Recalculating Route

I’m pretty late on getting this post out, but I had some technical difficulties: my Mac fried, and it took me a couple days to snag a loaner. More on that next week.

As for last week, we really enjoyed our stay at the National Forest campground in Colorado. We would visit this overlook many times during the week, as it was just a 2-minute walk from our camp spot:

On Monday, Amy and the girls took a field trip to the Anasazi Heritage Center, which is a museum that illustrates the native cultures of the Four Corners region. Amy said it was one of the best little museums she and the girls have been to, and it’s all stuff relevant to a book they are reading for school right now.

Midweek, we took a side trip to Lowry Pueblos near Cortez, Colorado. These were built around 1060 AD, so pretty old:

It was a typical school and work week otherwise:

Another trip to the overlook to watch the sun set (that’s Mesa Verde off in the distance):

Friday morning, Amy, Em, and Nat attended an event held by Cortez’s Annual Birding Festival. (Not interested in birds, Carrie stayed back at the RV to work on a separate school project.)

They of course did some bird watching:

…and then made bird feeders:

Saturday morning we broke camp and headed to Mesa Verde National Park:

Wild horses, just running across the road:

We had an excellent ranger-led tour of the ruins of Mesa Verde. Our guide was an exceptional storyteller who wove archeology and anthropology into our thought-provoking tour:

This site was called “Balcony House.” It was a smaller site, but also a smaller group which was nice:

These ruins date from about 700 years ago:

We saw the main site, “Cliff Palace,” from a distance during a short walk after our tour. Interesting side note: Mesa Verde is the only National Park that exists to preserve the works of humans.

There was a wild fire 10 years ago that took out a big chunk of the trees and vegetation. They say it will take a couple hundred years for everything to grow back.

It was pretty cloudy when we were there, but on a clear day you can see mountains 90 miles away. This point is above 8500 feet:

One of the more exotic sights of the Southwest: rain!

The Scion continues to be quite a trooper, despite the dented face full of mud and bugs:

On Mother’s Day, everyone got up early to make a killer breakfast while Amy was out running:

We had camped in the Rio Grande gorge the night before and got an interesting view after driving out of it. It looks like a big crack in the earth:

We stopped at the Taos Pueblo on Sunday afternoon:

This pueblo has been continuously inhabited by the native Red Willow people for over 1000 years.

We bought some bread from one of the local shops:

At another local shop with Esther, the owner. She, like most of the others here, has lived in this pueblo her entire life without any electricity or running water.

I was surprised to learn that the walls of these buildings are literally just mud and straw (I figured there was some sort of a curing process to make it weather resistant.) Esther explained that the reason these buildings are still standing is because they’ve been maintained by their inhabitants for 1000 years. Every September, they just pack on whatever mud the 50 days of rain per year have washed away. Amazing.

I was intrigued by their cemetery full of crosses. Esther explained that their beliefs are sort of a mash-up of their original native beliefs and the Catholicism that was “forced upon” them by the first Spanish explorers 500 years ago.

After leaving the pueblo, we stopped at Taos Cow for some all-natural ice cream:

This was just a cool overlook off of a bridge that crossed the Rio Grande. It’s a beautiful gorge and river, the only down side being you get that Duran Duran song stuck in your head.

And then we came to the Earthships of Taos, NM. This gets added to my list of favorite places.

These so-called earthships are homes made out of natural and recycled materials.

Solar and wind power, solar heating, and rain-water collection systems are just a few of the things that allow these homes to operate sustainably completely off-grid. It’s basically the RV lifestyle, but applied to a home. It was unanimous: we want one, and are going to explore this option for our next house.

Tires, cans and bottles are used as filler material when creating the cement walls:

Just think: turning this…

…into this:

This was just a cool old truck that was sitting on the premises:

We made our way to Santa Fe for the week. We intended to stay up in the mountains at a remote state park, but the internet was non-existant. So, we’re staying at a mostly vacant rodeo fairgrounds on the outskirts of town:

Not as scenic as the mountains, but I have GREAT internet. And with horses and cows right outside our RV, the girls are getting plenty of fresh air.

On Tuesday we left Alamogordo, NM and started our trek North. Along the way, we stopped at the Very Large Array about 50 miles west of Socorro (i.e. middle of nowhere, New Mexico.)

This array is a collection of 27 movable radio telescopes arranged in a “Y” pattern. By bunching up or fanning out the individual radio telescopes, scientists can get different resolution images from deep into space. This is the place used in the 1997 movie Contact (which we rented and watched later that evening.)

