Day 41: We Made It!

Woke up surrounded by a beautiful desert landscape. This is definitely more what I pictured when we set out on this van trip, but even with all the parking lots and side streets, I'm so glad that we went where we did. 

But I'm also looking forward to more western U.S. exploring where we'll be pulling off on dirt and gravel roads to find random camping spots.

We made our last breakfast, and then hit the road and crossed into CA just a little while later.

And our only stop for the day was a lunch stop at the Cesar Chavez National Monument. We made lunch and then spent an hour or so learning about his history and contributions to Mexican American and farm worker's rights.

There was a beautiful little garden area around his home.

And Peanut did one last Jr. Ranger badge. He learned a lot this trip through these.

And then, we just drove home. We were ready to get there and get ready for Christmas. Bug had already beat us back to Livermore by a few days. He stayed with a friend so our friend who was staying in our house while we were gone could stay a little longer, but he came back home just a little before we did and we had a great reunion.

All our new ornaments we collected! This was quite the year for building our collection. We had a bunch from the UK, too.

And my Trader Joe's haul. When you aren't home for 6 weeks, and it's Christmas time, it takes a lot of groceries to restock. We ran to Costco, too, so this was just a small part of it.

These two started reading the Christmas books as soon as we opened the box. I think Peanut is pretty happy to be home.

And reuniting with our animals was also a highlight. They were well cared for, but I think Poppy appreciated getting to do "baby" again. Now she's just waiting for her Bean to come home who is her favorite! (We're excited for her to come home, too, of course!)

Day 40: On the Way Home

When Daddy-o and looked at our schedule for the last week of the trip, and decided that we weren't making any detours, we realized that it also wasn't practical to drive almost 17 hours in one day. So, with plans to take 2 days and pretty much drive straight back, I looked for what we could do that wasn't a detour, just to break up the drive a little bit.

And a random Route 66 stop just off the freeway claimed to have some of the best Indian Frybread ever. So we stopped, even though it was early for lunch. More of a brunch. And even though Peanut has only barely stopped throwing up. At first, he wasn't going to get one, but after smelling Daddy-o's taco, he changed his mind. So they got tacos, I got a plain bread with honey, and they were so good. And Peanut kept his down, so it was all good.

Made it to Aruzona! I picked our later lunch stop at a Picture Canyon, where there was a little nature

and I could sneak in one last hike. While the boys made lunch and ate, I opted to do a longer loop than either of them felt up to.

I found lichen and went bird watching,

and got to see the petroglyphs I'd read about on this trail.

The boys came up the other, shorter direction,

to meet me at what is claimed to be Flagstaff's only waterfall. It seems like they must at least have seasonal waterfalls in other places considering it snows there and there are some hills, but maybe not? 

And then we finished driving and FINALLY got to do some real boondocking. It is so much easier to find wild camping spots in the west--we just have a lot more national forest and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land where you are allowed to park overnight. This spot just before the CA border was perfect for the evening. Daddy-o and I went for a little walk and then we fixed dinner.

Peanut was doing a lot better, but still excited to get home. Hard to believe that this is our last night in the van for awhile.

It hasn't been perfect. For every cozy moment, we've had really hard times. For every success, we've had things go wrong. So many things have been magical and amazing, and so many things have been challenging, too. But I'm so glad we did it!

 

Day 38 & 39: Christmas Chiles

Peanut's good day yesterday may have been too much, or the eye of the storm, or something. Whatever it was, he woke up feeling pretty poor again. We made some breakfast and took care of our morning chores (filling water bottles with ice, which we do at any convenience store, getting ready for the day, using the bathroom. . . )and then started to drive.

This has definitely been a test the past few days. We've got to stay strong!

We let Peanut have the front seat, hoping to not trigger his motion sickness on top of whatever else is going on.

Made it to Santa Fe, land of the Chile Ristras. We'd decided to book a hotel as soon as we came into town and were so happy that we were able to get in right away. We thought Peanut could use a more comfortable place to hang out for a day while he hopefully recovered. So we left Peanut with the Food Network and Daddy-o and I went out for a date.

We walked into the historic section of Santa Fe. It's such a unique city.

Visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.

It was beautiful inside.

And enjoyed all of the sculptures.

And the Christmas decorations--it's fun to see something so distinct from this particular place.

We got lunch at The Shed and had amazing tacos and enchiladas. It's in a cool old hacienda.

We were looking for an ornament and found these beautiful hand-crafted ornaments. This woman has been making sand art for 44 years and her designs are so intricate.

The Hilton Club Vacation Villas was the perfect place for a little recovery time. It was a great price for a one bedroom with a kitchen. 

We went to the hot tub, used the free laundry facilities, and played a few games of pool. After Peanut continued to randomly throw up through the day, we extended for another night and started reshaping the last few days of the trip. We were at the point that we just needed to be home as soon as we could get Peanut in the van again.

So, on the second day, the boys opted to stay at the hotel and watch TV (Daddy-o may have had a touch of what Peanut was suffering from because he was pretty low energy for a couple of days.) I ran to the grocery store first, to get us some food for the day.

And then, I went for a long walk and stopped by the big market, looking for Christmas gifts. Decided to get my mom a chile ristra and found a couple other small things. We didn't make it to some of the other historical places that I would have liked to visit, but we did get a taste of the southwest.

Day 37: Palo Duro Canyon

We did not get the early start I'd hoped for our visit to Palo Duro Canyon, but considering that we had no idea if Peanut would even be up to hiking, it didn't necessarily matter as much. But it was a rough morning. Although we did get the van cleaned up. I love how fast we can vacuum and wipe things down and reset the van. Of course, it gets undone just as quickly, haha.

And then, we finally made it to the canyon! This is one of the biggest canyons in the U.S. and it's been on my radar for awhile. Peanut and I planned to hike here last year on our way back from the eclipse in Dallas, but it was pouring that day and so we skipped it. I was glad that we made it this time!

Because of the late start, it was lunch time by the time we made it down into the canyon. Luckily, it was a nice day so we decided to use the picnic tables. Getting out of the van is always nice. As much as I love it, sometimes it's more of a means to the adventures, not necessarily where 3 people want to spend their days.

After we were all fueled, we went on a hike.

We managed a 3 mile, fairly flat hike through the bottom of the canyon.

Peanut was feeling the best he has in days.

And we enjoyed exploring the textures.

And the striations.

We didn't make it all the way to Lighthouse Rock, but we got to the viewpoint on the trail (you can see it off in the distance.)

Seriously, the layering in this park is so cool.

After that hike, we drove a little farther and visited the Big Cave.

At this point in the trip, I'd say we could all use some interactions with other people to balance out all of the family togetherness, haha, but we were just glad that Peanut was out of the car and sort of happier.

This rock reminds me a lot of Bryce Canyon when we saw it with snow. But another look at it:

It's like a perfect replica of a full-size canyon!

While we were there, we took some footage of the van for Bug who wanted to use it for the Christmas short the kids make each year. And we decided to pop into the campground for showers. It had been a few days, and we thought it might make Peanut feel better. They didn't really have an option to pay for showers, so we were a little worried about someone coming through and kicking us out the whole time, but the hot shower felt great!

And then it was time to go. We drove about 3 hours to Santa Rosa, NM where we fixed dinner at a truck stop, and then ended up staying the night. It was late, they had room for overnight parking, and we wanted to get back on the road first thing, so it just made sense.