Happy 17^th Birthday to Isaac! 

He talks all the time about what we did for his birthday 10 years ago.  On that trip, we were already in South Dakota and visited a wild mustang refuge on his birthday.  He also remembers very vividly how Damien (at the age of 2) blew Isaac’s candles out for him that night at our campground.  Isaac wasn’t happy about that for years!  Take a look at that day! https://kiddingaroundfarm.com/2015/06/12/day-35-june-10-2015/

 

After our lengthy detour to Death Valley, we had a very good night’s sleep at a truck stop before heading to Sequoia National Park.  We managed to find a campground in Three Rivers, California, to drop the RV and drove into the park. 

This was our first time in Sequoia.  We were very surprised at just how dry it was entering the park.  We all thought it would be full of beautiful, big trees. 

What did definitely catch our attention was a helicopter flying around – evidently dropping something off as it had something hanging from its bottom.  We watched it for a little while but couldn’t ascertain what it was carrying.  When we asked a ranger about it, she wasn’t familiar with what it’s specific mission was that day, but she did tell us that the helicopters are working all the time up there for various reasons: dropping people off at their remote cabins, delivering supplies to people, scooping water out of lakes to help put out fires, etc.  The idea of living so remotely that you have to get there by helicopter was a very appealing idea to me! – although I know my children would never buy into that idea.

We drove on into the park and were a little disappointed that it wasn’t very heavily forested.  There were a great deal of dead trees.  I’m not sure if it was due to past fires or disease. 

We eventually made it into the sequoia grove and took a fairly easy walk around there.  I was definitely starting to feel better, but we wanted to get back to our campground at a good time to celebrate Isaac’s birthday.  The trees were awe-inspiring.  It is amazing to think about how old some of these trees are as well as how they aren’t anywhere close to the oldest trees on Earth, the Bristlecone Pine. 

Unfortunately, we discovered that we really didn’t have time to visit Great Basin National Park where we could have seen some bristlecone pines.  That will have to wait for another trip, I guess.

After walking amongst the giant sequoias, we drove to a picnic ground for a late lunch.  There were signs all over the picnic area warning of bears in the area. Signs were even posted on the picnic tables telling you what to do if a bear approached while you were eating, but to our disappointment, we ate our lunch in peace.  After we packed up and got back into the car, we ended up pulling up behind a stopped vehicle.  They didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so we tried to  figure out what they must have been observing.  Then we finally saw the bear.  It wasn’t large, but it was a black bear (more light brown in color though) wandering through the picnic grounds.  We watched him/her approach a family at a picnic table who were completely unaware of its presence.  The people in front of us tried to warn them, and they eventually saw the bear.  Quickly, they picked up most of their food to abandon the picnic table, but they couldn’t quite grab everything before the bear got there.  We watched the bear grab a plastic container that looked to be empty and walk off with it.  It was actually quite funny from the safety of our vehicle.  I know it wasn’t a safe idea for the bear or the people in the park to be able to get ahold of people-food, but there wasn’t really anything else that family could have done to keep the bear from grabbing the container.  We certainly had some good laughs over it!

After we made it back to Three Rivers, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up some goodies for Isaac’s birthday dinner.  It wasn’t quite the meal or dessert that he wanted (we just couldn’t find some of the necessary ingredients), but he had a good time and was able to blow out his own birthday candles. 

Rebecca

We thought we would go to Hoover Dam this morning and then head to Sequoia National Park.  BUT… fortunately nothing went wrong.  We just decided to change our plans.  We did get up this morning and drive just 15 minutes to Hoover Dam.  We wanted to take the Dam Tour and that required that you purchase tickets in person – not online like I initially tried to.  So we made sure we were at Hoover Dam when it opened and bought tickets for the first tour.  This was something that Charlie had really wanted to do on our cross country trip, so we were making it a priority. 

