Change of address for the blog

Hello Everyone!!!
I am switching over from blogging to making a web site. The blog was way to frustrating, I couldn't add pictures the way I wanted to and there just wasn't enough freedom with the designing, so here is the new and improved super blog! Okay, its not so super, but it's way easier for me to use! Anyway, for better or worse, here it is:
http://travelingfishies.weebly.com/

I hope you like it! (I also added some pictures)

Day Two: Vermont to Pennsylvania

Well rested and in good spirits we hit the road with enthusiasm! We drove all morning and made our first stop at the Holyoke Mall in Mass where we were finally able to find a GoPro in stock. Then it took both of us tech/camera nerds an hour to set the thing up...OK, I (Kate) really took over the setting up of it, I was just too excited to relinquish it over to Nick! (How can a tiny camera with only 2 buttons be more complicated than my canon 20D?) But eventually it was set up and we were back on the road again.  We have a plan to record our whole trip using time laps photography, taking a picture every ten seconds looking out the front windshield, and then compiling them into a video at the end of the trip.
We pretty much drove straight through the rest of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, listening to the audio book Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins which is the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy. Its made the driving go by quite fast, it has been very enthralling so far.
When we hit the Pennsylvania boarder Nick asked me to look around the Harrisburg area for a place to stay, so using Nick's smart phone I searched for some local campgrounds, I found a few right in Harrisburg but the reviews said they were a bit loud so I tried looking a bit farther away from the city. I found one about 16 miles north west of the city that looked promising, it's located right on a river so it caters mostly to fishermen, but since its off season I figured it would be kind of quiet. I called the place to make sure they were open. The man I talked to said they were only partly open but we were welcome and to go ahead and make ourselves at home when we got there since it would probably be late. Sounds good.
Well, we continued on and got to Duncannon where the campground should be, drove through the little strip of a town that consisted of a truck stop, several gentleman's clubs and a gas station that served food. We bought ourselves a very "healthy" diner that I won't go into detail about, and went to find our accommodations for the night.
We drove back and forth where the entrance should have been, and finally found it on our third try. The aged sign surrounded by daffodils was a bit hard to spot. We started down the narrow dirt,, road and were greeted by run down trailers, decomposing boats, shed after dilapidated shed filled with deconstructed tractors, boats or just filled with junk. We then entered the camping area. We were greeted by lovely trees strung with electric cables and some were graced with old tires nailed to their trunks about 20 feet up.  We continued deeper into this strange place, saw a tent which made us feel a small bit more relaxed, we found a promising looking area near a picnic table and pulled in, or tried to, we weren't really sure where the road actually was. We got out stretched and began the debate on staying vs leaving. There were good arguments for both but we decided to give staying a shot. So we set up the tent and got ready for bed. Once in the tent we realize that the interstate is just on the other side of the river, an interstate that had a constant flow of semi trucks! We must not have noticed it through our preoccupation with the deliverance type setting we had just driven through. Oh well, we could deal with that: then came the train which ran just on the other side of the thin woods that was the campground. The trains ran every 15- 20 minutes all night long. Not long after the trains started the helicopters with spot lights began going over head. It was unbelievably loud, but we were al snugged up in bed and didn't really want to repack everything and go off to try to find a new place to stay, so we covered out heads and tried to sleep. It was on and off restfulness until first light; that's when the power boats) started. We just looked at each other and burst out laughing; how could it possibly have gotten any louder! We tried for sleep one last time and managed a little more rest until 7:30 when I decided that that was enough and we might as well start the day.

