Road to Hanover: Day ONE

DAY ONE: Phoenix, AZ to Albuquerque, NM

The first day of our LONG road trip was quite eventful.  Some of the typical events you see in a long road trip: taking much longer to pack than originally anticipated, having more stuff to cram in then you thought, leaving much later than planned, blankets, pillows and assorted kids possessions in every nook and cranny.  Couple all of those with the fact that you are planning on being on the road for one whole week and it gets complicated.  We felt like we were being asked to put together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle at the drop of the hat, as we crammed and stuffed items in every available compartment in the car.  Then we grabbed our bungee cords and pulled and strapped our extra items on top of the car and behind it.  Finally we left around mid-day.  

{Saddled up and ready for the road, our own personal Knight Rider as J would say}

 Eli was already exhausted by the time we left, and quickly settled down for a nap just as we left the Phoenix area. He slept really well until we stopped up on the Mogollan Rim.

Even though we had left quite a bit later than planned, we still stopped for a little while up at a scenic look out point on the Mogollan Rim. It was perfect to stop here on our final goodbye to our Home in Arizona.  

 "Is that New Hampshire Dad?"

 {Looking for Bears on the Rim Lookout}

In J's words: "One last look at the Mogollan Rim in the Arizona White Mountains. I've spent my entire life camping and exploring the forests in these mountains.  This is a place I will always cherish and remember."

As soon as we left the look out point we got HAMMERED with rain.  Probably the worst rainstorm that we have ever driven through.  It slowed our time down considerably but we managed to make it into Albuquerque that evening pretty late.  My brother, Ben, has been living there all summer for an internship and we were able to meet up with him that evening.  He bought pizza and met us at our hotel room that night.  We sat up and chatted while the kids were jumping wildly from one bed to the other.  Finally it was time to go to bed and we made plans to meet back up with Ben in the morning for a breakfast.

 New Mexico: the land of enchantment, full of freight trains pulling lots of oil cars

Mr E makes us laugh...he covers his ears like this whenever there is a loud noise :)