Ryan Cunico

Link to Winslow / Meteor Crater Facebook Pictures Today we woke up and decided to explore Flagstaff a tad.  We drove to the local university – Northern Arizona University, and walked around for a little over an hour.  It was nice to get up and be active in the morning, and the cool breeze was a nice change from the heat.  The campus seemed very “green”, because they use reclaimed water for their irrigation systems, had their own energy-efficient power…

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Link to Devil’s Bridge Facebook Pictures Today, we woke up and did the usual routine: pack up tent, etc.  We are getting really good at it.  I think we said “Good morning” to each other, and then didn’t say another word until everything was packed away.  I’d estimate 10 minutes from start to finish.  Anyway, after that I decided I was looking a little scruffy, and needed a haircut.  So we figured out the most white trash way to get…

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Link to Sedona Facebook Pictures We spent today in and around the Sedona area.  We definitely squeezed a LOT into a day, and got a pretty good workout doing so.  We started with the usual routine: wake up, break down the tent, pack up the car with the sleeping bags / pads / blankets, brush our teeth, hit the road.  The usual.  Today we were going to cross off some of those hikes that the forest ranger from yesterday was…

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Link to Tuzigoot and Jerome Facebook Pictures It was actually COLD last night!  We had the windows zipped up and rainfly on to contain our heat.  When we woke up in the morning, the sun was shining strong and warming up the tent.  We started off the day by taking a much-needed solar shower and rearranging the things inside the car.  Tons of people that had been camping the night before were driving down the FS-515 road, kicking up tons…

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Link to Montezuma Castle Facebook Pictures So we left Phoenix on Saturday morning, to head north towards Sedona.  Our first stop, before Sedona, was a place called Montezuma Castle.  It is about 800 years old and was built by the Sinagua people.  This was only one of many communities in this area, known as the Verde Valley. Before we entered the park, I was admiring this little motorized bicycle parked off to the side, when the owner came out and…

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Link to Phoenix, AZ Facebook Pictures We spent Thursday and Friday nights in Phoenix with Brittny and her family.  They truly treated us like family – feeding us both nights, giving us a comfortable bed to sleep in, and providing lots of tips / life experiences about the various places we are going to visit.  Brittny’s mom lived in California for a large portion of her life, and was telling us all about what it’s like there – what we…

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Link to Biosphere 2 Facebook Pictures Today we woke up early (in a real bed!) and said goodbye to Josh. I am so thankful that I got to meet a distant Cunico, and learn all about him and his family. I am grateful that he contacted me and wanted to meet me after reading about our trip. I hope to have some more experiences like that! It’s really cool that we have distant cousins all over the country, and that…

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Links to Tucson Facebook Pictures Alrighty, folks. Woke up nice and refreshed and took a shower with the Solar Shower once more. The park volunteers enjoyed it; the grandparents who volunteer to help maintain the park live in an RV right by the visitor center and they have 9 grandchildren!  One of their grandchildren lives in Florida and taught in Savannah – she wrote 2 books as a Chemistry teacher.  It’s a small world! We continued touring Mt Lemmon after…

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Link to White Sands, NM Facebook Pictures So if you’ve been reading along, you’ll know that we slept in the Walmart parking lot.  Upon waking up, we got to see the awesome picturesque scenery behind this otherwise seemingly normal Walmart. We brushed our teeth in the parking lot, filled up the tank with gas, and made Almond-butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast. Then we headed on to White Sands National Monument. It is hundreds of square miles of white sand….

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Link to Roswell, NM Facebook Pictures On wards to Roswell! We got there pretty late in the night and set up camp at the Haystack Off-Roading Vehicle Park. There were some massively strong winds in the are and our tent almost blew down a cliff! The views in the morning were pretty spectacular. CHECK IT! We visited Roswell’s famous UFO museum Awesome replica of a radio station from the 40’s. Reasons for why the government hides UFO evidence from the…

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