No, not the kind you’re thinking of. If only… What we do have is a brand spanking new tent! You may remember when I wrote Our Home is in the Mail that I shipped it back to the manufacturer under a warranty claim. While I did not receive a good answer as to what was going on with our tent, they did agree to replace it for us. Except for the problems we had toward the end of our trip, I really love this tent, so I am so happy to be able to continue to use this tent for future expeditions. Now we just need to get started planning our first camping trip of the season. And by camping trip, I mean camping outdoors, not camping indoors, which is what we’re currently doing. For those of you who are wondering, camping outdoors is vastly superior to camping indoors, but at least you don’t have to worry about the sub-freezing temperatures.
Home » Travel (Page 2)
Category Archives: Travel
Visit Our National Parks for Free – and Camp KOA for Free
There are many things we enjoyed on our trip over this past year. Second only to visiting with friends and family was spending so many glorious uninterrupted hours, days, weeks in our national parks. If you live near a national park (and most of you do), I encourage you all to go and explore our heritage and history at these fantastic institutions. For added incentive, National Park Week is coming up from April 19th to 27th. In celebration, parks are offering FREE admission on April 19th and 20th. While not all parks charge admission, if a park you’ve been thinking of visiting does, this is the perfect time to check it out. Also, April 26th is National Junior Ranger Day. We’ll definitely have to do something with Van to celebrate. Maybe we’ll bust out all eight of his junior ranger badges (he just earned his eighth at the Springfield, MA Armory).
Junior Ranger Van
In celebration of all things outdoors and free, KOA is offering a free night of camping on Saturday, May 10th if you stay on Friday, May 9th. Funds raised during that weekend will support KOA Care Camps, which allow children with cancer and their siblings to attend special summer camps around the country. Win, Win!
Even if you’re not up for a visit to a national park or camping, I hope you are all enjoying some time in the fresh air and sun. Nothing heals better than an afternoon frolic through the woods.
Happy Third Birthday Little Bug!
Today is a big day. Van turns three! Though truth be told, he thinks he’s been three for a few days now, ever since celebrating with his Gran, Pa, Uncle Jack, and Aunt Jenni on Saturday. It’s been quite a year, and I’ve been honored to spend nearly every day and night with him. Watching his excitement, frustrations, and quiet pleasures has taught me so much about what is important and how much I take for granted. I can only hope that I’m teaching him half of what he teaches me.
Van, as we wind down our (for now) trip of a lifetime, I look forward to building new traditions with you and growing a home with our little family. It is hard for me to know what you will remember from this past year (except that we stayed at a Days Inn in Idaho – you have a remarkable memory for that fact), but I hope that you continue to feel comfortable in a world without walls. I hope that you never stop exploring or asking questions and that you continue to nurture your family and friends (both of the living and stuffed animal variety) with the care I’ve seen from you over this past year. I promise that we’ll have plenty of time to eat our meals at picnic tables once the snow melts and that we’ll spend many long days in the sun – moving into a house made of sticks won’t change that. Thank you for bringing me immense love and joy and teaching me more than any learned professor has.
Happy 3!
Emerging from Hibernation
It may seem as if we dropped off the face of the earth, but I can assure you that we have not. After New Mexico (which I have yet not finished blogging about), we’ve been staying with friends and family to celebrate the holidays, escape the cold nights, and plot our next move. We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado with Alan’s family, spent another week in Denver with our dear friend, Andrew, drove out to Michigan to visit with my family, and then have spent much of the last three months in New York with my parents (THANK YOU, MOM AND DAD!!!). Between lots of grandparent time for Van, we also spent a couple of weeks down in the DC area to see friends and (drumroll) have spent some time house hunting and visiting friends in our intended new home of Western Massachusetts. Yup, after traveling the country, we are winding up right where I used to live fifteen years ago.
For those of you following our journey offline, you know that we had put an offer in on a house that was accepted. Unfortunately, the results of our inspection demonstrated that instead of buying a serious fixer upper, we would have been buying a tear down. Back to the drawing board for us. To make our house search easier and to get to know the area better, we rented a partially finished room in an unfinished basement of a lovely and lively artist. She described it to us as camping indoors and almost wouldn’t show it to us since she didn’t think it would be suitable for a family. Little did she realize that we’d been living out of our car for the last year. Camping inside? With access to running water, heat, and electric lights? Sold! It’s a temporary situation, so if we don’t have a new home by the summer, we’ll have to find a new temporary home. But, the thought of not having to move every few days makes this dark basement seem like a luxurious retreat. And the area around the house couldn’t be more beautiful. The views from her studio are stunning, and there are multiple hiking trails that leave within a quarter-mile of the house.
