And We're Back.....

It has been four years since our last road trip, but after listening to the non-stop whining, crying, begging, and pleading of our adoring fans to PLEASE go on another road trip and blog about it (okay, so we don’t have any fans and Sandy and Edie were the only people who were whining, crying, begging and pleading), we have decided to sacrifice ourselves and go out on the road again (insert Willie Nelson song here).🚗

Most anyone who has talked with us recently knows about our road trip and planned itinerary so there won’t be many surprises for those of you who fall in this category; we’ll try to post many captivating pictures to hold your attention. If you aren’t one of those people and have no idea what we’re doing, that means you haven’t spoken with us for a while, and, well… that’s on you. Hopefully, you will regularly check our blog to see where we are and what we’re doing. At the very least, you can stop by and see if we’ve had any disfiguring accidents, broken any more bones (that would be Sandy), or lost any more teeth (and that would be Edie).🚑

We will also be posting videos to our YouTube channel for those of you who follow us on YouTube. If you don’t follow us on YouTube… why? But don’t be sad, there’s still time to repent and receive forgiveness for neglecting us. Just go to YouTube and search for Back Row Rebels. (Yes, our YouTube name is Back Row Rebels). You can even try clicking on or pasting this link into your browser to take you to our channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnTTtinm_ZMErisfMfjfd1Q?view_as=subscriber. There’s a really good chance that the link may or may not work.

With all that behind us, let’s get to the good stuff.

Our journey began on Monday, May 6, when we spent most of the day traveling the back highways of Arizona through Hopi and Navajo land. Most of the journey is two-lane highways but it’s a fairly easy drive that has little congestion. Believe it or not, there’s even some beautiful desert scenery. (Apparently, some desert is quite beautiful and scenic. Who knew?!)

One of the best parts of the drive is along Arizona Highway 89A driving past Jacob’s Lake. Jacob’s Lake is almost 8,000 feet high and is a forest of evergreens not far from the north rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s a beautiful area and there’s even a decent place to stop and use the facilities and load up on some supplies.

Another great place to stop is in Tuba City, Arizona. There is a travel center at a main intersection in town that has eating establishments, clean restrooms, and a little store. So if you find yourself in Tuba City, Arizona, stop by the Tuuvi Travel Center and tell them that Sandy and Edie sent you (they will have no idea who Sandy and Edie are, but the blank and confused looks on their faces should be worth the price of admission).

It was a great day for traveling as the weather was perfect. Little did we know that great traveling weather would not be the norm, but we digress. We’ll share more about the weather a little later.

Our first day’s journey ended in Gallup, NM, where we stayed at the Hampton Inn on Maloney Avenue. It’s our second time for staying at this hotel and we can highly recommend it. It is perfectly located right off of Interstate 40 and is surrounded by restaurants and stores. The staff was very friendly and helpful.

Our second day of travel had us leaving Gallup, NM, with clear skies. We drove through Albuquerque and enjoyed the changing scenery from desert to green and said good-bye to the last of the west coast mountains. We stopped at Russell’s Travel and Truck Center which is right on the New Mexico/Texas border. This is another place where we stopped four years ago and it is the perfect place to shop, use the restrooms, and eat if you want to. It’s totally up to you – we’re not bossing you, but it is a great rest place.

And as we drove away from New Mexico and Russell’s Travel Center, we also drove away from any decent weather in our first few days of traveling. By the time we reached Amarillo, Texas, we were in torrential rainstorms and a tornado warning where all our electronics were screaming at us with alerts to pull over and seek shelter. So we did what any smart, rational, and sane person would do… we drove faster to try to get out of the way.

But, seriously, where do people find shelter in a city where they know no one and have no safe place to go. We didn’t see any funnels hurling towards us so we kept driving. And we drove right out of Texas and into Oklahoma where there were more rainstorms and tornado warnings. In fact, we stayed in the Hampton Inn in Elk City, OK, on the night of our second day of driving and we slept while a tornado watch was in effect. The building was still standing when we woke up the next morning so everything worked out.

When Edie served her mission in Wisconsin, there were a couple of times that she and her fellow missionaries had to seek shelter in the basements of church members’ homes while warning alarms were screaming throughout the city. Our hotel in Elk City was right next door to a Wal-Mart. In fact, it was so close that we wouldn’t have been any closer to the entrance of Wal-Mart if we had driven into their parking lot. The only two times that the rain wasn’t pouring during the evening is when we walked from the hotel to the Wal-Mart, and from the Wal-Mart to the hotel. The entire time we were in Wal-Mart we could hear the rain pounding on the roof and we wondered how we were going to walk back to the hotel without getting drenched, even with the umbrellas we had with us. As soon as we paid for our items and walked to the front of the store, the rain stopped. So we are extremely grateful for whatever divine intervention was in place on our behalf.

As we were paying for our items in Wal-Mart, the two teen-age girls who were running the check-out lanes were talking back and forth about the storm. One of the girls said that her mom wanted to come and get her from work and take her home, but the girl wasn’t worried about the storm because the alarms weren’t going off. Tornadoes are to the Midwest what earthquakes and wildfires are to the west coast and hurricanes are to the east coast. Apparently, no one can completely escape the threat of some kind of natural disaster.

So, we leave you with the first two days of Sandy and Edie’s wild adventures and hope we’ve left you intrigued enough to return for the next installment.

Oh, and if you feel like adding our safe travels to your prayers, we’d certainly appreciate the support.