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Month: July 2012
Day Five–The Truth is Out There
Miles MPG Avg. Speed Since Austin 989 45 54 Trip 2200 45.6 57 Food
(today/budget)Hotel
(today/budget)Trip Savings
$70 / $140 $47 / $75 AAA – $6
PriceLine – $216Today is mostly about driving and getting the car serviced. I woke up a little after six, but let Aryn sleep, though she was up at 7:00. We were on the road by 8:00, heading for Roswell and then on to Albuquerque which has the first Toyota dealer since the car hit 5000-miles in west Texas.
Not a lot to see on this drive … just flat land and scrub brush, broken by the occasional plateau. We did see about three antelope beside the road at various points, though (no pictures of them).
The truth about Roswell is that I was underwhelmed. We didn’t stop, just drove through, so didn’t see the freaky stuff which is, I assume, outside of the main town on the roads closer to the military bases. Roswell itself, which is bigger than I expected from how its depicted on TV and in movies, had a lot of alien signage, but not what I expected.
This sign was in a rest stop bathroom … which begs the question: What, exactly, did I just wash my hands with?
There really wasn’t time to stop in Roswell, as the goal for today was to get to Albuquerque, get the oil changed, and get Aryn to swing dancing tonight. As it was, we had just enough time. Arrived in town and checked into the hotel around 1:00. I got an appointment for an oil change at 3:30, arrived a little early, then back to the hotel to pick up Aryn and drive to dinner (6:15), and finally back to nearby the hotel for her dancing at 7:30.
While I was at the car dealer, Aryn searched the web for someplace to eat dinner and came up with Café Jean Pierre for crepes.
I had a beef bourguignon crepe and a New Mexico Syrah, and Aryn had spinach Florentine, then we split a crepes Suzette. We were able to have a nice dinner without me worrying about the cost, because we’ve done very well on the food budget for this trip.
Both of us loved our entrees. The beef bourguignon was savory and tender – melting in my mouth. When the dessert hit the table, I was ready for it and had already taken two bites before I remembered to take a picture.
Even when Aryn wasn’t
mooching off her future in-lawstraveling with her friend or staying with his folks, we’ve been eating cheaply.I used Priceline again for the hotel in Albuquerque, along with information from other bidders gained from BiddingForTravel.com.
Albuquerque has a lot of Priceline hotel zones, five of which have no 3-star or better hotels. Since I didn’t have a particular preference where we stayed, I selected several zones that do have 3-star hotels and started the bidding at $30 – this is pretty low, since the successful bids posted on BiddingForTravel.com were mostly in the $40-50 range, but with so many zones to rebid with, it was worth a shot. Then I used the zones that don’t have 3-stars to be able to rebid. We wound up with another Courtyard at the airport for $47 a night.
Day Four–Holy Batcave, Batman!
Miles MPG Avg. Speed Today Trip Food
(today/budget)Hotel
(today/budget)Trip Savings
$26/$115 $89 / $90 AAA – $6
PriceLine – $188National Parks Annual Pass – $80
Carlsbad Caverns – $12 I had an alarm set for 7:00, but woke up at 6:00. We’re in Mountain Time, now, so two hours earlier than Florida. I let Aryn sleep until 7:00, then breakfast and the drive to the national park.
Once in the park, I pulled over at one of the scenic parking spots and we headed up the side of a hill. Some huffing and puffing later, we arrived at the top, having successfully summited the smallest hill within view.
Then it was into the caverns. I bought the Annual National Parks Pass for $80. With all the parks we’re visiting on this trip, it should pay for itself. Carlsbad alone would have been $12. We took the natural entrance, rather than the elevator, a 750-foot elevation change over a 1-1/4 mile path.
At the bottom, before the loop of trail through the cavern, is a restroom and giftshop. I like how they get you 750-feet down in a cave that’s 56-degrees and then charge $40 for a hoodie. That’s good marketing sense.
Once at the bottom, we took the 1.2 mile loop around the the caverns.
So … a couple hours walk, listening to Aryn complain that she couldn’t go off the path and explore, especially the wire ladder in the last picture – which looks a bit deteriorated from when it was installed in the 20s. I asked about the more strenuous tours of other caverns for her, but they only do those on weekends.
