The City I Most Want to Visit in Each State, Part 1: Alabama to California

I've been to all 50 states, but there are still lots of places I want to visit in the US. There are cities I want to revisit because cool new things have opened since I was last there, like Chicago and Washington DC. I want to revisit other cities, including San Antonio and Atlanta, because attractions I wanted to visit were closed on the days we were there, or we simply didn't have enough time to see all of the highlights. But that's not what this blog series is about. Instead, I'll be picking the one city in each state that I most want to visit for the very first time. 

Here are my ground rules: 

• I can only pick cities I have never visited, even if that visit was really short. I'll allow an exception if the only place my feet touched the ground in that city was the airport. 
• I can only select one city per state, without ties.  
• I have to choose my top 2 attractions in that city that led me to select it. I'm not going to be pedantic about whether an attraction is technically in that city. The metro area counts. 

With that established, let's get started!

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The City I Most Want to Visit in Each State: Alabama to California

The city I most want to visit in Alabama is Selma. I really wanted to include it when we visited Alabama in 2022, but I just couldn't make it work. When I do visit, the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute and the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Interpretive Center are my highest priority to see. 

Of all the places I haven't been in Alaska, I most want to visit Fairbanks. The Golden Heart City is home to the Museum of the North and the Fairbanks Ice Museum. Fairbanks is also a great place to see the Northern Lights. 

I've traveled extensively through Arizona, but there is still plenty of The Grand Canyon State that I haven't seen. Topping my list of cities I'd like to visit is Page. It looks absolutely stunning. My top attractions include a tour of Antelope Canyon and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. 

The city I'd most like to visit in Arkansas is Bentonville. I would start my visit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Its campus looks absolutely stunning and that's before you even go inside where, presumably, there is a lot of beautiful art. Next, I would visit the Walmart Museum. 

Of the places I haven't been in my home state of California, the city I most want to visit is Palm Springs. Interestingly, Palm Springs wasn't on my radar until recently. I'd thought of it as mostly golf courses and swimming pools until I attended the 2023 Outlook Forum and learned that it is so much more. The two places I most want to visit are Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. 

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What about you? What cities would you most like to visit in each of these states? Let me know in the comments!

Our First Road Trip

Saturday, May 2 was National Scrapbook Day. I didn't get to participate as much as I normally do, but I did get some scrapping in and enjoyed the games, challenges, and camaraderie at A Cherry On Top. The first layout I made was for a scraplift challenge.

1st Road Trip (affiliate link)

The layout tells the story of the first road trip that Steve and I ever took together, back in July 2003. We had been engaged for two weeks when we took off on a 9-day adventure from Sacramento to Calico Ghost Town, Grand Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam, and Yosemite National Park, then back to Sacramento. 

The trip got off to bad start when the undercarriage of Steve's car fell off about two hours into the trip, in the middle of nowhere. He'd had the car serviced the day before in anticipation of such a long road trip and apparently they did not secure it correctly after the service. Steve saved the day (and the trip) with zip ties and his engineering skills. While there were some other hiccups during the trip (though none so dramatic), we had a fantastic time together. It was the first time we'd traveled any distance together and it was immediately apparent that our travel styles were compatible, just like we were in so many other ways. 

I was 31 and Steve was 27 when we went on this trip. I love looking back at the pictures of us, so young and so happy. We're not young anymore, but we're still happy. It's been 23 years since that first road trip and we still love traveling together.

Travel Adventures in Arizona and New Mexico, Part 14: Albuquerque to El Paso

This is my fourteenth and final post about our adventures traveling through Arizona and New Mexico. I recommend that you read the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh,  twelfth, and thirteenth posts before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I received comped passes, media rates, and other benefits for several of the places we visited throughout the trip. Some of the attractions we toured are free to everyone; we paid full price for the rest. What I paid or didn't pay has no effect on my reviews. Everything that I share is something I recommend without hesitation.

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Travel Adventures from Albuquerque to El Paso

After leaving the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, we had a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us to get to our next destination. We made two short stops along the drive. The first was to get a quick photo in San Antonio. These Official Scenic Highway Markers are all over New Mexico (approximately 650 statewide) and I love them. This one marks the birthplace of Conrad Hilton. 

