“Thelma and Louise”, two youthful ladies (aka: Mary Claire and Kay) took a week long road trip from Houston, Texas to San Diego, California. Mary Claire made a photo essay using her iPhone’s camera… covering this once in a lifetime, 5 DAYS filled with sights, wine, adventures and experiences worth remembering.

WINERIES IN THE PLAINS OF TEXAS

We left early on a Saturday morning and headed out of Houston up through Waco, Fort Worth and Wichita Falls towards Amarillo. Our first stop was at Brushy Creek Vineyards in Alvord, TX, somewhere between Fort Worth and Wichita Falls.

 

OUR WINE TOUR CONTINUED AT HORSESHOE BEND 

 

AMARILLO, TEXAS

Remembrance 1) Just as we entered the city limits of Amarillo, we were hit with a down-pour of rain. Within 5 minutes, water was pooling on the interstate. Although, we wanted to pull over and let the storm pass, I thought I cannot stop moving forward or my car might stall-out, in the now very high water.

We found our exit but now the streets were rushing rivers! Kay, my great navigator on her GPS map, was able to guide me through alleyways and secondary streets to safely arrive at our Airbnb. We had experienced a significant flash flood, from the beginning of the rain until it ended was only ten minutes! The terrain is very flat in west Texas! Afterward, we saw a double rainbow in the sky!  Wow, the weather changes quickly here! – Mary Claire McGarry

A couple of local sites we dropped by were: The Cadillac Ranch – a work of site-specific environmental art created by Amarillo billionaire, Stanley Marsh III; and The Big Texan Restaurant – famous for its 72 oz. steak… always free if you can finish eating it in one sitting.

 

 

 

AMARILLO in the REAR VIEW MIRROR

 

 

 

CROSSING NEW MEXICO,

HEADING TOWARD the UTAH / ARIZONA BORDER

WE HAD TO STOP AT A WINERY IN ALBUQUERQUE

TO SEE IF WINE TASTED DIFFERENTLY WHEN MADE IN NEW MEXICO!

 

Remembrance 2) On our second travel day, we had lunch in Albuquerque, NM. Up to this point, I had done all the driving and Kay had been the navigator, so we decided to switch. As we were pulling out of the restaurant’s parking lot, I plugged in our final destination for that the day – Page, AZ. The only problem was I spelled Page incorrectly, I typed in “Paige, AZ” instead. The instructions on my GPS were to head south on I-25, We knew we wanted to end up in northern AZ, by the Utah state line. We had so much faith in our GPS map, that we continued south. After approximately 30 minutes of driving, I realized my spelling mistake of “Page”. Fortunately, we found a small highway that took us back to I-40W on a diagonal, without losing too much time. Kay gave me an “F” for my “Navigational Skills.” I did find another off-the-beaten-path highway that got us to our resort 30 minutes faster and as it turned out, both of our unplanned roads had beautiful scenery, very interesting terrain, which we would have missed on this road trip, if we had just stayed our pre-planned route. – Mary Claire McGarry

ARIZONA

Remembrance 3) Our GPS said that we would save time if we got off I-40 and headed north through the Navajo Nation Reservation. This reservation is over 17,000,000 acres, spread through AZ, UT and NM. There was no cell phone service the entire time we were driving through the reservation, but since we had plugged in our destination before we hit that dead zone, the GPS continued to give directions, using the information it had already downloaded. After being without service for 12 hours, we arrived at The Lake Powell Resort and Marina as planned, and 30 minutes early. We ate in the resort bar, being served the absolute best hamburgers we can ever remember eating and of course, they were paired with some excellent wine! – Mary Claire McGarry

LAKE POWELL

Remembrance 4) We had scheduled a kayaking tour on Lake Powell through the Antelope Canyons with a group of 12 other individuals. As the others paddled along in their kayaks with ease in unison, Kay and I were paddling as hard as possible and couldn’t seem to keep up with the rest of them. The tour guide paddled up beside us and complimented us on our kayaking skills. When we told him that no matter how hard we paddle, we could not seem to catch up with the others, he said that it was a very fit group today.  In other words, we were the oldest and everyone else was younger and more fit. It was a fun tour of the lake, even as we zigzagged along in last place! – Mary Claire McGarry                                                                                         

 

THE GRAND CANYON

Remembrance 5) While trying to find the Grand Canyon, we drove through some fairly scary mountainous terrain and with roads on the edge of clifts – then we saw one tiny road sign that said “Grand Canyon North Rim,” it was very understated. We traveled on that road for an hour before we finally reached “The Grand Canyon.” We enjoyed seeing a herd of buffalo on the national park grounds and the $45 fee per car to enter the park was waved… we showed our seldom admitted senior citizen status to get that free pass. – Mary Claire McGarry

 

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

 

 

FUN WINNING IN THE CASINOS

 

 

LIGHTS ON THE STRIP AT NIGHT

 

 

ENTERTAINMENT AT NIGHT

 

 

 

THE HOTELS & CASINOS in DAYLIGHT!

 

 

DINING AND SHOPPING IN VEGAS

 

 

 

 

FOOD & DRINKS

 

LEAVING LAS VEGAS

& DRIVING THROUGH THE DESERT!

 

 

Remembrance 6) Before we left on this road trip across the western U.S., several friends gave us bits of advice. One good piece of advice, given by many was,  “Gas up when you hit a half-tank because there’re some very barren stretches of the highway out that way.”  We had been following this advice from the start of our long trip, but as we arrived in Page, AZ on Sunday evening, we were down to a quarter-tank and planned to gas up the following day, before we left town.  The next morning the gas station was not yet open, as we got up early to head out for our kayaking adventure.  After the kayaking was done we headed pointed the car directly west and began looking for gas.  Our “gas buddy” app said there was a gas station down the road in approximately 20 miles, but after 20 miles, there was no sign of gas. (Our guess was there had been a fork in the road and the gas station must have been down the other fork!) Out here the cell phone service was very spotty, as was our internet service. By my calculations, at that 20-mile point, we would run out of gas in about 26 more miles. I began stressing out! Fortunately, we were headed downhill all the way, so I began coasting, taking my foot off the gas peddle as much as possible.  We finally came upon a tiny town, in the middle of nowhere, with one, lone gas station – but that was all we needed!  They charged double the standard price for gas and we gladly paid it! For the rest of the trip, we always gassed up before our gauge reached the half-tank mark. – Mary Claire McGarry

 

AT LAST

ARRIVING IN CALIFORNIA…

SAN DIEGO, CA!

 

 

THEY DROPPED THE CAR OFF IN CALIFORNIA AND FLEW BACK TO HOUSTON!

THE END!

(Source: All photos and text were supplied to ARTS & FOOD Magazine by Mary Claire McGarry.)