San Antonio we come

Today was a kind of strange day.

A lot of driving. I assume it has to be so when you ride in Texas in the middle of a lot of nothing.
We make a stop in Fredericksburg a small town (around 9000 people) created in 1946 from german emigrants. You can still find store with german name like "Gasthaus". The town is a kind of nice but a bit "dusty"...
A bit later, we arrived in San Antonio. And then I realize that we have December 31st and that we are in the city of the Spurs (Hello sport friends) where play Tony Parker...Never mind...!
We went downtown for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and took a walk along the riverwalk. We saw the beginning of 2009 on TV from Time square... isn't that crazy... :-)

We wish all of you and your familly all the best for the new year. Hope to see you some day in the 365 next days.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tineserrette/SanAntonio#


En resume:
Beaucoup de route, beaucoup de longues lignes droites.
Une viste de ville (Fredericksburg) moyennement interessante.
Et une arrivee a San Antonio (toujours Texas)
Une soiree en famille dans le centre ville plein de fetards.


Wir hatten wohl den Tag mit der laengsten Autofahrt und das durch Texas, wo die Landschaft alle 100 milen wechselt. Wir haben einen Stop in Fredericksburg gemacht, eine Stadt die vor langer Zeit von Deutschen gegruendet wurde. Hm, so sieht es allerdings immernoch dort auf, sogar die Schaufenster.
Unser Sylversterdinner haben wir im Hard rock Cafe in San Antonio auf dem Riverwalk gemacht und dann die Mitternacht auf Timesquare in NY gesehen.
Wir wuenschen allen ein gutes Neues Jahr und dass wir uns bald wiedersehen, irgenwo auf dieser Welt :-).

Carlbad Cavers

Wow this was a long way to see these caves. It took us 3 hours to drive from White Sands to Calrsbad, but the good part was there we saw a nice landscape with trees, mountains and the road had curves.
The Carlsbad Cavens are as deep in the mountain as a 75 floor high buidling . If you are interested check this site .http://www.nps.gov/cave/planyourvisit/upload/cave_geology.pdf

It was a bit scary down there and by far the larges caves we ever saw. The walk in the caves took 1 1/2 hours.
After this visit we took the road to Texas. We stoped at the "Welcome to Texas, the home of president George W. Bush sign" and couldn't belive that it is full of holes.... someone shot it.... hm....
Now we are in Fort Stockton, a town without Starbucks. It is also in the middle of nothing. The landscape is not changing for more than 100 miles. We call this having space....

http://picasaweb.google.com/tineserrette/Carlsbad#

White Sands.... a dream

Today we planed to spend the day at White Sands. A desert of white sand. At breakfast, someone told us that the Park does not open before 1 PM because of some construction work at the entrance. Shut. So we visited the city of Mesilla and a New Mexico Cattle Ranch. This was the most funnies thing. We saw how they milk a holstein cow and got the confirmation that it is everywhere the same. This was educational :-)

In the city of Las Cruces we saw so far the record of gas price: 1.29$ per gallon this means 0.24 Euro cents per Liter.

In the afternoon we entered finally the desert of white sands. Magnifique. A dream. The moon on earth. Check out the pictures to get an impression.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tineserrette/WhiteSands#

Saguaro Park and the Wild West Tombstone

We spend the night in a Super 8 Motel and it was ok. We headed down to Tucson (we still don't know how to pronounce it right) and saw the "forest of cactus". All kind of big and small and all very picky. http://picasaweb.google.com/tineserrette/Tucson?authkey=zjK-FntHEyc#

We continued the road to Tombstone. A town, where people forgot that the revolver times are over. It is somehow is a very forgotten corner of Arizona, 20 miles from Mexico. It is a famous place of OK Coral (for the fan of western movies).

Check out more pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/tineserrette/Tombstone#

Tonight we arrived in Las Cruces in New Mexico and stay again in a OK Super 8 Motel.

Sedona in Arizona

After a night in Las Vegas (please never again) we drove in direction of Sedona. On the way we found the winter. The kids were happy to see the snow but Christine was close to a heart attact with the ice on the road. In the dark we reached Sedona and found a nice hotel, totaly out of budget, but it was realy nice.

The next day we discovered Sedona. A little cozy town with a lot of Indian art shops. There was a nice athmosphere in the street...

The first picture is Bell Rock. There should be a special energy and when you feel it, you feel a certain heat. All the heat we felt we the nice sun.

The second picture is the Chapel of the holy spirit, built by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. It took the more than 10 years to find the right location for the chapel.

The Death Valley

On day two we headed to Death Valley. Our hotel was just at the west entrance at Panamint springs. The first places we visited were the Mosaic Canyon and the Sand Dune. This was really breathtaking. Every turn in the canyon look different. The kids had so much fun in climbing everywhere. At the Sand Dune, we really wonder.... where please is the way to the beach?.... Very strange that all the sand coming from the mountains around it landed at this place.

This night was also Christmas evening. We spend the "diner" in our little room and had delicious sandwiches with Martinelli and red wine before we went to bed, waiting for Santa.

Next morning Santa was there and we was leaving the presents even without the Christmas tree.

We celebrated the morning with Nutella bread and milk before we started the day to see the Golden Canyon, Badwater and several amazing views accompanied by a very strong wind.

This was an amazing start in our "discover the south of the USA tour".

The Serrettes go east...

One last way to the bank, the post office and we hit the road.

Let's go East!

Let's start our farewell America tour.

The first day (I should say half day) we drive to Bakersfield.

First night in a Hotel for this journey, first surprises: No towels in the bathroom, no light over the think and rain in the bathroom from the 2nd floor.