405 miles later we arrived at Picacho Peak State Park which is a few miles west of Tucson.

I think "picacho" in Spanish means roadrunner. That is Picacho Peak on the left. Does it look like a roadrunner? Maybe it just happens to be prime roadrunner habitat.

I tend to take a lot of photos of the van. Hey, there is one of me (and the van) standing next to a big old saguaro cactus.

Lorri and me with Picacho Peak, Lorri with a cactus, nice evening colors, the van with a cactus

Day 2, April 14. (361 miles, 766 total)

Before even getting back on the Interstate, we visited the Arizona Nut House and Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Farm.

The Nut House sign, Lorri in front of the Nut House, the Rooster Cogburn Sign and an ostrich or two.

The Ostrich Farm also has Lorikeets which I think are somewhat like parakeets. You can feed them and you can feed the ostriches too if you want to pay Mr. Cogburn for the privilege. We chose to just check out the gift shop (check out the size of those eggs!) and to compare my truck to Rooster's truck. His truck is bigger.

A few miles down the road in southeastern Arizona, we stopped for a wine tasting at Coronado Vineyards. We had a nice visit and had our lunch in the parking lot. It seems like an odd area to grow grapes and make wine, but a lot of people are doing it.

We left the Interstate in Las Cruces, NM, and headed in a northeasterly direction that would eventually take us to St. Louis and Cleveland.

The first two photos show the west side and the east side of the same peaks, just east of Las Cruces. We stayed in a nice little BLM campground called "Aguirre Springs" with a forever view toward the east. It would have been perfect if the wind hadn't been blowing 400 mph.

Some photos from the next morning, most notably Lorri reading her book and a free-range cow. I wonder what they taste like.

Day 3, April 15 (266 miles, 992 total)

Our first stop was White Sands Proving Ground where they test missiles, bombs, rockets and all sorts of other cool stuff. We were directed to only take outdoor photos from a certain angle and expressly forbade photos of the entry gate area. I guess they don't want anybody else getting in on the fun.

From left to right: missile, rocket, flying saucer, missile & rocket, TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire guided) missile. The sign that I read about the TOW.

Nittany Lion of the Desert

More missiles and other implements of destruction. We didn't get to see any launchings or things getting blown up but it was interesting to find out how many different types of rockets, etc., that there are, or were. Must be nice to have a budget like the US Military.

Not far from WSPG is White Sands National Monument where, you guessed it, there is a lot of white sand. And here are a lot of white sand photos. I wish we could borrow some for the beaches of Encinitas....

Next stop in New Mexico was Roswell where we had our photo taken with a couple friendly aliens. The little guy on the left is a Penn State fan.

That night we stopped at Haystack Mountain Off Highway Vehicle Area, just east of Roswell. The wind was blowing pretty good but it died down after dark and we had a good night's sleep. We were the only people there besides the camp host.

Day 4, April 16, (425 miles, 1417 total)

We drove northeasterly on US 70 through Portales and Clovis NM and into Texas where we took US 60 to Amarillo. We passed towns with names like Bovina and Hereford, the self-proclaimed "Beef Capital of the World"! The route was littered with dozens of feed lots - places where they keep what seems like millions of cows and that smell like, well, millions of cows.

At Amarillo we got on I-40 and drove into Oklahoma where we stopped at Red Rock Canyon State Park. Did I mention that we ran into some rain? Well we did and it stayed with us, off and on, until St. Louis.

Nothing much to do when it's raining than sit in the van and enjoy a good cocktail!

I tried to get some photos of the red rocks. The area is popular with rock climbers.