Bottomless lake State Park

We enjoyed this campground so much we decided to stay an extra night.  This is the first time we have stayed at the same campground 2 nights in a row.  We have really enjoyed being able to relax and the kids enjoyed swimming in the lake.  Dave also was very happy to wash the motorhome for the first time, and even happier that each of the boys helped and had fun helping. We also tried fishing, but the park ranger (who was very nice) informed us that there is an endangered fish in this lake that can only be found in two lakes in the world.  This being one, so fishing here is a no-no! This lake is 90 ft deep at the natural underground spring that supplies the water for the lake and nearby river. That was my one small piece if history for the day.  I forgot to mention that a black widow almost landed on my face yesterday as I was looking in the electrical box which turned out to be her home.  

Peyton enjoyed the playground and we all enjoyed the nice hot showers.  

Tip of the day:  built a sandcastle, throw a football and play on the playground! Dave and I usually watch our kids do these things, but we have decided to join in.  We were surprised at how fun it was and how much my kids enjoyed having us play with them.

Sterling's Birthday, Lincoln and Roswell, NM

Well, today is the day that I spent the entire day in agonizing pain, then was rushed in for an emergency C-section so that Sterling could make his way into the world.  It was definitely worth it (but when he is driving me nuts in the 300 sq. ft. space I need to remind him of the pain part!). Before I get into our day I wanted to thank everyone who posted a birthday wish to Sterling!  He really loved it!  

We got an early start and headed to Lincoln, New Mexico, home of "Billy the Kid" and the Lincoln County War. What a wonderfully preserved

living "ghost" town.  You really feel like you are in 1878 (except for the huge Monaco Diplomat parked along side the road).  We watched a movie on the history of Lincoln and William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid. We then went through one of the many buildings open to the public.  This was a museum that had fabulous artifacts of Apache and Western history.  We learned a lot there, but that was just the beginning.  

Let me back up, yesterday when I was reading to the kids about Lincoln,

I read about a historian/cowboy who was the expert on this area.  He has been on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and every other show about Billy the Kid and Western history, he has also written many books about the area. Well when we left the museum we saw this large group of New Mexico officials.  In this group I heard someone say Drew Gomber. I immediately recognized his name and told Dave we need to see if we can sneak into his tour.  Well, we got to talking to him and were invited to join the tour.  All you history buffs must be jealous because it was a great tour and we learned so much.  Gomber was also very humorous which kept the kid's interest.  If you know nothing about Billy here is a quick synopsis...  We don't know exactly when Billy was born, nor do we know his exact age when he died (experts think he was around 21).  We do know that a citizen's war broke out in Lincoln over mercantile.  You see, Murphy/Dolan had the Mercantile monopoly in Lincoln and wanted to keep it that way.  Tunstall, a young English man, decided to open his own general store in 1877.  This did not go over well and Tunstall was murdered in 1878.  Well, this started the Lincoln County War.  One of Tunstall's employees was Billy the Kid. He and other Regulators didn't take Tunstall's death lightly.  They shot the the sheriff (they should write a song about that) William J. Brady and deputy George Hindman.  Billy was hit but escaped.  Three days later they shot another Dolan defender.  The Regulators came back to Lincoln and were held up in McSween's house which was next to the Tunstall merchant store (Drew said that they would have gone to the store but a family with children were in the store so they went next door, this was a mistake because the store has steel bullet proof plates in there doors and there wall's were too thick to shot thru.  If they went there they could have been safe in there for a long time) .  Well they were held up in McSween's house for 5 days.  Meanwhile the Merchants set the house on fire.  Billy and a few volunteers ran out of the house as a decoy and over 1,000 shots were fired at them.  Only one of the four men died.  McSween also died when he exited the house after the decoy party.  Billy got away but once again returned to the neighboring area.   Sheriff Pat Garette (who was hired to hunt down the Kid) eventually caught him and convicted him

 for the death of  William J. Brady (the funny thing was that their were 35+ regulators, and Brady had 12 bullet holes in him when he died, but Billy was the only one Garette was interested in hanging).  Billy was sent back to Lincoln be hung in 1881.  They placed Billy in the court house (which use to be the Murphy/Dolan store) with two deputies J.W Bell and Robert Ollinger and a few other prisoners.  Billy said he had to use the outhouse and somehow got Bell's revolver (historian's debate on how he got it, Drew thinks he took down his escort and stole his gun) and shot him dead (you can still see the hole in the wall on the staircase).  Ollinger was across the street with the other prisoners having dinner.  He heard the shot and headed back to the courthouse.

