Published Monday August 8th, 2005

Horray! A weekend that was not boring and uneventful and... boring.. or spent in Camarillo! Yes, it's true! The past three days have been very exciting, eventful, and lots and lots of fun. Matt and I travelled 2,000 miles to New Mexico and back in three days with many various stops along the way travelling at an average speed of 100 mph (161 km/h).

We left last Friday evening.. By the time we left Camarillo and got onto the freeway it was 00.30 on Saturday, the 6th. I drove 350 miles in around 3 hours. We took the 101 south to the 10 east and then took highway/expressway 86S south down to the 8 east into Arizona. While on the 86S I discovered that Matt's Jetta wont let you go over 120 mph (193 km/h). We stopped just outside of Yuma in Arizona at some random rest stop/parking area. It was very hot and rather humid even at 04.00 in the morning and we didn't sleep a whole lot. By 08.30 Saturday morning we were on out way eastward on I8.

We took highway 85 south to the town/village/settlement of Why where we ate lunch and continued down the 85 into Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument where we walked around a bit and took some photographs. We headed back up north on the 85 to the junction of the 86 which we took east all the way into Tuscon where we got gas, Matt visited a thrift store, it was hotter than hell, and we needed to kill time. To do this, we visited the Tuscon International Airport which was practically void of air traffic or ground security. After killing some time and doing some looking around we left Tuscon and went east on I10 until we reached the 191 which we took south to the 181 east and then the 186 north until we reached Chiricahua National Monument. We explored the monument until just before dark at which time we registered at a campground and ate dinner. After dark, we drove to the top of the monument and watched all the many thunderstorms around us. We ended up in "bed" (in the back of Matt's car, with the back seats down and partially in the trunk) at around 21.30 and woke up Sunday at 09.30.

After getting up Sunday and eating, we went on a hike that was around 4 miles in length around all the cool rock formations. By 12.30 we departed the monument and took the 186 north to the I10. We took the 10 east and soon ended up in New Mexico after driving through various thunderstorms. In New Mexico we took the 90 north into Silver City (apparently not the Silver City from the movie Rat Race) and then headed north/west on 180. The scenery there was very beautiful. Green grasses, rolling hills and various pines.. Was awesome.

We took the 180 north back into Arizona and eventually made our way to the I40 which we took west until the 89 which we took north until just outside the town of Cameron. We parked next to some billboard and got to sleep at around 00.30 Monday morning.

Monday morning we were on our way again by 09.30 and headed west on the 64 into Grand Canyon National Park were we spent about a total of three hours. Towards lunch time there were more and more tourists and we had to leave because we couldn't take it anymore. Before leaving we watched the Grand Canyon Express steam engine come into the Grand Canyon station. We took the 64 south back down the the I40 and stopped for gas and driver swap in Williams where we also watched a large thunderstorm for a while from the gas station. We drove west on the I40 to Needles in California. On the way we hit some intense thunderstorms during which there was some loss of traction, zero visibility and a lot of excitement and action. In Needles we swapped drivers again (Matt took over) and we headed to Barstow where we ate dinner and swapped drivers again. We took the I15 south down to the 210 west onto the 134 and finally the 101 west... At 20.30 we ended up back in Camarillo with around 2,000 miles behind us...

... And now I'm bored.. again.