Update....

Since last we visited, either blogspot.com or our ourselves have forgotten how to load images. Our plan is to revisit (in photographs) days 5 & 6, and however many days this problem occurs, at the end of the trip.

On day 5 we wound our way across the Southwest from Deming, NM through Silver City (which was a let down), into the Border town of Douglas, Arizona, the copper mining town of Bisbee, then Tombstone... which is basically a gift shop.... with really bad actors running all over the place calling each other out for gun fights. Each and every "historic" building now sells stuff like, shot glasses, salt water taffy, magnets, hot pink feather boa's ???, and t-shirts that defy any measure of tastefulness. We spent the night at Warren and Tricia Hatcher's on the western side of Tucson after seeing the eastern portion of Saguaro National Park at sunset. What or where is Saguaro you might ask? Saguaro is probably the most stereotypical image of a cactus that will come to your mind when you think of the Southwest. They can grow up to 60 ft tall and commonly live to be over 150 yrs old. They sprout "arms" or branches at around the age of 85. They are exclusively found in a rather narrow band that runs across Arizona's portion of the Sonoran Desert. At dusk we caught some great views of the vast airplane graveyard on the eastern outskirts of Tucson as we headed in to visit the Hatchers. The Hatchers were very gracious to open their beautiful home to us for the night. They are both native Mississippians and thier oldest daughter Melanie is married to my cousin Eric Randle. We really enjoyed our visit.

Alright, this is where our plans changed. Day 6 was to have us heading north towards the Grand Canyon. A text message from an old friend of Ambers from about day 2 has lured us out to visit Los Angeles for two days then looping back to the Grand Canyon. We couldn't leave Tucson without a visit to the western portion of Saguaro National Park and the Desert Museum. We were totally not expecting what happened on our way up to the park yesterday morning... a mountain lion ran across the road in front of our car!!! I talked to a guy later that morning who had live there his whole life without seeing one! This was just the start of what would be an amazing day. First, Saguaro National Park is a MUST see, both the East and West portions. Then the Desert Museum... I would have to rate this up there with places like the Smithsonian, The Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, The Getty (Which we are visiting tommorrow), The Biltmore in Asheville, NC and the Bill Cody Museum of Western Heritage in Cody, Wyoming. The Desert Museum is 90% outdoors taking advantage of a generous strip of land adjacent to Saguaro West. Equal parts Botanical Garden and Zoological park totally concentrated on Sonoran Desert life. This place is AWESOME!

Well, I am typing this from a house our friend Jeremy Daniel shares with a room-mate in or very near to Hollywood. We made it in last night easily. No nightmare traffic... in fact I only had to hit the brakes on the off ramp. The staggering part of L.A. (this is my 3rd visit, Amber's 2nd) isn't so much in a sprawling skyline but the vast area Greater Los Angeles covers... @ 90 miles North to South and just about the same East to West.

Thank GOD I'm a country boy!

Hopefully today we will see the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Santa Barbara. Tommorow "The Getty" is on tap.

More later.