We took the elevator back to the surface, 750-feet in one minute, which was cool because they have windows on it so you can see the raw rock of the shaft going past. I still think we should have walked back up, as a test for the Grand Canyon. Far better to find out here if it’s too much for the girl-child.
Hopefully, it won’t be too much for me. The descent into the cavern aggravated my knee – climbing isn’t a problem, but going down gives some twinges. I’m going to pick up a knee brace tomorrow and see if it helps.
We had lunch at the park, mine not very good, and then back to the hotel to rest and get out of the heat for a few hours. At about 6:00, we have to head back to the caverns for the bat flight.
Aryn slept most of the afternoon and we left a little before six to go back to the caverns. Browsed around the gift shops a bit before heading out to the amphitheater to sit on stone benches for two hours. No noise, no electronics – it interferes with the bats.
That’s not a picture from tonight. I’m not even sure that’s a picture of Carlsbad or the same species of bat at Carlsbad. The picture’s from the National Park’s website, but I think it’s a scam, because we didn’t see that many bats. Maybe it was because the crowd was too noisy, I don’t know. It wasn’t a total waste, though, because we saw the Nike family:
Dad and the two little girls show up, all wearing Nike shirts, shorts and shoes (Aryn pointed out the shoes, which were dayglo). Mom’s wearing UnderArmour – she must be the rebel of the family. They moved to the other side of the seating later and two older kids went with them, but the older kids weren’t wearing Nike. They were actually dressed kind of ragged. We decided they’re dad’s kids from his first marriage and don’t get the cool stuff.
Magic Underwear Update: Still running on two pair, no complaints.
Day Three–On the Road Again
Miles MPG Avg. Speed Today Trip Food
(today/budget)Hotel
(today/budget)Trip Savings
$20/$86 $89 / $90 AAA – $6
PriceLine – $118Note: No mileage stats for today. At 5000 miles, the Prius demands maintenance by putting a Maintenance Required message on the display, which blocks the trip stats from view. Have to find a Toyota dealer to get the oil change and also to fix whatever Aryn did to my iPhone plug. It now charges when the car is first turned on, but immediately turns off with a message to consult the owner’s manual for instructions on how to plug an iPhone in. This happened immediately after she switched cables to charge her phone.
The trip really starts after today – Carlsbad is the first scheduled place to do stuff. It also marks the end of the long driving days – or, at least, the long, driving-only days. From here on out, there’s something to do or see at the end of most of the drives.
The day started with finding a bunch of ants in the room at Austin. Not hundreds or anything, but consistently a dozen or so on the desk.
I’m hoping none decided to make a home in the netbook and thence to the car.
Aryn went to a springs with her friend in the morning, while I slept in after poker last night and headed off to pick her up between noon and 2:00.
On the way, I stopped for some BBQ — since Aryn doesn’t eat red meat, I figured I’d do that when she wasn’t with. JJ’s Hamburgers and BBQ, Voted Best Tacos, Breakfast All Day:
With variety like that, it has to be good, right? I got a big pile of beef brisket, fries, potato salad, and a sweet tea. The brisket was pretty good – tender and flavorful, but the sauce was a bit salty for my taste. Not bad, but probably not Texas’ best offering.
Interesting menu items included a “Cheddar Pour”, which seemed to be a hamburger on a platter with cheddar sauce poured around it and, possibly, toasted in the oven to give the cheese sauce a crispness (not sure about that last bit, but the picture on the menu seemed to imply it. Sadly, we’re leaving Austin today, so I can’t try the 7-pound breakfast challenge …
We got on the road and a very positive benefit of the detour to Austin was a much nicer drive. The original route had us on I10 all the way across Texas. From Austin, though, we took 290 south, back to I10. This was a fun drive with lots of curves and hills.
Once on I10, this stretch with an 80-MPH speed limit and me keeping it between 80 and 85, the gas mileage was less than stellar. I now understand why Texas has such high speed limits – with everything so far apart, you have to drive that fast to get anywhere.