The kids enjoyed the tour at lot more than I thought they would.  We had a tour of the powerplant as well as walking through tunnels where the Colorado River had once been diverted while the dam was being built.  We viewed the river from ventilation shafts that are cut into the dam and saw the dam through safety inspection tunnels that are built into the dam.  At the end, we were able to walk through an interactive museum that gave a lot of information.  For instance, we learned that the building of the dam used 6.36 million square yards of concrete. 

Several people had recommended that we take the time to drive to Death Valley National Park.  Our next planned stop was to go to Sequoia National Park, but when I crunched the time numbers, it appeared that it wasn’t too far out of the way to go to Death Valley.  So off we headed.  In hindsight, we are all really glad that we went to Death Valley, but it took much more time than we were expecting.  I guess I thought we would just drive into it, hit the Visitor Center quickly, and drive right back out.  Instead, it took quite a while to get to the Visitor Center, and by the time we got there, it didn’t make sense to turn around to drive back out.  So that meant driving through. 

Death Valley is a HUGE park, and yes, it gets HOT in there.  It was 120 when we reached the Visitor Center.  Unlike some of the visitor centers we’ve stopped at, this one was excellent.  I found it very interesting to learn why Death Valley is so hot and dry.  They get on average, only about 2 inches of rainfall per year.  Evidently, the definition of a desert is an area that receives less than 10 inches of rain in a year and has a rate of evaporation that is greater than its rainfall.  At only 2 inches of rain per year and a rate of evaporation of 75 times its rainfall, Death Valley definitely qualifies!

Death Valley has a unique placement surrounded by mountain ranges: The Panamint Range lies to the west, The Owlshead Mountains to the south, the Armagosa Range to the east, and the Grapevine Mountains to the north. It is a narrow, lengthy, hole-in-the-ground with a depth of 282 feet below sea level. The Sierra Nevadas receive rain on their western side, so most of the rain has dissipated by the time it reaches Death Valley. This creates a “rainshadow” over Death Valley. Warm and dry air is captured in the valley and recirculates, continually being reheated, which just leads to hotter and drier air.

On our way out of Death Valley, we had to climb over the mountains.  In order to run the air condition in the back of the RV (back meaning anything behind the driver seat), it is necessary to run the generator.  Oftentimes it stays cool enough back there that it isn’t necessary to run the generator at all, but of course, that isn’t the case when its 120 F outside.  We turned on the generator, but a little bit later, the kids were asking us if they could turn it on because it was hot.  Knowing that we had already turned it on, we assumed that it must have turned itself off to prevent any overheating.  While going over the mountains, we decided to turn off the AC in the front area too, just to make it a little easier on the engine.  We definitely did not want to have vehicle problems in the middle of the desert.  Fortunately, we made it out of Death Valley without incident and headed toward Sequoiah National Park.

Rebecca

We woke up early Sunday morning to get to Mass.  We were 45 minutes away from the closest Catholic Church in Kanab, Utah.  Let’s talk about the hilarity and difficulty of going between Utah and Arizona while Utah is on Daylight Savings Time and Arizona is not.  This puts Utah one hour ahead of Arizona, but only during half the year.  Not all of our clocks were automatically updating as we drove between the two states, but some of them were.  It was difficult to know exactly what time it was supposed to be where we were in Arizona and trying to make sure that we made it to Mass at the correct time in Utah.  Needless to say, we did get it figured out, but when technology only works some of the time (and you aren’t always sure if it is working properly or not), it can be quite confusing. 

After Mass our main goal was to find an urgent care center for me.  We were headed to Hoover Dam, so we decided to stop in St. George, Utah, for an urgent care.  Charlie and the kids headed to Costco for some shopping while I went to the urgent care.  Fortunately, I tested negative for strep, but they were pretty sure I had some kind of secondary infection since I had been dealing with this for about two weeks.  Although I don’t love taking antibiotics, at this point in time, I was desperate to start feeling better. 

