Road Trip 2013 - Day 3 & 4

Leaving Taos, we happened upon this...

A HUGE Gorge.  In fact, it is the Rio Grande Gorge State Park in Taos.  Our schedule didn't allow us to explore it more, but we did stop to take a few scenic pictures.  (Check out the hot air balloon in the distance...)

Our trip through New Mexico was a bit uneventful... until we happened upon Roswell.  Roswell, NM as in... ALIENS, ALIENS and MORE ALIENS.  As we were approaching Roswell, alien statues and signs could be seen everywhere.  Alien everything... even down to the lamp posts!

We arrived in Colorado and stopped in Durango for a quick lunch.  We had pizza at Fired Up Pizza in the historic district and Oh. My. Word.  It was hand's down THE best pizza we've ever had.  Soooo good.

No trip to Durango is complete without at least stopping by the historic train that runs from Durango to Silverton.

Our final stop for this day was in fact, Silverton.  The drive to Silverton is on a stretch of road called the San Juan Skyway a.k.a. the scariest road on Earth... with twisty roads, crazy switchbacks all on the side of mountains... with NO guardrails. YIKES!

Randy's uncle and aunt live in Silverton (population less than 600) year round.  They built a beautiful home there and truly love their small tight knit community.  Randy's uncle is a summertime mountain tour guide and he brought us to some of the most beautiful places in all of Silverton.

The family near Red Mountain.

Uncle Steve, Aunt Karla, Randy & Kyla

Mountain snow!

Fragile tundra above the timber line!

We had a great 1.5 days in Silverton.  Wish we could have stayed longer... but alas... Yellowstone is still a long ways away! 

Next stop... Vernal Utah.

Road Trip 2013 - Day 1 & 2

Our first day was spent driving.

Across Texas.

We finished our long day of driving in Van Horn, Texas.  Sorry to say, that there was nothing impressive about Van Horn.  It was just a necessary sleep stop along the way.

The next morning, we headed out bright and early to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  The plan was to hike the McKittrick canyon trail.

This was our first view of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  Pretty and very impressive!

And of course... the traditional park entry photo...

We quickly began our hike down McKittrick Canyon.  It was HOT and we were all armed with our Camelbak hydration backpacks.  (Just to give you an idea.... my hydration pack holds 70 ounces of water... I drank every last drop!)

About 20 minutes to our desired destination which was Pratt Cabin, built in 1931-32, I decided I couldn't finish the trail.  I was hot, tired and afraid that Randy would have to carry me out of the canyon, so I headed back to the trail head/visitor's center which was a 45 minute walk away.

I felt terrible for ditching my family, but I knew my limit.

Anyway, they found the cabin, looked around a bit and joined me at the visitor's center 90 minutes later.  We ate a quick picnic lunch and headed out.

Our next destination... Taos, New Mexico for a night's rest.  Unfortunately we arrived too late in the day to do anything worthwhile in beautiful Taos.  But, we did get an excellent night's sleep in the beautiful El Pueblo Lodge.

3,800 miles later...

Red Mountain in Silverton, CO.

...And we're back from our road trip vacation to Yellowstone!  We had a fabulous time and of course, we are exhausted... with piles and piles of laundry to do... and miles and miles of stuff to put away.

Hoping to update soon... WITH PICTURES.

CAMPER!

I know, two blog posts in two days.  It's crazy... I'm crazy!

But, I wanted to share with the world our fun new car game.  I'm not expecting this game to catch on.  In fact, I'm sure most of you will scratch your head and say... "oooooookay...."

The origin of the game began like this.  Randy wanted a camper top for his truck for quite a while for all of our weekend traveling, etc. (soccer gear, chairs, camera, ice chests etc.) and I agreed a camper would be a great idea.

So, he found one on Craigslist and drove to Dallas to pick it up.  It was exactly what he wanted... except it was WHITE.  His truck is black.  So, we had to make plans to have that fixed.  Goodness knows, a big ol white camper top on a black truck was not gonna cut it.

He had the camper vinyl wrapped in a carbon fiber design and it's really cool!

But here's the thing... ever since he got his camper, the girls and I have been noticing campers on trucks.  And you know what?  There are a lot of mismatched camper tops.  A lot of "old school" camper tops on newer trucks and quite a few "redneck" camper tops out there.  Don't believe me?  Keep your eyes peeled and you'll find them too.

Here's what I'm talking about.

(As you will note, Randy's truck is the black truck with the camper and the three bikes hanging off of the FRONT of the truck.  While this doesn't fall into the "redneck camper" catergory, it does fall into the general redneck category to which, Randy is proud... and offended... all at the same time.

So, the game is this...

• 1pt for spotting a camper on a truck
• 1pt for spotting a mismatched camper
• 1pt for spotting an "old school" camper (which is usually ALSO mismatched)
• 10pts for spotting a "redneck" camper (believe me, we've each spotted at least 2-3 of them!)

Let me just say... we've gotten into some LIVELY games in the vehicle over this.  We plan to play it on our road trip to Yellowstone... only this time, we're really going to keep track of the points.  Everyday.  It will be fun and I'll be sure to keep you posted on who wins.

Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin'...

It's already June 10th.  Heck practically June 11th from where I sit.  Did y'all know that?

Goodness, it's been a busy couple of days... Randy's in Taiwan, heading back tomorrow and we've been busy with our summer vacation planning.

But, in the middle of all of that, we've had lots of fun.  Been swimming, biking, running and hitting the local parks.

Randy bought us girls mountain bikes about a month ago and already twice this week, I've loaded the bikes in the back of the van and we've hit the biking trails around town and the nearby town.  LOTS of fun.  I never thought I'd enjoy bike riding so much, but I truly have.

Last weekend, my friend Cyndi and her kids Joey, Suzie and Elizabeth came for a visit!  We were so excited to see them.  Even though, they only live in Houston, we still don't get together but about once a year.  Sad, I know.

Anyway, I've known Cyndi since her oldest was 6 months old, so not only do we go way back, but the kids go way back as well.  What's nice is that their friendship (much like Cyndi's and mine) is seamless and we all pick up where we leave off every time we get together with them.  That's the mark of a true friendship!

Some exciting news on our front... Elisan made the TOP soccer team in her age division.  In two years, she has worked her way up from the third team to the first team.  That is virtually unheard of around here... but I tell you what, she has put forth the work required to make the leap she made and we are incredibly proud of her.  Her new coach is a fellow by the name of Wolfgang Sünholz a former professional soccer player.  (He even played with Pelé, probably the most famous Brazilian footballer of all times, back in the 70's.)

Speaking of Elisan, for posterity sakes, I wanted to publicly commend her for a fabulous school year.  This year, Elisan received the HIGHEST AVERAGE award for 5 of her classes - Math, Science, English/Language Arts, Literature and History.  At one point, they just asked her and another boy to just stay on the stage as they passed out her awards!  Talk about a proud mama moment!

Kyla was in the school's talent show the last day of school.  She was part of a trio of girls who danced and sang on stage!  She was so cute and I'm very proud of her for getting up there and performing.  (She says she suffers from "stage fright".... um, okay?)

And finally, I leave you with this... we had a free weekend morning and I brought the girls out to have their (better late than never) Spring pictures.

My girls are growing up... sniff, sniff.  (And, yes, they are wearing a smidgen of make up.)