Lisa
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Christmas Eve in Alamogordo
Pecan Harvest/Cell Tower Tree We passed several pecan orchards on our way to Alamogordo, New Mexico. The harvesters have circulating brushes that sweep up the pecans on the ground and create small dust clouds that are visible from a distance. A quick Google search told us the NM is the number one state for growing…
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Enchantment Vineyards, Portales, NM
Harvest Hosts provided a wonderful spot for our first night in New Mexico. Enchantment Vineyards has several menu items to go with their wine and beer selections. We enjoyed a goat cheese with berries and honey glaze appetizer and a red pepper bisque in a bread bowl to go with our drinks. We would highly…
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More Canyon Hiking
We went on a couple of more hikes on our second day at Palo Duro State Park. The Big Cave is a featured spot on the trail map. It’s really a percolation cave where water has found a way through softer rock, so there is a hole in the cave roof. We accessed this from…
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The Icon of Palo Duro
With just one short hike under our belts for this trip, we decided to tackle a big one here in Palo Duro Canyon — the Lighthouse. This is a beloved rock formation that is featured on their maps and is used to symbolize the park. The hike is a moderate one until the end when…
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Palo Duro Canyon
This morning we took a three-hour drive south of Liberal, Kansas. It was another windy day, but driving was great when heading due south with a tailwind. The roadside grasses were full of cotton pieces from the cotton harvest as we crossed the Oklahoma panhandle into Texas. The terrain in Texas changes into scrubby hills…
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Iowa at Last and American Gothic
We arrived back in Iowa today after nearly 4 weeks of travel. The strong winds that wore us out driving through Missouri subsided and we were able to stay away from the major highways as we made our way through the Iowa countryside. American Gothic After studying in France, Grant Wood came home to paint…
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The Missouri Drive
Not much to blog about for this day since it was primarily a driving day through Missouri as we make our way home. Driving proved tiring for both of us as we battled a strong wind from the west for the 4-hour trip. We stopped for lunch and a stroll at Indian Camp Creek Park…
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Leaving Memphis
I had one more spot in Memphis on my list that we had time to see this morning before leaving Tennessee. National Civil Rights Museum On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot while standing on a balcony outside of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. This motel has been…
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Memphis Riverwalk & Graceland
The Riverwalk on Mud Island Memphis has a park on Mud Island in the Mississippi River that has a scale model of the Lower Mississippi that is a half-mile long. The horizontal scale is 30 inches to the mile and the vertical is one inch to eight feet. This is a most impressive sculpture with…
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Nashville to Natchez Trace
What made us think that Saturday morning would be a nice, quiet time to visit Centennial Park in Nashville? This park, near downtown, had adult intramural soccer games, bikers, joggers, tailgaters (for the nearby Tennessee/LSU football game), and tourists all milling around. We found a spot to safely park where we could easily get back…