This was just a cool rock formation that we saw as we drove through El Malpais National Park and pulled off to take a closer look:

We reached Grants, NM by late afternoon on Tuesday, but the RV park we intended to stay at turned out to be rather scary. This was the only photo I was able to get as Amy sped away.

We found another place a few miles down the road that — believe it or not — was better than the previous RV park. Good enough for one night, anyway. (As an aside, I see this quite a bit in these podunk RV parks: RVs that don’t exactly look ready to hit the open road at a moment’s notice.)

The next day we drove a bit further and landed at Bluewater Lake State Park in Prewitt, NM. It was supposed to be really scenic, but it was merely ok (way better than the RV park, however.)

There was a nice lake where people would fish every evening:

There was also some reasonably good hiking not too far from our camp spot:

Our internet and phone service wasn’t very good, however. We drove back into Grants and crashed at the library on Thursday so both Amy and I could get some work done.

My girls are always glad to visit a new library.

On Saturday morning, we drove another 45 minutes northwest to Church Rock, NM. We parked the RV at a place called Red Rock Park and hopped in the car for a day of sightseeing.

The first stop was at the Zuni Pueblos, which is a community for the Zuni people. The brochure we read beforehand set an expectation of a vibrant community of Zuni artists. It was unfortunately not at all what we expected. In the few minutes we spent at this old mission, for example, we were approached twice by street vendors selling rather rudimentary handicrafts. As we drove around, we saw packs of dogs roaming the dirty, impoverished streets.

I felt like I was in another country, complete with the discomforts of being a foreigner on someone else’s land.

Unsure of what to do there, we didn’t stay long. We drove around in the “safety” of our car for a few minutes, and then left.

In hindsight, I’m a bit embarrassed by my reaction to being in Zuni-land. The people we encountered were quite kind, and both Amy and I feel our reaction to withdraw was a missed opportunity to engage with other human beings from a very different background.

But we did have other things that we wanted to see, namely El Morro National Monument:

One of the main attractions of El Morro are the centuries of carvings on the rock walls:

There are petroglyphs from Native Americans, and hundreds of inscriptions from travelers between 1605 and 1906.

It was also good hiking with some breathtaking views:

At the top of the mesa were some ruins dating back to 1275!

We made our way back to the RV just in time to catch the sun setting on Church Rock off in the distance. We vowed to do a hike the next morning.

As planned, we got up early (early for the girls and me — late for Amy) and made our way toward Church Rock.

We sort of made our own path, which meant scaling some pretty steep rock faces:

There were a few tense moments, but everyone made it up safely.

We didn’t make it all the way to the spires of Church Rock, but it was a good hike and climb nonetheless.

We see little lizards like this everywhere:

Evidence of how the desert is quite full of life:

I love the layers in these rocks and the patterns created by millennia of wind and water:

Off in the distance there is Shiprock, one of the landmarks of New Mexico. We wanted to see it up close, but we couldn’t find the road to get back there. Never saw any signs either. Bummer.

So, we went on to the Four Corners Monument where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet:

Carrie and Em forcing me from Utah into Colorado (this was my first time in Utah). Natalie is behind Carrie doing a backbend and touching all four states:

According to Google Maps, the real “four corners” is here (about 20 feet away from the plaque):

There were several Navajo artist there selling jewelry, painting and other art (Natalie bought a bracelet):

We continued North into Colorado toward an RV park in the city of Cortez, CO (we needed to ensure good internet since I have a busy meeting schedule this week.) But on a whim, we drove on to a nearby National Forest campground to see what it was like. I’m so glad we did. Not only is the internet great here, we practically have the whole place to ourselves.

It’s hard to believe we went from mesas and desserts to mountains and pine trees in less than an hour today.

Amy spotted this little place up the hill across from our campground. In all of our travels so far, this is the closet thing we’ve seen to the type of house we’d like to call home. But we’ve still got time to figure that out.

Speaking of houses, our house in Indy is rented again! WOOHOO! We’re really excited about our new tenants. Unless they are just the nicest couple to ever run a meth lab, we are expecting another great house-rental experience.

I’ll end on a completely random note: this past week I shot my 10,000th photo of the trip.

After spending Monday in El Paso, TX helping our friends Jake and Melissa move, we moved on to a quiet little park in Alamogordo, NM. For the second week in a row, New Mexico has delivered the goods. It’s lovely here.

A beautiful sunset from atop the RV:

…and a beautiful sunrise from atop a nearby mountain the next morning. Before work and school started, Amy and I took a quick morning hike. Note how our campground below is in the shadow of the mountain even though it’s well after sunup.

