Road Trip Overview

Apologies because I charted this out on Paint in the most pathetic way possible, but I think the purpose is achieved!

We started in Buffalo Grove, IL where Stan's folks live and drove south through Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Arkansas (again), Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona!

Night Stopovers:

Memphis, TN

Oklahoma City, OK

Albuquerque, NM

Total of 8 states in 4 days! Woohoo!

Inside Our Home...

Here's a few random shots right when we moved into our place. It's furnished (thank goodness) so this is more or less how it came to us. We'll be taking more photos once we make it our own! Thanks for following along on our epic journey!

Our New Home!

Our good friends Amber, DJ, and Baby Logan were kind enough to let us stay with them for a few days till we found our own place. We didn't snap too many pictures during that time due to general exhaustion and being busy like crazy. However, we had to bust out the camera when we finally found our own home! Here it is, what a beaut! Stucco of course, and no grassy lawn, all rocks and desert plants!

Entering Arizona

Finally! Arriving in our target state! The border was pretty with red rock formations and some tourist traps with lots of teepees and the like, but then it got to be pretty dull for quite a while till we neared Flagstaff.

Around Flagstaff

This area of Arizona is super pretty. I had never been here before so I enjoyed snapping photos of the landscape! It's a higher elevation than the valley so cooler and with more trees and of course hills and mountains! Notice there are zero (count em, zero!) clouds in the sky!

El Morro

This huge rock cliff in western New Mexico is famous for the petroglyphs on it. The ancient people of New Mexico carved pictures of animals and people onto it, and then over the years some Spanish explorers carved their names into it, and so on and so forth to present day. It's an awesome depiction of the settlers over American history in this area. We didn't have time to hike out to it but we snapped some photos from roadside and read the plaque.

Detour: New Mexico National Forest

We decided to take a "scenic byway" depicted on the map we got at the New Mexico information center. It took us through a national forest (El Mapais), and past some volcanic formations, an ice cave, and El Morro (a big rocky cliff with petroglyphs). Due to time constraints we didn't properly visit everything but did enjoy the scenery!