Honeymoon Part 1

Our original plan for our honeymoon was to go somewhere tropical and all-inclusive in June after school let out.  Well, we quickly found out that that wasn't in the cards obviously.  So after looking around, I asked Chris if he wanted to go to Phoenix over Spring Break for our honeymoon, knowing he'd quickly catch on that that meant Spring Training.  We decided to drive since flights were pretty high and it would give us a chance to see more, since neither of us had ever been to the Southwest.
Accompanying pictures can be found on our Shutterfly site:  http://thewygasfamily.shutterfly.com

Day 1: Saturday
We were originally going to leave after church but there was a threat of snow, so we decided to head out of town around 2 and drove to Oklahoma City.  My friend Zach used to live there so I sent him a message on Facebook asking for a good place to eat.  He suggested a delicious pizza place called Hideaway Pizza.  We were definitely fans!

Day 2: Sunday
Drove to Amarillo.  We stopped along Route 66 along the way in Shamrock, Texas  When we got there we decided to check out the zoo.  It was really small, but their exhibits allowed you to see the animals up close, which was cool.  After that, we grabbed lunch at Whataburger.  I wasn't all that impressed, but I'm also not a big burger person.  We decided to go ahead and check into the hotel after lunch and asked the front desk for some suggestions on things to occupy our time.  I'm glad we did because she suggested that we check out Palo Duro Canyon.  I wish we had known about all the trails though because we didn't bring water (stupid on my part) thinking it was more of a get out, look, take pictures, and get back in the car type of thing.  That's what we ended up doing because I didn't want to risk getting dehydrated.  They had all over the map how you needed to take a half-gallon of water per person per mile of trail.  We decided it would be better to just drive to the different lookouts and skip the trails.  It was definitely worth it.  Absolutely beautiful scenery.  That definitely got us hungry and Chris was dying to try Texas BBQ.  He was convinced that he wasn't going to get any since it was Sunday and many places are closed.  After some research i found one that was open and we went to Dyer's BBQ.  It was yummy.  I had ribs and Chris got the brisket.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel and got ready for the next day.

Day 3: Monday
We woke up super early…like 5:30.  I guess we were excited.  We thought we'd try to see Cadillac Ranch on the way out but we left around 7 and it was still dark.  We had no idea how to get there or if you could see it from the highway so we missed it.  We figured we'd see it on the way back (we did).  This was a long day of driving but very scenic.  When we got to New Mexico we stopped at the rest area that had a visitor's center and the lady there gave us a list of Route 66 stops in NM.  Some of the towns didn't have much, but it was kind of fun to imagine how it was when it was a popular travel stop.  We did stop in Santa Rosa, NM, and went to the Route 66 Auto Museum.  I thought a car museum was appropriate for a Route 66 trip.
After that, we headed on to Albuquerque.  There was a restaurant that I had wanted to check out there but when we got in town I was so hungry and had to go to the bathroom so bad I couldn't think straight so we went to the first restaurant we saw in Old Town.  It was pretty good but spicy.  Since I have an obsession with old churches, we checked out the San Felipe de Neri Church across the street.  It was built in 1793 and is one of the oldest buildings in Albuquerque.
From Albuquerque, we headed to Flagstaff and made several stops on the way (mostly so I could go to the bathroom).  I enjoyed taking pictures of scenery from the car.  Chris couldn't get over being in the mountains since he had never seen mountains before (unless you count the Ozarks).  My favorite stop had to be Petrified Forest National Park.  I almost wasn't able to convince Chris to stop because we had been on the road so long by that time and had made quite a few stops.  He was glad I convince him though.  The scenery was amazing!  I had to get out and take pictures at every lookout point.  After that, I agreed that we wouldn't stop anymore (unless it was for the bathroom of course) until we got to Flagstaff.  We were both pretty tired so we just grabbed dinner and went to bed.

Speaking of bed…it's bedtime.  Parts 2 and 3 to come!