Today we started off the day by dropping Gunner off at a kennel. It took us an hour to go the 5 miles to get there, and another hour(or so) to get 15 miles downtown. The upside was that we ended up driving the back roads through Beverly Hills and we saw a bunch of expensive looking mansions.

We were on our way to the La Brea Tar Pits. About 2 weeks ago, I started learning about them in my online earth science class. I knew we would be close so I asked if we could go there if we had time, and we had time, so we went there! There is a large public park downtown that most of the tar pits were in. We also went to the museum there that was free, we happened to hit it on the free first Tuesday of the month. My mom and dad was very happy about that.

So in these tar pits, tar has been bubbling out of the ground and it carries lots of ancient fossils in it. Different animals that are now extinct that can be found here are saber tooth tigers, wooly mammoths, dire wolves, Bison, large sloths and more but sadly no dinosaurs. We got to watch paleontologists work on the fossils. In one area, they were sorting tiny fossils from sand using a tweezers and a microscope.

Outside we saw more working tar pits where paleontologists were uncovering more fossils by slowly digging out the tar from the fossils in the pit. In other tar pits we could actually see bubbles surfacing. The tar is the same temp as the air, so when it’s cold out you can walk on it(animals can that is). The way that all these fossils got into the tar is that the animals like wooly mammoths would go into the tar, get stuck and then die. Then the predators like dire wolves would think it was an easy meal, but end up getting stuck in there too.

This the only area in the world that is like this. It’s crazy that it is downtown LA! Adjacent to Park was the LA County Art Museum with some funky public art spaces. And across the street was a line of food trucks. We had a “little lunch” of buffalo chicken mac and cheese, mango sweet rice tacos and a creme brûlée donut that we shared.

Use your imagination to guess how long it took us to get home that night. Maybe if I meet you one day, I will tell you. (WT)

On our way into Los Angeles, we stopped at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda. At the entrance there was a memorial to Billy Graham, he seemed to be a friend to many presidents. The library was built on the same grounds that he had been born on, literally! The same house he was born in is still in the same spot it has always been, and we got to walk around it. Outside there was also Marine One, Nixon’s helicopter, beautiful rose gardens and pond . It was also the burial place of Richard Nixon and his wife Pat.

A couple of things I learned about Nixon was he passed Title IX legislature, helping women get a chance to play collegiate sports (like my mom!). In his first election, he won in the state that his opponent was from. He ended the military draft, and helped to create a voluntary military. He also lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. In his second term he resigned under a cloud of conspiracy. But he did many good things under his presidency too.

Fast forward 2 days, and we spent the day at the Ronald Regan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. This was one of my favorite libraries and I learned a lot about his life and his presidency. The best part was the getting to go in his Air Force One. The building was huge and built around the AF1. The building also housed Marine One, his helicopter. It was big but was dwarfed next to the airplane. In both vehicles, the place where the president sat had the presidential seal. In AF1, the seal was on the seatbelt buckle, and in the helicopter it was on the headrest.

Ronald Regan was an actor, which I did not know about before going here. But because he was, there were lots of pictures of him at an early age. He married the actress Nancy Davis, and she loved wearing red and spearheading the “Just Say NO!” program. There were lots of interesting gifts given to President Regan, including 372 belt buckles, many of which were on display. Regan loved to be a cowboy but he also loved fighting for peace.

There was even a section of the Berlin wall at the library, Regan had a famous line of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”. The library had a beautiful overlook of the Simi Valley, and both the President and First Lady are also buried here.

Overall, the 2 Los Angeles area presidential libraries have been very educational and fun to go to. It’s good to get ideas for what to put in mine one day.(WT)

Jesse and I had a snapshot of what downtown Palm Springs looked like as we went on a date late Wednesday night. But after a full day at Joshua Tree National Park, I was ready to check it out during the day. I am so totally interested in the “desert modernism” architecture, and the funky overall vibe of the city. We first went to their visitors center, which was this old gas station with a huge triangle overhang. There we picked up a driving tour of historic houses and buildings. We drove around for an hour or so, seeing some pretty neat homes, but I could tell the boys had enough (they were so not interested in Elvis’s honeymoon home) but I hadn’t gotten my fill yet.

