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In Kamakura, we visited our first Buddhist temple, Kaikozan Jisho-in Hase-dera, or simply Hase-dera temple. When we entered the gardens, I was blown away by the hydrangeas in bloom! 
We just so happened to be visiting during the hydrangea festival, and I saw variations of hydrangea I had never seen before. Vivid shades of purple surrounded the koi pond and covered the garden grounds. We wandered through the gardens, admiring the blooms of Japanese hydrangea and the meticulously kept gardens before finding our way to the bottom of the steps leading up to the temple. The temple sits on a hill, overlooking the ocean, and the gardens cover the base of the hill. As you walk up the steps, tiny statues line the hills, a dedication to children who have passed away. The closer we came to the top of the steps, the smell of incense began to fill the air (the holy smoke of Buddhist temples). I enjoy the smell, but it gives James a headache, so we didn’t stand next to the incense for very long.
The Hase-dera temple houses a statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The statue was carved from a single tree, stands over 30 feet high, and is covered in gold (and has eleven heads). It is disrespectful to take photos within the temple, so I didn’t, and just observed what others were doing. Many people were praying in front of the statue, buying trinkets to commemorate their visit, and I believe buying fortunes. We didn’t stay inside very long, as seeing people praying to 
a golden statue made me a bit uncomfortable. I kept seeing verses about the golden calf idol in my head, and decided to admire the architecture and gardens outside. I know that seems strange, and I respect others for having different beliefs, but gold religious statues are very foreign to James and I. I also wouldn’t want people who didn’t believe the same things as I did watching me pray in church, as though I was just a tourist attraction. There were other statues of smaller gods there as well, including the god of luck (I think) and another one I was shooed away from by a tiny Japanese woman before I had a good look. I was later told that a Japanese person making a big X across their chest doesn’t mean they are strongly telling you something, but it is similar to shaking your head no. I didn’t know that at the time, and thought that I was aggressively being told to leave the area.
The architecture and woodwork of the temple was incredible, as is the age of the statue, which is believed to have been carved in the 700’s. Being in Japan has really made me understand that the United States is a very young country. James and I have been all over the country visiting historic American sites, and we are continuously amazed at how much older everything is in Japan than in America. Another interesting aspect of the temple was the Shinto shrine that shared the temple grounds. Shintoism was the religion of Japan long before Buddhism was brought from China, and it remains very important in the lives of the Japanese. What I find interesting is the convergence of the two, as it is not uncommon to find a Shinto shrine at a Buddhist temple.
Being new to the country, the Navy requires us to go through an Intercultural Relations Course where we learn the basic customs and manners of the country, including some language, and helpful things like how to use the train systems and order food at restaurants. It was a week long course, including a field trip on the fourth day of class. For the field trip, we had to plan where we wanted to go in small groups, and our group (James and two of his coworkers) decided to go see the Great Buddha in Kamakura. Kamakura is only about a 45 minute train ride away, yet it feels like you have traveled across the world. 
It was the first time I realized we were in a totally different country, in a place where the culture, beliefs, history, and tradition are entirely different from ours. In Ayase city, you notice the signs being in a different language, and a few things that are slightly different, but for the most part, it’s very similar to the US. People wear similar clothes, the stores are pretty much the same, and so are the roads, lights, and 7-11’s. Really, everything kind of feels like home. But when you start to venture out to the shrines and historical sites, the Japan you read about in books comes to life in front of your very eyes. This was definitely my experience during the field trip. It was very exciting! We only got lost once, trying to switch train lines, which somehow took us wandering around inside of a mall, and when we got off the train in Kamakura, we were transformed into a little oceanfront Japanese town. It seemed like we were worlds away from our congested metropolitan suburb. On our field trip, we had to do various things like interact with a local, visit a place and write about it, use a Japanese pay phone, and fill out a report sheet that discussed our experiences, impressions, and questions. We visited the Hasadera Temple, The Great Buddha, another small shrine, and a Soba noodle shop. There were many Japanese students on field trips as well, and I felt like we had been transformed to the 3rd grade (like many of these students) as we filled out our three page report sheet.