We took a look at our schedule, adjusted a few things, and decided we had time to drive to Zion National Park since St. George isn’t too far from there.  After going to the Visitor Center and experiencing how busy Zion was, we all decided we didn’t want to deal with the crowds and still weren’t up for much hiking.  We were perfectly content to drive the scenic drive that had initially captivated us ten years ago.  There are soooo many different and colorful geological structures to see on this drive! 

We left Zion after a few hours to head toward Hoover Dam with a campground in mind so that we could be at Hoover Dam for the tours first thing in the morning.

On our way to the Las Vegas area to go to Hoover Dam, we drove on I-15 coming out of St. George, Utah and into the area of the Virgin River Gorge.  In my opinion, the Virgin River Gorge was every bit as beautiful as driving through a national park.  We were coming down in elevation quickly, since we had hit 2000 ft above sea level, and we started out the day at over 8000 ft.  I was so mesmerized by the view that I didn’t even think to take pictures until it was too late.  

Rebecca

We awoke in our campground, Kaibab Camper Village, still being 45 minutes or so away from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  And this campground is the closest campground to the North Rim that isn’t part of the national park. 

I have always heard that the North Rim is very different from the South Rim.  I really wanted to do the North Rim this time around because we had visited the South Rim ten years ago.  Back then, I didn’t feel like we had been able to see it well enough. 

We were there in early May, and it was snowing.  While we had brought coats with us, we were still cold, and no one really wanted to do anything other than take a quick look and get back on the shuttle bus.  Most of the family didn’t see a point in going back to the Grand Canyon because they weren’t in love with it the first time, but I managed to convince them by promising to go to the North Rim.

Let’s just say, the North Rim is NOTHING like the South Rim.  There are no shuttle buses.  There are no hotels or “Grand Canyon Village.”  There is nothing very commercial about the North Rim AT ALL.  When you drive into the park, you have driven through miles of national forest on pretty much one road.  After you make it into the park, you still have about 20 minutes of driving to go before you reach the Visitor Center (though you do pass a national park campground or two), so you pretty much continue to just see more empty national park land. 

You finally make it to the Visitor Center and are just surrounded by Ponderosa pine trees, a rustic lodge, and other small rustic cabins for rental.  There’s a trail to take along the edge of the canyon, so we walked that. 

We were greeted by a Navaho man while walking back from the trail and stopped to visit with him for a bit.  We learned that his tribe is actually named “Dine” (sorry – not sure how to get accent marks on there – pronounced di-NAY.). He explained to us some of the history of his people and how he lives on the Navajo reservation near Page, AZ, while he isn’t working at the Grand Canyon for six months.  After talking with him and viewing the amazing lodge, we headed to take the scenic drive. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the scenic drive, but we were all rather tired from our Bryce Canyon experience from the day before and certainly didn’t want Alex to overdo it, so we didn’t even quite complete the drive.  We still saw amazing views and were all really glad that we had come to the North Rim as it was a much slower pace and more enjoyable experience for us than the South Rim.  And don’t worry – Alex wasn’t allowed to get anywhere near the side of the canyon if someone wasn’t holding onto her for dear life!

Rebecca

We slept well, but I woke up still not feeling great with a cough that makes you feel all of your insides will come out.  I finally decided that I was ready to go to an urgent care, but the only one in Moab said that it didn’t open until after 1:00pm, and we needed to be out of there that morning.  Hopefully I’ll find one that will work with our schedule a little better.

We had a long drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and we wanted to stop by Capitol Reef National Park on the way, so we headed out early. 

Capitol Reef was about two hours into our drive, so a great stop on our way to the North Rim.  When we reached Capitol Reef, we saw signs indicating that large rigs weren’t able to drive on the scenic drive there, so we started looking for a place to park the RV while we took the Pilot on the scenic drive.  All of a sudden, I was treated to the sight of fruit trees. 

I was so excited to see something so green growing fruit!  We saw several orchards of various kinds before we decided to pull over on a little side-pull off.  We thought maybe that was a decent place to leave the RV for a little while since we hadn’t seen any signs indicating where was a good place to leave it nor signs indicating that we couldn’t park there.

