This morning my wife and I are embarking on a little cross country adventure with ninja. Starting from Jersey City NJ, and ending up in our new home of Santa Monica CA in the next 10 days or so. This is a big life change for us and especially for my wife, who has lived in NJ her whole life.

We have a bunch of stops planned along the way and I am sure a few unplanned adventures will occur as well. First stop today is the Frank Lloyd Wright House - Falling Water. Then we are meeting up with some friends in Indiana and then rallying out the remainder of the trip on the bits and pieces left of route 66.

I will try to take as many photos and update this thread throughout the trip, but Ninja is probably going to keep me motoring as much as possible.

 

I have made the coast to coast trip twice and loved it. I regret not taking any pictures though. My mini took great care of me. if you're going across Route 40 it gets pretty messy in the summer once you pass TX going west. The bugs are big and really make a mess of your wind shield. Back in 03 there weren't many Minis in the south west (except Cali) so I spent a lot of extra time at the gas stations explaining what kind of car it was.

I hope your trip is/was as entertaining as mine was.
Oh! Love Santa Monica, you're in Mini heaven as far as roads go.
Look up Southern California Mini Maniacs (SCMM) you won't regret it.

 

Day 1 started early... out of bed @ 4:30, a bit before schedule but good thing because after getting packed back up and saying our sad good byes. we were leaving right on time - 6 am.



Headed out from Elif (my wife)'s parents house in North Arlington. Had to make the usual stops, the bank, dunkin donuts, gas... but got all that done pretty quickly and we said our goodbyes to New Jersey.



Our first stop was Frank Lloyd Wright's house - Falling water. Which was pretty amazing. Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside but we spent a good hour or so walking around and it was a nice break, but Ninja was calling for more MOTORING, and man PA has some great roads!



Being a family of 2 minis we have a bunch of useful mini shwag... Elif had a motoring log from the first mini takes the states, and we quickly went to work documenting our trip.

The most enjoyable is the license plate hunt... we some how managed to get 30 different state license plates in the first day. Hawaii is going to be hard...

Alright, well I need to wrap this up... its late and I have a lot more motoring to do tomorrow.

And yes, Minian, there are lots of bugs and we haven't even gotten to the mid west yet...


We made it to our break point in Hanover Indiana, where we met up with our friends that will be joining us for the remainder of the trip...he's the GTI behind Ninja



Had a nice time on the Ohio river valley and the bunny farm (pics to explain to come...)

See the gallery for more pics of day one... hopefully this will get a bit more organized as we go along...

 

I love road trips!

I was actually just at fallingwater in may, it was beautiful... great place and the tour was worth it for sure....

 

I uploaded a bunch more photos to my gallery... I am putting them up small and low res so I don't reach my max - with no post-processing... still have 8 days left on my trip.

Today was great start in Indiana after a nice evening with our good friends Shane and Samira and Shane's parents. Shane and Sam will be joining us for the rest of our trip/move out west and we are all excited about all the spots we will find on Route 66.


Day 2 started with a foggy morning that roused me out of bed early to talk a few pics... ninja in the foggy Indiana morning. We had a casual breakfast and said bye to Shane's family and were on our way... oh yeah I saw a wild turkey too - have a photo but that one will need some post processing...

Our first stop was near St. Lous - Chain of rocks bridge...which is an old de-commissioned bridge that has a 22 degree turn halfway across the Mississippi River... "for safe river passage." Its now a walking bridge, was a great first stop, and really got us turned on to all the things to come on Route 66.




Next stop was the arch in St. Louis. We drove down some of the old parts of Route 66 from chain of rocks and found parking, then walked around the arch park for a bit... where Elif had some time to practiced her kung-fu



After the arch we hopped back on I-44 and we cruised for awhile then got off for a bit and motored down some old bits of Route 66 - there are some great bits of road still, it is a real shame that as a whole the road has been de-commissioned.



Again its late and I need to get to bed... hopefully we will make it to the Cadillac Ranch tomorrow...

I plan on have a bit more composed posts going forward... these past 2 days have been hard driving days... hopefully we will have more time for the remainder of the trip and I won't have to wait until so late to make these posts.