That shadow creates a very unusual sunrise experience down at the campground. It seriously feels like the sun gets switched on like a light every morning. I timed it:

Fruit smoothies were a breakfast staple for us before this RV trip, but we unfortunately didn’t bring our blender with us. Melissa (the one we helped move) kindly donated her blender to us, so fruit smoothies are back!

There was some CRAZY wind midweek that stirred up the Tularosa Basin that our campground overlooks (White Sands, off in the distance, looked like a huge cloud rising up from the ground.) It made for an eerily beautiful sunset:

The next evening was much clearer, so we did a family hike up the same trail Amy and I took a few days earlier:

Towards the end of the week, the electrical box at our camping spot fizzled — not good on a 90-degree workday.

This worked out for our benefit, as we were able to upgrade to an unused “campground host” spot, which had one of the few sewer connections in the campground. (Our previous spot had no sewer connection, and that was causing some serious concern since the community dumping station was out of order. Our conservation abilities were being tested!)

I’m still not quite used to seeing cows grazing by the side of the road. It’s pretty common out here.

We’re close to White Sands Missile Range. We heard some explosions earlier in the week, and we’ve been told to expect some sonic booms starting tomorrow.

On Saturday we drove out to White Sands National Monument. We started with some sledding!

After we were done sledding, we put the sleds in the car and ventured deeper into the park.

Another fascinating example of critters adapting to their environment:

Taking a snack and water break under some scarce shade:

Sand angels!

These White Sands dunes are made of gypsum (the same stuff that’s in drywall), so when a plant’s roots secret moisture, it hardens the surrounding gypsum. Over time, the dune blows away, but the hardened foundation and the plant remain:

I absolutely loved this place. It’s 275 square miles of stark beauty. If it weren’t for Jake and Melissa needing help with their move, we would have missed this. This has been one of my favorite places, 2nd only to Death Valley.

After a late lunch, we drove up to the White Sands Missile Range visitors center. Of greatest interest to me were all of the artifacts related to the Manhattan Project and the detonation of the world’s first nuclear bomb at the Trinity Site in 1945.

Outside, it was a sobering display of mankind’s inclination to destroy itself. There is something mesmerizing about these doomsday devices set against a serene backdrop of natural beauty.

We’ve been repeatedly warned about rattlesnakes since we got to New Mexico, but this little guy is the only snake we’ve encountered so far. (However, we did see a good size snake on the road yesterday that had just gotten run over by a car…I don’t know if it was a rattler, but it was big.)

The hummingbird moths are fun to watch.

I’m not really into flowers, but these are everywhere out here and I think they are incredibly cool: a fiery clump of red pedals held up high by a stalk that looks like a medieval weapon. The other day, I saw a bumble bee impaled on one of those vicious thorns. How cool is that?!?

The moon is out at night now and casting shadows.

I have to use a long exposure to get my camera to record what my eyes naturally see. It really is this beautiful out here at night. Maybe there is something to that “Land of Enchantment” thing.

We made it back to New Mexico last week. I’ll stop short of calling it “enchanted” as this sign says, but Amy and I sure were glad to be there (Northern Texas was humid, and with the right cloud cover it felt way too similar to Indiana.)

Our spot for the week was at Brantley Lake State Park, a rather remote little place with nice, dry air and wide-open spaces. This is the sort of thing we like. We thought we were only going to have electric for the week (which means would have had to be ultra conservative with our water usage) but we got one of the few full hookup sites. (Whew!)

Every morning on top of a nearby tree, this bird would sing his little heart out. He sounds a little like R2-D2…take a listen.

There were some other cool birds too:

And lizards:

And jackrabbits the size of cats:

Being amongst nature has its down side, however. After sundown, the bugs come out, like those tiny Canadian soldiers (those things that look like mosquitos but don’t bite). We had to bust out the vacuum cleaner one night and literally vacuum the ceiling:

But nothing has been as maddening as these moths. I’m pretty sure they are hiding in various nooks and crannies in the RV because they appear out of nowhere every evening.

At first, we’d gently capture and lovingly release them, but after the first night it devolved into remorseless squishings. I wonder when we’ll have our first night of NOT seeing one (or twelve) of these things!

The pleasant weather combined with clear skies made for some wonderful stargazing. On three separate nights, we all climbed up on the roof of the RV to enjoy the view.

It was amazing (and the girls thought it was pretty cool being on the roof.)

Here are the girls helping make dinner – homemade noodles!

We ate outside a lot this week…our version of “eating out.” :)

I tried hard to sell our bikes over the last couple of months, but now Carrie and Emily are starting to enjoy them again. So, perhaps we’ll hang on to them. Here’s Carrie and me on a late afternoon bike ride, a little too much off the beaten path:

Saturday morning we hit the road and landed in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which put us back in Texas for the weekend.