We hopped into the Pilot and headed to the Visitor Center.  There, when I showed my National Park Pass, I asked about leaving the RV where we did.  The ranger indicated that we may get a ticket leaving it there.  When I asked where we could park it, she didn’t have an answer and just apologized.  Unfortunately, we decided to forgo the scenic drive, pick up the RV, and keep driving down the highway through the park.  It was beautiful and a disappointment that they didn’t have a setup for parking larger rigs like many parks do.

After leaving Capitol Reef and taking a look at the map (I absolutely wouldn’t travel without a map – they are so much more valuable than just having a GPS), we decided that we could swing into Bryce Canyon National Park on our way to the North Rim. 

We arrived, parked the RV at a special lot for large rigs, and drove the Pilot into the park.  At the Visitor Center, we decided that we wanted to do the Queen’s Garden hike in conjunction with the Navajo Loop trail.  It takes you down into the canyon, where you hike around in the bottom for a little while, and then hike back up.  Despite not feeling my best, I thought I could handle the hike and the difficult trail back up.  This was the same trail we did in 2015 at our first national park stop with kids in backpacks.  It had been an awesome trail!

We grabbed our water backpacks, snacks, and ponchos and hiked down into the canyon.  The temperature was amazing – cool but not too cool, and of course, without that humidity that we are accustomed to in the Southeast. 

The trail is just under 3 miles total, and we had 0.6 miles of that that was hiking back up.  We started out well, taking breaks as needed.  We were keeping an eye on Alex and encouraging her to stop when she needed to.  After several stops with breaks, we noticed that she didn’t seem to be doing well – and then of course, she passed out.  We did all the normal – lay her down, elevate her legs, rub her legs to get the blood flowing more toward her heart and head.  It was several minutes before she finally came to. 

After she came to, we kept her lying down, gave her water, let her rest for a while.  When we finally tried to sit her up, she passed right back out.  Not a good sign. 

Eventually, some of us started hiking further up the trail with Charlie, Annette, and Isaac staying with Alex.  I kept my eye on them while I was going up the switchbacks, but they weren’t making much progress.  She’d walk a few feet and pass out again.  A very helpful Good Samaritan (Paul) and his wife stopped and helped Charlie and Isaac carry her up portions of the trail.

However, I eventually turned a corner that we hadn’t been able to see past and realized that we still had quite a ways to go up.  Needless to say, I went ahead and called 911, knowing there was no way she was coming out of that canyon on her own two feet, and we weren’t going to be able to carry her that far. 

After a ranger and two medics came to check her out (deciding that her vitals were all good – she just couldn’t stay conscious if she sat up), the rescue team arrived with a unicycle stretcher type thing.  They loaded her up and got her out of there, got her into the car, and we were FINALLY on our way back to the RV. 

She was never injured at all – just a flare-up of her POTS due to her pulse getting too high and probably dehydrated despite her efforts to stay hydrated (she has to work extra hard at staying hydrated compared to a normal person).  By the time we made it back to the RV, she was staying conscious but shivering from being chilled. We tucked her into a bed with lots of water, a snack, and whatever she needed to be comfortable.  We then headed off to our campground near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. 

A big “Thank You!” to all of those who prayed for her on Facebook.  I really didn’t want to alarm anyone; we weren’t alarmed at all.  A special thank you to Paul and his wife, the ranger, EMS, and rescue staff at Bryce Canyon.  I know this is something they train for and probably have to do all too often, but we really appreciated their attitudes and willingness to be educated about POTS and let us make our own decisions regarding not transporting her to the hospital.  This is just another day in the life with Alex and POTS!

Rebecca

We arrived in Moab, Utah after another beautiful drive, settled into our campground and actually slept in a little the next morning since our timed entry ticket to get into Arches National Park wasn’t until 10:00am. 

Arches is one of the national parks on this trip that we haven’t made it to before.  We spent several hours driving around in there, did a few short hikes, and took lots of pictures, of course.  (One of my least favorite jobs is trying to decide which of ten various shots of the same thing I want to keep.) 

