Vacation 2006 - Page 10
San Diego - Titan II Missile Museum - Trip Home
Last Day in San Diego
Last day in San Diego we went nowhere
for a change. Gave us a chance to unwind, repack and get ready for the run back
east to Texas.
Also gave us time to spend with Tim, Emme and Judy and Friends who really helped
make the whole vacation possible by putting us up on the beginning and ending
legs of the trip. We can't wait to return the favor. As usual Jillian's favorite
with anyone we visit are the pets!
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Trip across the California Mountains and Arizona Desert
San Diego to Green Valley, Arizona
The drive east from San Diego to Arizona
on highway 8 is a contrast in terrain.
You go from crowded but green and hilly San Diego
area across some winding, rocky mountain roads climbing steeply to about 4,000 feet.
As you
descend back closer to sea level on the other side California turns brown.
If you're west of these mountains you're green. If you're east you're desert.
Temperature change was about 30 degrees higher.
There are water tank stops everywhere for radiator fill ups for those who
overheat climbing the roads.
We left at 5:00 AM so by the time we started the climb we had daylight but still
cool temps.
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Titan II Missile Museum
http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/
Green Valley, Arizona to El Paso, Texas
We split our trip back home into two
days. First day we wanted to make the 755 miles from San Diego to El Paso.
Almost half way along the route is the Titan II Missile Museum in Green Valley,
Arizona, just outside of Vail.
It made for a nice two hour break from the
driving and was absolutely fascinating.
Josephine and the Kids might not have
appreciated it as much as Tim since they didn't live through the
cold war scares
of the 60's and of course weren't in the service like Tim.
They enjoyed it but
for Tim it was something he always wanted to see.
If you're ever near Vail, Arizona go see
it.
Check their website for the tour types, they have very in depth tours
certain days of the month by reservation only.
We've supplemented some of
our photos with some stock photos off their site for shots we couldn't get.
Our
tour was all the better since they selected Ashley to "turn the "key" to
simulate a missile launch.
Alarms sounded, lights started flashing and you would think she started World
War 3!
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Trip Home
Maps of El Paso to Austin and the Entire Route
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Total trip was about 3941 miles. Spread across 19 days that wasn't too bad. Kids had to put up with 900 miles on the first day and then two long runs the final two days. Other than that we had split the driving up nicely, had days with no driving and some with 30 mile runs. The way we planned the trip all our stops were pretty much off the main route. The kids had plenty to do in the car between watching movies, music, books and aggravating each other. Despite all the fun and excitement it was a good feeling when we pulled off Highway 10 onto 290 and entered the Texas hill country. As we made that approach the skies were blue with a rainbow, you could see the desert behind us and green all ahead. We cut through Fredericksburg and then into Austin. After a couple thousand miles both ways of desert it was nice to see green and be home.