Roswell, New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns

Friday was our last full day of sites to see. First we went to Roswell, NM to the UFO museum. I really expected Tucker to love this but was proven to be wrong quickly. He kept calling it "boring" which really meant he was not comfortable. Shelby proved to be just like her dad and had to read everything. I think we would have been there for 3 days if I didn't push her along.  

 So after we left the UFO museum, now believing in aliens, we headed to Carlsbad Caverns National Park  in White's City, NM. This place was the exact same from when I was a kid and went there, except this time they had railings along the path. Shelby thought it was really neat. Tucker on the other hand would have liked it a lot more if he was allowed to touch and not have to stay next to an adult's side the entire time. Poor kid. Telling Tucker he has to stay next to me when all he wants to do is run and explore was not cool. But he managed. And I think he probably snuck in a few touches when we weren't looking.

The caves were under all this!

 Once we were done here (after having to wait in a line for 45 minutes to ride the elevator out of the cave) we got back on the road and headed to Texas. After a very long, not quite dirt road, but definitely not a highway, drive, we make it to Fort Stockton, TX where we stayed the night.

Saturday morning we were up at 5am and on the road by 6am for home. 10 hours, a million pump jacks and oil rigs, and rain later, we were home.

Best vacation ever.

(Can you tell how tired they are??)

Royal Gorge Train - Canon City, CO

Thursday we were in Canon City, Colorado to ride the Royal Gorge Train. The kids really enjoyed this. The only train they had ever been on was Thomas the Train and that was more like a 30 minute ride to nothing and back. This train went down the river where we saw people rafting, a few wild animals, and what Tucker claims "a lot of civil war artifacts." The ride was about 2 hours long and we sat in a dome cart where we could see everything and we were also able to enjoy lunch.

 

After we were done with our train ride we hit the road heading south towards New Mexico. Our spring break vacation was slowly coming to a close and we were on the homeward bound track. We crossed the New Mexico border and ended up closing our day down in Las Vegas, NM.

 

 

Breckenridge, Colorado

Breckenridge was on the agenda for day 5 of our Colorado adventure. It was also our final day with Kerri. That morning we said our goodbyes and loaded up our suitcases. Remember how it was snowing the day before in Estes Park? Well, it apparently snowed A LOT more in Breckenridge. The drive the Breckenridge is nearly the same as the drive to Keystone, which we did 2 days before. The drive was NOTHING the same. There was ice and snow EVERYWHERE. Then there was a wreck in one of the tunnels so we were stuck on the highway for a solid hour. We were already layered up which was a great thing because it was FOURTEEN degrees!!!! You did not read 40. You read 14!!!

This was definitely a white knuckle of a drive. I think I drove 10 mph most of the way. We eventually found our way into Breckenridge but all the signs we needed were covered in snow. The kids were yelling in the backseat putting boogers on each other and mom was gripping the door handle the entire time trying not to state her opinion. I was ready to throw my hands up in the air and say screw it, let's leave. But somehow I ended up in a parking lot and a lady appeared out of nowhere and asked me if I was lost. YES!!! HELP ME!!!! And holy cow did she! She sent me to another parking lot that was across the street marked "closed" and told me to ask for Vince. So I followed her directions and found Vince who guided me into a parking spot right next to the gondola that we needed. THANK YOU!!!!! We got out and on to the gondola and rode over to Peak 8.

Peak 8 is apparently the peak to be. It is packed full of amazingness! Mom found her a place at the grill on the patio so she could watch all the snowboarders and skiiers doing their crazy jumps and flips off of snow ramps. I think she had enough excitement from the morning ride to do much else. LOL So the kids and I headed up the mountain to the alpine slide. It was soooooooo much fun. I bought us the all day ride pass and we did just that. We rode ALL day.

Once we were done for the afternoon the kids decided that we most definitely need to go back next year and they want to go to the kid's ski school and learn to snowboard. I didn't do that this time because I was afraid Shelby would chicken out on the ski lifts, but no. She said she was 100% ready to do this. So hopefully next year we can go back.

Luckily this time nobody got any sort of altitude sickness. I gave both kids advil before we even left that morning and we drank a lot of water that morning too. If I remember correctly, we were at 19,000 feet elevation.

Once we left Breckenridge we headed to Canon City for the night. The kids once again fell asleep before we got out of the parking lot. The drive took about 2.5 hours where the first hour was again, white knuckle driving.

Estes Park, Colorado

On day 4 of our Colorado adventure we drove up to Estes Park where the Rocky Mountain National Park is located. This was the cutest town ever! We shopped in a few shops and had a great lunch at a quaint little restaurant. After that we headed up the moutain further until we entered the National Park. What was amazing was this place barely had anybody there. It was like we had the entire mountain to ourselves. It was great!!! The further we circled up the mountain the more it would snow. The kids claimed that this was like dipping dots falling from the sky. We played in the snow for the entire day. It was actually quite cold this day because of the wind and the snow fall. I would say it was in the 20's on this day.

We saw elk and deer all around the park. Not as many as we were expecting, but we still saw quite a bit.

 

 This was where we had lunch. Tucker actually ate sauerkraut!!

