I'd had an itch to go on a long road for several months before this trip, so when my 10 day camping trip plans fell through I jumped at the chance to tour the southwest. I spent about two weeks browsing the area using Google Earth. There's an excellent layer you can enable called "Panoramio". People upload photos taken from locations on the planet, then they show up on the map as blue dots. You click on the dot, and you can see what they saw. So I looked for clusters of blue dots, assuming that it was a popular spot. So I charted out some possible routes, even going all the way to Colorado to ski. About five days before leaving, I decided to reverse the route and go to Mexico for a day as well. The whole trip was loosely planned, more of a "to do" list rather than a set itinerary. There were no hotel reservations, no planned meetings. The only sticky points were who was open on christmas day. I'm not christian, so traveling on christmas ended up being a great idea, the roads were empty! In the end the trip took 10 days and just over 2,000 miles.
- Day 1 - Home, Salton Sea, Yuma Proving Grounds
- Day 2 - Pit Mine, Mexico, Kitt Peak at night
- Day 3 - Kitt Peak, Brake Problem
- Day 4 - Titan II Silo, Tombstone, Bisbee, Coronado dirt road, Stars
- Day 5 - Pima Museum, Titan II Museum
- Day 6 - Pit Mine, Colossal Cave, Biosphere 2, Pit Mine at night
- Day 7 - Arcosanti, Montezuma's Castle & Well, Tuzigoot, Sedona, Lowell Observatory
- Day 8 - Grand Canyon, Dinosaur Prints, Coal Mine
- Day 9 - Monument Valley, Mexican Hat, Gooseneck Canyon, Mokee Dugway, Four Corners
- Day 10 - Drive home, Summary
Also check out the Titan II Missile Site Comparison page.
|
