Leaving Albuquerque and Entering Arizona

We got up this morning and found this congregation to worship with. It was pretty small (about 55 people in attendance) but the people were so very friendly. It was neat to introduce ourrselves and tell them where we were from, and then have one or two of them be able to make some kind of connection to the same area. One couple have a son who goes to UAB (University of Alabama in Birmingham) and another couple (who happened to be visiting as well) were from Nashville and had a grandson who lived in Huntsville. Such a small world, isn't it.

We got back on Int. 40 and headed West once again at 12:47 PM. Our plan was to make it to Flagstaff, find a hotel and a place to eat.

Leaving New Mexico, we still saw so many interesting things. Like casinos in the middle of nowhere.

And some pretty cool rock formations.

And mountains in the distance.

And then the mountains began to get closer to us.

Lots of Indian Reservations. We stopped at one (not pictured) that was owned and run by the Navaho Tribe. They had a pretty cool "travel plaza" with some souvenirs so we let the kids buy some stuff there.

Finally, we hit the Arizona state line at 3:30 PM (which we later found out was actually 2:30 PM because Arizona is in Mtn timezone but are not on Daylight Savings Time). See the haze in the background, apparently there were some fires in the distance and so we were seeing the smoke from them.

New Mexico: Albuquerque

We entered New Mexico at 2:30 (Mtn Time Zone).

Again, tons of scenery so unique to this area. I just loved looking out the windows. I was pretty sleepy, but was afraid to fall asleep that I might miss something neat to take a photo of.

I have to admit, the drive from the NM state line to Albuquerque seemed to take FOREVER! Everytime that we thought we were getting close, we'd pass a sign saying that we still had miles to go. We ended up having to stop at a little gas station outside of Albuquerque to get gas, as we were getting pretty low and still had a way to go.

We finally arrived in Albuquerque at 6pm and found a hotel. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and ate dinner there. Kids ate free with paying adults. Sounded like a pretty good deal, however our meals were somewhat overpriced, so it didn't amount to much of a deal. We had told the kids that they could swim after we ate, but they were having some kind of post-graduation party there and the very small pool was packed. So we just hung out in our room. I think we were all so tired, that it really was the best choice. You have to remember that we had been on the road for pretty much 24 hours straight.

Let me take this time to say how good the kids have been so far. Yes, there were a few "when are we gonna be there's" and some squabbles here and there, but overall they have been great! I'm very thankful for technology as it has helped out tremendously!