Skiing in Wisconsin

Pan's Labyrinth!!

DANCING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL!!!

First Day Of School!!

Route 66

After an awesome Xmas in California, on December the 27th, Chris picked me up at Paola’s and we stared an AMAZING adventure. Coming back to Chicago driving on the Historic Route 66, which connects L.A with Chicago. We spent 10 days on the road, 2,448 miles (3,939 km). Discovering great places, crossing borders and waking up to a different landscape and weather everyday. From the Pacific Ocean to the Mojave Desert, crossing the southern Rocky Mountains into the Great Plains.

We stared in Santa Monica Pier and drove until Rialto, CA, where we spent our first night in a teepee at the Wigwam motel. That was pretty cool!

We ate our Grits on Route 66, then arrived to a “bottle forest” where we talked to the artist for a while!! At the end of the day, we made it to Needles, the last city in California before crossing the Colorado River into Arizona.

On the 29th we crossed into Arizona and went to the city of Lake Havasu to see the famous London Bridge, which was falling down in London in 1962. The British government put it on sale and Robert McCulloch bought it for $2,460,000. The bridge was dismantled, and each stone was carefully marked. Everything was shipped 10,000 miles to Long Beach, California, and then trucked to Lake Havasu City. On October 10, 1971, the bridge was finished.



Driving through the desert was great. I thought that the landscape couldn’t be better until we stared seeing snow!! In the desert!!! Those two things in my mind couldn’t be together… I loved it!!!
One of my dreams was to go to a ghost town, so we went to Oatman where we even saw a “cowboys show”. It was pretty cool, although kinda touristy. That night we arrived to Williams, which was covered on snow and very cold.




The 30th we made it to the Grand Canyon, which was on my top 5 places that I wanted to visit the most in the world. I couldn’t be happier and that place… no words at all to describe it. but here are some pictures that could help…



After that amazing experience we went to a Navajo reservation and ate delicious Native American food!! Later on we arrived to Flagstaff and ended the day in Holbrook.

We ended the year with some more amazing landscapes; we went to the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. Both, absolutely awesome places.



Once in New Mexico we stared hitting bad weather, although luckily enough the storm was ahead of us and we only had to deal with the huge amount of snow on the roads. New Mexico isn’t used to get so much snow, so they don’t have the equipment to deal with it. The streets in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe (where we spent the night) were covered with snow and it was almost impossible to drive on them.

2007 and we are in one of the prettiest cities I’ve seen in the United States. Santa Fe, the oldest Capital City in the U.S. its unique architecture makes it a very special city. We had a very good breakfast at Café Pasqual’s.

Later on, in Santa Rosa, one of the highlights of my trip. The Blue hole, also known as the "Nature's Jewel," it’s a spring water deep (25m) natural hole where I swam when the temperature was below freezing but the water temperature was 60 Fahrenheit. What a GREAT experience. We also visit the grave of Billy the Kid. That night we made it to Texas and slept in Amarillo. We stayed and ate at the Big Texan, where if you can eat a 72oz (4 and a half pounds) steak, you get t for free!! The food was great although we didn’t even try to eat such a big chunk of meat, but we did see a guy who tried to eat it and failed so he had to pay $75 for it!




On the 2nd of January, we went to the Cadillac Ranch, drove to Oklahoma City and spent the night in Tulsa, where we went to “The Center of the Universe” where you hear an eerie reverberation when standing in the middle of the brick formation in the sidewalk. Which can only be heard by the person speaking. Weird and cool!!


The next day we drove through a small part of Kansas and into Missouri. In St Louis we saw the Arch and after crossing the Mississippi River we were back in Illinois. Stopped at Springfield to see the capitol and after a long and Awesome trip, on the morning of the 4th and after crossing 8 states, we made it back to Chicago. It certainly was one of the best and longest road trips I’ve made.
More pictures HERE