As you may have heard... We are on the road again! We just weren't too eager to sit at home and wait for job interviews to find us, so we decided to hop in the car and head west! We have an exciting trip planned, mainly stopping along the way to see family and friends. Our destination this week is St. Innocent Orphanage, Mexico! Woohoooo! We are getting close - today we actually drove through El Paso, TX and saw Juarez, Mexico from the road! But we will head for California, so we have a bit of a drive still. Currently, we are in Safford, AZ. As with all of the places we have driven so through far out west, AZ is proving to be a beautiful place! But let me back up and briefly tell you where we've been so far:

Started January 13th, from Sterling, VA - to Nashville, TN

-Saw the Grand Ol' Opry; Enjoyed the home town of honkey tonk and listened to live music on Broadway St throughout our evening there.

January 14th - Nashville, TN to Memphis, TN (part 1 of this day)

-Drove by Graceland (literally, we had to turn around because we missed it the first time!)

-Toured St. Jude Hospital - If you have not done this, you must put it on the top of your list!

Check out their website if you have not read much on it: Stjude.org

-Walked around Beale St (Blues alley)

Part 2 of this day - Memphis to Dallas, TX

-Drove through AND ate in Hope, Arkansas, birth place of the one and only Pres. Bill Clinton

-Arrived late at Shawn and Yosi's house! (Deena's brother and sister-in-law)

January 15th- 18th stayed in Dallas, playing with the little rascals, I mean Skye, Dallas and Zoli! Great time catching up with them, we hadn't seen Yosi, Skye and Dallas since our wedding! Everyone has grown up! We had fun going to school in the morning with Dallas on Friday to his science lab! And over the weekend we had many a wrestling match, coloring and cake baking with Zoli, games of hide and seek at the park and good laughs shared by all!

January 18th - Dallas, TX to Carlsbad, NM

-This was a long driving day, but on a beautiful state highway. We saw deep rich earth colors, cotton fields, wind turbines by the hundreds, oil rigs and a warm sunny day

- We reached Carlsbad Caverns National Park basically right before it closed that day, so we set up camp for the night and went on a self-guided tour of the caverns first thing the next morning.

These caverns are the largest on the western hemisphere - we walked 800 ft down a steep spiral walkway to reach "the Big Room" where there are amazing natural structures that have been carved over time (millions of years)

January 19th - Guadalupe Mountains National Park, TX

-Yes, after Carlsbad Caverns, we re-entered TX and spent the day at McKittric Canyon in GUMO Natl. Park. It was originally privately owned land until gifted to the Dept. of the Interior by the owner, Wallace Pratt, a Texan oil man. We enjoyed the similarities we saw between this park and parks in Patagonia (because of the high winds that come out of nowhere)

-Spent the night at Piney Springs campground in the park, amidst some high wind gusts throughout the night - but! Big Agnes, our tent, held up strong, and kept us warm and grounded throughout the night!

January 20th - GUMO Natl. Park, TX to Safford, Arizona

-The most beautiful portion of the drive so far; The end of TX was lonely on the road but more beautiful than we can describe. Houses were scarce out in these parts! We went through El Paso, then we again crossed back into New Mexico, and eventually made it to Safford this evening.

- Tomorrow we plan to visit St. Paisius Serbian Orthodox Monastery.