After a Rough Morning it Starts to Get Better

Mindy here . . .
Well . . . We were hoping today would bring about a better day, but the morning was just as tough and hot and very HUMID. As I never have been a very good sleeper I was up early. It was hard not to be up early considering it was still very humid and hot early in the morning. Plus if you didn't know you were in San Antonio one would guess you were in a tropical area with the humidity and with all the birds. Lots of birds all singing their songs with some very tropical sounding ones. As nature was calling in more ways than just the birds, I got up and ended up fiddling around trying to stay cool while I let everyone try to sleep as long as possible. Mark finally got up and I didn't realize he had a bit of stress having difficulty sleeping. His brain was going a mile a minute trying to figure out where to get the tire fixed and still something was not right with the way the van was driving. We also were supposed to check out at 11 am and yet we didn't even get camp set up until 4 am taking a little bit to actually fall asleep. He decided to start with asking the manager for compensation for not having any electricity and to please allow us an hour or so extra to get checked out. The park was far from full so we were hopeful. Well I don't know what we were thinking because she was not very understanding with our weary travels and lack of electricity. Unfriendly or lacking compassion and understanding are a couple of nice words one could use to describe her. I have to admit I used a few other words to describe her. She hesitantly gave us an extra hour to actually break down camp and get out. As we discussed our day, Mark decided to head out and try to find a place to fix the tire and maybe have someone look at the van and the transmission. I was supposed to get the kids up, have them shower (as they were very sweaty and stinky due to the humidity) and get some breakfast. He was hoping to be back in time to help get the trailer all broken down and put away so we could head to the river walk and the Alamo. Everything was going reasonably well until Ksenia had problems with the shower. Once we got that worked out I realized that Mark had all the food in the back of the van . . . that he was driving. Ugh!!! After a few texts discussing lack of food and his lack of success with the van he came back to camp. The kids and I had the trailer mostly put back together and so as we all tried to keep our patience in check, we hooked up the trailer and headed out to breakfast. IHOP was the spot of choice. We talked about all the options while we ate and finally had food in our tummies. We were still tired but at least full. We went over to Wal-Mart. The transmission was fine and Mark felt good about that but still something wasn't quite right so after some contemplation, he wanted to try changing the hitch to put the trailer up higher and more level. This idea seems to be working and he is feeling better again. I really know nothing about the intricacies of cars so as long as Mark is happy then so am I. We also found a miss-marked tire for a really good price. We bought it and took it out to put on the back of the trailer only to realize it had five bolts in the wheel and not four. So off we went to find someone to help us change out the two wheels and hopefully have a bigger crescent wrench to tighten up the ball on the new hitch.






Mark with the Big A$$ crescent wrench to tighten the ball onto the hitch. Actually he is just acting as it is not good to over tighten a ball hitch as that could cause it to snap off.

The guy who helped us with the wheel issue was kind enough to do it for only $3. We gave him $5.

So finally off to the Alamo and the River Walk. We headed out only to find parking wasn't easy. Instead of allowing us to pay for an extra spot for the trailer, all parking lots wanted to charge a minimum of $45 to park the car and trailer. Ugh!!! That was ridiculous. After wandering around the city looking, getting hotter and crankier (at least I was getting crankier - Mark was doing a pretty good job considering he had very little sleep). Mark (somehow still in good spirits) decided to go back to the trailer park and unhitch the trailer and try again. We weren't going to travel all the way to San Antonio and not see the Alamo (part of the curriculum he teaches). He really wanted to see it and it was pretty cool to see.







All of us in front of the mission.

Finally having made it through the Alamo, I was not feeling well. I was really worn out for many reasons than just tired and hot. Mark jumped on the phone with his Mom to find out how much we were going to miss if we didn't do the river walk since I wasn't feeling well. Making the executive decision he decided to go get the trailer and head toward Beaumont. So here we are on the road to Beaumont. We should arrive in about 45 minutes. We have had dinner. We are looking forward to a good shower and hopefully a good night sleep with electricity for the fans. Tomorrow we are planning on playing at a water park about 30 minutes from the camp ground before we head on to New Orleans.

Other than needing sleep, I'm feeling a little better and looking forward to the rest of our trip, putting the last days difficult events behind me. It is a once in a life time vacation so I can't let this get me down. Good night for now. :o)

Mark here - MUCH BETTER DAY. Hidden Lake Resort is awesome. Very clean with great facilities and very reasonable prices. Mom and Dad, if you are ever in the Beaumont area you should check it out.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:San Antonio

Adventures in Abilene

After over a week of sleeping in a tent trailer, it was nice to get a restful sleep in a real bed in an air-conditioned house. After getting up from a great nights sleep we were presented with an excellent breakfast of eggs, bacon, and biscuits by our super hostess Pat Cranfill (my aunt.) In addition to breakfast Pat had planned a full tour of Abilene, Texas. Our tour began with a sculpture of Jacobs dream on the ACU (Abilene Christian University) campus.