Well, it was said that an ammunition room in the courthouse had a broken lock and Billy went in and took Ollinger's shotgun.  He aimed it out the window of the courthouse and shot Ollinger in the street.  He hopped (since he was still shackled) out on the deck of the courthouse and asked if anyone wanted to try and stop him (he was kinda the local hero so nobody did) so then he asked to borrow a horse and an pick.  He sat for almost an hour and worked on his shackle and then mounted the horse and rode out of town singing. Drew said that Billy had quite the personality, he was kinda the life of the party. Billy was later found again by Garrett (he was at a neighboring city visiting his girlfriend) and this time Garrett didn't try to arrest him he just shot him down.

Well, as you can see we really enjoyed the tour.  

We then went to Roswell, NM and went to the UFO Museum and a few really cool stores.  I won't go into the history of this city since I want to spend time playing a game with Sterling on his

birthday.

Anyway, it was interesting and I definitely have a theory on what happened in Roswell.  I'm sure your interested, so ask me later.

 Sterling wanted to go to a Chinese buffet for his birthday dinner.

We had a great dinner and headed to the Bottomless Lakes State Park.  We were pleasantly surprised at how nice this park was.  The kids played and went swimming in the lake and then we had ice cream cake in honor of Sterling's birthday.

Now the boys are watching a video of themselves and Parker doing a skit.

They are cracking up!  What a great memory.  What a busy and exciting day!

Posted by familydream (aka Cindi) accidently logged in as Dave (I'm not high tech enough to know how to fix it)

Tomorrow Is Sterling's 11th Birthday!!!

Please send him a Happy Birthday Comment!!

Smokey the Bear

Yesterday I worked all day so I did not post.  This morning we were pretty lazy and took our time leaving the Hyatt Place in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  When we left we headed to find diesel gas.  This is not as easy as it seems when you are driving around in a house and you have a 100 gallon gas tank.  So it is important to us to get a great price.  We took a risk and started driving toward our next destination and hoped to find gas on the way.  Well it didn't pay off and we spent 4.10 per gallon, I guess it is better than the Chevron down the road that was 4.19 per gallon (we located cheaper gas online for 3.97 on the other side of town, oh well, live and learn).  After gas and another "side of the road" purchase (I have a bad habit of buying anything that is sold by locals on the side of the road) of fresh baked Indian bread, we were on our way. We drove to Capitan, New Mexico and went to the Smokey the Bear National Museum and grave site.  We learned that a 2 and a half week old bear cub was found badly burned in the nearby forest and was taken in by the firefighters and brought back to health.  This cub quickly became the symbol of "preventing forest fires" Smokey the Bear.  Smokey was flown to Washington DC and lived in a zoo there for 26 years till he died in 1976.  Smokey is the second most recognizable character second only to Santa Clause. When Smokey died they flew his bear body back to Capitan and was buried near the museum. 

After visiting the museum we headed to dinner at the Smokey the Bear Cafe (everything in this small town is named after the famous bear).  After a good cafe dinner we decided it was to late to make it to Lincoln, New Mexico tonight(home of Billy the Kid)so we found a place to park the RV near a great park.  The boys have been playing at the park for the last 1.5 hours (a much needed energy release, note to self... find more parks!) We are now going to walk to the ma and Pa store and buy some groceries and then get an early start tomorrow.  

Don't freat, I have great pics of Smokey museum to post, but I first took them with my good camera that after a few pics I realized there was no CF card.  So I then took them with the video camera, but just realized that the cord needed to down load pics is somewhere under the rig.  Will post as soon as it is found.

Albuquerque

We are in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We are staying at a Hyatt Place and remembering what it is like to take a real shower!  I have too work here until tomorrow and hopefully (depending on repair results)  we will head out after show tomorrow.  Our Rv is in the shop getting much needed repairs.  We hope they don't call us tomorrow and tell us we have a lemon.  Kid's are enjoying playing Wii on a 42 inch flat screen courtesy of Hyatt place.  It is actually a much needed break for them.  We will blog more later

Pictures of the Canyon de Chelly

In these cliffs you can see hundreds of holes or caves, this is where the Navajo lived.

