Right before Christmas, Wes and I had the opportunity to make a quick road trip to Phoenix, Arizona. We made the trip to help my dad by delivering one of his work trucks across the country. We decided that if we were going to make the trek, we were going to make it fun. After 2,008.9 miles, 3 world's largest roadside attractions, countless bathroom breaks, 1 hail storm, some of the best barbecue, tex-mex, creole, and 1 order of the best enchiladas with green sauce either of us have ever had, we succeeded in making this a trip that neither of us will soon forget.
Our first stop was a quick lunch break in Birmingham, Alabama at DREAMLAND BBQ. Dreamland has several locations throughout Alabama and luckily, there is even one just north of Atlanta in Roswell if you're not in the mood for a road trip. They know what they are doing with their barbecue at Dreamland. Wes and I got ribs and a pulled pork sandwich and we were seriously pleased. If our first meal was any indicator, this trip was going to be a good one.
After Alabama we breezed through Mississippi and ended our night in Shreveport, Louisiana. We came into town late and not much was open so we opted for picking up something local and taking it back to the hotel before quickly passing out and getting ready for another day on the road.
After making it through the first three states without any issues, we were ready to cross through dear old Texas. I'll affectionately call Texas the state of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was reunited with the second love of my life - the double double at In-N-Out - and Wes was able to try the famous west of the Mississippi chain for the first time (he is now also happily in a long distance, long term relationship with the burger). We got to visit the world's tallest cedar rocking chair in Lipan. And we got to drive through seemingly never-ending wind turbine fields past Fort Worth. And then we got to enjoy the unlit state roads connecting through to Roswell, New Mexico. Filled with ominous lightning, thunder and one little hail storm accompanied by a mini tornado that turned our vehicle into a very large paper weight. The wind was so strong that even with flooring the gas, the truck was making little progress. We crept along and took shelter on the side of a building hoping the weather would pass. The storm followed us all the way to Roswell, where we got a hotel and were just happy that we had made it through Texas.
After spending the first half of the day getting to know some of our friends from outer space we headed off in search of Arizona. We had so much fun in Roswell I had to give it it's own blog post. Look out for that post on our day spent there coming up later this week. Traveling through the rest of New Mexico we got to see the world's largest pistachio on the outskirts of Alamogordo. We travelled through the mountains and snow in Ruidoso and stopped for the best enchilada's I have ever dreamed of at Jorge's Cafe right off the main road. We got a second surprise driving through Las Cruces where the world's largest chili pepper sits in a motel parking lot. As the sun went down we crossed into Arizona and our destination for the night in Tucson. After a day in Tucson we headed out to our final destination in Phoenix, Arizona. Sadly my camera died somewhere after Tucson and our adventure continued a bit further along. We walked around downtown Phoenix before dropping off the truck and heading to the airport for a redeye home. Two flights, a long nap, and one exchange on MARTA later, we made it back where we started in our new apartment in Atlanta.