Picture of Jacobs dream. Looking closely there is a cross in the space between the rocks.






Close up of the sculpture's center piece.






Mindy, Chelsea, Ksenia, and Kaleb with Pat in front of the sculpture.






Me with my aunt Pat

After the sculpture Pat was very kind and shuttled us around to run some errands. We needed sheets for the hot nights, and to do some banking. After our errands we stopped by to say hello to Granny Striplin. It was great to see a 91 year old woman in such good health. After visiting for a bit Pat treated us to the kid's favorite restaurant, chilies. We left chilies stuffed and continued our tour around Abilene with Frontier Texas. This museum highlights the contributions of several frontiersmen and native Americans to settling the west and making Texas what it is today.







This sculpture of cattle wranglers is the first site upon entering the museum.






Chelsea shows the buffalo some love.






Kaleb finds a new friend in Texas.






Throughout the museum were several holographic videos of natives or white settler talking about their role in settling Texas.






Ksenia strikes a pose in the teepee.






Kaleb, Chelsea, and Ksenia in the stage couch from the three amigos and many other movies.

Once learning all we could about the settling of the frontier we returned to Pat's house and seeing that it was still over 100 degrees outside we decided it was a good time for the kids to swim while I made arrangements for New Orleans. we also had shopping to do so Mindy went out shopping with Stephanie. David (my cousin) and his wife Stephanie spent most of Sunday evening and Monday with us as well. Patti (another of my cousins) supervised the kids in the pool until David and I arrived for a swim ourselves.







Ksenia swims with cousin Cassidy (David's daughter) both nicknamed Cassy.






Action shot of Ksenia into the pool she goes.





Ksenia, Chelsea, Kaleb, Cassidy, and Travis (David's son) playing in the pool.

The kids had a blast playing with their second cousins who they met for the first time on this trip. Not pictured is Jaxton (David's son) Kenna, and Ben (Patti's kids) if there is one thing that blogging will do it will make you feel like a complete idiot when you don't take enough pictures. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of granny, Pat, Patti, David, Stephanie, Jaxton, Kenna, or Ben. Once we were all prunes from the pool we had a great dinner of brisket, turkey, ribs, and sausage. Once again we were stuffed and it was time to pack up and leave. We packed up our clothes, put the trailer away, showered, and said our goodbyes. There was more than one tear shed at this departure, as there are far too many miles between Oregon and Texas. We can't say enough about the hospitality provided by our family in Texas. Paying them a visit will truly be one of the highlights of this trip. We miss them already and can't wait to see them again. I'm currently dictating this blog post to Kaleb as we drive to San Antonio. We are scheduled to arrive at our camp site at 2:30 central time. We are looking forward to seeing the Alamo and taking the river walk.

I thought I was done blogging tonight but here I am at 4am back at it. It was around 2:30 am when the tire blew on the tent trailer. Tired, hot, and sweaty I changed the tire and we proceeded on our way.







We did a good job of holding it together with it being so late and everyone so tired. We finally pulled into Travelers RV Park and began to setup camp. We pulled out the sides when suddenly the large bed side didn't pull out all the way. After looking at it the left side was blocked by the collision of two screws. I figured out that if I used my pliers I could get it past but this took a while and due to the amazingly high humidity I was dripping with sweat by the time it was fixed. It is over 80 degrees outside but feels like it's over 100. A fan would be really nice right now but the electric box has only the large round plug and we only have the small. There was a plug with the small plug but it wasn't screwed to the box so when you tried to use it it just pushed away. Mindy tried to take the box apart and ended up shorting out the wires, making a loud popping noise in the process. The whole thing scared Chelsea half to death as she was helping Mindy out. I now lay here at 4:15, drenched in sweat with no power/fan exhausted and unable to sleep. Hopefully I will pass out here soon and tomorrow will bring better times.

Location:Abilene, TX

Hot Hot Heat

Well I don't know if we mentioned it but it's pretty darn hot down here. This morning proved to be a cool morning in more than one way. We got up early from a pretty sleepless night so that we could see everything we wanted and still get to Abilene by 6pm. We did a really good job of getting the trailer packed up and ready to go by 7:30 so we could arrive at the main site seeing adventure by 8am. We were going to one of the coolest places on earth, even on a 112 degree day which of course was Carlsbad Caverns. If it wasn't for the smell of bat poop we could have stayed all day. We descended into the cavern through it's natural entrance which takes about an hour just to get into the cavern. It was worth it however considering how beautiful it was.




