"I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move"...(Robert Louis Stevenson). We've been busy traveling closer to California since Texas. We traveled all day through Texas and Oklahoma and arrived at Santa Fe, New Mexico at midnight. We stayed at a beautiful hotel in the heart of downtown. It sure was a nice change from the Comfort Inn type of hotels we had been staying at. Santa Fe is a charming city with lots of art galleries and handmade crafts on just about every corner. We departed Santa Fe and headed through New Mexico to Durango, Colorado. New Mexico was beautiful to drive through and I couldn't help but pull over at the side of the road occasionally to take pictures. We landed in Durango to see my high school best friend Lisa and her family. The trip to Durango was symbolic for me because I stopped there 20 years ago when I was moving from California to New York City. I just love Durango but had forgotten a lot of things about the city in 20 years. It has also grown up quite a bit since I visited so many years ago. I love friends like that....friends that you are so close to, that you pick up right where you left off. I felt like I was back in high school, when we slept over each others houses just about every weekend. I really felt as close to her now as I ever did in high school. She greeted us with warm hospitality and my kids loved that she was genuinely nice to them. My friend Lisa has a beautiful 15 year old daughter. My four year old has quite a crush on her now and can't wait for us to visit Durango again. We really enjoyed our stay in Durango but one funny thing did happen while visiting there. On the night we arrived, Adrienne and I (in our two cars) were following my friend to her house on the outskirts of town. We were in the middle of nowhere and Adrienne got pulled over by a police car. I pulled over too because for the life of me, I could not understand why she was being pulled over. The officer talks to her first then comes over to me. He informs me that she was driving too slow and that he wanted to pull me over for going too slow too. Yes, you heard me correctly, we were apparently going too slow. I lost it, I was laughing so hard. I couldn't help but also respectfully give the officer a bit of a hard time. We were going 55 in a 65 mile per hour zone. I explained that we had just arrived in town and did not know the roads, but he wanted our license and registration anyway. This was an absolute first for me....getting pulled over for going too slow!! We were issued a warning and I bet that officer needed a drink after his shift because I later found out that he is new on the job and I rattled him a bit. We left Durango and headed directly to Mesa Verde state park in Colorado. We did a quick trip to check out some ruins, old pueblos and take pictures. Then we beelined for the Grand Canyon and arrived there at midnight. We stayed at a lodge in the Grand Canyon state park and I woke up early in the morning to greet the beauty of her views. My kids adored the Grand Canyon and said tonight that it was one of their favorite parts of the trip so far. We left the Grand Canyon today and arrived in Sedona, Arizona by late afternoon. I have never been to Sedona before and was blown away by the overwhelming beauty of the red rock and unique mountain formations as you enter Sedona. We are staying at a hotel that overlooks Bell Mountain and the energy of the area is profoundly moving. Sedona is on my list of places to return to in the not so distant future. We leave Sedona tomorrow after I take photos and if the kids have their way, we'll arrive in the Thousand Oaks area by late evening. They are so excited to finally arrive in California that they want me to bypass my stop to Joshua Tree state park. I may have to strike a deal with them but either way, we arrive to our new home in about 24 hours. This trip has been amazing for myself, the kids and Adrienne. We have experienced such beauty in every part of the country and have met the nicest people along the way. The children went from sad and crying when we left Connecticut to cheering and begging to get to our new home. They have seen places that many sheltered individuals have never seen. Adrienne commented that many of her friends have never left the confines of Connecticut. I too know many sheltered individuals who have never left their home towns. I look forward to many more road trips, now that I will be west coast based. I have so much more to see and explore. "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page"...(St. Augustine).
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