we finished packing up the room, the laundry was dry. It was about 11 am when we finally pulled out of the hotel parking lot. There was a post office right across the street from our hotel so we dropped off three more postcards before we hit the road.
The drive south from Show Low was rather impressive. The White Mountains are beautiful. This was the first time that we've driven in the mountains that any of our children have complained of stomach aches, however. UH-OH. I had flashbacks to our Arizona vacation years ago - my sister and I got carsick and my parents ended up eating lunch at a drive-in restaurant (you know, the kind where they hang the tray on your car?) My parents refused to order lunch for us in case we'd get sick again. (Yeah, I remember that. Remember that one, Auntie Doc?)
DD pulled over so I could dig in the purple box for my box of ziplocks. I gave each boy a gallo-sized ziplock bag "Just In Case." MG said "But my stomach doesn't hurt!" I said "I don't care. We're pulled over NOW. We might not be able to pull over if you change your mind and need it later." This is one time when I wish I had Exceptional Mom Mary's car bucket. I need to put that kit together when we get home...
Daddy Doc slowed down the driving and we never did need to use the ziplocks, thank goodness.
Last Sunday, I put together a lovely musical prayer service with the iPod while we were driving through the mountains, so I pulled it out again. This time I took a short cut. Three of the songs from last week all came from the same album, Come and Journey with Me by David Haas et al. I just played that CD on shuffle and skipped the songs I didn't want to listen to. It wasn't as glorious as last week but it was nice.
When we got to Globe, we stopped for gas. $3.93 a gallon!!! NICE! The light wasn't on yet, but who CARES - it was under 4 bucks a gallon! We grabbed lunch at KFC. The choices were Tacko Bell, KFC, McDonalds or Jack in the Box. I wasn't in the mood for TackoBell but what other company is owned by Pepsico? That's right: KFC.
At this point we had two choices of paths: Through Tucson or through no-name lands. We chose Tucson for the chance to see Biosphere.
The good news is that the scenery was spectacular. The mountains north of Tucson were filled with saguaro cactus. They were amazing. It was so funny to see hills - mountains really, covered in "forests" of saguaro. It really messed around with our expectations are of a "desert." Mountains? Saguaros? Ok...
I know, these pictures need to have some 'post' work done to lighten/brighten them a bit...
We turned off of the road at Oracle because I'd remembered that Biosphere was outside of Oracle. There were no signs or clues so when the road looped back to the highway, we continued south. A short time later we saw a sign that said "Biosphere, 1/2 mile." OOPS. We took that turn and ended up in the Biosphere parking lot (eventually.)
Now last night we'd looked up the 411 on Biosphere. In order to get a tour, we'd have to be there at the right time (which was not listed on the website) and it would cost about 70 bucks for our family to tour. We had neither the time to hang out nor the desire to spend 70 bucks. We mostly wanted to see it from the outside so we could say to MG: "See, that's how big it is!"
It turns out that the geography of the land and the various buildings on the site make it impossible to see Biosphere from the outside, or the gift shop. When we asked about it at the desk, the lady told us that the next tour would be at 3:30 (it was 3:15) but she strongly suggested coming back in the morning because the 3:30 tour would be very hot and humid and if it should start to rain, the environment inside of Biosphere would be even MORE uncomfortable. When DD asked if we could just quickly look at it from the outside, she informed us that tour or no tour, just to LOOK at Biosphere would cost 70 bucks.
Uhm, No thank you.
So we took pictures of what we could see and left:
Unfortunately as we hit Tucson, there were a lot of stop signs - and apparently I-10 is under hideous construction. When we finally got to the freeway, we had to parallel it for several miles (of traffic signals) before we could get onto the freeway. Finally we were heading eastward on I-10. We arrived in Tombstone at about 5:30, with a light rain.
We checked into the hotel and had a room on the second floor. Now, it's not that we're too lazy to walk up and down stairs. I actually would welcome the opportunity for the workout. However, we have a lot of crap to haul in from the car. We've mastered using the ROLL-E to get our things in and out of our hotel rooms. In Chinle, they didn't have ROLL-E's but we were on a first floor room so we used the stroller to help with all the trips we made to bring our stuff in.