Looking back at the natural entrance right before entering the twilight zone of the cave (where the natural like barely lights up the cave).












Many amazing formations to see. Unfortunately we arrived on a Sunday and all of the tours were sold out. We were still able to see the main parts of the caves though and they didn't disappoint. After the caves we drove on to Abilene, Texas to visit family. We are staying in my Aunt Pat's house which is giving us a nice reprieve from camping in the heat. She has been an amazing hostess. We arrived to a really yummy dinner with dessert and everything. David and Stephanie joined us as well and Ksenia is in heaven. She has cousins her own age, Travis and Cassidy (12 and 10) with Jaxton (6). Pat invited them to go swimming and they all had a blast splashing around. She even got to go spend the night with them. Pat has also planned what sounds like an amazing day tomorrow, including a visit with Granny Striplin. The kids don't really remember meeting her years ago so they are excited about that. After the day with family tomorrow and maybe another dip in the pool, we will be traveling late to San Antonio.

Good Night for now!

Location:Kings Cross St,Abilene,United States

Off to Carlsbad

We have arrived at Carlsbad Caverns with clean laundry, full cooler of food, and the air conditioning on high. We're not complaining as it beats the rain by several hundred miles but it is really hot here. I am sitting here at the Carlsbad Cavern at 7:30 at night and it is still around 105 degrees. We are here for the bat flight. Mindy really wants to experience this to share with her class next year during her bat unit. We didn't do much today except travel. Not much to blog about until this show is over. No pictures are allowed during the bat exodus so all I have is a picture before it starts. The park ranger just asked us to be quiet and put away our phones.








My turn to blog . . . It's me, Mindy. :o)
So Mark is correct I am completely thrilled to have experienced the bat flight, however we have to back up before I continue with the bats.

We hung out this morning for a little while in Albuquerque and did a little grocery shopping and let the kids spend a little more time in the pool. After checking out from the quaint little RV park we decided to check out the petroglyphs in Albuquerque. Let's start by saying it was hot, Ksenia had a nice sunburn on her back with only tank tops and we were a little concerned about keeping our schedule. We found out we could do a little loop and it was a national monument for Kaleb's national parks passport book and he could get a stamp. So we put Ksenia in one of her Dad's t-shirts and headed out to the glyphs regardless of the sun. It was a good thing it was a short loop because it was hot, hotter than we Oregonians are used too. Our trip lasted about 30 minutes in total. It was time to head out to Carlsbad.







So back to the bats . . . :o) My first unit I teach in reading class is on bats and we have a blast learning about them so you can only imagine my excitement about seeing Carlsbad Caverns. We rushed (in a very safe manor) to get to Carlsbad in time to see the bat flights tonight. If we could make it tonight then we wouldn't have to alter our itinerary. It was awesome and well worth it. Ok if you're Ksenia you were ready to leave before I was but she was humoring me. We had a nice presentation from the ranger and I was able to answer her questions and share information my kids didn't even know. It was fun. Then it was silent time. If it was too noisy the bats wouldn't come so we sat and they came and they kept coming and they kept coming. :o) We watched for about 30 minutes. I could have watched longer but we hadn't even had dinner yet and it was getting late. I found out we could adopt a bat so you can guess what my class is going to do in September.

Now to bring this to a close. We had a nice relaxing morning and ended our day watching the amazing flight of the bats.



At 9:45 we started cooking Dinner. Here is the BBQ setup Mark used to cook hamburgers. It took almost an hour to finish cooking dinner on a tiny grill for a family of five.

Tomorrow we are going back to the caverns to go down into the caves. After the caves we are heading to Texas to visit with Mark's family, including Granny Striplin and the kids are totally excited about meeting new cousins.

Location:New Mexico 7,Carlsbad,United States

Fun with Pano

I've taken a few panoramic photos with a neat app called Pano. I highly recommend it.

Top of Mesa Verde
Opposite of Cliff Palace
Top of Mesa Verde


Grand Canyon

Getting Some Kicks on Route 66

Here we are in Albuquerque with a lot on the agenda in terms of chores like laundry, groceries, car maintenance, etc... We have been on the road for 6 days and overall we are doing great. We have had our moments as families always do but I can't say that it would be any different at home. Before leaving Mesa Verde we did a tour of Long House. This house was further away from camp on a LONG winding road that never seemed to end. Once we got there we had to take a tram to the entrance of the house and then hike 1/2 mile or so down into the canyon crevice. The whole way down we were thinking, man we are going to have come back up this and sure enough we did. But not before we got to take in all the sites that Long House had to offer.







The view right before entering.