Canyonlands National Park was only about 30 minutes or so from Arches, so we drove over there after finishing with Arches.  They were both beautiful.  I’m constantly left in amazement and wonderment at the beauty that God has created. 

I’m feeling more than a little overwhelmed at everything we are seeing and the fast pace that we are doing it in.  My personality prefers to do deep exploring and really get to know a place.  We aren’t doing that at all right now – just trying to see the beauty of a lot of places in a short amount of time. 

Maybe we are tickling the minds of our children, planting the desire to come back and see more of some of these places.  I know that’s what is happening to me.  Traveling at a quick pace just makes me want to come back and see more, but hopefully it will help me to narrow my focus in future travels.

Rebecca

June 4 took us to Mesa Verde National Park. I have wanted to see cliff dwellings since prior to our 2015 trip, but we just couldn’t fit it in the last time. I had even thought about canceling it again because it wasn’t really on our route, but the kids and I sat down and watched a library video on the different national parks of the Colorado Plateau, and they became very interested in Mesa Verde. This time, we were making it a priority.

The drives to many of these places have been stunning. It’s often hard to find time to write the blog or go through my pictures because I can’t take my eyes off the scenery.

Our first thought about Mesa Verde was that the park was much larger than we had imagined. And, we understood why it is known as Green Tabletop. This high desert plateau was much more green than the other areas of the high desert we had visited so far.

Our first stop was the Visitor Center. I realized that we wouldn’t be able to walk through any

of the cliff dwellings that were open for tours due to my neglect to schedule it in advance. Lesson learned – but we still had an amazing time. We learned a great deal at a ranger talk that we went to that overlooked what they called the Spruce Tree House. Evidently this one did used to be open for tours, but the cliff face above was deemed unstable, so it is no longer available for tours.

We learned at Spruce Tree House that this area was inhabited by Ancestral Puebloan tribes from around 500 to 1300 AD. They chose not to stay in the Mesa Verde area because they had determined through their spirituality that this would not be their permanent home. They all moved on to settle in other areas of Arizona and New Mexico.

Here are some thoughts on Mesa Verde from Dominic:

Hi, I like Mesa Verde because of the history and monuments. There were 21 tribes there, but they moved because it was not their permanent home. They would grow gardens on top of the plateau. They planted corn and pumpkin and beans. Some of the tribes built their homes on top of the plateau and some of them built their homes on cliffs.

written by Dominic Whisonant

The campground that we stayed in on our way to Los Alamos was at a national monument. Most of these campgrounds are inexpensive and don’t have a lot of frills, so they’re great for one night. Unfortunately, this one didn’t have showers, so there was some disappointment.

We made it to Los Alamos by 9:00am, just as they were opening. Most of the kids weren’t very familiar with the Manhattan Project, so we did some explaining.

Most of the town structures that were built by the government during World War II aren’t still standing. They were put together quickly and not meant to last long periods of time. Fuller Lodge was an older building left over from a boys’ prep school that was in Los Alamos prior to the government taking over. It was used as a lodging place for important guests and such that came to visit Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. We were also able to view two houses that were reserved for General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

I wasn’t aware that Los Alamos has continued to be a government project site. The Los Alamos National Laboratory is located there. I did ask one of our guides what is studied at the laboratory. She replied that there is epidemiological research as well as studies in renewable energy, national security, space exploration, etc.

We were also able to visit the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos. They had many hands-on exhibits with a great movie that educated us all more about the Manhattan Project, originally known as Project Y, and the science behind it. Most all of us found the museum fascinating and didn’t want to leave. It was really hard to pull some of them out of there when it was time to get going!

