Just Simply Holly

Well, it is time for my vacation to come to an end. But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Our first flight leaves the airport shortly after 10:00 AM, then we have an almost 3 hour lay over after a 1 hour flight. The next flight leaves shortly after 2 and we’ll be in the air about 2 1/2 hours, then we have a one hour lay over before the final flight home, which is supposed to arrive at nearly midnight. It’s going to be a long day, but I think it will be fun!

So I’m signing off from sunny California and will see you when I get back home to Ohio, but probably not until tomorrow morning!

Sphere: Related Content

Have you ever found yourself in a position where something that you have dreamt about your entire adult life has finally come true? Something that you swore would probably never come true? That was me today! For most of my adult life my dream has been to see San Francisco and The Golden Gate Bridge. If I ever made it to the west coast, those were the only two things I wanted.

Now, imagine not only seeing those two things, but spending 10 hours in the San Francisco area seeing things that only someone from the area knows about, the little nooks and crannies that make you go WOW! That was my day today! It was one of the most fantastic days I have ever had in my life, the only thing that could have made it better is if I were also doing the things I did today with my husband by my side.

I’m exhausted tonight, I swear we had to have walked at least 10 miles, if not more…LOL! So I’m going to give you a few posts in the morning, one for each different place we visited today! But for tonight, I will leave you with what is one of my favorite photos of the day!

Good night, I promise there will be more tomorrow, our last day on the west coast.

Sphere: Related Content

After four days of travelling I can say that I do…LOL! Good morning from San Jose, it’s a little chilly outside this morning with a forecasted high temperature of a little above 70 degrees. The house is stll very quiet this morning, but it’s going to be a VERY busy day!

It’s so hard to believe that we’re here, the trip went very well and was probably one of the most amazing things that I’ve done in my life! The sites that our great country has to offer are nothing short of spectacular! And the people that we’ve come across along the way have been very kind, courteous and helpful!

The pictures that I’m going to post this morning are from our night in Vegas and the last leg of the trip from Las Vegas to San Jose. Once again, keep in mind that the vast majority of these pictures were taken through a car window going 70+ MPH down the road, so they might not be perfectly clear.

The first view I had of the Excalibur, the hotel that we stayed at in Vegas
This is the one really decent night shot that I took of the strip. The others that I took really did not turn out well at all:-(

And we’re on the road again

I honestly did not think this picture would turn out, but I think it’s kind of cool. I was driving and the view behind us was just amazing, so I decided to try and get it through the mirror…LOL

Well, that’s it for now, time to get around and get things ready to head out for our day in San Francisco! Have a great day and I’ll catch up with you later tonight!

Sphere: Related Content

Good evening/morning, whatever it is where you are…LOL! Depending on if you go by my time at home, or the time it is here in San Jose, it’s both for me!

Yes, we did make it to our final destination this evening around 6:30 PM San Jose time. As the past three days, today’s trip was without problems, minus a few wrong turns. The only “bad” thing about todays travels was the heat and ungiving sun, which is to be expected when you’re driving through the desert. But being the person that I am, I don’t much care for it…LOL!

San Jose, however, has the type of weather right now that I really love! It’s cool enough to be chilly without a jacket, but warm enough that you’re not cold. The views are absolutely gorgeous here and Emily’s room mate is going to be our tour guide for San Fancisco tomorrow and promises to be a great tour guide!

But for this evening, I really need to get some sleep! It’s going to be a VERY long day tomorrow and there is talk of actully walking the Golden Gate bridge! So good night from San Jose, CA! Stay tuned tomorrow and Sunday for catch up posts as well as my thoughts and photos from a dream come true!

Sphere: Related Content

Good morning everyone! We reached our destiantion of Las Vegas last night. It was a really neat experience and one that I’m glad I’ve had! By the time we got to the hotel room and got settled in, we had about enough time to freshen up and grab some dinner before the lights came on and the city really came to life!

As you know, we left Flagstaff yesterday morning with our first goal being The Grand Canyon. Here are some photos from the first leg of the trip, before we made it to the Canyon.

We made it to the Grand Canyon area, but we all made the decision that we wanted to save the money, so we didn’t go all the way to “THE” Canyon. We did, however, stop and see the Little Colorado River Canyon, which was just gorgeous!



I LOVED this sign!!

And lookie what I found!!

I have TONS more pics, but I’m waiting until I get home to share those with you. We finally hit the road, heading back through Flagstaff on our way to Las Vegas. It was a beautiful drive and we even got to go over the Hoover Dam!

I have many pics from Vegas, but I really need to get moving, so I’m going to wrap this up for now. Have a great day and I’ll talk to you next from California!

Sphere: Related Content

Good morning, it’s a sunny morning here in Flagstaff and today is going to be a BIG day but with much less driving! We’ll head out this morning to The Grand Canyon, something that I have never seen in my lifetime, so I’m very excited about that! After that we’ll hop in the car and drive into Las Vegas for the night!

As I promised, here are some photo highlights from yesterdays travels. Keep in mind that the vast majority of the photos were taken through a car window as we were going 70 MPH down the road, so a few aren’t as clear as I hoped they would be!

Lest start with Roswell

And now the trip from Roswell, NM to The Painted Desert in AZ

And The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest

And sunset outside of Flagstaff

Trust me when I say that those photos are just a tiny portion of the ones that I took yesterday…LOL! In total I ended up taking more than 300 yesterday alone!

On that note, I need to get moving, we have a big day ahead of us! Have a great day!