Even this drive was nice, though, with rolling hills and trees giving way to the more pronounced hills and scrub of desert.
And finally a long stretch on a two-lane road (70MPH limit) to New Mexico after eight hours on the road.
I booked the hotel for tonight and tomorrow through Priceline yesterday. Carlsbad is a tough place, because there are very few hotels and they’re pretty expensive. As an example, the Super8 was $79 for these two nights.
I bid $75 for a 2.5-star. Priceline showed only two 2.5-star hotels available, a Fairfield and a Best Western. They rejected that bid, but counter-offered at $89. In order to bid again, because there’s only one hotel zone, I’d have had to drop to 2-star – so rather than pay $75 for the Holiday Inn Express, I took the offer at $89 and wound up with the Fairfield. It’s normally $159 for those nights.
So for not much more than the $79 Super8, we get a much nicer room, internet, and breakfast. Yay, Priceline!
WARNING: The remainder of this post contains graphic content, reader discretion is advised.
So Saturday and Sunday were my first days wearing the Magic Underwear. When we left Friday, I wore regular underwear and have two pair of the Magic Underwear. Sadly, the Magic Underwear Company doesn’t seem to supply any instructions for the best way to clean the Magic Underwear in a hotel room, so I had to improvise.
Saturday night, I took them in the shower with me. They do shed water, as it took some doing to get them wet and then squish them up with some of the hotel shampoo. After rinsing, I hung them on the shower rod to dry.
They’re pretty comfortable new and the pair I washed seemed okay, if still a bit damp, this morning, but the real test comes tomorrow when I have to wear Saturday’s pair again. If they don’t feel clean and comfy, I’ll be stopping at Walmart.
Day Two-Deep in the Heart of Texas (or Meet the Parents)
Miles MPG Avg. Speed Today 452 50.5 52 Trip 1209 46 59 Food
(today/budget)Hotel
(today/budget)Trip Savings
$19/$55 $51 / $90 AAA – $6
PriceLine – $48We got up early (before 7:00) and had the free breakfast at the hotel, then got right on the road. Again Aryn rode with her friend and I didn’t meet up with them again until we arrived at his parents’ house outside of Austin.
I kept my speed down in the 60-65 range today and averaged 50 MPG. I had one span of 109-miles that averaged 54.6 MPG.
I had expected, since Texas is considering an 85 MPH speed limit, that traffic would be pretty speedy, but that wasn’t the case. The right-most lane consistently traveled at 65, regardless of the posted speed limit. Which probably says something about spontaneous order and the lack of need for so many rules.
Also seen shortly after entering Texas, an accident attorney’s billboard which said “We Sue Lawyers”. You go, man.
Like flipping a switch upon entering Texas, BBQ joints everywhere. Added to my list of trips for future years: A BBQ tour of the South. I’ll head up to the Carolinas, then eat my way to Texas at every independent, roadside BBQ place I pass. Mmmmm … BBQ.
Since the plan was to stay here until Sunday for her to meet his parents and get shown around his hometown, I decided to absent myself and leave them to it. I called a couple guys in Dallas who I know from the internet and arranged to meet them for some poker. I’ve been
trash-talkingdescribing my poker prowess to them for a couple years and they want my money badly.So I dropped Aryn at her friend’s house and got back on the road for 3+ more hours of driving to the outskirts of Dallas. We got dinner and played some low-limit poker – I won about $20, less the cost of the pizza I bought, so more like
$-7.00.The game was going to be late, so I decided to get a hotel for myself, rather than show up at their door in the wee hours. I booked it for back in Austin, so I got the drive back there out of the way at night. That way I could get up, pick up Aryn, and be fresh for the drive to Carlsbad on Sunday.
I decided to try for a nicer hotel first, so bid $45 for a 3-star in the Austin Northwest area (#5 on the map below).
That was rejected, so I added the Austin Arboretum (#2), added the 2.5-star category (Hampton Inn, etc.), and raised my bid to $50.
That was rejected too, so I added the airport area and raised my bid to $51. That got me the Courtyard by Marriott by the airport, which normally sells for $99 on their website and Priceline.
