I couldn't recommend more highly a car trip even when you just have a week. We loved it! The worst day was the last when we all knew home and our own beds were waiting for us at the end of the day.
To finish up where I left off...
Tuesday we visited the
Arizona Museum of Natural History which we highly recommend for all those dinosaur lovers out there. They have a dinosaur mountain that "flash floods" every 10 minutes, a place to pan for gold and a place to dig for dinosaur bones. We all enjoyed ourselves! We finished out the day swimming and playing mini-golf at Grandpa and Grandma's.
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| A blooming Prickly Pear cactus |
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| Digging for dinosaur bones |
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| Dinosaur mountain |
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| Playing mini-golf |
Wednesday we started out at the
Phoenix Zoo. We have been there before and really enjoyed it so were really looking forward to this visit. We were very disappointed! In the 5-6 years since we have been there it really has gone down hill and made us really appreciate all the work that our
Minnesota Zoo has been putting in. Next time we visit we will skip the zoo and head for Apache Junction and Tortilla Flats for some ghost town action. We rounded out the day with swimming, mini golf, grilling and picking mandarins and grapefruit and Grandpa and Grandma's.
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| Koala at the zoo |
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| A BIG grapefruit for a little boy! |
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| Picking Mandarins - they taste so GOOD right off the tree! |
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| Beautiful sunset! |
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Thursday we headed home. We built in some extra time on the way home so we could make a few stops. We spent the first night in Albuquerque so we could visit the
New Mexico Museum of Natural History - yep - more dinosaurs (and we're not done yet :)!). It was a wonderful light-filled museum that took you through the history of New Mexico by time line - creation to modern day. We rounded out the evening by eating at the
Route 66 Diner where we had fabulous diner food.
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| Up close and personal with a triceratops |
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| Examining a mammoth tusk |
Friday we started the day by driving to Tucumcari, New Mexico for some Route 66 nostalgia and you guessed it - another dinosaur museum - the
Mesalands Dinousaur Museum. What a great museum for a LITTLE desert town. Well laid out and lots of hands-on for the kids. They got to put their hands and feet in dinosaur prints, dig for bones, ride a dinosaur and really study these animals they are so fascinated by.
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| Touching a T-rex's print |
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| Stepping in a Sauropod's foot print |
Once we left the museum we headed into the Texas Panhandle where we spend some more time visiting some Route 66 spots. We ended the day in Wichita and were ready for the final haul home on Saturday.
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| Remnants of the past (above and below) | | |
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| Someday we want to spend more time driving this famous route before it all disappears |
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| First Phillips 66 station in Texas |
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