If you look closely at this rock below you will see small caves.  In the third hole you can see a table and chair. I posted a closer view below.

This is a great look at a Navajo Pueblo.  This is called the White House.

Hopi Reservation and Canyon de Chelly

You all will be amazed, but we did not stay at a Walmart last night!  I know you are all amazed!  We slept at Meteor Crater RV Park near Winslow, Arizona.  Meteor Crater is a huge hole in the ground where a 54 yard meteor hit the earth at 45,000 mph (that's about how fast Dave takes the turns when I'm trying to make lunch).  This created a hole 4,000 ft. around, and 570 ft. deep.  OK I must be honest, we were to cheap to actually see the hole, but I thought I would fill you in on the info.  We left the campsite and headed to Winslow, Arizona for the sole purpose of standing on the corner.  For all of you that are too young to remember the song "Take it Easy" by the Eagles, go to Limewire and download it or ask your parents if you can borrow their 8 track.  Anyway, we then drove to the Hopi Indian Reservation.  The reservation has three Mesas, Mesa 1, Mesa 2 and Mesa 3 (I'm sure that took them a long time to name).  This was a cultural treat to see how the Hopi live today.  I have to say, on first glance I would never want to live there.  It is very dry and hot and homes look as if they are falling apart.  You are not permitted to take pictures anywhere on the reservation, so of course I had to sneak one (I would never be allowed a Jr. Ranger badge).  Anyway, at third Mesa we decided to stop into their town grocery store so we could see what it was like.  Besides being verrrrry small (a little bigger than 7-11) the food was very similar (it seemed like they had some Mexican brands of some foods).  The boys got a weird "pump your own" Slurpee (I think it was called slush puppy.  We than went to another town on third Mesa called Oraibi, which is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Northern America.  They still refuse to have water or electricity.  The whole city is built on top of the the still partially standing ruins of their ancestors. We bought a Kachina doll from some very friendly Hopi women.  Each doll has a history and the women told us about each doll that they or their family had painted.  We bought the Grandmother Kachina, she supposedly, watches over the family and is given to a child at birth.  We then walked around the ruins, in the rubble you could find a ton of old pottery pieces, it was really cool and I very much wanted to take a piece home with me, but you all will all be amazed to know that I followed the rules and left the pieces were their ancient ancestors left them  (See I have Jr. Ranger potential).  

We then drove through to the Hopi reservation and the Navajo reservation on our way to Canyon de Chelly.  If you ever have the opportunity to see this Canyon... "jump on it," because it is awesome.  Basically it is a 131 square mile Canyon in which the Navajo and Anci

ent Pueblo people live.  The cool thing about it is the Navajo didn't live on the canyon floor they made their home in the middle of the cliff (not the top of the cliff, 

see pics in my pic post above).  It was crazy to see their ruins in the rock.  I figured they must have felt both safe and unsafe at the same time.  There is no way anyone could get to them without them seeing them and shooting them with an arrow

, but they are also in 

danger every time they stepped out the door.

(could you imagine if you had kids!  You would never sleep, or if you were a sleep walker...you would be a goner).  Well the canyon

 itself is gorgeous from the rim, but they have this trail that takes you over the ledge and zig-zags you to the bottom.  It was such a great decent to the bottom.  You go through blasted out tunnels and the view is incredible.  When you get to the bottom the view only gets better.  I love to take pictures and this place is a photographers dream.  At the bottom there is a 

ruin called the 

White House.

This is a great example of a Navajo pueblo (home) in the cliff wall.  You can also see petroglyphs around the house. It is so cool knowing that people of another generation left their mark on the rock. I have so many pics it's hard to decide which ones to post (look at my pic post above).  The walk back up was much harder than the walk down, but it is so well worth it.  

