Road Trip 2013, Week 1

 A few years ago as Paul was coming up on being eligible for his 8 week sabbatical, we decided we wanted to spend it on the road, touring our great country.  I love National Parks so we plotted a general course and put off the sabbatical for a year and half in order for the kids to get just a bit older.  But not too old, we didn't want to deal with surly teenagers who didn't want to be around us.  I would much rather deal with my little ones I think.  On June 8th we headed out on what we hope to be a 56 day cross-country road trip.  I say hope, but I really think we can do it.  The first day we made it as far as Heyburn, ID.  No excitement, just a long day of driving to break us in.  Day two we made it to Utah.  We took a short sight seeing trip through the BYU campus in order to show the kids my old stomping grounds, but I couldn't make much sense of campus anymore with all the changes so it was a very short trip.  That evening we made it to the West entrance of Zion National Park, where we explored for about an hour and then found our camping spot in Hurricane, UT.

 Zion was absolutely gorgeous.  Its like the Grand Canyon in reverse.  Instead of being on the ridge of a canyon looking down, you are on the bottom of the canyon looking up.  It reminded me a lot of Yosemite except with red rocks instead of granite.

 Here is our mode of transportation for our trip.  A 36 foot long travel trailer.  So far it seems to be fitting us well and we make use of every inch of the space.

We hiked the riverwalk trail in Zion Canyon all the way to where the trail ends and you reach the narrows, where the canyon walls close in on you.  The people behind us are crossing the river and hiking upstream to the narrows.  We felt like the kids weren't old enough to take that on so we only went as far as the end of the trail. It would be fun to go farther someday when little legs have grown into big legs.  Zion was hot out of the canyon but our walk was pretty doable as long as we stayed in the shade.

Night two Bree fell out of her top bunk and cracked her right eye on the ladder I think as she fell down.  She has been sporting a lovely black eye for a week now.  Her lips are also severely chapped and she won't let me treat them, and her hair is a horrible dry mess in this ridiculous heat so not many of the trip pictures have her looking her best.  Ah well, this is how goes.  

June 11th found us on the road headed south towards the Grand Canyon.  We stopped at Pipe Springs National Monument to see what it was all about.  Good thing I bought the National Parks pass before we left so we get into all the National Parks and monuments free.  This would have cost us $25 but it totally wasn't worth it.  It was an old tithing ranch for Mormon settlers, with the house they built as the focus of the tour.  The best part of it was watching the ranger try to entertain my kids while trying desperately to hold in her anxiety about them touching her precious relics.  Skip that one if you ever come across it.  We drove along the Vermillion cliffs (pictures above) and they were just amazing.  Absolutely beautiful.  Its hard to believe rocks can be so interesting but for a week now we have been in awe of just that.  Rocks.  We made it to our camp site in Cameron, AZ that night where we ate our Navajo Tacos at the Trading Post.  YUM!  Paul and I ate there 11 years ago on our road trip together.  It was fun to revisit it.  But the camping there was awful, which we expected.  There is a reason I live in the northwest.  I can't stand the heat and the dryness is killing me.  The southwest is stunning to experience as a tourist but I could never live here.  I have bottles of lotion staged in each room of the trailer and I feel like bathing in it still isn't enough.  Its driving me crazy and I really don't know how people live here.

 June 12th we made it to the Grand Canyon!  Or the Can Canyon as Bree called it.  She talked about it for days leading up to it.  She gave it a rating of "beautiful and amazing."  She was fearlessly hanging on fences next to drop offs into the canyon, while Paul and I were trying to block her and scoop her up if she got to close to things, which happened often.  I don't know if she is fearless or oblivious though.  It was hot here too.  We got up early to try to beat the heat but when its 85 at 9am there really is no such thing.  We loved it though, and I think the kids did too.  One of my favorite National Parks.

 Mason has been humoring me all trip listening to my limited knowledge on rock formations and kindly looking out his window when I call out yet another formation that pretty much looks like all the others I pointed out to him.  He is sitting right behind me and he has turned out to be my traveling buddy.  He puts up with me the best I think.  What a sweetheart.  He bought this cool hat at Zion and is now collecting pins at all our stops to fill it up.  He seems to be just the right age to appreciate all this and is having a great time.  I think.

Mason held up the world at the Grand Canyon visitor center.