 

Nice pictures Dez. A question for you, are your driving lights the OEM ones or did you go with some after market lights?

 

Ninja's driving lights are OEM, and man do they brighten up the world...

 

Dez,

I'm in Florida, awaiting delivery of a chocolate clubbie, at which point I'm embarking on a cross-country roadie from here to L.A. as I, too, am making the move. I wanted to get the new car here specifically because I wanted to make the trip, which will happen mid to late July. I lived in L.A. for three years before - Marina del Rey, just south of Santa Monica - and I promise, you guys will adore SM. Great for a young couple. In fact, my ex-girlfriend was from Jersey and her family is still there, but she still can't get herself out of Cali and likely never will. So good luck to you guys, and I hope to catch Ninja out on the road one of these days. Not sure where I'll be living, but I'm targeting one of those beach towns, probably SM or Marina del Rey. Cheers!

 

Ok so I am really tired - another long awesome day of motoring. I just don't have the juice to make a full post right now... hopefully I will have time in the morning to write up the days events.

For now, I added a bunch of new photos to the gallery... enjoy!

 

Nice Journal and pic's.
Ninja really looks good!!!

 

Ok, its the morning of day 4 and I am a bit more rested up...lets recap day 3

Day 3 started in rainy Joplin MO.


We were worried we would be in for a stormy day but we actually lucked out and only had a few showers. From Joplin we headed west on Route 66 into Kansas. Kansas has the shortest stint of Route 66, only 13 miles, and very worth it.



There were a few great old towns and we were stopping often for photos. Towards the end of the Kansas stretch was an old closed down bridge, the Rainbow Bridge.



It was actually open on one side and we were tempted to pull the cars on for some photos but decided it was probably closed for a reason. I did pull ninja up to get a shot in front



Actually right on a fork off from the bridge was a sweet lil zippy road off to main route... Ninja and I just had to test it out...



From there we headed into Oklahoma, which didn't have much going on. There were a few cool things: the famous round barn, some recommended restaurant stops in OK City, but overall Oklahoma was long and slow. We were mostly on the inner-state since we need to make it to the Cadillac ranch before dusk.

We made it to the Cadillac Ranch just in time and were lucky enough to get there before the big storm that was brewing hit...




The Cadillac Ranch is a definite must if making this trip... the only downside was you have to walk out in a field to it... I was hoping to get a shot of Ninja right up next to it...

We headed out and made our last haul for New Mexico, originally we had planned to try to make it to Santa Fe, but decided we would reschedule and take it a bit slower on day 4 spending almost all of it on Route 66.

Once, in NM we started to see the landscape change and made a few wrong turns and found some happy accident photo ops.



It was just beautiful on some of these roads...

We finally made it to our new destination of Santa Rosa, NM - found a place to stay and called it a night.

Priority #1 for Day 4 - find a car wash... New Mexico has "bug storms" ...



Check the gallery for more pics...

 

I know you are probably through Santa Rosa by now, but the best photo op there is at the Love's truck stop on top of the hill as you come into town from the East. There is a perfect stop at the end of the drive way that overlooks the desert for as far as you can see. My ex and I used to always stop there when going to see her family in Farmington, NM and take pictures to compare with the old ones.

I have a lot of fond memories from there.

Did you eat at the Silver Moon Cafe?

 

Thanks for the great travelogue. Please keep it coming; and enjoy Santa Monica!

 

LOL!!! I warned you about the bugs. The drive is still worth it though.

 

Haha you sure did, but I had no idea it would be as bad as it was... almost started to feel bad, we took so many out...

Yeah unfortunately, we had already left Santa Rosa before I read your post, and no we didn't go to the Silver Moon - we had dinner at Joseph's which was great "new" mexican food..

Ok so now for day 4... on to Santa Fe and more...

Day 4 started out looking for food first, but nothing much was open @ 7:30 in Santa Rosa. We decided to take a small side trip off of 66 and check out the Blue Hole - we tried to follow the signs but are not sure if what we found was it or not - just a small body of water with some piers and maybe a waterslide, if I remember correctly. We figured it would probably be more enjoyable if you were diving anyway... so we just hit the road.

