Road Trip Itinerary

"Bisti Badlands" via RoadTrippers.com

I ambled up the driveway slightly more deflated than I'd been when I left the house earlier. I'd just gotten off the phone with Melissa, who had to back out of our girl's road trip we'd been planning all summer. "College is just coming up really fast," she said, "and there are a lot of extra expenses we weren't anticipating." As I went through the rest of my day, a grey cloud hung over me and I wallowed in my disappointment. "Maybe I'll just go up to the Grand Canyon or something." I said for the third time that day.

"Misha, there's a lot more to see in Arizona, than just the Grand Canyon." Cameron grew exasperated with me and pulled up Google. Fingers flying across the keyboard, he typed in various attractions across all Arizona and New Mexico and announced them (even the boring middle-of-nowhere ones) in his big, cheesy voice. Roused from my depressed mood I suggested he look up the Bisti Wilderness. "Me and Melissa wanted to go there, but we couldn't figure out how. It's too out of the way to do it on the way up to Grandma's house and too far to make a day trip from here..." 

As the search engine pulled up photos, Cam's jaw dropped, "It looks like an alien landscape from Star Wars!!" A little search on mapquest informed us that the Bisti Badlands were only 2 hours away from Grandma's house! We could easily make a day-trip out of that! Our unspoken agreement was sealed: we were going on a road trip together instead!

Besides the Bisti Badlands, we also hope to:

• Hike the Animas River trail through Durango
• Visit Fuzziwig's Candy shop (Cam's idea)
• Stop by the Grand Canyon on the way home.

My goal for the trip is to practice my travel-photography with Dad's fancy camera! Hopefully, I will be able to blog them as we go, but I'm sure the shots will get onto the blog eventually! I'm so excited!