{"id":703,"date":"2011-10-26T18:20:28","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T23:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/?p=703"},"modified":"2013-05-29T21:53:18","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T02:53:18","slug":"honey-im-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/?p=703","title":{"rendered":"Honey, I&#8217;m home!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_707\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 432px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/vacation-shots1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-707 \" title=\"vacation shots\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/vacation-shots1.jpg\" width=\"432\" height=\"518\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Vacation<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">After 22 days and 8,000 miles of glorious, disaster-free travel, we arrived back to our homes and families.\u00a0 To say the least, WE HAD A BLAST!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">We drove through parts of Texas (duh!), Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, visited loads of national and state parks, drove scenic highways and byways and saw scads of interesting sights and timid creatures.\u00a0 We even experienced the pleasure of driving through southern Utah&#8217;s first snowfall of the season (radical contrast to the 100\u00b0 Texas temperatures we left behind).\u00a0 Bryce Canyon could not have been more beautiful with its fresh, white frosting!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I highly recommend traveling with no itinerary or charted course.\u00a0 When we missed a turn (several!), we enjoyed seeing unexpected sights and without an itinerary, we had the freedom to turn around and revisit areas we particularly enjoyed.\u00a0 We were never lost&#8230; only misplaced!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">After making many observations on our trip, I have a few comments:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To all 76 Gas Stations &#8211; had you posted your debit card only requirement at the first station we visited in CA, you would have made a few hundred dollars from our trip.\u00a0 You didn&#8217;t therefore you didn&#8217;t.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To National Park rangers &#8211; there is a fine line between land management and gross misuse.\u00a0 Look at the damage caused by &#8216;prescribed burns&#8217; and carry the responsibility of destroying many centuries of precious tree growth to say nothing of air quality.\u00a0 Those trees belong to our earth.\u00a0 We frown upon the same practice in rain forests.\u00a0 Shame, shame.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To Tuba City, AZ &#8211; dumping your stray dogs at the area motels is disgusting.\u00a0 Travelers are unprepared to rescue these innocent animals.\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t take a rocket scientist to understand the benefits of spaying and neutering.\u00a0 Try it.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To Gilroy, CA &#8211; thanks for all the garlic, stuffed olives, veggie chips and especially for the tastiest jelly beans in the world.\u00a0 Wish we bought more.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To Bakersfield, CA &#8211; hands down, you win the Trashiest Area of the West award.\u00a0 Nice example you set for your children.\u00a0 YUCK!<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To Tehachapi, CA &#8211; kudos to you for having a pristine, friendly town and making us feel so welcomed.\u00a0 Thanks also to Hungry Howie&#8217;s for quickly delivering delicious subs and salads to weary travelers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To Tequila&#8217;s Mexican Restaurant, Cortez, CO &#8211; thanks for another unbeatable, memorable meal!\u00a0 The drive was well worth it!<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To Officer John McCartin #310 of Steamboat Springs, CO &#8211; Thanks so much for pulling me over for driving too slow.\u00a0 Since I am a notorious speeder, it made for continuous laughs on the remainder of our trip.\u00a0 Now that I know my way around your darkened town, I assure you my next visit will be much faster.\u00a0 VROOOM!<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">And finally to Janice &#8211; what can I say?\u00a0 THANKS!\u00a0 I&#8217;ll never, ever forget it.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Shirl<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 22 days and 8,000 miles of glorious, disaster-free travel, we arrived back to our homes and families.\u00a0 To say the least, WE HAD A BLAST! We drove through parts of Texas (duh!), Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, visited loads of national and state parks, drove<span class=\"more-excerpt\"><a class=\"more-excerpt-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/?p=703\"> (continue reading&#8230;)  <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1543,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shirlsu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}