ChrisJenTravel.com – Honeymoon Trek

We woke up and made our way to the airplane graveyards in Tucson early in the am.  Not planning ahead much, we thought we’d be walking around climbing all over retired airplanes for hours, snapping some cool shots.  No, we were quickly told at the museum that many of the planes in the “bone yard” were actually still top secret so we would be shot if we jumped the fence to check them out.  Instead of settling for the tour of the tiny graveyard outside the museum, we drove as close as we could to the real thing to get some shots.  From the road, you could still see miles and miles of airplanes that have been put to rest, B-52s, C-5 Cargo, F-18 Fighter Jets – just to name a few.  They were arranged perfectly, most with their propellers even turned in the same direction. 

After some exploring we left for the Grand Canyon – a 4-5hr drive.  At first we were stuck in traffic, so we decided to taste the world famous cantaloupe….best we had ever had!  The drive was beautiful, Arizona’s landscape far more appealing than New Mexico or Texas had been.  Closer to the canyon though, the land gets rocky and flat for miles and miles as you make the climb to approx 7000 ft – it felt like we were driving on Mars.  We drove through the Painted Desert-it was a dark, clay red with intense winds.  Eventually, we came to the entrance of a forest and the Grand Canyon!  We went to a lot of viewpoints, took photos and rushed to make the 9-hour drive to San Diego, seeing deer along the way and a beautiful sunset through the Mojave Desert.  We would recommend spending more time and camping there…but we were in a hurry to get out of the car!

We drove through the San Bernardino valley and ended up about 45 minutes from San Diego in Riverside.  As we pulled into our dingy Travel Inn, we made the biggest mistake of the trip so far – parking right under a large tree with the branches resting on the car for the night…ants live in trees and we are basically living in our car – not a good combination.  Tips #1, if you don’t want your car to be infested with ants, don’t park under a tree.  We now have ants coming out of every crevice while we’re driving, thankfully not biting, but definitely annoying our peaceful trip.  Although they’ve suffered many losses smashed on the dashboard and windshield, they are definitely winning this battle so far!