We had a fun lunch at Lulu’s, a funky restaurant with the Palm Springs vibe. The city seemed very dog friendly, as we were able to bring along Gunner to eat with us. He had as much fun dog watching as we had people watching. We had met my mom’s boyfriend for lunch, he spends his winters there to get out of the MN cold. Smart man!

After lunch, the boys went to the Palm Springs Air Museum and I continued on my house tour drive. My favorite stop was checking out the Parker hotel. It has a fun past, but has renovated 10 years ago by Jonathan Adler, a designer I really like. Everything was rad, from the ornamental front wall to the expertly designed inside. In another life I will live here, I just know it:)

Neighborhoods upon neighborhoods had the mod look, it was like I was stuck in the 60’s with the Rat Pack look everywhere! I even found one of the nicest dog parks for Gunner to get a run in at.

As I was driving to pick up the boys at the Air Museum, I saw and heard a really fast airplane speed overhead by the airport. Now I haven’t picked up all the flight speak that the boys have, but even I knew that the plane wasn’t going to land and was just showing off.

The boys had texted me saying that they needed more time. The plane that I had just seen overhead was a F-18 from Canada and was going to land at the museum. This would be a highlight for them all, as they got to see the plane up close and talk with the pilot. Another highlight was that the boys got to get in B-17 bomber. They all just can’t get enough of airplanes, Jesse is a bit homesick for his!

Later in the evening, we went night swimming under the full moon in the hot springs pool back by the RV park. The national parks and museums are a great experience, but at the end of the day, the kids sometimes just want to play in the pool! (MT)

Today we went to the Biosphere 2. Before our tour we looked around at a small museum about the Biosphere 2. Our first stop was the rain forest. It was awesome, hot and humid.

The next stop was the ocean biome. There was a coral reef in it that wasn’t doing that well. They are about to remake it similar to the sea of Cortez. It is using new advancement in ways to make coral more durable/sustainable.

Then we saw the hydroponics area. It was a irrigation system where koi fish poop was the fertilizer of plants, and that poop water flowed through lava rock that 4 levels of plants were in, and then the water was recycled back up to the top. This saved 90% of the water that was needed to grow the crops. Some different types of plants growing here were chili peppers, Swiss chard, strawberries, rosemary, tomatoes, corn and lemons. I would like to try this at home someday because not only does it save a lot of water, it would be kinda cool to have a koi pond.

Right next to it was the Mangrove Forest and then we saw the desert. There were different cactus in this desert biome then were just outside the building, so it was fun to see the different varieties.

Next we saw the technosphere which was all of the electronics and technology underneath all of Biosphere 2. All of the air that would expand and contract because of temperature changes went to the “lung” which we saw next. There were 2 lungs built with the worry that the building’s windows would break with the pressure, but this worked perfect. Only one was ever used.

The Biosphere 2 was a great way to learn about the world and the possibility of life on Mars or perhaps the moon. I really do think that could happen with what I saw today! To see the inside check out my Vlog.

(-WT)

On our way to Tucson for the day, we stopped at Saguaro National Park where we saw a high concentration of saguaro cactus’s. There were cacti all over each other.

We also stopped at Pinal Airport which is a general aviation airport that is also a large boneyard for old airliners. Additionally, it has Marana Army Airfield, where British Army and Army National Guard pilots learn how to fly attack helicopters. It is also a home to CIA operations and US Special Operations Command parachute training. After that, we continued our way into Tucson.

In Tucson, our first stop was at a food truck where we tried the Sonoran Dog. It was a bacon wrapped hot dog on a grilled bun with cheese in it. It also had beans, grilled onions, tomato, and fresh onions. I’m not a hot dog guy but I would definitely get that the next time I am in Tucson.

Later, we went to the Pima Air Museum, the largest private air museum in the US. They have over 300 aircraft there. I really liked the helicopters and my favorite ones were the MH-53 “Pave Low”, the Mil Mi-24 “Hind”, and the CH-37 “Mojave.” I also really liked the B-24 that they had in one of the hangars. While these were my favorites, I definitely really enjoyed seeing them all.

At the museum we saw A-10 Warthog planes flying in formation right over. This reminded us that we were right outside of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. This base is home to a large boneyard of aircraft that we got to drive by. I think we saw 2,000 C-130s, 300 C-17s, 1,000 F-4s, and an array of other aircraft. I had a lot of fun checking all of this out in Tucson.