It was dinner time when we got back to the RV.  We headed to A&W and hit the road to Albuquerque.  I'm writing this on the 4 hour drive.  Thanks again for the comments!! We love to read them!!  Please forward our blog to anyone else that might want to read it!!  Miss you all!                                                                                                                                             

Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki

We awoke Saturday morn from another restful night in a Walmart parking lot.  I went from never shopping at Walmart to becoming Walmarts #1 client.  We met Dave's cousin Karen and her long time boyfriend Ryan for breakfast.  We had a wonderful time catching up with them and hearing all the exciting things happening in their lives.  We then headed up hwy 89 to Sunset Crater Volcano National monument.  Our state park pass has really come in handy.  Sunset Volcano last erupted over 900 years ago, but the hardened lava flow still drapes itself down the mountain side like it just erupted.  It is quite a site to see. It looks like a black, solid rock river below a 1,000 foot high Cinder Cone Volcano.  We took a mile hike around the lava flow and the kids filled out their Jr. ranger booklets.  They really are learning a lot from the Jr. Ranger activities.  They now have 3 Jr. Ranger badges and patches.  After they complete each program the ranger quizzes them and than swears them in.  We left the volcano and drove 12 miles to the Wupatki ruins.  The puebloan people built these masonry pueblos in the early 1100s.  They are a great example of how early americans lived, worked and played.  The kids were most impressed by a natural blow hole.  This small 1' round opening in the ground shot out a cool wind 21 mph.  The wind was so compact that the kids could drop their shoe and it would float up in the air.  It is amazing how a small hole of wind can entertain 3 boys for hours.  The interesting thing about this blow hole is that half the time it sucks in the air and the other half it blows it out.  Pretty cool!  We are now parked at a campground in front of Meteor Crater outside of Winslow, Arizona (and yes when we get to Winslow we will stand on the corner "Standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona..Eagles).  We miss you all!  Thanks for the comments, we really do love getting them!  The boys can't wait to see who posts.

Here is the pic of the squirrel on Peyton's shoulder (this one is for you Parker since you love squirrels)

Grand Canyon

Today we got up and headed to the Grand Canyon!  I forgot how amazing the Grand Canyon is!  The boys were blown away.  Tanner said he had seen pictures of the Canyon but had no idea it was so huge and impressive.  They all absolutely loved it.  It really does remind you of how amazing God is.  He loves us so much that he created a place like the Grand Canyon for us to enjoy.  He doesn't do anything half way!  The first thing we did was pull up in front of the visitors center (I love visitor centers!) and we took a peek over the edge.  The first look is the most incredible because you forget how spectacular it is.  Not to mention, if you have never seen it before like our boys.  Did you know the Grand Canyon is 18 miles wide, 5,000 ft deep and 227 miles long! (Had to throw those facts in because they are so impressive).  After our peek, and my panicking because a lot of the canyon edges do not have rails and Peyton doesn't seem to have any fear of heights (we did learn that there have been around 600 accidental deaths at the canyon, most due to careless photographers who think the best picture is taken while hanging over the edge).  We headed to the visitor center to get info and join the Jr. Rangers Program.  If you didn't know, almost all the National Parks have a Jr. Rangers Program where kids do lessons in a workbook and attend a ranger class in exchange for a certificate, a badge, a patch and then officially sworn in as a Ranger.  Then we headed out on the tram to the first look-out point.  We truly enjoyed the view, but the kids were more impressed by the squirrels.  The boys had a goldfish snack and the squirrels decided to share it with them (first Jr. Ranger rule...don't feed the animals).  I have more pics I will post with a squirrel sitting on Peytons shoulder.  We then went back on the bus and saw the canyon from many different angles (I think the Hopi point view was the best).  We had a great ice cream lunch and then went to a ranger talk on Condors.  Did you know that there are only 300 condors in the world and only 147 of them are living in the wild?!  All of them are tagged and protected.  The California Condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere.  It's wing span is 9 ft!!!  I got some great pictures of the condors flying overhead and perched on a rock.  Oh, I forgot to mention that one of my friends from Get Motivated (Darren and family) were at the canyon at the same time.  We met up with them to see the sunset over the canyon.  What a great ending to the perfect day!

