Sunday, August 13, 2006

SUNDAY - 13 AUGUST - DAY ELEVEN

A day of travel.....from Canon City, CO to Santa Fe, NM. I was surprised to see some of the beautiful scenery in NM.....wow....high mountain meadows...trees....and in the blink of an eye - high desert. We plan to stay here for a couple of days and then go on home. It will be fun to explore Santa Fe tomorrow. Since leaving Taos we've been noticing that brown is the color of choice.....it looks eerily like an Air Force base.

Oh - another funny thing that happened in Canon City. I was walking down the hall and saw a man enter another's room. They yelled and such and he was apologizing....the desk gave him the key.....he was so very sorry. I rushed to my room and slid the deadbolt. {g}

We saw a lady with a dog that looked exactly like Beatrix...our dog. Vets have been guessing for years as to what kind of dog she is. The pound said she was German Shepherd/Corgi....not a chance. She doesn't look a thing like a GS. We stopped and asked the lady what breed her dog was...AUSTRALIAN shepherd and Corgi.....LOL

Very tired and the beds actually look comfortable here at the Hampton Inn - where a military ID get's $94 a night off each room. Mike is still talking about road whales....
Tae Kwon Do

I think I forgot to mention that sometime in Spokane - Monday that would have been - Krista took Jared, Arielle and Nolan to TKD with her. This is held at a local church and is cheap - as an outreach. It is free to Christian Workers and so is free for Krista. I wish we could find something similar in TX....we'll have to look....Anyway - it was a new thing for the younger ones and Jared and I know the younger ones enjoyed it - not sure about Jared.
SATURDAY - AUGUST 12TH - DAY TEN

Everyone is sleeping in - which believe me after adjusting to our 0430 starts this is a luxury. Unfortunately, Stacia woke up at 0400....I laid around a few hours and here I am. {G} I'll catch up "my" part of the story of yesterday.....btw....John Beloushi and Glenn Ford slept here too.


Mike, Krista, Josiah, Jamin and Jared took off after grabbing a hotel breakfast at 0600 to hike to Marble Caves.

The rest of the crew woke up slowly. I shuttled them down one or two at a time to the Continental breakfast. Did I complain about nothing but apples and bananas to choose from at these hotel breakfasts? I repent. We had NO fruit at all here. BUT there were waffles, whole milk, real butter, yogurt and lots of sugared cereals options. Thankfully, Wal-mart (aka known as the gates of h*ll by some nameless family members) is across from the hotel. I picked up some granola bars and cereal that Zander can eat....and he enjoyed having milk again.

After breakfast we set out to explore the Canon City.

Our first stop was the Dinosaur Depot. This was awesome. We have been talking about going to Glennrose, TX to check out the digging sites and dino tracks but haven't made it yet. Right HERE - totally unplanned by US - was the perfect thing to make the young ones feel like they had a special adventure while the older ones hiked to the top of a mountain. Bre stayed to help me with the younger ones - I don't think hiking to the top of a CO mountain was high on her "to do list" of life's accomplishments. :::snort:::: Anyway, it turns out that 8 miles west or north or some direction from here are the famous digs where two palentologists "duked" it out in the late 1800's early 1900's. Both found amazing fossiles. The "world's" {?} most complete stegasourasus skeleton is on display at the Dino Depot. They had a huge bone that the kids were able to sit on and climb over and touch. (We have no pictures as Mike had the camera yesterday - sigh). They had posters and lots of bones and such under glass. A palentologist was working on fossiles and stone and took a lot of time to answer questions and explain the process to us. Upstairs they had a "discovery room". This room was full of dino toys, books, videos, microscope, fossiles to inspect and a digging box. The box had various parts of a dino skeleton burried in walnut shells. There were also dino tracks outside.... COOL. We had a great two hours. I woke up to the fact that, yes, these newer three youngsters have fully hit the dino phase and I need to check and see if there are new resources available. I have some books from ICR and such but I'm sure in the past 12 years they've published new things. I'd love to hear of your favoirte creationist dino books. We'd also like to find some good reading on the Loch Ness Monster - which many say is a pleasiosaurus.

I've been trying to find the perfect daily award for Zander to earn with his "obeying tickets". I was able to pick up 12 little tiny dinosaurs for about $6.00. He was thrilled last night to buy one of them off me. He said, "can you tell me something new to do now?" {g}

After the Dino Depot we hit the historical downtown. The buildings are awesome but there really wasn't much worth looking at IN the buildings. We did find All Star Pets. We miss the days of pet stores with puppies you could play with. Though looking back on it we know that these weren't great settings for the puppies. Which reminds me of a verse I read in Proverbs 12 this a.m. My paraphrase is that a righteous man looks well after his pets/animals. This store did have 4 cute, cuddly kittens that were looking for homes. It also has a big pond with koi in it. We fed them.

Lunch found us at McDonald's with a huge play area. The little ones played for a couple of hours while Bre and I caught up on her life. I can't tell you how impressed I am with the first year of Spokane Master's Commission. I'm loving the young women of God that my daughters have matured into. I think some of the projects they did were so good that I'll imitate them with the other children if they aren't going to such a program after they graduate. More on that later- maybe - if I remember. :::snort::::

Stacia had the "tropical trotts" all day. I think it's the water. She can't drink Concho water at home but has done fine on the trip. I went to Walmart and bought some drinking water, a tube of diaper ointment, dish soap, and water bottles for .10. Big outing, huh?

We spent the next couple of hours playing with the big dino floor puzzle I'd purchased earlier in the day. We also watched a huge thunderstorm - that changed our afternoon swimming plans - and wondered where the rest of our family was.

Now for their story: details will have to wait until I excavate them all. I know they started up the mountain in good time. They met up with Earl (Mike's brother), Crystal (neice) and Dominque (her son) and Jerome (nephew). They saw marmutes and bear. They were filthy but happy when they showed up back at the hotel about 10:00 p.m. They got caught above timberline in the big storm...hail, thunder etc. This was hilarious. It seems that Krista has got caught in rain on every sight seeing trip of her year. When she heard that they were going to attempt the climb she said, "we'll probably get caught in rain". None of us put much stock in her meterological predictions but sure enough - they got wet and cold. More details to follow.

Oh - in the light of day - this hotel well.....though it appears seedy.....when the pool tournament ended the overcrowdedness abated. It is possible to see that it in it's DAY (about 1940/50) this was a GREAT place...there are still glimmers of "faded elegance" here and there.....it's just loud and smokey.....but at 0600 they've not started the music or opened the pool. Never, never agree to a pool side room.....