One of the things that we have found challenging on this trip is trying to keep up with the grief counseling that we’ve been participating in. A month or two before this trip, Alex was trying to decide if she would be traveling with us. She finally looked at me and said, “I can’t go two months without talking to my grief counselor.” For some reason, I hadn’t even thought of that. Charlie and I began participating in group therapy through an organization in Charlotte called Kindermourn (https://www.kindermourn.org/) back last July. We also got each of the kids seeing their own grief therapist through the same organization in July. In November, after their football and cheer seasons were over, they also started with group therapy, which they have all found very helpful and not wanted to miss a session. I certainly couldn’t expect them to travel with us for two months without participating in their therapy, so we arranged to have some phone/video sessions while we are traveling. I thought it wouldn’t be too big of a deal for us to be driving down the road and let a kid go into the bedroom in the RV with a white noise machine on outside the room for privacy during a telehealth appointment. However, I wasn’t prepared for the lack of cell service that exists out here, so we’ve had to try to schedule appointments and traveling around each other to make sure that we would have at least some kind of cell service. That has meant multiple occasions of getting a kid to the RV for an appointment while the rest of us are seeing the sights. It was one of those crazy coordination days when we were in Los Alamos, but we succeeded, and the kids are continuing to get their therapy.

Today was the first day that my cold started letting up – over a week of not feeling well at all.

Annette put together a few of her own thoughts.

Today we went to Los Alamos where the Manhattan Project (project Y) took place. Los Alamos is also where the Oppenheimer movie was filmed. It was very interesting walking around town and getting to see some of the historic buildings, homes, and the history museum about the project. I learned a lot from what I saw and heard.

One of my favorite things I learned was about how they determined the homes for people; they had based everything off of points and there was a formula that helped determine the points each family or individual would have. One point for each dollar of monthly salary plus two points for each month of service. Everyone in the town had a job. The men worked, women had to work and take care of household chores while still being a mother, and even the local natives had a job. Throughout the entire town there were only two houses that had bathtubs which were made out of cast iron; everyone else had showers. The General and his wife would invite their friends over to have a bath since they lived in one of the two locations that had bathtubs. The reason why there were only two bathtubs was because they were made of iron, and they didn’t want to use too much iron since it was needed for the war.

Prior to the war, a boarding school for wealthy boys existed in Los Alamos. Each boy had to have his own horse and care for it. They attended class, received wilderness training, grew up there and much more until the U.S. government took over. There was one boy, a member of the last graduating class, who realized what was happening with the government takeover. He decided he wouldn’t tell anyone about what he knew so that he could graduate. This man went off to college, and after getting his degree, he returned back to work in the labs. I found this story quite fascinating. 

Annette

Charlie has become quite the morning person on this trip.  I think he’s pretty much stayed on Eastern time, which has helped him to get up earlier in the morning.  He’s been enjoying getting up early to the cool and quiet air and going for a walk. 

I, on the other hand, haven’t managed to get up early at all unless I had to so that we could make it somewhere at a certain time.  It’s not that I stay up late either – I’m just exhausted from this cold and have needed more sleep in these last 8 years or so than Charlie has.  I guess it’s all the sleepless times dealing with 10 children that have been catching up to me.  Anyway, the result of Charlie’s early mornings have been some neat pictures and conversations with other campers.  At the Great Sand Dunes, he managed to get some beautiful sunrise pictures.

All we had left to do at the Great Sand Dunes on Monday morning was to tour the visitor center.  We learned a great deal about the formation of the dunes due to the unique sand deposits in the area, the winds, and the various mountains surrounding the dunes. 

Charlie and the kids explained a lot of the informational movie to me as I ended up cutting my visit short and sitting in the car because of feeling so yucky.  After getting the kids’ national park passport books stamped, we headed south to finish our journey to Santa Fe.

The drive was beautiful, just as it had been for most of our travels.  It’s amazing to see the ruggedness and isolation of southern Colorado.  Charlie and I definitely decided that the mostly treeless areas weren’t really for us.  It’s hard to imagine the native people and homesteaders managing to survive in such a harsh area.  The idea of trying to grow a garden in this high desert environment just doesn’t even seem possible. 

We finally made it into Santa Fe and drove to find the Loretto Chapel. 

