Summer 2007 Road Trip: One girl. One car. Over 8,000 miles.

Here is a list of hotels/motels I have stayed at so far along with a rating and comments for each. The scale goes like this:

1/5 - Wouldn’t recommend the hotel to even my worst enemy.

2/5 - Would recommend the hotel, but only to my worst enemy.

3/5 - Decent, would stay in again if necessary but not high on priority list.

4/5 - Very good, would happily stay in again and recommend to friends and others.

5/5 - Highly recommend to friends/others and would definitely stay in again!

Days Inn, Plattysburg, NY - 5/5 (very friendly staff, clean rooms, well-priced)

Days Inn, Erie, PA - 2/5 - (overpriced, room and hotel lobby smelled of vomit and other unmentionable odors)

Hilton Garden Inn Chesteron, IN - 5/5 (friendly staff, nice rooms, great room service)

Radisson Hotel Minneapolis, MN - 5/5 (very friendly, luxurious rooms, extremely comfy beds, great room service)

Days Inn, Dickinson, ND - 4/5 (very friendly, 2 bars and a ballroom within hotel, nice room but window overlooked indoor pool)

Holiday Inn Express, Butte, MT - 2/5 (way overpriced!, no body towels in room, room service would not answer phone, their free wireless internet didn’t work)

Doubletree Hotel, Seattle, WA - 4/5 (luxurious room, great room service, decently friendly staff but way too expensive)

Super 8, Grants Pass, OR - 5/5 (for the cheap price, I couldn’t have asked for more than I got, plus very friendly staff)

Homestead Suites, Brea, CA - 4/5 (nice rooms, nice staff, but constant problems with room key. Stayed for 11 days)

Super 8, Redlands, CA - 3/5 (comfy bed with terrible pillows, flies in room, maids wake you up too early on weekends, but fast wireless internet)

Super 8, Holbrook, AZ - 3/5 - (internet rarely worked, had to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get to room, but friendly staff)

La Quinta Inn, Amarillo, TX - 4/5 (very nice rooms and beds, fast wireless internet, friendly staff)

Hilton, Branson, MO - 5/5 (extremely nice rooms, extremely nice staff, extremely delicious food & drinks, but confusing parking situation)

Crowne Plaza, Dayton, OH 5/5 (nice rooms, good food from room service, free parking, friendly staff)

I’m currently in Tulsa, visiting family. I’ll be in Branson, Missouri Thursday night until Saturday morning. After that, I will be driving like the wind to get home to NH.

Photos and further details coming soon!

I arrived in Amarillo, Texas last night and stayed at the La Quinta Inn (which was a halfway decent hotel, surprisingly enough).  I made sure to get some photos of the New Mexico landscape as I passed through it at about 90 mph, however, and some of the photos came out pretty good.  Perhaps I am getting better at shooting photos from a speeding vehicle.

Various New Mexico landscapes:

Then, entering Texas:

This is the I-40 East, which is down to one lane for many miles near the NM border and where they are supposedly doing “construction”.  Now, I drove through this area about 5 years ago, and I would swear they were doing construction then as well and it looked exactly this way.  What exactly got accomplished in the 5 years I was gone?  Hmm…

Anyway,  my next stop is Oklahoma City, OK.  I will actually be in the Oklahoma and Missouri area for the next several days as I visit family and friends.  Tonight will probably be OKCity, tomorrow and Thursday, Tulsa, and Friday to Saturday, Branson, MO.  After that it will be full speed ahead back home to NH.

Keep an eye out also for my upcoming posts which will have a rundown of my entire trip, plus reviews from all of the hotels I stayed at, and a list of things I’ve learned from road-tripping!

I thought this deserved its own post.

Beautiful, is it not?

I’m currently in Holbrook, Arizona.  How did I get here?  Hmm, I’m not quite sure.  It’s all a blur of desert scenery and thunderstorms.  Oh, and 98 mph driving.  (In my defense, almost everyone goes this fast in the desert!  I swear!)

I did actually get up to 100mph at one point.

I stayed last night in Redlands, CA in the same hotel as my cousin (who is originally from Tulsa, OK but out in So Cal doing work for the summer).  We left Redlands this morning at about the same time.  I was headed to I-40 East, which would take me all the way to Oklahoma and Missouri, which are my next two places to visit.  My cousin was headed to Kingman, Arizona, which is right off of I-40 as well.  So, we both left around 10am this morning, in separate cars.  We kept in sight of each other on the long drive - about 250 miles or so - and both stopped in Needles, CA and Kingman, AZ for gas.  I left him in Kingman (much to my sadness) and continued East on I-40.  So here I am now in Holbrook.I ran into a lot of storms in Arizona today… lots of rain and lightening. I got a few pics of various Arizona landscapes, but nothing too exciting.  See below.

I’m currently sad because of leaving my family members behind. Although I still get to see my favorite Aunt in Tulsa, Oklahoma Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I am still leaving behind my sisters and nieces and nephew and cousin and other Aunt. I parted ways with my cousin in Kingman, AZ today (we both drove out there from Redlands, CA but in spearate cars but were stopping at the same gas stations and texting each other) and from there on out, it was a little lonely. It’s hard to be surrounded by family for days and days on end and suddenly be plunged into solitude again. I often wonder why I live in New Hampshire when the rest of my family lives in the Southwest or Midwest. (Actually, it is my fault. I grew up in Cali but hated it so much I decided to leave. But now I think it’s time to relocate states again). I have plans to move somewhere new this fall. Where exactly, I haven’t decided, but I have two places in mind. I’ll post more about that later on.

Arizona is OK but a lot of desert.  I’ve been through here many times before so it’s nothing too exciting to me.  Right now, I’m around 80+ miles from the New Mexico border.

For now, here are some pictures of the Arizona scenery, which happened to include several thunderstorms and downpours today.  I managed to get involved in a total of 4 thunderstorms and/or downpours today on the road.  How fun.

Not too long after I took that above picture, it began raining so hard I almost had to pull over.