Our little family of three is whole again!!! Three weeks ago now (wow…time is flying by over here!) AJ boarded a plane by himself in Virginia Beach to travel half way around the world to be reunited with his parents. Bringing a dog overseas is a very trying process, especially when you do not speak the language of the new country. Our journey began in February when AJ began the importation process by getting the FAVN rabies test, thus beginning his 180 day quarantine period. He had to get a few more booster shots, another rabies shot, and there was a stack of paperwork to fill out. Most of the stuff we were able to get done before we left California, but there were some requirements that had to be done within ten days of AJ leaving the United States. The only breakdowns I had about moving to Japan involved getting AJ ready to fly. I felt like every time we thought we had completed everything, another form or requirement made itself known. Seriously….it 
was dramatic. Initially we had planned on bringing AJ with us on the flight, but we didn’t know how long we would have to wait until we received housing in Japan. Without housing, AJ would have to be in a kennel on a different military base until we were able to secure a place to live. James finally convinced me it would be better if we left AJ with our parents, and shipped AJ later as cargo. It was tough convincing me, but I finally gave in, conceding that as a rescue dog, AJ probably shouldn’t spend weeks in a kennel without us.
When we arrived in Japan, we were told we could move into our house in two weeks, and I began to doubt our decision to leave AJ. I called and made AJ a flight reservation, and was reminded that he could not fly if the temperature was warmer than 85 in any of his connection cities. That would be difficult to pull off in June in Virginia, but I was praying for cool weather. When I got off the phone with Delta, I was ecstatic! AJ had a plane ticket and was one step closer to Japan! About twenty minutes later, I received a phone call from my mom saying Delta called and canceled his flight because we didn’t have a quarantine number. I didn’t have that number on any of my paperwork, so I called the lady back and asked where I would find that number. She recommended that I call the US consulate, but I wasn’t sure about that since military members have different requirements, so I decided to call the vet here. I understand that the vet here is very busy, but they seem to never answer their phone, nor do they return phone messages. I was phone stalking them, and I would have gone there, but we didn’t have a car, and it was over an hour walk from the train station. I called and called and just began to get depressed about leaving AJ in the US. Thankfully, I finally got through to the vet, and they told me to fax all of his paperwork to the Narita airport without his flight information. Then, AJ would be given a quarantine number, and we could book his flight. We faxed the forms to the airport and were told that they couldn’t give us a quarantine number until we booked a flight. It was at this point that I really had a breakdown.
I decided to send the forms in with the flight we wanted him to be on, and crossed my fingers that it would work. Thankfully, the Japanese customs workers are extremely efficient, and responded with a quarantine number within 48 hours. So with that, we rebooked AJ’s flight and watched the weather like crazy. He was flying through Detroit, so the only city we really had to worry about was the temperature in Virginia Beach. I didn’t sleep for two nights before he was supposed to fly. I was praying the temperature would be low enough for him to fly, because if we didn’t get him now, we would have to wait until September. To a
dd to the stress of the situation, we had to figure out how to get AJ home. We didn’t have a car, and neither of us had ever driven on the other side of road. We had recently received our drivers licenses, but the class didn’t involve any driving, so really all we could do was read street signs. We looked into taking the train into Tokyo, but that was going to cost us about $200 dollars, and we’d have to lug AJ’s large carrier through the trains with us. We weren’t sure that we were confident enough to drive the 2 hours to Narita, but changed our minds at the last minute and decided we could do it! The tolls round trip from the airport are around $80, so it was going to cost us half the price to rent a car and drive. I rented a car, and practiced driving around base. Thankfully, AJ departed as scheduled from Virginia Beach (Norfolk) and we just had to wait the very long 22 hours until he arrived. I think the most stressful thing was not knowing how he was doing. When friends and family are flying, they can call you from their connecting city, but AJ couldn’t call, and we just had to hope and pray that he made his flight and would show up alive and well in Tokyo.