Day Nine: The Grand Canyon

We slept great after the hot tub, had a small complimentary breakfast (english muffins and doughnuts) and left Camp Verde. We made our way up over the hills to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and drove around a little bit, there were a lot of hiking trails that looked like they would be interesting hikes but we wanted to use the daylight we had for seeing the Canyon.
We entered the canyon from the south east corner and the first canyon we came to I think was called the Colorado Canyon but I'm not sure about that. It was incredible!   It was so huge and deep, we both found that we had focusing issues when looking across and down and there was a definite sense of vertigo when you looked down from the edge. after taking in the immensity of the place and a huge amount of pictures we wandered around and Nick found a lizard! I took a picture of it and then the search began, we forgot our mission to see the canyon and started hunting lizards, we found quite a few, Nick even touched one, no captures though. Eventually we decided we should move on, on our way back to the car we stopped to talk to a few locals who were selling hand made jewelry, pottery and dream catchers.
We then headed up the road to the grand canyon, we talked to the woman at the ticket booth for a long time about a season pass for the parks, if you had receipts from other parks you had gone to they would be deducted from the cost and we somehow managed to scrounge up the receipt from White Sands NM, we were both amazed that it was still hanging around all crumpled up on the passenger side floor. We decided since we were going to be on the west coast and it is still spring it was worth getting the pass and then we would be able to use it all summer in the local area or for weekend trips. Excited about our shiny new pass we headed into the park.
The beginning of the park road was in the woods, or at least the closest to woods that they had in that area, so when we the trees broke off and we came into view of the canyon, the Grand Canyon, we were speechless. It was incredible, beyond incredible. Nick and I have seen a lot of things in our lives, but neither of us had seen anything to compare to this. The sheer magnitude of it was overwhelming, then you add in the beauty and the natural strength and grace of it and its almost to much to absorb. We stopped at the first view point, where you could see up, down and across the canyon, there was a viewing area at the edge of the canyon and a tower that you climb up for a higher view of the canyon, not that you needed it! They had just had a snow storm in the area a few days before, so even though it was hot, there was still snow on the ground and around the edges of the canyon. We spent a long time there looking at the canyon and taking pictures of it. Though taking pictures of it was a bit sad since I knew that no matter how good of a picture I took it could never ever capture what I was looking at. I knew this because of the hundreds of pictures of the Grand Canyon I have seen in my life and not one of them, no matter how beautiful and well done, had left me with anything that came close to preparing me for what I was seeing in person.  We spent our time enjoying the views. Slowly working our way north, stopping at every opportunity to take in the canyon some more and to take more futile photographs. We have to admit though that it got overwhelming, you can only take in so much before it all starts to become a blur of beauty and vastness. We could have sat and stared at it for hours, unfortunately it was starting to get dark and we were getting tired. we made it to all but the last viewing area before it really got too dark to see, but that's just a good excuse to go back some day! We would also like to do some hiking down in the canyon sometime. If any of you who have not been to the Grand Canyon ever get the opportunity to go, take it! It is well worth the trip, and from what I've heard, the north rim is even more beautiful than the south rim, I guess that means we're going to have to take another trip! We can even hit Zion, Arches and Capitol Reef while we're there.
When we left the Grand Canyon it was full dark, we drove south until we got to Williams and stayed in an old 50's motor lodge. It was a very quaint place, they even had cabooses and train cars that you could stay in, though they were full and we couldn't afford to stay in one any way. Our room was small and a little rustic but in a good way, we really liked both the people and the place. It cooled down a lot in the night, it was quite chilly by the time we were going to out room, and by quite chilly I mean that it was below freezing :) At least we weren't trying to camp!

Day Eight: New Mexico to Arizona

We woke up happy and ready to go. We were both enjoying the area and would love to spend some time here in the future, maybe with the camper that we will own in the future! :) After a huge continental breakfast (bagels, cheese danishes, sausage breakfast sandwiches, waffles, apples and banana bread muffins) we headed strait for Arizona. I got super excited when we started seeing the saguaros, I have wanted to see them ever since I saw old slides of them from my parents adventures out west, they always seemed so magical to me.  they're such strange plants, no matter how many we saw I was still entranced by them. We stopped when we saw a sign for Colossal Cave (we both like caves) and took a look around. They had a tour that went through the cave every hour or so and we decided we might as well take it. It was a little cheesy, though that might just be because we are spoiled from our caving adventures in New Zealand where we got to go in a cave with head lamps and climbing gear and in another on our own where we could crawl and explore and get all dirty and muddy! This was more of a leisurely stroll through the cave on built in stairs and walkways, the most adventurous part of it was the low ceilings that you had to make sure not to hit your head on. It was fun any way, we liked the feeling of being deep underground in the heart of the mountain and it was neat to hear all the legends and stories of the cave. It was hotter in the cave than it was outside, I guess it stays around 70 in there most of the time. Once we emerged we walked around a bit and enjoyed the plant life. It's a lot of fun to see all the different plants, I wish we could have had a sheet of some sort that had pictures and names of all the plants, I would have liked to know what they all were. Then we headed back to the nearest town and drove around for way too long looking for a gas station and getting cranky with each other in the heat, but once we found one and bought a couple of hot dogs, things got better very quickly. Once well fed and supplied with a new gallon of water we left for Saguaro National Park, It was located on a smaller twisting road that wound through the low mountains, it was a really beautiful drive. We stopped at the park to check it out, there were cacti all over the hills, right up to the road. It was a little sad to leave behind the saguaro's but they petered out as we left Tuscon and went over the mountains to Phoenix. We stayed at a motel in northern Arizona that had a pool and a hot tub which the guy working there very kindly kept open for us so we could use it once we were settled. Which is exactly what we did. It was soooo nice to relax all our muscles and de-stress ourselves before bed.