It felt good to do some hiking again.

This whole area was underwater millions of years ago, so there are sea life fossils everywhere. Pretty weird considering it’s now a desert.

Our campsite was really just a parking lot, but it was way better than Walmart.

Here we are from this morning, all geared up for our hike in Slaughter Canyon, one of the many caves of Carlsbad National Park.

After a brief orientation, we met at the trailhead for a short half-mile hike to the cave entrance.

The rangers took it at a very slow pace (which actually made it seem way longer), but it did allow plenty of time to soak it all in.

More desert fossils of prehistoric sea life:

Finally at the cave entrance:

It was nice and cool inside.

It was nearly impossible to get any good photos since the hardhat LEDs were the only source of light.

Emily “on rope” scaling a slippery section:

At the farthest part of our cave hike (we hiked about a mile total inside the cave), the rangers had us turn off all lights and devices and experience a complete absence of light. It was cool.

Back in the 1950’s, Slaughter Canyon was mined for guano – something I had never heard of before today. It’s basically bat poop, and it makes good fertilizer. When you look at this stuff closely, you see what looks like little twigs mixed in. These “twigs” are actually skeletons of a long-extinct species of bat.

Our hike was a good 5 hours long, and after the trek back to the car we were all pretty hot (it was an almost-90 degree day). So we hung out at the air-conditioned Carlsbad Cavern National Park visitor center for a bit.

The girls and I were hiked out (Amy was fine) but it was easy enough to take an elevator down 750 feet for a leisurely stroll through Carlsbad Cavern.

This was a much different cave experience than Slaughter Canyon. This one had paved paths, handrails and museum-quality lighting.

We’re boondocking one last night here in the Guadalupe Mountains. Tomorrow morning we’re getting up bright and early and heading to El Paso, TX to help our friends Jake and Melissa move. Then it’s on to Alamogordo, NM for the week to see White Sands National Park.

Our last campground was right on the Texas/Oklahoma border, so Amy and the girls took a field trip into Oklahoma to see a local pioneer museum. I didn’t go (I needed to work) but it sounds like what this museum lacked in outdoor sign creativity they made up for inside with meaningful exhibits about pioneer life. (I’m just realizing that my family has been to a state that I have not been to yet!)

We broke camp mid last week and headed west to Bridgeport TX, which is about 50 miles northwest of Fort Worth. Along the way, Amy and I split up — I continued to the next campsite in the RV with Carrie and Natalie while Amy and Emily took a side trip to Love Field at Dallas-Fort Worth airport to do some plane-spotting:

These are just a few of the many photos of planes Emily took and identified: (Clockwise, starting from the top left) An AirBus A340, a Boeing 737, an AirBus A320, a Boeing 747 (aka “the whale”), an Embraer ERJ 145, and another Boeing 737. Emily is just a little fascinated with planes.

On Saturday we drove into Fort Worth to visit the Cowgirl Museum, which Natalie was pretty excited about. We didn’t know quite what to expect, but it was a pretty inspiring history of women in western entertainment, sports, art, and agriculture.

Natalie sitting on a saddle seat watching one of the museum movies about women in western films. (Yes, I believe that’s a woman gunslinger popping a cap in some poor dude. Go girl!)

After the Cowgirl Museum, we drove over to the Fort Worth Stockyard. These stockyards opened in the 1890s and became a hugely popular marketplace for Texas ranchers to sell their cattle for the next 90 years.

We stopped at M.L. Leddy’s handmade boot store. Amy picked up and looked at one pair of boots and I thought she told me they were $285, which sounded rather expensive to me. I just found out I misheard her: they were $1,285!

The boots, the hats…it all just struck me how “Texas” Texas really is:

For $5, you could sit on this longhorn to get your photo taken. That sounded like a pretty good deal at first, but it turns out they want you to pay them the $5.

One of the old buildings where cattle deals went down. In its heyday, about a million cattle per year would change hands here.

In the afternoons, they trot a herd of longhorns down the road. It’s just for show now, but this is how they used to bring in all the cattle to be bought and sold. Those horns sure make an impressive animal.

The girls trying some local $3 cupcakes:

Though today is Sunday, it was a school and work day (we’re traveling tomorrow so that will be the rest of our “weekend”). It was a rather overcast day and even rained hard last night, but the clouds completely disappeared by the end of the afternoon. Perfect weather for baseballs and mits.

We’re breaking camp early tomorrow and will drive for about 8 hours until we get to New Mexico. All I know about our next campground is that it’s electric-only (no water, no sewer), so that means we’ll be in water-conservation mode for the next several days.