While we made it to the chapel with the RV still intact, we realized that we should have researched parking for an RV better than we did.  We ended up parking the RV at a shopping center and driving the Pilot to the chapel.  It was so impressive!  For those of you not familiar with the story of the miraculous staircase built for the Sisters of Loretto in Santa Fe, NM, I’ll give you a short synopsis.

The sisters were having a chapel built and realized toward the end of the construction that no plan had been developed for a staircase to the choir loft.  Their architect had died and so they sought solutions to their problem from other area carpenters, but no one was able to build a staircase for them in the tiny space that remained.  The sisters then prayed a nine-day novena to St. Joseph for his intercession in providing a staircase.  On the last day of their novena, a carpenter showed up and offered to build one for them.  When his work was complete, there was what seemed to be a floating staircase leading to the choir loft built in the shape of a helix.  The carpenter then disappeared without ever giving his name or receiving payment for the job that he had accomplished.  Many experts have examined this staircase and have been unable to determine how it is being supported.  It is completely free-standing with no central support of any kind.  A few years later, another master craftsman did install a railing on the staircase as the initial staircase had none and was rather intimidating to those trying to traverse it.  At that time also, one support bracket was installed to help maintain the staircase. 

We were all in awe viewing the chapel and staircase.  The first thing that I thought of when I walked in was that I had to light a candle for Damien.  He would have loved seeing this chapel as he knew the miraculous story of the staircase.  The beauty and reverence of this chapel really touched Charlie and I, who experienced several emotional moments.  While I definitely struggle with thoughts of all the little things that Damien was never able to do, being in such a special place as this brings me many reminders of the unfathomable wondrousness of where he is, which gives me much peace and comfort.

Santa Fe was a city in which we could make a Sams/Costco stop as well as get an oil change for the car, so we managed to get most of our errands done before leaving for the backcountry again. 

While driving toward our next destination that evening, I searched for a campground. We’ve been staying in more basic campgrounds occasionally instead of in Wal-Mart parking lots like on previous trips.  I am loving hearing the question, “Do they have showers?” from the teenage boys!  That’s not unusual to hear from our girls, but it sure does make a mom feel good to know that her teenage boys actually do want to take a shower!

Next stop: Los Alamos

Rebecca

It is always interesting when traveling to see what kind of churches we find where we can attend Mass.  This time we found a Mass that worked great with our need for sleep and recovery as well as our need to get on the road.  In Banby, CO we attended Our Lady of the Snow.  It was a truly beautiful Ascension Mass, and we felt so fortunate to have found this church. 

After Mass and a much-longer-than-anticipated stop for coffee, we hurriedly packed up the camper in record time since we only had 15 minutes before we were supposed to check out.  I think it took us more like 20 minutes, but we departed quickly and headed south toward Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

The kids REALLY wanted to visit White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico.  We stopped there in January of 2020 when we were driving back from Arizona.  You can see the fun we had at White Sands on my YouTube page: https://youtu.be/cq-v-RlF4M8?si=2icuWlOt2_cU3j03  .  They had so much fun there that they really wanted to return and show the park to Charlie, who hadn’t been able to travel to Arizona with us.  Anyway, White Sands is much farther south than we are able to travel on this trip, so I had to say no to a visit there.

In exchange, I thought we could go visit the Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado.  They weren’t very far off the path to Santa Fe, so we decided to make it a stop.  We found a campground and left the RV there and went to explore the Sand Dunes. 

I had done some research to make sure we could do some sledding on the dunes like we had at White Sands, but I didn’t realize that we wouldn’t be able to drive within the dunes.  If you want to sled on the dunes, you have to hike out through the sand for 2 miles or so.  Needless to say, most of us are fairly drained of energy from fighting these colds, so we knew there was no way we would be hiking through loose sand to do some sledding.  We admired everything there for an hour or so and then headed back to our campground for dinner and bed.

The Great Sand Dunes were definitely worth stopping at!

Rebecca