Luckily before we hit the road we found a car wash and Priority #1 was fulfilled - ninja got a bath.


After we got cleaned up we headed out... today we were planning on staying on Route 66 as much as possible...

It was nice to get out early and get some good motoring in... and oh man they have some nice straight-aways in NM



Since nothing was open in Santa Rosa, we were all starving. We even pasted a ranch named "Starvation Peak Ranch"... which unfortunately was very fitting at the time. We had all but come to accept that we wouldn't eat until Santa Fe when Elif spotted a sign saying "breakfast, lunch, and dinner." It was newer looking, so we figured it had to be opened. We circled back and found Frankie's Casanova - the atmosphere inside was great and we had some tasty cappuccinos and breakfast.



After that on to Santa Fe.

We arrived in Santa Fe around noon and spent a couple hours walking around. Saw some of the touristy things and checked out a few shops. Santa Fe was pretty awesome, I really dug the architecture... I could just see all the buildings being made out of mud.. it was really great.



Then back on the inner-state with the intention of making it to Canyon de Chelly... (which we didn't make it to today)

We got bored of the inner-state and found a great stretch of Route 66 to jump off on. It was a winding road through the canyons it was really amazing. The mesas and canyons in NM are incredible. One high point on the route was "dead mans curve" ... a complete 180 degree switch back, which I guess took a few lives, before it was properly marked.

Ninja on dead mans curve...


After successfully navigating dead mans curve, we motored on for quite a while enjoying the scenery until the end of this piece of the mother road. It had an interesting Historic Route 66 sign/ Dead End sign which made for a good photo.



At this point we had to jump back on to the inner-state, but only for a few more miles... then hopped back off on 66 on our way to Gallup NM.

We arrived in Gallup and were really enjoying all the old Route 66 signs and buildings and decided just to spend the night. We pulled up to el Rancho Hotel which was a big movie star stop over back in the 60's. It looked awesome inside, and the gentlemen at the front desk gave us a better rate on an upgraded room so we were sold...



Tomorrow we will have to pack lots of water... its on to Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley.

Check the gallery for additional photos of today.

 

dez, advice is free.

Consider this.
Put some clear car wax on the grill/lower hood.
The nasty bugs and gargoyles in Texas will be much easier to clean off.
Been there, done that on long rips.
When at your destination, wipe 'er down.

 

I am more than a little jealous. I've been looking forward to doing a Route 66 road trip for a few years now, _plus_ I haven't yet ordered my Clubman, so I don't even have that part.

Hopefully next year (this year the vacation time is being soaked up by a honeymoon, so I can't complain. )

 

Awesome photo journal dez -thanks for taking the time!!

Route 66 is a bonus!

Good luck with your re-location.

 

About ten years ago we did a round trip cross-country from NJ. When we were in Wyoming we passed some feed lots and the flies were so bad we had to stop at gas stations twice to clean the windshield before needing to refill the tank! The aromas were very conducive to keeping food intake down.
P.S. I hope your driving on the interstate !

 

Wow...day 5 was a long day... and actually it was probably the shortest driving day we have had yet.

I am going to be doing things a bit differently. I will be uploading all new photos to my new photobucket account. It's just way faster and easier to use then uploading them into the NAM gallery - no offense NAM.

Here is the link to see more photos then the ones embedded in the post
http://photobucket.com/ninjagoeswest

We started the day in Gallup NM.



As I said we stayed at El Rancho Hotel which looked pretty awesome all lit up at night.



From Gallup we left Route 66 and headed towards Canyon de Chelly AZ. Next few days were going to be spent off of 66 checking out some of the canyons etc in AZ and UT.

Canyon de Chelly was amazing. Not only were there beautiful canyons but there were old pueblo ruins, which was really our main reason for going. We did a 2 hour hike down and back to get a closer look at the White House Ruins.

Elif Kungfu fighting...again




Very very cool to see these old ruins and try to imagine how the people lived and built them.