It’s been a while since we’ve NOT had full hookups (we’ve gotten spoiled), so it will be interesting to see how we do. We’ll have to make sure everyone gets showers before we pull out of here.

Amy and the girls make a point to read books set in whatever location we’re near. They just finished reading Holes, set in Texas, and a major plot point of that book involved eating Texas sweet onions:

Emily found a solution to her watering eyes:

We did a “dinner and movie” night with Texas Onion Soup and Kate Barlow’s Spiced Peaches, and then watched Holes the movie.

We didn’t see any tornados (as was reported in nearby Dallas), but some hail did make quite a mess. I spent a half hour hosing this off, and my white roof is now off-white with yellow stains. If I can help it, I shant be camping directly under any more trees.

The RV was due for an oil change, so we stopped at this random place:

What a find! The owner was a white-haired “man’s man” kind of guy with a thick Texas drawl. He called me “young man,” I called him “sir.” He took me underneath my RV and showed me where everything is and how easy it is to change the oil and transmission fluid (he is also an RV’er). It was nice to hear his opinion that our rig is in excellent shape, and that, in his opinion, the Allison transmission is “thee fahhh-nest” transmission ever made. The $58 I paid for the oil change was worth the RV maintenance tips alone.

Here’s Amy and the girls taking a break at the end of an afternoon later in the week:

Our camping spot was in a shady but not-so-densely-treed area near a lake:

Saturday morning, we made Easter baskets out of grocery sacks:

It was super-duper fun and Emily said my basket was the best!

After lunch, we drove in to Dallas to visit the 6th Floor Museum, located in the Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. (No photos were allowed inside the building unfortunately.)

My view from behind the fence at the “grassy knoll:”

This “X” in the road marks the spot where Kennedy took the fatal head shot. Circled is the window from which Lee Harvey Oswald was perched with his rifle.

Overlooking Dealey Plaza: The “grassy knoll” is above Amy’s head, the spot of Kennedy’s fatal shot is behind Carrie’s head, and the road leading under the bridge was the escape route after the assassination. Crazy.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of this, and I thought the 6th Floor Museum was excellent. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there are many fishy elements with the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. On a positive note, I learned that Jackie’s blood-stained pink outfit from that terrible day will finally go on display in the year 2103 (mark your calendars!)

For dinner, we met up with one of Amy’s friends from high school, Sarah Moseley, who lives in Dallas. We ate at a fantastic BBQ place, got free ice cream cones, and Amy enjoyed catching up with a friendly face.

Stopped at Half Price Books after dinner, and I got some DVDs for cheap. While one could argue the artistic merit of any of these cinematic works, one thing is certain: I’ma see me some man-movies:

We had a critter scratching at our front door this morning. It is impressive how fast a squirrel can shell and consume sunflower seeds.

Our Easter morning bounty (sandwich bags had to do in place of plastic Easter eggs):

Let the sugar rush begin:

Natalie wanted to color eggs, so Amy created some DIY dyes with whatever was on hand: coffee, tea, wine, boiled spinach, and cherries:

Not quite a rainbow of hues, but still a job well done:

So here we are for the next several days, camped directly under some ominous-looking trees:

I have my hose ready.

We’ve polished off a lot of Blue Bell ice cream in recent weeks, so when we discovered the Blue Bell Creamery was located in Brenham TX, we had to take a tour. Best of all, the tour included ice cream.

While at the creamery, I discovered a local Jersey farm that welcomed visitors. Natalie says Jerseys are her favorite. The other girls were not interested in milking a cow.

Natalie got to try her hand at milking. Success!

I did too. Funny, I didn’t notice that fresh pile at the time:

We came home with these farm-fresh eggs. The blue-ish ones are from a so-called “easter egg” chicken which has a gene responsible for the blue shells:

…and of course I had to get some raw milk. Jon, being the milk connoisseur of the family, thought it would taste more exotic but agreed it was just really good milk. The cream was wonderful in my coffee!

That day was also a travel day, so it was a convenient opportunity to wash the RV (one can tell it’s Spring now, unlike the bug-gut-free Winter we enjoyed.)

While we were out, Jon stopped at a tire place to use their air compressor. The air compressors at gas stations — and even truck stops, surprisingly — just can’t seem to put in the full 120psi that our RV tires take.

Since visiting Kennedy Space Center in Florida a few years ago, Houston has been on our “must see” list.

We also got to tour Johnson Space Center and saw the new Mars rover:

I intentionally picked a day when they would have an astronaut as a guest speaker. I am so glad I did, as that turned out to be the best part of the day.

We traveled again on Saturday, stopping at this state park for a picnic lunch. There were more bugs! Jon and Carrie were driven inside because of the gnats at this site. They weren’t bothering Emily, Natalie and me as much, maybe we needed a shower?!