Keystone, Colorado

On our first full day in Colorado we drove to Keystone. It was an absolutely beautiful day and the weather was in the 30's which felt more like the 50's back in TX. The drive was quite interesting since there were a lot of S curves on steep declines and trucker runaway ramps which are a little intimidating to see. But we made it there safe and sound and ready to hit the snowy mountains. The kids were in shock of all the snow and the fact that it was light, powdery snow. I was a little nervous with how Shelby would do on the gondola since she's fearful of heights but she loved it and did great.

Once we got off the gondola we headed towards Kidtopia. That was where the big tubing hill and snow fort was. Unfortunately Tucker immediately got an altitude headache, Shelby got queezy, and Mimi got light headed. This was going to take some adjusting. But we pushed through it and headed for the tubing hut.

While we were watching the "safety" video some people walked into the hut, and holy cow, I knew them! It was Shelley and her family, from back home. (Shelley who I went on the cruise with to Cozumel, and to Twicon in Dallas!) What a life saver that was because she told us to take all of our layers off because we would be too hot. We really didn't need gloves, coats, or any of that because it was actually warm with no breeze and the sun beaming off the white snow. We hit the tubing hill...cautiously. Oh Lord how was this going to go!!?? Well, I attempted to take a video thinking I could be all smooth. Uh, no. Not even close.

 

So after that not so graceful ride down the hill we grabbed our tubes and rode up the magic carpet to do it all over again. And again. And again.

So that was our Day 3 of spring break. I was glad we had shed the layers because it was getting quite warm. Even the guys working on the hill were in shorts and tshirts. Tucker was done after about 4 tube runs so I took him to the snowfort to play while Mimi stayed with Shelby as she continued to tube. After a while we all met up and hit the lodge for lunch. I think at this point it was about 3pm and the kids were exhausted and the altitude sickness was not helping. So we called it a day and rode the gondola back down and headed back to Kerri's house. The kids were asleep before we got out of Keystone.

 



Amarillo, TX and Ghost Town, CO

Spring Break 2014 was by far the best Spring Break and vacation the kids and I have ever had. We were joined on this awesome road trip by my mom, aka Mimi. Dad, aka Poppy, was going to be fishing all week so what better way to spend her week than traveling with us and the Exploradora.

 

We kicked off the first weekend by leaving at 6am Saturday morning. We played all sorts of road games and I don't think the kids napped once on our 12 hour drive to Amarillo. I think Amarillo can be reached in 10 hours, but we take a lot of potty breaks. The goal was to make it to our destination before dark, and we did.

 

Once we arrived into Amarillo and checked into our hotel (after Dora-navigator got us lost and then eventually back on track) we settled down for just a few minutes before a limo arrived at our hotel to pick us up. Tucker was stoked to be riding in a limo for the first time...until he saw how old it was. Haha!  Oh it was priceless! We were going to The Big Texan for dinner and part of their flare is to send limos to the hotels to pick up out of town guests.

 

If it hadn't been for this being a famous, must see restaurant on the travel network, we would have left. This place had thousands of people. It was insanely crowded and not worth the misery that ensued for the 3 hours we were there. But we stuck it out, had a decent dinner, listened to some great live music, then got back in the limo and headed back to the hotel for the kids to swim. Thankfully, all the hotels booked on this trip included breakfast, free wi-fi, and indoor pools. :-)

 

Sunday morning we hit the road about 8am and went to Amarillo's Cadillac Ranch. It's all over the travel network. It's a piece of land that some artsy fartsy people buried Cadillacs standing up in the ground and spray painted. There were spray paint cans left all over the place. The kids attempted to spray paint, but there was nothing left in the bottles. Some people showed up with their own fresh new cans. I wasn't quite sure what the "rule" was until we passed the sign about graffiti. LOL

 

 

After leaving the cars we hit the road for Colorado. We drove up 287 through the land of .... NOWHERE. We drove through Oklahoma, still on 287, and passed no lights, no houses, no nothing.

Once we got into Colorado I had to laugh because the sign said welcome to COLORFUL Colorado, and there was no color anywhere.

As we were still driving along nothing on 287, we saw some sign about an indian massacre ground. So I had Mimi google 287 ghost towns and she came across some town named Brandon. So we took a road not on the scheduled path and found Brandon. It had maybe 5 abandoned buildings and then some trailers. Mimi, fearful of rattlesnakes, stayed back in the car, claiming she would be the one to suck the venom out of us should we be bitten. Shelby claimed to be too scared of snakes, so it was just Tucker and I crawling through these abandoned buildings. One was an old bank that had a very neat built in vault. Another was a home that still had an intact kitchen and a desk.

 Once we were done with that, we came across a zillion wind turbines which Mimi named windimators. These were super neat to see and holy cow are they huge up close. We came across a tiny patch of snow and the kids were insanely thrilled. They had no clue what they would be in for the next day. We had to pull over for them to throw a few snowballs...at me, of course.

So we eventually made it to Kerri's house in Thornton, CO around 6pm. Kerri graciously welcomed us for 3 nights at the Peech Family Inn. The kids were so excited to have other kids to play with. I finally got to meet her fantabulous girls and Gus, her super gross, yet super cute as can be, french bulldog who likes to slobber and grunt and steal your shoes.

Stay tuned....