Your mom and I took Jamie on a long weekend road trip to Albuquerque for the Gathering of Nations, an annual nationwide gathering of all the Native American tribes. Jamie was also entered into a rap battle and would compete at one of the afterparty events, so we knew it was going to be a unique experience.
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| We were on a budget, so we hauled an iced cooler full of lunch stuff to make food on the road cheaper. Jamie and I try to look as gangster as possible while making road trip sandwiches on the hood of the car. |
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| The landscape as we drove out of California into Arizona is rocky and hilly, and dotted with windmills. |
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| Then further into Arizona the landscape got kind of bizarre, feeling like Mars with the sunset making everything reddish. |
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| This little monster was abandoned at a small gas station in Arizona, so we picked him up. |
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| We made an impulsive jaunt to see the huge meteor impact crater in Arizona. |
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| Once in Albuquerque, we made a beeline for the Gathering of Nations. |
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| It was held at the University of New Mexico Stadium, which is settled beautifully into the foothills on the outskirts of town. |
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| That night your mom helped watch the merchandise table while Jamie competed in the rap battle. |
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| The battle would go down in infamy as Jamie unleashed his long-prepared secret weapon: pissing himself after his last verse! This got the crowd hopping, with a mixture of shock, awe, and some disgust. I got some video footage which, after Jamie posted it online, eventually went viral and even made some television appearances! |
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| The champion and victor. We woke up in Santa Fe the next morning with plans to explore the town. |
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| Your mom and I had to Santa Fe once before on our big road trip last summer, and this time we got to see even more. This is the painting we have in the house being held by the local artist who painted it and sold it to us in this little morning marketplace in town. |
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| Your mom relaxes for a bit with a book in one of her favorite bookstores: a converted house chock full of cool used books and some vintage items! |
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| One of my favorite things about being on the road is the undisturbed and gorgeous skies we get to see. This was the sun drooping as we left Santa Fe headed towards Flagstaff. |
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| That night in Flagstaff we hit Oregano's for dinner, a place I used to go all the time when I was in college in Flagstaff, at Northern Arizona University. It had been about five years since I'd been there. |
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| The pizza is a bubbly, cheesy delight! |
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| Your mom poses in front of some cool old commercial art in downtown Flagstaff the next morning. We were on our way to the Grand Canyon! |
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| We enjoy the splendor of the National Parks, and the Grand Canyon is certainly no exception. |
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| I sort of tempt fate crawling to the very edge. I got a very eerie feeling looking out. |
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| The gang! It was great making this trip happen. I'll always remember how spontaneous it seemed, as Jamie posed it to us one night and we so quickly said, "Sure!" |
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| One of the many insect victims of the windshield during the trip. This one was particularly enormous! |
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| On our way out of the park, we stopped for lunch at this Flintstones themed restaurant. |
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| Near the border, we jumped off the main highway and onto the historical Route 66, kind of on a lark. We had heard that the road was unpaved for a ways, and light was getting short, so we got a bit nervous out here. But the road stayed paved the whole time and we saw some cool sights out in the middle of nowhere. |
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| On Route 66 was the little old mining town Oatman, Arizona. They have a supposedly haunted hotel we'd love to come back and stay in for a night. |
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| Exploring this still living ghost town was a nice treat for the last leg of the trip. |