We stopped in here too for a little more Texas history:

When we arrived at our campground, we found this little spot across the street. We walked there after dinner:

The girls wanted to take a dip, but the pool was unfortunately not quite ready for summer. (That green water was not a festive nod to St. Patrick.)

This is a pretty large campground, so the girls and I are examining the map to figure out the best way to get around:

The sign was promising, but we haven’t seen any yet:

But the wildflowers are plentiful:

And there are lots of butterflies:

Since the girls preferred activity wasn’t open, we dug out the basketballs from the storage compartments. It was fun to do something new.  There isn’t much in this area in the way of field trips, so I am looking forward to a slower week, catching up on our school work and maybe a little more basketball.

We really have some catching up to do! We left Austin mid-week and headed to San Antonio with my mom and dad. My mom loves a picnic, so I was glad we were able to share one with her.

We spent a day checking out the San Antonio missions while Jon got caught up on work after SXSW.

These Spanish missional communities date back to the early 1700′s. They are beautiful buildings, carefully maintained and still used by active parishes.

Afterwards, we thought we would just grab some dinner down on the River Walk. It turns out that most of Texas lets out the same week for Spring Break; this was that week. The sidewalks were bursting and we did our best not to fall into the river. We struck out finding an authentic Tex-Mex restaurant that could seat us in a reasonable amount of time, so we settled for a nice Italian place. They did have a mariachi band, though.

The next day, we took in more of the San Antonio sites, including the Market Square and another Mexican restaurant we had been eagerly anticipating. This place was packed and with a street festival going on outside, we decided to just grab some treats from the bakery. Strike two.

On Saturday, Jon joined us for a trip to the Alamo. The girls and I had just finished reading “A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diaries of Lucinda Lawrence” (Jon and my parents even enjoyed listening in as we read.) That book helped bring the history of Texas “alive” for us, so we were eager to see this historic site.

It turned out that this was one of those places where photography isn’t allowed inside. Maybe it was the atmosphere, but Jon just about took on his own battle with the docents over the independence of the photographer!

While it still wasn’t authentic Tex-Mex, we did find a great place to eat. I loved the made-at-your-table fresh guacamole! Thanks again, mom and dad, for a great lunch.

Between the traffic in Austin and the crowds in San Antonio, we couldn’t wait to get out of the city. We took my mom and dad to the campground we stayed at just before getting to Austin. The girls were excited to show them the deer, and they had tiny cabins so we could be just across the way from my parents. It was refreshingly quiet!

Jon and my dad even worked on a “house project.” They were able to replace a bad electrical part, so that the house batteries are finally being charged up while we drive. It is great to have that working.

The recent rains have made the Texas landscape colorful. The wildflowers, including these beautiful, fragrant Texas Bluebonnets are in bloom!

We moved the RV to Stonewall, TX to visit the quaint, little towns of the Texas Hill Country, and my mom and dad moved in with us for a few days. They were great sports and we enjoyed sharing our routines with them. They even got to experience a Texas-sized storm, complete with torrential rain, hail and howling winds!

We visited a great state park called Enchanted Rock. It is a dome of beautiful pink granite.

Natalie even made it to the top in her cowgirl boots!

Back at the RV for several rounds of our favorite game “Spot It”:

This place was just down the street from our campground:

It was a charming farm, functioning just as a Texas farm did in the early 1900′s.

They produce all of their own food and provide meals for the volunteers and park staff throughout the year. It was inspiring to see how everything in their house had a purpose and nothing went to waste.

We also got to see the famous Texas longhorns:

Adjacent to the farm was the LBJ Ranch, which is now a National Park site. Natalie’s affection for bison has now migrated to its more common bovine relative; Natalie loves cows. Hereford cattle were LBJ’s favorite:

And this is what he called Air Force 1/2, which often carried him to and from his ranch. Cows and planes together; Natalie and Emily were happy! We also got to tour his house (another place we weren’t allowed to take pictures; good thing Jon was working!) and learned a lot of presidential history in the process.

We circled back to Austin because my parents would be flying home from there. Here we are the evening before they would leave, wondering how our time together goes by so fast.

We met my parents the next morning to say good-bye until we return in August:

We found the “family viewing area” at Austin’s airport to wave good-bye and let Emily watch the planes.

I am getting a little work done before heading toward our next destination. I love working outside!

We moved toward Houston, but are camping in a nice, quiet rural area next to the Colorado River. It can get a little warm in the RV by the afternoon, so it is nice to have pools at some of these campgrounds.