On our way home, we stopped by a friend’s winter home. Our family knows Jo from summers at Ottertail Lake. She had the most green grass we’ve seen in months and the largest grapefruits I’ve ever seen. (AT)

Lucky us, we’ve been able to spend more time with family while in Phoenix. The Hailey’s from Los Alamos have been in town for a soccer tournament for Alix – there is no off season for this spectacular athlete! What’s crazy is that their hotel is only a mile away and the soccer fields were only a couple miles down the road, so we were able to watch all her games, including the one she kicked the game winning goal at. It was the greatest kick I have ever seen or probably will see for a long time – nice job Alix! But it was fun hanging with Stephanie, Shawn, Alix and Ella, playing games and shopping with teenage girls was a highlight of mine!

We have some fun stalkers too – Jesse’s parents Ron and Marilee have made another surprise visit. They were able to see a soccer game too, and we even spent a day in the Superstitious Mountains east of Phoenix. We did a great hike, toured an outdoor museum and made it down the awestruck Apache Trail to Tortilla Flats, an old cowboy town. Woody made a super funny vlog about it – check it out here:

Marilee happens to have a load of cousins that live in Phoenix, and they graciously hosted us one afternoon. It was fun to hear their family stories and recollect stories of Jesse’s family heritage. Not only were they all great hosts, they even let the boys pick as many grapefruit and oranges as they wanted. Another great memory for the boys to have, and for sure, no one in our family is getting scurvy any time soon! (MT)

A couple of years ago, my book club read “Loving Frank”, a memoir style book about one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s mistresses. Even though he sounded like a goofy dude, I started to fall in love with his architecture! I’ve seen a couple of his works of art in Chicago and in other places, and I was highly interested in touring his home and studio in Scottsdale. The boys and I spent a morning at Taliesin West, and we really enjoyed it all, it totally lived up to my expectations. Woody had a classmate that did a report on FLW so he was excited to learn even more, and Andy is always my lover of unique architecture and could appreciate it all. I could totally live in one of his homes, but I’d probably have to raise the ceilings a bit since he was short and wasn’t very kind to us talk folk!

Andy had looked into more Food Network Diners, Dives and Drive Ins and found a great Pakistan Restaurant near the Arizona State University Campus that was amazing. We were even able to meet the owner and chef of Curry Corner, and the boys gave sincere compliments to her! The food was amazing!

I’m always curious about state capitols, and Arizona’s did not disappoint. While it’s physically nothing all that special, there were about 30 monuments around it that were spectacular art installations. Everything from a memorial to the USS Arizona that sank in Pearl Harbor, to a 911 exhibit, to a statue honoring Navajo Code Talkers.  It was educational art for the boys and I and for Phoenix.(MT)

Today we started the day at the Petrified Forest National Park in Northeast Arizona. The Park was mostly a 23 mile drive through amazing terrain. It was so beautiful. Our first stop was the Painted Desert Inn. This was a popular stop for people on Route 66. We learned a lot about the Hopi and Navajo tribes here.

Then we kept going to the Newspaper Rock. There were 250+ petroglyphs on 2 large rocks, it was so cool. Next was the Blue Mesas, which were layered teepee-like rocks. It reminded me a lot of the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. It was like I was in another world.

Our next stop was the Juniper Forest. Here were more layered mesas, and a ton of petrified wood. Here’s a video I took from there: https://youtu.be/LmdklKcrfOQ

Did you know, this area used be as thick with trees as the Amazon, millions of years ago. The petrified wood was wood that crystals steeped into, turning it into a stone-like stump.

We ended at another visitor center where I became Junior Ranger again. Did you know this is my 38th National Park/Monument? Petrified Forest is one of my favorites!

We happened to be staying in the same town as the famous WigWam teepee motel on Route 66. I recognized its similarity to the traffic cone motel on the movie Cars. I bet this is where they got the idea from. Each teepee had a retro car in front too.

We decided to travel the whole way to Phoenix and check into our RV Park one day early. We took a back route and saw a bunch of beautiful hills and mountains. For about 30 miles, there was fresh snow on the ground. At one point, my mom pointed out a saguaro cactus and then we just started seeing them all over. They are exactly like the cactus you see on postcards of the desert. Even though we hit rush hour traffic, the weather was warm and we have beautiful views at our RV park. They were emptying the pool when we got here. I really hope they fill it back up tomorrow so we can go swimming! I can’t wait explore more of Phoenix! (WT)