Kids on the tram





The seep spring at Long House still supplies a lot of water to the site. A seep spring forms when water percolates down through the porous sandstone of the Mesa until it is forced out by the less porous shale. Over time through the freezing and melting of the water, stone breaks away to form a cave. The caves at Mesa Verde took millions of years to form.





Artwork left behind. It is hard to see but there is a six fingered hand painted on the rock.





View of Long House from the opposite side.

When we got to Albuquerque we found the campsite we had located online and we were unimpressed. We quickly got out the Internet and found a campground that pays homage to the heyday of Route 66. It has a nice pool, laundry facilities, and full hook-ups to charge up all of our batteries after three nights of dry camping. It also has Wifi which makes posting a lot better than holding your phone up to the east with one bar of coverage hoping the blog will finish posting before the 6% that's left of the battery dies. Here are some pics of the campground.













This is a vintage washing machine (just for looks). We used a good old Maytag washer and dryer for our laundry.





Route 66 sign displayed in office.





If you want you can rent a vintage RV for the night.





Tomorrow it is off to Carlsbad caverns. It is supposed to be 110 degrees there tomorrow but I'm sure it will be a dry heat so we'll be fine. It will be nice and cool in the caves too.

Location:Central Ave NW,Albuquerque,United States

Four Corners and Mesa Verse Arrival

We awoke today with the hope of having a little less adventure and a
little more makin' of memories with the fam. Nothing wrong with a
little adventure but we got enough yesterday to last at least a couple
stops. We started the day taking in the breathtaking views of the
Amazing Grand Canyon. Standing on the edge of this amazing formation
has a way of putting life in perspective.












The sheer magnitude is
breathtaking. Mndy felt more comfortable on the very edge of the
canyon than I did, as heights are not my favorite, but wherever you
see it from it is amazing. After seeing the visitor's center and
hanging around the edge for the morning it was time to head to Mesa
Verde. I am very excited for this portion of the trip as I have never
been to the cliff dwellings before. On the way we had to stop at four
corners to get pictures of our famiy in four different states at once.












It was also good to get out of the car and walk around after a few
hours in the car. After that quick stop it was back on the road. After
a brief encounter with some road construction we arrived at Mesa Verde
National Park. We called ahead to see if we could upgrade our campsite
to full hook-ups and were told there was a cancelation and we could
have full hook-ups for our two nights. When we arrived at the
campground registration however they said it was a mistake so we will
be dry camping instead. The good news is it is cheaper, the scary news
is trying to survive without power for two nights. How am i going to
blog??? After we setup camp we made tacos for dinner, locked up the
food in the van (we are in bear country) and did some dishes. After
dinner dishes were done we got our first injury when Mindy burned her
hand putting away the camp stove away. It was really painful but not
too serious and it added just a bit of adventure into our day. On a
side note, when we got out of our car to back into our car it was
making a strange high pitch humming noise. We have no idea what is
making the noise and it is very strange. I am hoping it magically goes
away from the wonderful Colorado air. We will see. Tomorrow we have a
whole day in one place. It will be very nice to be in the same place
twice and not setup and take down camp.

Location:On the road

Mesa Verde

What an amazing place. The Ute, Pueblo, Zuni, and any other tribes who made these cliff dwellings must have been amazing problem solvers. The planning, skill, and determination it must have required to build a house on a stone cliff is awe inspiring. This is the first two night stop and we are taking full advantage. We "slept in" and didn't have to rush around this morning taking down camp. After we got up we spent almost all day in the park exploring the ruins. We toured Balcony House first which is an hour long ranger led tour. To tour this area we had to descend 100 steps and then climb a 32 step ladder. Once we were in the ruin we were able to walk around and view the amazing architecture built here.





The 32' ladder to climb into the ruins.





Kaleb climbing the steps.





The Fam in the ruins.





The ruins.





More pics of the ruins.

After visiting Balcony House we headed to our next tour which was Cliff Palace. This is the largest cliff dwelling in the world housing more than 150 people. The shear size of this accomplishment is amazing. Our tour guide Scott did a good job of keeping us laughing and got us in the shade as much as possible. Here are a few pics of cliff palace:







Cliff palace from above.





Fam in front of cliff palace.





Approaching cliff palace.

After cliff palace we headed to the museum, watched a movie and then checked out Spruce Tree House which was a self guided tour so we got to go
At our own pace.












Pretty cool site. You can go into a replica of a kiva to see the inside. It was Also nice to go at our own pace. After this site we were ready to head back to camp to eat some dinner. Mindy was cooking again tonight so we had "Mediterranean Pork Chops". They were good.





Tomorrow it's off to Albuquerque for groceries, laundry, and jiffy lube for an oil change. The weird noise from the car did go away by itself which is good.

Location:Mesa Verde Nation Park