A little sunset walk n’ ride. I really do feel like I have been given an incredible gift, to be on this journey with my family.

Nearly every morning here we have woken to misty, foggy weather:

While grocery shopping at the small, local store, Jon found this toxic toy that he remembered from his childhood. I guess you will have to see if we survive for another week…

[It was a different kind of week, so this is a different kind of blog entry: a conversation between Jon and Amy.]

Jon: Wow, week 30. Can you believe that?

Amy: No, I can’t. Are you sure you’re counting right?

Jon: I have a blog to prove it. Ok so, if we do this conversation thing, I think it would be easier to read if we have different colors. What color do you want?

Amy: Blue.

Jon: I wanted blue, but ok. I’ll be green. So last week was a short week at Lakehills TX. Quiet place. I liked it.

Amy: Yeah after being in several cities, it was great to get back out in the open. Our campground was a nice spread of 260 acres right next to this lake:

Jon: Nice lake.

Amy: For the last two years Texas has been experiencing a drought. This “lake” is also controlled by farmers for irrigation purposes. It made for an interesting walk.

Jon: Oh right, the point of the walk that morning was to see some deer. Good thing we saw some on the way back. That was a real crowd-pleaser.

Amy: Yeah my reputation was on the line having promised that we’d see lots of deer if you all came on a morning walk with me.

Jon: By the way, it totally cracks me up when you refer to us as “you all” and especially “you people”…that’s how I know when you’re frustrated. :)

Amy: You’ve got the signals down.

Jon: So yeah, fun quiet place, but I was eager to get to Austin for SXSW. When did we leave? Wednesday?

Amy: Thursday.

Jon: Right, because Thursday was registration, and sessions started on Friday.

Amy: For me it was fun to see the place that you talked about so much after last year.

Jon: I like this photo you took of the girls with me, but you really need to clean your iPhone lens.

Amy: Sorry.

Jon: Ugh…the rain. It rained and rained and rained and rained. We had not seen rain for MONTHS and the one week I actually need to leave the RV, it rains.

Amy: Remember that “lake”?…the Texans were glad to see that stuff.

Jon: It was really nice to see Josh and have him over for dinner. Everyone, that’s Josh…we work together, and he too was in town for SXSW.

Amy: Yeah it was really fun to have a dinner guest from “back home.”

Jon: This was one of the many sessions I was in. I just wanted to capture some random experiences throughout the week so I could show you a little bit what SXSW is like.

Amy: All I got to see was the traffic on the outside when I dropped you off!

Jon: This was the tumbleweed house guy I was telling you about:

Jon: He designs and sells plans for houses that are between 100 and 800 square feet. Thought you’d like that.

Amy: I’d love that. I’ve enjoyed our smaller, simpler space and am having hard time imagining going back to a normal house.

Jon: This is just some of the hustle and bustle of SXSW.

Jon: So when did you go to the LBJ library??

Amy: That was Saturday afternoon. It was a small museum that we could catch before picking up my mom and dad from the airport.

Jon: So was this all his stuff from his oval office?

Amy: I believe so. We watched a Troy McClure video about LBJ and all the events of his presidency. It was really good and very interesting because it tied in to all that Cold War stuff that we’ve been seeing. And we really liked Lady Bird Johnson…she reminded us of my grandmother.

Jon: I wish I could have seen that, mostly due to the Cold War tie that you mentioned.

Amy: So we made it to the airport early because Emily wanted to watch the planes. But with low cloud cover and security, she didn’t get to see a single plane. But we were all very happy to see my mom and dad!

Jon: I’ll second that.

Jon: This is from that Lytro session I was telling you about.

Amy: Oh yeah, I heard about that on NPR, about that new type of camera that uses light waves to capture the image?

Jon: Light fields. Basically, instead of focusing and taking a photo like you do with a normal camera, this captures a whole mess of “light data” that lets you focus on whatever you want after you’ve taken the photo. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was funny to see all the other photographer enthusiasts completely geeking out over it.

Jon: This was from another session about business, and figuring out what you’re supposed to be doing, and I found this Venn diagram particularly meaningful. I think I’ve been in just about every part of that diagram, wouldn’t you say? ;)

Amy: I’m afraid so.

Jon: Glad the sun finally came out on Sunday.

Jon: I stopped in where all the new games were being featured early in the week. Think we could fit something like this in the RV? It was quite cool.

Amy: uh…no. Another reason I like my small space.

Jon: I wanted to make sure I got a shot of our camping spot.

Amy: I loved that we were only a mile and a half from downtown and a quarter of a mile from a very cool running trail.

Jon: I LOVED riding my bike around Austin once the weather cleared.

Amy: First time I’ve heard you say you liked your bike.

