Traveling...day (I don't know)

Pueblo dwellings at Mesa Verde




Wow, its been a crazy couple of days. When we left Vegas, we headed north to Utah. We made a side trip to Hoover Dam because that was one of the 2 things Will really wanted to see. At the Visitor Center, I found a cool USA jigsaw puzzle of national parks. We bought it and after the kids put it together, we are going to frame it and put it in our schoolroom. Vegas was warm, Utah was freezing. Near our campground was a Walmart, so we all trooped in to buy sweatshirts (yeah, on clearance for $3 each). When we got up Sunday morning, we were going to feast on Greg's homemade omelets, read our bibles and pray. Then the snow came, and came, and came, and came. We packed up as quickly as we could and headed east toward Colorado. We drove about 100 miles, before we got out of the snow. It was really pretty but we didn't want to get stuck.

After we escaped the snow, we drove up on Arches National Park. Greg said we would stop if it was near the road. Well, the entrance and Welcome Center was and then we had to drive up and up and up and then across to get to the Arch. We ended up only seeing one in the park after the long drive up there. The others were hiking and we were still recovering from our 6 miles hike through Vegas.

Then we came to Colorado. Another state to put on our road map. Colorado was pretty but also, really cold. We got to the KOA campground near Mesa Verde to set up camp. First on the list was laundry, we were getting to the critical stage of no more clean clothes. 2 ladies in the laundry room were from way up north, Connecticut and New Hampshire. And they had lovely stories to share about the harrowing ride down from Mesa Verde in the snow that afternoon. One of the husbands had seen a mountain lion up there and reported it to the rangers. So this morning, we got up late (I love vacation time), Greg made us omelets, did our Bible reading and headed toward Mesa Verde. The smarty pants Ranger told Greg he didn't know if he could let us in. He had seen our MSU tag and said he went to Ole Miss. I later figured out that Mr. Ranger was really smart because he was the one at the bottom of the hill. The visitor center was 15 miles up many steep hills and included numerous switchbacks. And just to make the ride extra fun, about 6 of those miles were 1 lane because they were working on and repairing the road (they need many, many more guardrails than they have). We did get to one of the dwellings. Katie, Will and Amy were adventurous and hiked down there. They took Amy's camera and Greg and I took pictures from above.

We all voted to leave the hills and find some flat country again. So, tonight finds us in Albuquerque, NM. There is a slight breeze and we have the windows open. I think we are going to head to Texas and explore that state for several days. Who knows!

At this point its hard to keep up with what day it is and which time zone we are in. We are loving staying up late, sleeping in and relaxing. We've got the rest of the week to play, so who knows where we will end up!





Snow in Utah















Hoover Dam





Our roadrunner in California




In front of the fountain at the Bellagio in Vegas