On the feast day of St. Antonio in the 1690's, Spanish explorers and missionaries came across a group of springs in a river valley with various Native American settlements. They named the area San Antonio. A few decades later, the Spanish set up shop. Up went a mission, along with a fort and the beginnings of a town ("San Antonio de Bexar"). Missions were an interesting feature of Spanish colonialism at the time. Centred on a church, these complexes would serve to convert Native Americans and at the same time firmly establish Spanish control of the region. The Spanish set…

The United States is now the biggest oil producer in the world - extracting 12 million barrels of the stuff per day (Saudi Arabia is around 10 million). The state of Texas is synonymous with oil. And while there are a number of oil producing areas in the state, the heart of Texan and US oil production is undoubtedly the Permian Basin. It currently produces about a third of all US oil. It is to the US, what the Ghawar field is to Saudi Arabia. On our route from Roswell, New Mexico, to San Angelo, Texas, we were cutting through…

In June, 1947, a farm supervisor named William Brazel discovered a very strange wreckage in a field about 50 kilometres north of the town of Roswell, New Mexico. It consisted of tin foil, smokey-gray rubber strips, sticky tape, tough paper and sticks, and a "flying disc"! Local police & military personnel got involved in the clean up / "cover-up". By July, the Roswell Army Air Field put out a press release revealing that it had recovered a "flying disc" from the field, and that it was safely in government hands. The story hit the newspapers, although "recovered" became "captured" and…

Leaving the Navajo Nation behind us, we journeyed eastward into the state of New Mexico. Looking back on our whole trip, this southwestern region of the US (Arizona, New Mexico, southern California) was certainly at or near the top of the list in terms of beauty. The area echoes the wide-open spaces in states like Wyoming and Montana, that is amplified by the mix of desert colours and blue skies. Off we continued into New Mexico and towards the state's biggest city, Albuquerque (pronounced: "Al-buh-ker-key"). Starting with a bit of history: over the centuries, various Native American tribes set up…

About a quarter of Arizona is made up of Native American reservations. Leaving the town of Page and heading eastward, we entered the country's largest reservation - the Navajo Nation. At 71,000 square kilometres, Navajo Nation is larger than Ireland. In fact, it is bigger than ten actual US states. It also holds the second largest population of any reservation (356,000), and the Navajo language is widely spoken in the region. And it happens to be incredibly beautiful. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Navajo moved to the area from northwestern Canada around 1,400 AD as hunters and gatherers, and picked…

We made our way northwards to the tiny town of Page, Arizona (pop: 7,300), close to the border with Utah. The town was founded in 1957 to house workers for the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam - a major dam on the Colorado River. The dam was built to provide a reservoir for the growing population in the area and to generate electricity - it does both quite well. It creates the huge Lake Powell. But the dam also has an obvious impact on the environment, and being upstream of the Grand Canyon, that impact is very controversial. To…

After crossing the Colorado River at Hoover Dam, we entered Arizona, and made our way eastward through the beautiful desert landscape. There are a few stretches of the original Route 66 here that are still in tact. The Route is so synonymous with US roadtripping, that it is hard not to feel a little buzz while cruising along it. With the windows down and the volume turned up, the air feels a little fresher and your spirit frees up just a touch. While a road trip is about reaching a destination, if you do it right, it is more about…

We approached Las Vegas after sunset, a beacon of neon light drawing us in like moths to a flame. The history of the town’s rapid growth into entertainment mecca goes all the way back to the building of a huge dam during the despair of the Great Depression. Hoover Dam, originally named Boulder Dam, was commissioned by the US government and built between 1931 and 1936. The purpose: to control flooding further down the Colorado River, provide irrigation water upstream (the dam creates the enormous Lake Mead), and produce hydroelectric power. This all took place 30 miles southeast of a…