Jon: Well, I still regret bringing those darned bikes, but it was the ideal vehicle for this past week, that’s for sure.

Jon: One of my favorite sessions: Adobe demoing their new Edge app (for animation) and unveiling a not-yet-released app, Shadow (for mobile web developers). I love feeling like I’m at the center of the tech universe for a week and being the first to see this stuff.

Jon: Ray Kurzweil: amazing scientist, inventor and futurist. Pretty much all of his tech predictions have come true over the last 30 years. He predicts sentient computers by 2029.

Jon: Al Gore and Sean Parker were great.

Amy: How so?

Jon: Sean Parker was the co-founder of Napster, so he’s sort of internet-famous for bringing down the music industry (he was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network), and I guess I just had low expectations of Al Gore. I’ve only known him as the rather wooden politician. But he was engaging and just…real. Changed my opinion of him.

Here’s lunch with Josh at Iron Works BBQ:

Jon: So where was this?

Amy: It was near the RV park. Austin has great green spaces. The whole city feels great.

Jon: And then we ended our time in Austin with the bats, which apparently are quite the tourist attraction.

Amy: It’s amazing: an urban colony of millions of Mexican bats living under a bridge.

Jon: And around 7:30 pm, they leave the bridge en masse. They eat 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of bugs per night. Yum.

Amy: They were really fun to watch.

Jon: Agreed. It was a great time in Austin. Looking forward to next year.

Amy: Should we bring the RV again?

Jon: Definitely. I LOVED having my family here with me this year. It was exotic tech stuff by day, comforts of home by night. Loved it.

We were able to snag a cheap hook-up site at the casino for the week. It came with some pretty cool morning entertainment:

We were a little unsure about camping all week in a parking lot, but since the girls and I had plans to visit with our friends Jake and Melissa all week, we decided it would be ok.

On Tuesday, the wind came in and blew the dust around so that the sky turned grey and the scenic views disappeared. I was glad we weren’t driving the RV.

Jake ended up on Army duty all week and Jon had an extra busy work week as well. So, this became the girls’ week! We did some errands and shopping with Melissa and Kaine. Natalie got a fresh new ‘do:

Melissa and Kaine joined us in the RV a few times so the girls could hang out.

We took a picnic lunch and field trip to Hueco Tanks State Park.

There were great climbing rocks:

My girls loved helping Kaine climb and hike.

Afterwards, we stopped here for some treats and found a great source for homemade tortillas and chips.

The girls couldn’t resist the pretty cookies.

We also took a field trip to Chamizal National Monument and learned about a 100 year border dispute between the US and Mexico that was finally resolved by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Here are the girls at a border marker from the 1860′s. The current border is further south at the Rio Grande River. It is a little more heavily fortified these days.

I often check for running clubs wherever we are, but many meet in the evenings or weekends (which is when we typically travel). I was excited to find this group of early risers. It was wonderful to have company during a long run and to get the local scoop on the good things do in Texas. Thanks so much El Paso Runners!

All week, Jon had been looking longingly up at Mount Cristo Rey from the casino parking lot, so that is what he wanted to do on Saturday. It was a 2 mile climb up to the top, but it didn’t look nearly that far.

The trail zig-zagged up the mountain, making it an easier climb:

…but a longer hike:

We took a few shortcuts:

At the top we found this large, Rio-like monument. Ah, perspective…it didn’t look nearly this big from the bottom.

At the top you could see Texas, New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico. Left of the long fence is Mexico and on the right is the US. You could see the Border Patrol SUVs stationed at various places along the fence. We noticed, however, that the fence stops at the hills and the hills didn’t appear that challenging to cross.

Jon wanted to see the fence up close. We were quickly approached and questioned by Border Patrol, but they were friendly and helpful. They warned us about the kids who come to the fence asking for money or worse, hurling rocks. These kids were interested in dollars and candy. I wished we had some candy for them.

Natalie wanted to do a little cowgirl shopping:

On Friday, Jake and Melissa gave us a tour of Ft. Bliss, the base where Jake is currently stationed:

We got to see the stryker vehicles that Jake works with:

Inside a stryker, the girls check out the safety equipment.

Emily aiming the big guns (at my head!):

We had a great week visiting with the Jake, Melissa and Kaine, and seeing El Paso. A big thank you to them for showing us around, sharing their home and laundry facilities. Sunday we made the long trek to be near Austin, where Jon will be attending SXSW on Friday.

It was the longest drive we have made since the beginning of the trip: 545 miles in 11 hours, stopping only once for gas. We have much to look forward to this coming week, as my parents are flying into Austin on Saturday. I can’t wait to see them!