When I asked the clerk about an elevator he offered to look for a first floor room. I thanked him.
Our room is very nice - first floor, very close to parking, pool view, refrigerator. The bathroom is huge. The sink is in the bathroom but that's really not a big deal for our family. The counter is huge and so is the floor space. And the entire floor is Non-Smoking. But I think someone recently smoked in this room. Isn't it helpful that we bought Fabreeze in Holbrook??? We have the window open to air the room out a bit, too. I'm not going to ask for YET another room at this point.
Oh, the wifi doesn't work. I can't tell if it's the room or the hotel but the signal is really weak and inconsistent and wouldn't even let me connect online. Fortunately, when I went to the front desk (it was my third trip there, I'm not even kidding - second was 'Where should we eat for dinner...') he gave me a brand spanking new eithernet cable to wire-in.
When "J@AAA" and I planned out this vacation, I'd purposely picked one chain to "stick with" so that we could get "points." I'm very glad I picked Holiday Inn. I felt a bit like a traitor. I grew up a Best Western kid. We always stayed in BW's when we went on vacation - as much as we could anyway. But I've really felt better off with the Holiday Inns. Each one has had free internet access, mostly Wifi. We've been in places where the Best Westerns had "free internet access via computers in the lobby." Uhm, no thanks. Each Holiday Inn has had free hot breakfast - or at least Kids Eat Free. Not just muffins and juice. BW can't compete with that. And each one has had interior corridors - so if nothing else, it felt nicer. HI Expresses don't seem to have doors on their small closets but we don't really use closets so who cares? We have had plenty of room space for our duffle bags and we just leave the bathroom duffle in the bathroom. The HI's have cost about $10 to $20 more per-night, or about the same in some cases, as BW's - but the breakfasts and Internet convenience have been SO worth it!!
The desk clerk pointed us to "Historic Tombstone" for dinner. It seems we're the only 3-diamond hotel in town. The local restaurants give dining discounts to visitors who are actually staying IN town. Score! We looked at the two restaurants that the clerk recommended but only one of them had prime rib, so that's the one we chose. After no-Prime-Rib at El Tovar, Mr. Genius has been jonesing for another opportunity to order it!
The restaurant was ok. The waitress was very friendly but rather ditzy. She forgot DD and MG's salads until I reminded her, which was some time after we ordered dinner! CS almost fell asleep on my lap but we tried to keep him entertained enough to stay awake for his dinner. It worked! He'd ordered a hot dog and the thing was a foot-long Hebrew National. He asked me to cut it up for him - that boy ate the whole thing. I had pork ribs and DD had tenderloin. SBS had a cheeseburger (of course.)
CS stayed awake looking at my necklace. He even put it back on me:
He also used SBS's pickles and his bun to make a pickle sandwich (Why, yes, it IS a slow photo day...):
By the way, MG actually finished 90% of the Prime Rib. I commented that I was afraid of teenage-hood. He laughed and repeated it to the waitress. She told him: "If you can finish that Prime Rib NOW, I don't blame her. I'd be scared, too." Uh-oh.
Back at our hotel the pool was actually open. (It had been closed when we left, presumably for weather.) It was sprinkling lightly but they must not have been worried in the least about the weather. MG and SBS swam for a half an hour. CS refused to swim. He didn't like the lights in the pool.
Tomorrow we're going to tour the copper mines in Bisbee but we have to be back in Tombstone by 1 or 1:30 to see the Gun Fight at the OK Corral - it only happens once a day: At 2:00 pm.
Will we make it? Find out tomorrow night!
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2 comments:
The Biosphere! My Mom (the architectectual engineer) worked for the company that designed and built the spaceframe structure. I did secretarial work there one summer and I remember the HUGE pieces of spaceframe (the metal framework the boys posed with) they assembled to test the air seals. I would sit inside and eat my lunch in there sometimes. Very cool!
GREAT. I get a mention and it's because of a barf bucket. Oh well. Better to have it and not need it and need it and not have it...that's my thinking.
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