James and I left for the airport four hours before his flight would land, to give us plenty of time to deal with traffic and to find the cargo section of the airport. The airport is only 120 kilometers away (74 miles), but it takes over two hours to get there (on a good day with no traffic). We also wanted to give ourselves time to find the Cargo terminal, since that is where AJ would be flying into and we had no idea where that was. James navigated the whole way for me on the iphone, and I basically just stared straight ahead and let James be my eyes on everything. It was a little stressful, as I had never driven before, and here I was merging onto freeways following signs I couldn’t read, but the anticipation of picking AJ up was greater than the stress of the situation. We made it without getting lost, which was pretty amazing considering we can’t read any of the signs (despite our driving class!), and we found the cargo area pretty easily. That’s when the fun began! We had no idea where to go after we found the cargo area, and after giving us digital guest passes, the guards waved us on into a chaotic airport cargo facility that consisted of warehouses and office buildings and semis and hundreds of little cargo lifts driving every which way. We stood at the corner for a few min
utes contemplating how we were possible going to cross the road without being killed and looking in every direction for a Delta Cargo sign. We spotted one, darted across the road, and tried to find someone in the office who spoke English. It turns out that this wasn’t the Delta office, and that there aren’t very many people who speak English in airport cargo facilities. After ten minutes of pointing to things and showing our paperwork, they realized where we needed to be, made a phone call, handed us a map, and pointed us in the right direction. It was in a different warehouse with a bigger Delta sign. I still haven’t figured out why this office had a Delta sign, but I realized it’s easier to not ask questions and just accept how things are around here.
They were expecting us at Delta, and handed us a map and a list of 7 steps we had to complete, not including the starting point in the Delta office. We had to wait another 45 minutes for AJ to land so they could get the paperwork off of his kennel. After we had the paperwork, then we could begin the process of going to all of these offices and getting forms filled out. James tried to take a nap in the office, since he was working nights all week in order to pick AJ up, and I was too anxious to do anything, so the time slowly ticked by. Finally, a man arrived with all of AJ’s files, meaning AJ was alive and well! 
They went over the check list with us again and sent us on our way. The first stop was the office we went to originally, and this time we had the forms they wanted. So, they took some forms, and gave us more forms and sent us off to Quarantine Services, which was extremely difficult to find. I was able to practice a little bit of my Japanese when we got lost. Sumimasen….Excuse me….and then I pointed at the form. The guy was so helpful! He jumped up and we followed him through a warehouse until suddenly we ended up in a nice little office that was Quarantine Services. There, they made copies of our forms and gave us another sheet of steps (which this time was only 6 steps) that was in both English and Japanese. That was extremely helpful, as we could now point to what we were trying to tell people, and they could read it! They sent us back to the IACT office, which is that first building we had stopped at
, where we were supposed to give them more forms and ask them to get our dog. When I saw AJ rolled out, I was so happy! He was all smiles when he saw us and he was giving us kisses through his kennel. He looked exhausted, but happy.
A warehouse member wheeled him into a quarantine room, and then left us there. It was a small, cement room, with an inspection table and that’s about it. We noticed that AJ kept licking his water bottle, and it was completely empty. He was so thirsty, yet there was no water around. Finally, a vet came in to check on him, and I tried to explain that he bites by using hand gestures. They understood, and when they cut his kennel open, they let me pick him up out of it. AJ was so light….he only weighed 11 pounds, and had clearly lost a lot of water weight. He clung to me, and I started freaking out about getting him water. The vet scanned him to make sure he was the right dog, and then did a look over to make sure he was healthy. I tried to explain that he needed water, but no one understood us. Then suddenly the warehouse guy came back, and he and the vet began to have a discussion that escalated into an argument. James and I were standing there trying to figure out what to do, and they kept going and going for almost 20 minutes. They had made me put AJ back in his kennel, and I just wanted to get him water, and go on to the next step. Then as suddenly as the argument began, it stopped. The vet left and the warehouse guy took AJ and wheeled him out of the room. We followed him until we got to another warehouse, where he gestured that they were putting AJ back into the warehouse. I tried to explain to him that AJ needed water while James went looking for a vending machine. He found one, but by the time he had gotten back, they had already taken AJ and kept pointing for us to go on to the next step, which was customs. So we went to the front desk with the water, and tried to explain, but everyone kept pointing to the next step. After 10 minutes of trying to get AJ water, we gave up and went to customs.