A bit more driving and we came to Valley of Fires Recreation Area in Carizozo. Valley of Fires is located at the Malpais Lava Flow, important because it is one of the largest volume young lava flows. 

Unfortunately, the Visitor Center had just closed when we got there, so we headed directly out on the trail.  

We followed multiple switchbacks to get down to the lava fields. It was great to stretch our legs a bit.  

This was the second "malpais" (badlands) we'd visited in three days and we enjoyed both immensely. 

Onward! We drove for another hour or so before reaching PistachioLand, home of the world's largest pistachio. 

  

They were about to close when we arrived and they'd stopped ice cream sales, so we weren't able to try their famous pistachio ice cream. Nor could we take a farm tour. But we did enjoy checking out their large store. It's packed with all things pistachio. 

  

  

The store is 98% pistachios and 2% aliens. I assume that is because Roswell is near. Well, sort of. It's 110 miles away. 

There's a free pistachio tasting bar at PistachioLand that we enjoyed. We tried most of the 15 or so flavors. I never would have guessed that Margarita Lime would be my favorite. Steve's favorite was Lemon Lime. Citrus and pistachios go together really well!

  

I really would have liked to try the ice cream. 

But that would have ruined my dinner and then I wouldn't have enjoyed the excellent food at D.H. Lescombes Winery and Bistro. 

Steve and I shared potstickers, french onion soup, and a steakhouse salad. Everything was really good. 

Our home for the night was the Holiday Inn Express Alamogordo. This hotel offers the usual amenities of the brand (free breakfast, free parking, etc) but if also offered one perk I've never seen anywhere else: free sled rentals. While we were checking in, a happy family dropped off the sleds they'd been using that day. 

As you might imagine, there was no snow in southern New Mexico on that sunny day in April. The sleds aren't for snow - they're for sand. Alamogordo is about 15 miles from White Sands National Park. 

Or is it White Sands National Monument? 

White Sands was a national monument from 1933 until 2019, when it became a national park. Most of the signs are updated, but not all. It preserves the world's largest gypsum dunefield, as well as the world's largest collection of fossilized footprints from the Ice Age. 

We started in the Visitor Center. I really enjoyed this exhibit about some of the most common tracks seen out on the dunefield. 

There were other interesting exhibits, but it was really crowded and we couldn't get decent pictures. We watched the park movie, then set out on Dunes Drive to experience the park. Fortunately, there were no missile test closures (!!). 

We listened the audio tour as we drove and stopped at several of the points of interest along the way. We walked along this trail, then up onto the dunes. 

Yup. It's sand. It's white. 

Because the sand is ever-shifting, the trails are marked with posts. Follow the blue clubs symbol for the Dune Life Nature Trail. 

Full disclosure: I don't like sand. I hate touching it and I don't like walking on it. The gypsum sand at White Sands is definitely better than the normal silica sand, but I still didn't enjoy it. It's pretty though. It looks like snow.  

I'm glad there was such a beautiful blue sky when we were visiting White Sands NP. 

If you've never been to White Sands, take a minute to picture what you think the picnic area looks like. 

Is this what you'd imagined? I sure didn't!

It's hard to properly express how much white sand there is at White Sands. We enjoyed looking at the pristine areas that didn't have footprints. People's footprints, that is. We were really excited to spot roadrunner tracks, which I never would have recognized without going to the Visitor Center first. 

We left White Sands and had a 90 minute drive to the airport in El Paso, Texas. It was the closest and best option for getting home. We flew to Phoenix, then went to the gate for our long layover. Steve, not in the mood to sit and read, walked through the whole airport. Thank goodness he did - he discovered an eegee's!! I thought we'd had our last-ever eegee a week earlier!

Steve and I had a great time exploring Arizona and New Mexico together. I hope I've inspired you to visit this area of the Southwest. There are so many fun and fascinating things to do. We packed in as much as we could, but it still has so much more to offer. We'll be back!