Sedona

Yesterday (Thursday)  we got up, swam, ate at Johnny Rockets in an Indian Casino and then drove to Sedona.  Wow, what a sight!  Red rocks shooting out of the ground everywhere you look.  It is quite impressive.  We wanted to make a few stops in Sedona, but there was a lot of construction and a 40 ft RV has a hard time parking.  So we stopped at one scenic view spot and took some pics and then tried to stop at the Church built into the rock, but had no luck parking.  We did put our heads out the window and snapped some more photos. We then headed up Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff.  That was an adventurous drive.  First, it was gorgeous (was named one of the top 10 scenic drives in the US) there was a river on one side with a backdrop of Red Rock formations on the other.  There was also many beautiful green trees and plants which you do not see much of in Arizona.  The second reason the drive was adventurous was all the turns  and steep cliffs. We were in a huge RV with little RV experience (luckily Dave was driving or we would have for sure been dead).  I have to say it was a little scary!  (Pop, Scott and Bob you would have hated it).  We ended up in Flagstaff and decided to call it a night at...where else?  Walmart.  

Arizona

It has begun.  Dave quit his job at Medtronic in order for us to follow our dream  and we all drove to Arizona.  We picked up our motor home at my parents and we drove the RV to a campground (Estrella Mountain Regional Park) in Goodyear, Arizona.  The next day I flew to Lexington for work and the rest of the family went to Golfland in Mesa, Arizona and played video games, golfed, bumper cars and lazer tag (we had free coupons).  The boys slept in Mesa at a Walmart parking lot (they let RVers stay for free)  and the next day drove to ASU and visited the campus were Dave got his MBA.  Next they drove to Tucson and camped at the Beaudry, RV park.  They really liked this RV park.  They swam, played Bocce Ball, horse shoes, putting green, chess and took hot showers.  The next day Dave and the boys met up with Pop and Dee Dee, uncle Jim and Ann in Green valley, Arizona.  They had a great time visiting and toured thier new house.  Dave and the boys said that they really enjoyed the visit.  They than headed to the Phoenix airport and picked me up!  After Lola (our navagation system) got us lost, we finally found a Walmart in North Phoenix and spent the night.  In the morn we visited Walmart for Grocery's and went to Sprint and got a internet access card (YEAH) and headed to Montezuma's Castle (which was tottaly miss named after the Aztecs).  This is a cliff dwelling that was built by the Singagua Indians.  It is quite impressive and we all learned a lot from the park ranger who spent some time with us.  We than headed to Distant Drum RV Resort near Montezuma's Castle.  We had a little bit of time to organize some of the stuff in the RV.  We packed way to much and are trying to consolidate. 

 Today is Thursday, May 1st and I am so glad I finally have the Internet so I can post.  We miss you all and will keep you updated frequently.  By the way, Before the official trip begun we had a wonderful visit with my parents in Goodyear and also spent time with Bubby.  My parents helped me tremendusly getting the RV prepaired for our big adventure.  I can't thank them enough.  Although, I wouldn't expect any less from them, since they have always helped me thru every big adventure in my life.  I love you Mom and Dad.  Bubby is doing very well, she is just as sweet as ever.  The boys and I really enjoyed seeing her and having lunch out at Famous Dave's BBQ with her.  They also had a blast at their Grandparents, visiting their cousins in Vegas and at their house in Palmdale (Hi Teri and Family, thanks for watching the boys, love ya!).  Seeing the Bakers in Orange county (That is always a treat) , riding bikes in Manhattan beach, going to Sixflags in Valencia, having one last Mikuni run with my great friends (I miss you already) and just hanging out with the family.  God is Good!  I also want to give a HUGE thanks to Pop and Dee Dee who let the whole family live at their place, eat their food and mess their house up while we were in transition.  Not to mention they helped babysit the boys when Dave was at work and I was out of town!  Thank's and we love you!  I also need to thank Jana and Tim and kids for stepping up (as usual) and watching the boys constantly while I was gone.  We will miss you all so much.   I also need to say a special thanks to Doug for working so hard to get our house sold and helping us move again!!! I don't know what Dave and I would do with out you! (Hi Sue, Doug and family!)I know I skipped a lot of history for those of you who are just joining us on our journey, like why we are doing this, and no we are not crazy! I guess you will have to call my me to get all the details.   I will post again soon!

Packed up our house

Well we took the big step and rented out our house.  Saturday March 23rd we packed up the house!  It was so much work!  We had to decide what to take and what to put into storage.  We definately packed to much for the RV.  We are going to have to eliminate as we go.