Day Seven: New Mexico

We woke up cold and not very well rested but in good spirits and awake. We packed up the tent as quick as we could, though not quite as fast as we used to be when we were in New Zealand, I guess that means that we haven't been using it enough. :) Our neighbors were up and trying to stay warm around a tiny fire, unsuccessfully. We walked over to say hi, they were from Georgia and were on a road trip for spring break. there were four of them and were just as disappointed in Roswell as we were, they said they were expecting a small town also and that after exploring the area the previous day found nothing worth going to, so we figured it wasn't worth spending out time looking. We helped them take down their tent, they were all very impressed with the speed we had put up and taken down our tent, theirs was a bit harder, much larger and the wind had picked up so it was like a sail but we managed. We said our goodbyes and headed into town. We tried to get some salt water from the pet store for the fishies (their water level is getting a little low) but they didn't have any left. Then we went to the International House Of Pancakes for breakfast which was very good, Nick may have put himself into a slight food coma but he did come back to us.
Off to the highway again. We drove on a southern route towards Tuscon, AZ, We stopped at White Sands National Monument to check it out and ended up staying there all afternoon. It was one of the most spectacular places that I have ever been to. There is a huge area that is nothing but white sand dunes. We spent hours playing on them and taking photos. They are made of gypsum which erodes from the surrounding mountains and the wind blows it around and it all collects in this one area. It was a little like playing in the snow but it was warm! I would definitely like to go back there again some day. We took off our shoes and ran up the dunes and spent time running and jumping off the steep side of the dunes and exploring. It was neat once you got out in the dunes a little ways because you couldn't see any civilization; no roads, no cars, no houses, no people, just white sand for as far as you could see. When our feet finally got too cold we made out way back to the car and continued driving, we drove through the evening and into the night a little bit and then stopped just short of the AZ boarder. We didn't want to miss too much of the landscape by driving at night.  We were getting tired anyway so it seemed like a good time to stop. All in all a very satisfying and happy day in the desert.

Day Six: Oklahoma to New Mexico

Another long day in the car. In the morning we went to Fred's auto to get the escort checked out. They brought the car into the garage and put it up on the lift to check it out, we got to watch them from the waiting room. They took off the tires and the banging on the rear break drums, Nick was starting to get worried as the whole crew swarmed around his car. He was making up conversations that the crew might be saying about the car; none of it was good... when they came out to talk to us we were holding our breath, as it turned out we only got the tires balanced and rotated, they said that everything else looked fine.
Full of relief about the car we headed off down the strait long roads again. Oklahoma continued on flat and strait, Texas only offered cattle pens crowded to full awaiting nothing more than a short trip to the slaughter house. It definitely erased any cravings I might have had for a burger! New Mexico offered a little bit of a change of scenery, more shrubbery and cacti then the splotchy grass fields we had just left. Driving through these few states we began to notice that we were getting really bad gas mileage(went from 28-29mpg to 19-20mpg) and we had no idea why until we were talking to someone at a gas station and they mentioned the wind and told us that it wreaks havoc on gas mileage. and sure enough, once we stopped driving into the wind we went back to getting good mileage again. We did get to drive through a mild sandstorm thanks to all the wind, the red sand was blowing across the road in a bunch of different places. It was exciting to see even though I wouldn't want to bee in a big one.
We were excited to see Roswell, though neither of us are real alien buffs. I can't deny that I am a big X-Files fan but I never thought about visiting alien hot spots. We were However very disappointed when Roswell came into view. We had been thinking that it would be a smaller town; one with a meager population, a run down gas station and maybe a funky old diner that served E.T. shakes and alien burgers. Instead we saw sprawling lights that stretched for miles. Once we reached the city that's all we found; a city. Same as any city we had driven through anywhere in the country, except that there were aliens(the classic lime green ones with large heads and eyes) and spaceships outside almost every business. Not really what we were looking for.
Tired and bummed we tried to get a motel room at a place that had a hot tub but they didn't have any vacancy. So we decided to head to a nearby state park; Bottomless Lake SP. We stopped at a gas station to make sure we were headed in the right direction which we were. The woman in the gas station emphasized to me to be careful because the road was curvy. When we got to the road we started laughing because there were about four curves in the road and none of them were very sharp...at all. we found the campground and drove around it a few times, without trees its really hard to figure out where the campsites are. We finally settled on a site at the end of the loop next to a few kids who had a fire going.  We set up the tent and got our gear set up and thought about going over and saying hi to out neighbors, but it was really cold and we were exhausted, so we just went to sleep. During the beginning of the night I couldn't get my feet to warm up, I tried with socks then I took them off again, I was rolling around trying to find the warmest position but wasn't having much luck. Nick seemed to be sleeping quite well(he usually stays s bit warmer than I do) so I didn't want to wake him up but about halfway through the night he said he was cold. Nice to know it wasn't just me! We ended up having to unzip our sleeping bags and putting one inside the other even with the extra blanket we had. We shivered our way through the rest of the night but we survived!

Day Five: Arkansas to Oklahoma

All in all a very uneventful and slightly grumpy day. We drove and drove, got board of the scenery very quickly. We didn't stop much, were really tired and I at least was a bit grumpy. Around 6pm we stopped at The Cracker Barrel, neither of us had ever been to one and so we were excited to try it out. After we took forever to figure out what we wanted, we ordered then waited and waited, and finally got out food which they had taken to the wrong table and by the time it got to us it was almost cold. We were starving by that time so we just ate it, it was ok, well parts of it were ok, other parts weren't all that good. Over all we left quite disappointed. We got a motel room early and decided to just chill out for the evening, unfortunately the room was not the nicest place we've ever stayed. oh well, we were tired and sick of being in the car. We watched the movie Paul and went to sleep. We also decided to head down to Roswell next to it out.