And through all that awaits us, I look forward to continuing to share it right here. But, before I start writing more about what we’re up to right now, I’ll be walking back a few months in time and writing a couple more posts about our wonderful month in New Mexico. Easily one of the highlights of our trip.
Enchanted Already: Our First Few Days in New Mexico
On the High Road from Silver City to Gila Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico
What seems like ages ago now, we rolled into New Mexico after our week in Arizona. We took a circuitous route, heading southeast from Tucson instead of east. We drove through Tombstone, opting not to stop in the overly touristy town, and instead headed further south to the arty (and super cute) mining town of Bisbee and the border town, Douglas. We passed numerous Border Patrol vehicles and one checkpoint for cars heading the other direction a fair distance from the border. The highlight of our route was the gorgeous western scenery we drove through when we took much smaller roads northeast from the border towards New Mexico. We were one of the only non-pick-ups on the road, over half of which were marked Border Patrol vehicles. To say there was surveillance going on would be an understatement. In addition to the numerous trucks out on patrol, there were a number of small buttes that we passed on which a truck was parked next to portable surveillance equipment. The area was beautiful, but we could never escape the feeling of being watched at all times, even when there were no homes, cars, or people for miles around.
Our first stop in New Mexico was in Silver City. This was one of the places I was most looking forward to, and it didn’t disappoint. We kicked off our New Mexico culinary tour with some of the best sauces ever (red and green enchilada sauce and red and green chile sauce) at The Jalisco Cafe. We weren’t sure which sauces we wanted, so they brought us generous cups of each of the four sauces to enjoy. We were in heaven! Besides getting our feet wet with some New Mexican cuisine and chatting up a fellow camper with a homemade camper trailer rigged up on a flatbed trailer with blue tarps, pvc pipe, a heater, and a tv, we spent a day each at Gila Cliff Dwellings and City of Rocks State Park.
Gila Cliff Dwellings, New Mexico
City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico
New Mexico!!
The drive from Silver City to Gila (pronounced Hee-La) Cliff Dwellings National Park is best done during daylight in mild weather. It’s narrow and windy with crazy gorgeous views of mountain forests. One of the most magnificent roads we traveled, it reminded us of being back in southern Colorado, which given its location, shouldn’t be all that surprising. Once we arrived at Gila Cliff Dwellings, we were treated to a stunning hike through a canyon to reach the legendary dwellings. The scent of water was in the air and leafy trees provided shade. We hadn’t experienced this in quite a while! When we reached the dwellings, we joined in on a tour that was being filmed for training purposes. Now future park rangers and volunteers can see our shining faces peering into the cliff-side homes.
Gila Cliff Dwellings
View from Inside
Notice the soot-darkened roof of the cave, blackened from decades of fires from the ancient inhabitants.
Evidence of Ancient Fires
We were also able to spy a number of dramatic petroglyphs and pictographs in the main dwellings as well as in other areas of the park.
Pictograph on the Rocks in Gila Cliff Dwellings National Park
The homes, like many other ancient sites, had been the target of looting and damage in the past. The park service has done quite a bit to shore up the structures, even rebuilding a few before that was frowned upon. There are now very sensible rules in place to help ensure that visitors don’t further damage the structures. We were disappointed to see a couple of long-distance backpackers balk at the rules and speak condescendingly to a park ranger, but I reminded myself that it was the first time we’d seen such disrespect on our trip. And we were extra nice to the ranger to try to make up for the difficult visitors that came after us.
While we were visiting the park, all three of us worked on ranger packets. Van worked on his special junior ranger packet geared towards pre-schoolers (the first park we’ve visited that had curriculum specifically geared to this age group) and Alan and I worked on a senior ranger packet (also the first park we visited that had this sort of curriculum). We were really impressed with the program and were happy to walk away with an enhanced understanding of the park along with patches, and a badge for Van, that certified our achievement.
Junior Ranger Van
After a chilly night in the tent, we spent the next day clambering around the boulders in City of Rocks State Park. The landscape we drove through to reach the park provided no clue that anything like this would even exist in the area. But then, out of nowhere, stood what can only be called a city of rocks. They are a jumbled mass of very large boulders in an otherwise flat desert-like area. In addition to the rocks and some fantastic camping spots, the park is known for its stargazing parties. We were there during the day, however, so we stuck to exploring and climbing up and around the rocks.
City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico
I could see how this place would be an absolute ideal place to explore with older kids who could spend hours (or maybe days) just climbing all over the rocks. Though we enjoyed the rocks, the mighty large grasshoppers were quite the draw.
“Can I touch it? Please, please!”
Especially the mating ones…
Enjoy a few final photos of our time in City of Rocks and the views of the beautiful New Mexico horizon.
Bottling Moonlight 