Customs went through all of our paperwork, and then asked us if we had completed the health inspection at quarantine. We told them that is where we came from, but they told us we didn’t have the right forms. They made some phone calls and told us we needed to go back to Quarantine Services and get the forms. I think this step was lost amidst the arguments of the two employees, but we went back and got the right forms. He was extremely apologetic, and rushed to get everything done. I was just flustered that they had taken AJ away again, and he was in a warehouse stacked like a regular piece of mail. With the correct form in hand, we went back to customs and filled out more paperwork. They sent us to the diplomatic customs section, as we didn’t have to pay any customs fees since we were PCSing here. After customs, we were sent back to the IACT counter with more new forms. They looked over everything and then ha
nded us a bill for 1900 yen. We weren’t really sure what it was for, but we paid it. As we were paying, the little man from Quarantine Services came running into the office, which made me panic, since we were sooooo close to taking our dog home. He had given us the original of a form, and he needed the original, so we just swapped forms. He thanked us over and over again, and then ran back across the road. Finally, after three hours of running around, AJ was wheeled out to us to be taken home!
They explained to us how much more time he had in home quarantine (56 days) and gave us more forms that the vet needed to fill out within 72 hours. It was already after 8 at night, so we would get to drive home in the dark. AJ drank almost the whole bottle of water, and passed out for the entire drive home. Two hours later, we made it home, and AJ ran all around the house. He checked out his new toys, put one in each room, drank his water from his new dishes, and made the backyard his own. Then he crashed, and spent the next two or three days sleeping. AJ was home, and our little family was whole again! That didn’t mean the paperwork was done, and on Friday, we rented another car and drove to the vet at Camp Zama to have his initial quarantine paperwork filled out and for AJ to have a health inspection. The visit went great, and we were told he has to see the vet once a month until his quarantine period is over. Everything was great until we tried to start the rental car, and all we heard was *click* *click* *click*. Great. We weren’t supposed to have animals in the rental car, and here we were broken down at the vet with AJ. Thankfully, the rental car agency picked us up and didn’t say anything about us having our little poodle with us! We are thrilled AJ is home and couldn’t be happier to have our little family whole again!
After two months of living nomadically without a home, we have finally made it to Japan! These last two months have been jam packed, with James traveling between Virginia, California, and Florida for training, a vacation for James and I in Savannah, GA, two friends weddi
ngs in Blacksburg, Spring Game, lots of visiting with family, two showers for my new sister-in-law, my brothers college graduation, and his wedding! Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we left for Japan. We left on Sunday morning (the 23rd) at 6:00 in the morning, and we arrived in Tokyo at 1:30 in the afternoon on Monday (the 24th). Our check-in went surprisingly well, despite the fact that the Navy spelled my name wrong on my plane ticket. The flight to Dallas was only a few hours, and we slept the entire way, since we decided to not sleep on Sunday night. (And we still had to pack for Japan, since we had spent a week in Connecticut up until hours before our flight left!) James and I have a way of jam-packing everything into small amounts of time, and then desperately getting our stuff ready for some crazy move we are doing. Such is our way our life!
The flight to Tokyo was thirteen and a half hours, but it really didn’t seem very long. I slept most of the way, and James went in and out of sleep, despite the three year old kicking him and creating a great deal of chaos with the flight attendants. We were hoping the kid would fall asleep, and when he finally did, it was on t
he ground, which just created another scene. We saw the flight attendants quite a bit on that flight. Long flights mean lots of food, although I thought three meals was a bit excessive. Our first meal included sushi (yay!) and I was hoping we’d get more, but it was just part of the first meal. When we landed in Tokyo, it seemed like we had just gotten on the plane, yet like we had been on the plane forever. We didn’t really know where we were meeting our sponsor, but we had hopes of running into him. Customs and immigration took us less than five minutes, and all of a sudden there we were, in our new home! It was the first time it really hit me, and I was excited, but anxious as I realized what a big airport it was, and that we had no idea where we were being met. We wandered for a bit, and couldn’t find the military liaison, which we later realized was in a completely different terminal. Thankfully, James had met the guy who picked us up at his school in Florida last month, so they recognized each other. I was thankful, since I almost had my first breakdown when I didn’t think it was possible to find the people picking us up!
