9 days, 10 parks, 2 cities, 3300-miles and 3 drivers.
Day 1: Sunnyvale to Joshua Tree National Park to Phoenix.
Day 2: Phoenix to Saguaro National Park to Lordsburg.
Day 3: Lordsburg to City of Rocks State Park to White sands National Monument.
Day 4: White sands National Monument to Bosque Del Apache Wilderness to Socorro.
Day 5: Socorro to Bosque Del Apache Wilderness to Very Large Array to Santa Fe.
Day 6: Santa Fe to Bandelier National Park to Grant.
Day 7: Grant to El Malpais National Monument to Petrified Forest National Park to Sedona.
Day 8: Sedona to Mojave Desert to Bakersfield.
Day 9: Bakersfiled to Madras Cafe at Sunnyvale to Home.
Trip Highlights:
- Lack of knowledge about New Mexico and not much expectation, we were blown away by the beautiful parks and the nature.
- Driving on Historic Route 66 dream was fulfilled.
- Chasing the sun made the trip more thrilling than expected. We were targeting sunrise or sunset at most of the parks.
- Even though we had taken our camping gear, we never camped ….. stayed at motels and Super 8 was the cheapest option we found in most places.
- We started with a tentative itinerary and made changes on the go. Skipped Carlsbad in the interest of Bosque Del Apache and Petrified Forest National Park.
- We had taken a small rice-cooker and tamarind rice mix (two packs). Lunch was the same tamarind rice with avacado and mango pickle for the 7 of the 9 days. Dinner, we either eat out or made salad.
- Listened to Tamil, Telugu and Hindi 70s-80s songs throughout the trip….
Planning Tips:
If you ever plan to do the same or similar trip, here are the few points to keep in mind.
- Take your passport, greencard photocopies with you. You may get stopped like we were in New Mexico.
- If you travel in the winter, our trip was from Nov 21st to 29th, plan for cold weather. Layers, thick socks, gloves etc.,
- We planned in such a way that we were at a park at lunch hours. So, we cooked rice in the morning at the motel, and mixed it with tamarind rice powder. Took plastic plates, spoons, cups, paper towels etc.,
Got any questions or comments ? Drop me a note.