 The 13th we were supposed to be headed south to Phoenix and Tucson, to Saguaro National Park to see the giant cacti, but the weather report was for 111 in Phoenix and we just didn't feel like our bodies or our vehicle could handle the heat.  Mason was severely disappointed because he was really looking forward to those cacti, and Paul and I really wanted to head south, but we had to choose the unpopular route.  It turned out to be a good choice though.  We headed north east and saw Monument Valley, where all the old westerns were filmed.  It was beautiful rock formations once again!  You can see it was also very windy by Bree's hair.

 After the valley we stopped at Four Corners.  The three youngest are now able to say they have been to Colorado!

 Darcy wasn't having a good time at Four Corners.

 We hit the Continental Divide in New Mexico on the 14th.  We also drove into Albuquerque in search of the Mormon temple, which we like to find along our route, and that was kind of a disaster.  We were able to drive by the temple and snap a picture and then Paul maneuvered our beast of a vehicle through the streets till we found a Wal Mart to stock up on supplies.  Can I just digress for a minute and say what an amazing guy my husband is?  He has been put through the ringer driving our massive caravan around but he has been awesome at it.  He got us through the city, he drove us safely through a blinding dust storm that threatened to blow us off the road, and he can back-up on a dime.  I am totally impressed by his driving skills.  And his putting up with me skills.  But we won't get into that.  We saw tumbleweeds roll across our path in the windstorm which excited all of us.  Simple pleasures.  For most of New Mexico I was wondering what earthly reason it had for existing.  Totally ugly worthless desert.  Even the cactus are ugly.  Mason and I nicknamed one species "the Big Uglies."  They are really a species of Yucca I think.  Appropriate name.  Southern New Mexico has some treasures though we have found.

That evening we pulled into our camp sight in Alomogordo, NM, dropped the trailer, and sped to White Sands National Monument.  We were trying to get there before the visitors center closed so we could get a stamp in our national parks passports, and so we could get the obligatory fridge magnet and Mason's hat pin.  It closed at 7pm and we got there at 6:53.  I told you Paul was amazing.  White Sands was a great find.  It was beautiful, soft, huge sand dunes out in the middle of the desert.  We were out there for an hour and a half just enjoying the sunset and the kids had a blast rolling down the dunes.  Great place for kids and sunset is the best time to visit.  I think the kids would rate that as their top spot so far.

Today we made it to Carlsbad Caverns.  I didn't really think about how being 750 feet under the earth might effect my kids until we were already down the elevator into the caverns.  Thankfully no one was claustrophobic but Drew and Bree were pretty uneasy at times.  I even caught myself thinking about what would happen if the roof caved in.  It gave me a greater appreciation for what trapped miners go through.  The caverns were amazing though.  Spectacular.  Crazy that we could be down there.  Bree refused to walk so she got a piggy back ride from me the whole 1.25 mile trail.  Little stinker.  I didn't want her to cry because it would echo off the walls.  She played me pretty well.  Little stinker.  The caverns really were other-worldly.  I would recommend visiting if you aren't claustrophobic.  Its quite an experience.

 On the way back to our camp site from the caverns we saw a tarantula crossing the road!  Not this guy though, he is still living.  I believe Paul squashed the first one we saw.  On accident of course.  I still feel horribly guilty about maiming wildlife in a National Park.  We saw this guy on the road on our way to watch the bats all fly out of the cavern at dusk.  Unfortunately it wasn't a mass exodus like some of the pictures out there, but it was still pretty cool to see them all flying around.  Tomorrow we head south to Texas!  Hopefully I can find the time and the internet service to blog about this upcoming week.

In the week we have been out on the road I have learned a few things:

1.  Mason has been blessed with the gift of tongues.  I don't know when or where he picked it up, but he seems to speak in a sort of Jabba the Hut jibberish constantly.  He's probably still starting all his conversations with "what if" but I just don't realize it.

2.  Bree is partial to female singers.  Only female singers.  And she does a mean Christina Agulerra impression of "I Just Want to Feel This Moment."

3.  Darcy is an excellent traveler.  Until she decides not to be.  All of a sudden she turns "flopsy mopsy" and won't move another inch.  She is done!  Fortunately it hasn't happened too often but when it does, watch out!

4.  As I said before, Paul is the man.  I would trust him driving anything anywhere.  He's a stud.

5.  Shampoo that works in the northwest doesn't work in the southwest.  Our hair is just dried out rats nests.  We will all be due for a cut when we get home.

6.  I should have taken college courses on geology, history, sociology, geography, religion, and just about every subject under the sun before we left.  It seems the role of walking encyclopedia has fallen on me.  Sometimes I just spout stuff and I have no idea what I'm talking about.  The kids don't even realize it.  That's because I'm mom and I am smart.  And now I'm off to bed so I am well rested for our next adventure.