The drive from the airport to the base was about two hours, and we were exhausted, so I didn’t take much in. The freeways looked pretty much the same as ours, except you drive on the other side of the road, and I couldn’t read the signs. But, basically exactly the same. We’ve been here almost a week now, and we have finally started to really adjust to the time. In the first few days, I woke up at 4:00 am every morning, and I would be wide-awake. Usually I need an hour or two to feel even slightly awake, and that is slowly coming back. We are moving into our new apartment on Friday, so these nomadic Hokies will finally have a place to live for the next three years.
Day Four was a pleasant Sunday drive on familiar roads, up I-40 to I-81. Southwest Virginia is always a welcoming drive, and even at the end of winter, when the leaves are gone, and the buds are yet to pop on the trees, it is still a very peaceful and calming place. The drive was virtually on autopilot, since we have driven these roads countless times. Angela and I tried to figure out how many times we had driven this stretch of road, but it was too many times to remember. We reminisced about the many trips back and forth, and wore ourselves out thinking about how much we have done these last few years. We sadly drove past the Blacksburg exit, since we were so crunched on time. It’s not very often we have skipped our favorite place in the world, but we were exhausted, and I had to be at class the next mornin
g. While we had run into some traffic in Tennessee, real traffic began an hour from our destination in Newport News! The 757 welcomed us with traffic and rain, and I began to question why we had ever left Southern California. I had chosen to drive across the country on I-40 for several reasons, but mainly to avoid population centers and traffic. And we had almost made it across the entire country without traffic!! You can almost fly across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma with little to no other cars on the road. It is perhaps the best stretch of road in the country. I hate traffic…and will go to great lengths to avoid it. But there is no other option other than 1-64, and we had to sit and wait the traffic out. A few hours later, we finally made it! 3,000 miles and four and a half days later, AJ couldn’t be happier to get out of the car.
Day Three of driving started off great with a Starbucks Hazelnut latte and a Chick-fil-a breakfast. Seriously, the best fast food breakfast ever! We left Ft. Smith and headed east, excited to only have two more days of driving ahead of us. The Ozark country of western Arkansas is nice and afforded us a good start to the day’s drive, including a detour off the road to Arkansas Tech’s campus to avoid an accident (thanks Garmin!). After Little Rock we descended to the Mississippi flood plain, and saw a more agricultural side of the state. We crossed the Mississippi and entered our first traffic of the trip in Memphis due to construction and closed lanes. Tennessee is a long state and our goal was the eastern side of Knoxville. We were hungry and Chick-fil-a is our weakness, so we stopped to enjoy a little taste of the south, only to discover that we had stopped at an exit which literally had every box store and car dealership imaginable. 
Presumably the only shopping stop in 30 miles, on a Saturday. So our quick stop turned into almost 45 minutes, but after fighting crazy store traffic, we made it back to I-40 and finally headed east again. We passed through Nashville before dark, one of my favorite cities to visit, but unfortunately, we had no time to stop. Tennessee, while beautiful, is difficult to drive through at night with all of the tractor trailers. But we had a time line, and needed to continue on, so we drove through the dark mountain curves praying that the tractor trailers were paying attention to us. Thankfully we have driven this stretch of road numerous time and had experience with the trucks. Plus the “E” was a pleasure to drive on it’s first trip across the country! We cannot pass through Knoxville without stopping at Turkey Crossing for Jimmy Johns, so we stopped for dinner, and then finally made it to the hotel. Time zones had been kicking our butt, and we had finally reached Eastern Standard Time… only to discover that Daylight Savings began that night. So our three hour change in our body clocks became four hours, and we lost another hour of driving. I would be fairly exhausted on my first day of class.
Yes…this post is from two months ago. But, it was written two months ago, and it was quite the adventure, so enjoy! 