The hike back up was tough and very very hot. Almost to the top we had stopped to rest in some shade and I was setting up a timed portrait of our exhausted crew. I had setup my Ricoh GRD on uneven surface but thought it would be ok for the short 10 seconds. To my dismay, right before the shutter fired a gust of wind came and the GRD went down

Luckily it fell towards us and not the other way... but the damage was done. The sensor got mis-aligned and now is super light sensitive. All the images are all blown out and the trip is only half over :(. Luckily the Ricoh is still under warranty, and I have a backup canon DSLR, but its not the Ricoh, but I'll survive.

From here we head to UT and Monument Valley. I a bit bummed that I won't have the Ricoh for Monument Valley but the Canon will get me by.

Unfortunately, when we stopped to gas up and de-bug... I noticed a 6 in crack in Ninja's windshield Luckily its behind the rearview mirror so I can't see it really while driving, but still - he's pretty much brand new... so a bit upsetting. Not really sure what happened... it was either one of the giant bugs that I took out or the tumble weed that flew into the road right as I drove by. Neither of which I would have thought to cause a crack, but oh well... its repairable.

After gassing up we stopped in Amigo Restaurant to re-fuel ourselves and this little girl kept coming up to me and saying hi. She must have known I was feeling down on my luck. She definitely cheered me up a bit.



Either way - we make it to Monument Valley and it is breath taking. We decided not to take the cars on the 17 mile dirt road and we could see pretty much most of the valley from the beginning of the trail. We shot some photos and decided to keep heading on to the Grand Canyon.




Oh yeah and my batteries for the Canon died while at Monument Valley :( ...

But we made it to the Grand Canyon lastnight, some how lucked out and got the last available room in the park and now we are going to get out and explore the Grand Canyon today. I am recharged and so are my batteries so I'm sure today will go much smoother then yesterday.

Please check the photobucket link for additional photos
http://photobucket.com/ninjagoeswest

 

Day 6 - We spent all day in awe of the Grand Canyon. It was nice not to spend all day in the car - even though Ninja is awesome.

We arrived the night before so it was really nice just to get up and be here. It really is kind of hard to take in, so it was great to spend the entire day immersing ourselves in the canyon.

We started the morning of day 6 getting our campsite secured for the evening. We had wanted to camp the previous night as well but the camp grounds were full. So we made sure we had a spot for the night.

Then we headed over to the rim and got gobbled up by the magnitude of the Canyon. It really does look as though it just goes on forever.









After spending some time taking photos at the rim we grabbed some lunch and got ready for a hike down into the canyon. We knew we didn't have time to make it all the way down to the canyon floor but we figured we would just hike for a while and then just turn around and come back. It was a pretty well maintained easy trail, with a lot of other people and families, which was not really the hiking experience I was hoping for. Luckily we found our own little trail off the beatin path and we had it completely to ourselves.




It was like our own private viewing of the Grand Canyon. We hiked and took pictures for a while and just tried to take it all in. It really is overwhelming...





We were lucky enough to be here when the "Star Party" was going on. The Star Party is when a bunch astronomers gather at the Rim and and set up all different types of telescopes. It was almost cultish, but still really cool. We saw Saturn, some new star clusters, the moon, and other various astral beings... It was very cool and there were some interesting people gathered.



We finished then day with a sunset at the Rim and roasting hotdogs on the fire back at the camp site.





A really great day which will be hard to top...every body should go to the Grand Canyon



Please check the photobucket link for additional photos
http://photobucket.com/ninjagoeswest

 

This is really awesome! Keep up the great posts, and keep having fun! I am totally jealous, and i am thinking that when my car gets here, i should make a run for CA too!

 

Beautiful photos. Thank you for sharing. Welcome to Southern Cali. My Astro Black Cubby S is on order. I live a bit further south.

 

I just found this thread and haven't started from the top yet. I love this!!

I can't wait to start and read from the top your trip reports.

Longboard

 

Dez

I don't care what anyone else say's you guys are the US's 1st representatives of "Clubmanism." Yea, that's it the 1st nominees for 2008 "Clubmanist of the year," US Chapter. Anyone else out there with a travelog like the dez crew?



Hmm, "Clubmanism" did I just make that up? Not sure, but you read it here first. (I think?)