Summer and Fall

Road trip Home

We left to go home, we had planned on going through GILA and Four COrners but changed our plans abit. I took the kids to ARCHES NATIONAL PARK. it was really hot and really cool, The kids had a great time.

There was a sign that said "Here lies Peter, He only drank one LITER" It encouraged us to be drinking more







I absolutely love Emmy's pose and smile, she was so excited. All the kids used their iPads to take pictures

This is balancing rock

i loved the panorama here but not sure my phone did it justice









If that isn't shear joy, I don't know what is.

After the Arches we drove to Mesa Verde.

But I need to add this story. We went to McDonalds in Moab. The kids all wanted Happy meals so I got yogurt with them. Dora ate yogurt then said, "dad that tasted really funny." I said "I'M sorry, look at expiration date", She did, It had expired 2.6 years before....

So by the time we got to Mesa Verde, Dora was running fever and very nauseated, She even threw up a couple of times. So when we got there, we were limited to things that Dora had interest in.

Here are some ruins, pretty neat, the Pueblo indians lived between 500-1200. They used to be called Anasazi indians but that term has gone out of favor because it means "enemies of our ancestors" in Navajo. And that is not technically accurate.





Kinda Fun to be able to explore ruins freely

Here are some of the cliff dwellings.



After this we headed to the Four corners area, The kids loved being in four states at once, and also loved buying crap from the trinket stands.

Here you can see an excited yet sick Dora, a gleeful yet needing to pee Emmy, and a casually holding his wallet Eli.

These fat ladies would not move. It made dora and EMMY so SAD.

After This we went to Gallup New Mexico and stayed in a really nice marriott. The lady checking me in was so nice, she asked what we were doing. I told her traveling through area. She said she was Navajo and that she has not seen any of the Ruins in the area because it is against their belief. Then told me the best ruins in all of new mexico were only an hour away. We said cool. and changed our plans.

I found the Chaco Canyon Ruins and the next morning we headed out. The road was pretty crappy and im sure i aged the Toyota van several Decades. It fascinates me that they had Thousands of People living out in this desert.
I 
At the national park, you can just go explore, going through ruins and hiking right up to the petrogliffs.





See how close we are! So Cool,

My little Cave dwellers.

Here are the coolest ruins in america. Built over 1000 years ago

You can hike through and see the insides, it actually looks really nice.

Pretty neat, two story and three story buildings.



So Cool. We need to get the kids Doing more of this







While at the Restaraunt we found a brochure for an ICE CAVE. Eli thought that sounded cool. And it had a gift shop. So that was our next stop, We drove about an hour and half around a dead valcano...

this was really cool. this tunnel was 17 miles long but collapsed. SO in this lava field we hiked a mile or so down to an ICE CAVE, it was 100 degrees outside and hiking down inside it was super chill. ICE was over 22 feet thick and dates back 4000 years.





 Our Next Night we stayed in Las Cruces New Mexico.

Then we got up and drove to Carlsbad Caverns, it actually is in White City new mexico, and even that isnt much more than a gas station.



Hiking down the cave took more than and hour. An amazing hour.

here is the enterance.













I think the kids had a good time. but we were getting hungry so we rode the elevator to the top