As we drove through New Mexico, we waved to a distant mountain range at our baby sister who was spending her spring break hiking and repairing a trail in northern New Mexico. We stayed at a familiar Holiday Inn Express in Santa Rosa (our Hotel of choice when traveling with AJ) and awoke the next day with hopes of making it to a Holiday Inn Express in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. After leaving Santa Rosa (and my worst morning cup of coffee on the trip), I realized we hadn’t seen a Starbucks since Phoenix. It was an odd phenomenon, since they were on every block in San Diego (there were literally four within a mile of our apartment!). I desperately wanted a hazelnut latte and truck stop coffee was barely getting me through. My cravings for frothed milk and strong espresso and that cute little white cup couldn’t wait much longer. So we began day two with our tummies on the mind and voiced two goals of the day: drink some awesome coffee and eat amazing Blue Bell ice-cream. 
Honestly, why would you drive through Texas without stopping to get the best ice-cream in America? We drove through Texas without finding any Blue Bell, and left frustrated after spending 30 minutes looking for a Chick-fil-a that never materialized.
We passed a Starbucks along the interstate near Oklahoma City, but we missed the exit and figured there would be another one. The next Starbucks never came, and to make matters worse, the Hokies lost miserably in the ACC tournament to Miami. (Which we listened to thanks to the ACC channel on XM radio, the best investment we’ve ever made for a trip across the country!) And that sums up day two (kind of three) of driving. We drove 610 miles, didn’t do anything exciting, but we did make it to Arkansas. Thankfully James found Blue Bell at the local grocery store near our hotel, so our trip through Blue Bell country wasn’t wasted. AJ chased his orange ball up and down our room and then curled up at our feet. We were more than halfway to Virginia. 
If you know me at all, you know that I am not a morning person. My natural body clock would wake me up around noon and have me go to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning. Getting up early is tough on me. (James used to be
a morning person, but then he married me!) That being said, we got another late start on Thursday morning. In our defense, our last week in San Diego was exhausting as James was checking out of the Makin Island, I was finishing up my job at San Diego State, the movers were there all week packing up our things, and we were trying to move out of the apartment and say goodbye to friends. It was both physically and emotionally exhausting, just in time for a drive across the country! But such is life, and we were still determined to make the most of the drive, no matter how tired we were. Our first full day of driving was filled with breathtaking views and fast speed limits, two things that make for a perfect drive.
James mapped out our entire trip using Google maps and determined that we would take 1-40, as it avoids most major cities, thus avoiding traffic. And if you know James, you know that nothing ma
kes him more angry than traffic. I-40 is a gorgeous drive and we drove 1,752 miles of it. We weren’t planning on stopping anywhere other than for fuel, food, and sleep, but like I mentioned previously, how can you not stop in the wild west? We made our first stop at Montezuma’s Castle, a five story, 20 room cliff dwelling carved over 100 feet into the air on the side of a limestone cliff. This wasn’t our first visit to the dwelling, as we had stopped on our way out to California, but it was a beautiful day and we thought AJ would appreciate the walk. Plus, we try to use our National Parks pass as much as possible, and how often do you get to see cliff dwellings? Montezuma’s Castle was built by the Sinagua people over 900 years ago, and it fascinates me. Had we been there before 1951, we could have actually climbed into the ruins, but due to the immense damage tourists were having on the structure, you can now only gaze at the dwelling from afar. Fascinated yet? You can take a virtual tour here: Virtual Tour or you can read more about the history of the dwelling here: History and Culture. The complexity yet simplicity of the structure simply takes your breath away. It was amazing, but we had limited time, so it was back on the road for us.
We hadn’t gone very far when we began seeing signs for Sedona. Sedona is not on 1-40, but it’s still kind of on the way to Flagstaff, and sin
ce James had never been there, we decided it wouldn’t take us that much longer to change our course just a little bit. Plus we needed food and gas, so why not get that in Sedona? I think the detour was the best decision we made on the entire trip. It was gorgeous! I am glad James was driving, as I would have been unable to pay attention to the road with the beauty around us. I was reminded of a sermon given by one of our pastor’s at Tech about driving along the road and being sucked into the beauty of a sunset. He was overwhelmed by the immensity and beauty of it and saw God in His creation. I was completely overcome by Sedona, and wish we could have stayed longer. It was the kind of place that made me feel like I could be inspired again to do great things, and that I could be creative and lively because my surroundings pushed me to be that way. I am thankful for the momentary bliss and the encouragement that Sedona gave me. The red rocks disappeared as quickly as they had appeared and gave way to a winter wonderland. I was a bit shocked, especially since we had just spent hours driving in the desert, but was pleasantly surprised when we were able to stop and play in the snow! These southern Californians did get to experience winter after all! AJ was not nearly as enthusiastic when we threw him in a mound of snow and took his picture. It made me a little sad that he was more excited to get back into his kennel for hours than to play in the snow, but he too had acclimated to the 70 degree year-round temperatures of our SoCal home. And with those three exciting experiences behind us, we continued our journey to the East Coast.
