Thelma and Louise (a.k.a.Valine & Linda)---Part One

Valine and I went on our first travel adventure last week---what we've been calling our "Thelma and Louise" trip. Instead of a cool convertible, we had a Ford Fusion and we never ran into Brad Pitt, but we stayed busy! We flew out of New Orleans

(that's the Grand Canyon from our airplane)

and right after arriving in Las Vegas, we picked up our rental car with Valine at the wheel and headed south. Driving in unfamiliar territory is not exactly Valine's idea of fun, but with my broken wrist, there weren't many options and she did great!

Our first stop was the Hoover Dam.

After enjoying the view from way up high, and marveling at the engineering, we drove across the new bridge and into Arizona.

I'd read about a few small ghost towns along the way, and since we're always on the lookout for a new scrapbook page, we decided to stop off in Chloride, AZ, which is advertised as "a ghost town that never really died--almost, but not quite".

On the day we were there, it seemed pretty dead--nothing was open. There were, however, some pretty desert wildflowers,

cactus,

lots of quail and a tiny bunny,

and LOTS of yard art,

some of which was actually kind of pretty, in a very odd sort of way.

We tried to view the advertised petroglyphs on the canyon walls, so we followed painted signs up a dusty, rocky "road" as far as we dared.

We parked and walked a good bit further down the deserted trail before giving up and heading back to the car.

Valine had visions of a toothless, old prospector jumping out from behind the rocks, but fortunately that never materialized either.

As we continued our road trip, a rainbow followed alongside for a while

and then there was an amazing sunset.

an amazing sunset

before settling in for the night in Williams, AZ.