Sphere: Related Content

Pardon the pun in the title, but the carpet in the hallways of this hotel reminds all three of us of the hotel from The Shining…LOL. We made it to Flagstaff a little later than we planned, but we had an absolutely AMAZING day!

We left Amarillo, Texas this morning around 8:00 AM and our first goal for the day was to go visit some aliens in Roswell, NM. We made it to Roswell around 3 hours later. I had no “preconceived notions” about Roswell, I just thought it would be very cool, and it really was! Just about everything in the downtown area had aliens on it, even the street lights

Even Emily and Lisa got in on the alien action

From Roswell, our next stop was to be Flagstaff, AZ. But before we could get to Arizona, we had to go through miles and miles and miles of this…

We crossed the AZ state line around 8:44 PM Arizona time

But we kind of took a detour on our way to Flagstaff, and I have to see it is probably one of the most amazing detours I have ever taken in my life!! We stopped shortly after crossing into Arizona to see The Painted Desert and The Petrified Forest!

I have more pics that i want to post but the laptop isn’t cooperating and I’m just totally exhausted. Although it’s just a few minutes after 11 here, it’s a few minutes after 2:00 AM at home and I’ve been up since 4:45 AM yesterday morning. I’ll post more in the morning! For now, Good Night and Sweet Dreams!

Sphere: Related Content

Although I came in on the planning a little “late in the game”, my best friend and her daughter were well prepared in advance! As everyone knows, one of the things that is absolutely mandatory for a long road trip is GOOD music! And when you’re traveling across several states, the option of tuning in a good channel isn’t always possible!

So being able to burn your favorite songs to a CD so that you can listen to what you like without having to skip past the songs you don’t really care for is a MUST! I personally run Roxio on my computer, which happens to be one of the weekly deals available this week at buy.com! You can get the Roxio Easy CD/DVD burning software along with a bonus of a 1 GB flash drive stick for an AWESOME price of $19.99 BEFORE the $10 savings for first time Google Checkout customers and it even comes with free standard shipping! Let me tell you, I’ve used several different CD/DVD burning programs, and in my personal opinion, Roxio is the BEST! Their drag and drop system makes burning a CD/DVD as easy as 1-2-3!

The other thing that has really helped this trip go smoothly is the navigation system that my friends daughter got from a friend of hers. This thing is REALLY neat and offers us the peace of mind of knowing where we’re going in case we happen to miss a turn! Buy.com has this awesome Garmin Street Pilot on sale this week, but you’ll have to go check it out yourself if you want a peek at their awesome price, I’m not going to spoil it for you…LOL!

I’m telling you, whether you’re going on a long road trip or looking for an MP3 Player, Digital Camera or even video game accessories, Buy.com is going to be your one stop shop with the best prices around!

OK, back to my trip, I’ve blogged enough for now!

Sphere: Related Content

Good Morning! It’s 5:42 AM here in Amarillo, TX and two out of the three of us are up and moving. It’s kind of chilly here this morning, weather.com says the current temperature is 55 degrees, but there is an eerily cool looking rolling mist/fog outside this morning that Lisa managed to get a video of that was going to add to this post, but WP won’t let me

We’ll be heading up to breakfast soon and eventually getting out on the road at some point as well…LOL! Today’s goal is Roswell, NM and then we’re stopping for the night in Flagstaff, AZ.

I did manage to get the pictures uploaded from my camera, so I’ll share a few of those with you this morning

These are the turbines we passed after we got into Texas. There were literally hundreds of them in this one area, it was so cool!

This was all there was for the eye to see for miles and miles yesterday, but every time I looked out the window all I could say was WOW…LOL!

And FINALLY we made it to Texas….LOL!

That’s it for this morning, I need to get around and ready so we can eat and get things ready to go! Have a great day and hopefully I’ll catch you this evening!

Sphere: Related Content

Good evening everyone! Arrived in Amarillo, Texas safe and sound about 2 hours ago! After hauling in the necessities from the car, we chilled for a few minutes, cleaned up and headed out to one of the best Mexican Restaurants I think I’ve ever eaten at! The food was fantastic, the service was awesome and they were so taken back by the fact that there was a car in their parking lot from Ohio that we even got a free dessert…LOL! Then it was a quick trip to the drug store for a few things that were left behind and some car fuses, then I had to do a quick car repair in the parking lot and now we’re back at the hotel for the night!

I tell you, the past 24 hours have been totally AMAZING! We left NW Ohio at about 8:30 last night and drove straight through until we got to Amarillo tonight. From the time we left until shortly after the sun came up the road conditions and weather were perfect, but shortly after sunrise we started hitting some scattered showers that lasted on and off most of the day. I was driving through the Ozarks in Missouri when the sun came up and I think we had rain on and off from there through Oklahoma. But it was so pretty and I got to see somet things that I haven’t yet seen in my lifetime. I got to see the St. Louis arch, the hills/mountains of the Ozarks, the outsskirts of Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the praries in the panhandle of Texas.

I’ve taken a few pictures, but not as many as I’d have liked to, but I’m simply too tired to upload them tonight, so that will have to wait until tomorrow night when we stop for the night in Flagstaff, AZ. Allso, I remembered that I hadn’t said anything about this. I am updating my location fairly regularly from my cell phone through Twitter, so if you’d like to follow my trip feel free to hop over to my Twitter page and watch for my updates there!

In the mean time I need to get some sleep, I’ve been up since 6:00 yesterday morning minus a 1 hour and a 45 minute power nap…LOL! So I’m completely exhausted, to say the least! I’ll stop in in the morning if I have the time and say hello, but if not I will update through Twitter!

Good night from the great State of Texas!!

Sphere: Related Content