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With only four and a half days to get from California to Virginia, James and I had to really push ourselves to make the drive. If you recall, two years ago we spent an enjoyable 10 days visiting national parks, never driving more than 300 miles a day. It was nice and relaxing, and we took in some beautiful scenery. (Another fond memory in the HTPINK!) This time around, we were driving between 600 and 700 miles a day, with not much time to stop and enjoy the beauty around us. Even on a tight timeline, we couldn’t pass up touring a little bit, and we stopped at Montezuma’s Castle, drove through the red rocks of Sedona, and played in the snow outside of Flagstaff. I find it extremely difficult to drive through the southwest without stopping. There is something about those massive Saguaro that suck me in and say, please stop and enjoy me and the beauty around you! And I can’t help but stop and take it all in.
We had a late start leaving San Diego on Wednesday, which allowed us to watch one last California sunset and enjoy one last burger at In-N-Out. We drove to Phoenix, AZ, just to 
put some miles behind us to make the next four days a bit more pleasant. The desert is pitch black at night, and for much of the drive, I could only see a few feet in front of us, which made for a slow night. We were engulfed in darkness for miles, until suddenly we saw flood lights, a huge fence, and reflectors lining the fence as far as the eye could see. The Mexican border. I had no idea there was really a fence/wall between parts of the border, but there it was, lighting up the night sky. Floodlights beamed into Mexico, so bright that you would be able to see little animals scurrying across the sand. We passed border patrol vehicle after border patrol vehicle, until we went through a make shift border patrol stop. They stopped the car and asked me where we were from and where we were going. I told him we were headed to Virginia, and he looked at my ID and asked which city we would be visiting. I said Virginia Beach and we were on our way. I was a little worried at first, since our car was completely loaded down, and it would have taken us hours to put the puzzle of our things back together if they had inspected our back seats. Thankfully we don’t look like suspicious people, so we were on our way back into the darkness of the desert. We thought we were doing good on time, until we hit Phoenix and remembered they don’t adjust to Daylight Savings Time, and we had really lost an hour. So much for getting in before midnight, but at least we had put a few hundred miles behind us.
Heading south into winter from Brazil the temperatures quickly dipped. As the days grew short, I managed to grab an awesome picture of the sunset off the Argentine Coast. 
I had regained much energy by the time we entered the Strait of Magellan, the highlight of the trip for me. It took us two days to cross the Strait, though it took Magellan over two weeks. Entering from the Atlantic we saw a vast flat empty land, with some ice but mainly brown reminding me of pictures from Greenland. This was cold and boring until we reached Punta Arenas for an overnight anchorage. The current strong and we dragged anchor, but I enjoyed looking at a large city in a desolate countryside through binoculars. I really wished we had made a port call to walk around, but we had to continue. The next day was one to remember, with dramatic views of mountains, ice, glaciers, penguins, and the circle of life. 
We entered a narrow channel with freezing mist, but got to see the southern most point of South American mainland, with only patagonia and the Drake Passage on our left to separate ourselves from Antarctica. We are also able to see tiny Magellenic Penguins enjoying their penguin lives. After hours of majestic beauty, we literally could take a picture anywhere and see something good, we were joined by a pod of Orcas. It was cute at first with thoughts of Free Willy in our head, but then we saw them hunting seals, a truly terrific sight. Seals were trying to escape, but couldn’t make it… it was just like the Planet Earth series on the port side of the ship. After a frozen day we looked forward to my favorite port stop in Valparaiso, Chile.
