There's no place like home!!

We made it!! 5,575 miles later we are home!!!

Of course, we are leaving for Austin in the morning. No, I'm not joking, we have TASA (Texas Asso. of School Administrators) Conference and dinner plans with several superintendents tomorrow night! However, it is nice to be home and to be able to unpack and relax for a bit. We've already done 4 loads of laundry and unpacked a few bags. It'll take a week to get it all put away!

Scott asked the kids in the car if they were sad to be going home. Thomas said yes, and so did Grace until she asked if she had to go to school on Monday. When we explained that no, she was still out of school, then I think she was glad to be home! They both sat down in the living room floor and emptied their backpacks together, comparing all the souvenirs they bought along the way. Then, Scott called a family meeting upstairs and we put pins in the map in all the different places we visited. The kids LOVED this!We all had a fantastic time!! Yes, we had our ups and downs, but we would have had those even if we'd stayed at home. Yes, we would do it all again. In fact, Thomas and Scott have already planned out the road trip for next year! They want to go to straight up to Chicago, through Michigan, Toronto, Indiana, northern New York up to Niagara Falls. We'll see if that plan sticks!

Scott and I both agree that traveling East is much more pleasant. The drives between destinations are much shorter than those long drives through the desert and the plains. There are places that we visited this time that we will definitely return to however. Yosemite for certain and the YMCA of the Rockies at Estes Park. I would like to go back to Hearst Castle and do the other three tours! I'm sure that's a long shot though since it's near absolutely nothing! We also decided that the really big cities like L.A. and San Francisco and New York last year, are the hardest on these road trips. The traffic is always difficult and they are really hard to get around with kids.

It's amazing how much the kids learn on these trips. This year we took along scrapbooks that they worked in each night at the hotel. It's really more of a journal. Every night they wrote and illustrated their favorite thing or things we did that day. They taped in postcards, admission tickets and things from the day. In my opinion, these are the coolest souvenirs we have of the trip!

As always we will continue to blog....just not daily!! We are headed on our annual Padre Island family beach vacation next month and we have a long weekend planned in D.C. in August. After that it'll be time for school to start and another summer of Milder travel over! Whew!

Thank you so much to each and every one of you who left comments on the blog or emailed us on the road. The kids loved knowing that you were all following along and looked forward to reading them everyday. That connection to all of you while being so far away was appreciated by all of us. We are blessed to have such wonderful family and friends!!

Blessings,

Leslie

Day 22-Dodge City to Edmond, OK

After we checked out this morning we headed over to the old west replica of Dodge City. It's not like Tombstone where it's all still authenic. Everything here is a reproduction. They have a museum with the history of Dodge City. At the end you can go outside to Boot Hill. It was a bit of a let down after Tombstone.
We intenionally hung around to she the gun show. We ordered lunch from the saloon and sat ourside on the picnic tables so we could watch the reenactment. It started at noon and at 12:03 it was over! The shortest "show" ever. After that we "got the heck out of Dodge!" We drove past several more stinky cow factories along the way. Not long after leaving Dodge we started seeing these really strange looking trees...As we drove on we realized we were in Greenberg, Kansas. The site of the F5 tornado that hit last month. There is virtually nothing left standing, it's wiped the town off the map. It was so sad to see. It reminded me of driving through the gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina.

After this we headed on into Edmond, Ok where we spent the night with our cousins, Scott and Patty Conrad. The kids had a WONDERFUL time playing together and swimming.
It was midnight before they went to sleep! We had a wonderful visit and we are all really looking forward to our week in South Padre together.

We left around noon and met Nick for lunch in Norman before heading for HOME!!!

Blessings,

Leslie

Estes Park to Dodge City, KS

We were all a little sad to get up this morning and have to load up and leave Estes Park. All except Mandy, who entertained herself while we were packing by pretending to drive us to Kansas! We stopped at "The Donut Haus" on the way out of town and if we had only known how unbelievable their donuts were, we'd have been there the last three mornings! The young lady working there suggested we take highway 7 to Boulder instead of the more traveled highway. She said it was the same distance, but much more scenic. And, boy was she right!! It was breathtaking! I think what I can't get over is how your driving through the mountains, covered with pine trees and all of a sudden out of nowhere is this rushing river. We found a place to pull off that we could wade in it! The kids had a wonderful time and we got some fantastic pictures.

They had the best time jumping from rock to rock. The water was freezing and they all had little red feet when they got out! It was so pretty down by the water, there were butterflies of all colors flying around. I keep posting pictures of the rivers and mountains and canyons we've seen on this trip, but the "grandness" of it can't be captured by a camera. I take the pictures and then look at them later, and it just never seems to capture what it's really like.

After our splash in the river, we headed on to Boulder. After all the Anti-Bush stuff we've seen in some of the shops here, our impression of Boulder and Colorado was that of a pretty liberal, anti-Bush, Democrat city. So, imagine our surprise to find this car in front of us at a red light... Yes....there are Republicans in Boulder, CO. Not only did they have a Bush sticker, but the other one says, "I support our troops by boycotting the liberal news media."

After Boulder we went to Denver. Those of you who know me well, know what we saw there! Yep...the state capitol. It's gourgeous. After the Utah and Wyoming capitol buildings, I wasn't getting my hopes up. But, this one from the moment you walked in "felt" like a capitol. Imagine my surprise when we overheard the tour guide explain that the architect who designed it was the same one who designed the Texas capitol. As Thomas noted on the way in, "it's granite too, just not pink granite like ours." There is ton's of marble and gold...very ornate. We headed up to see the House chamber and took a few pictures. I love how much the kids like the capitol buildings. Mandy has asked each time we've gotten out of the car at one, "I go capitol, see Gigi and Papaw??" I think she thinks dad works at all the capitols. Thomas wants to go up to the Speakers rostrum everytime because he's been up on the one at the Texas capitol and he doesn't really get yet what a big deal that is! He can't understand why they won't let him go up there! The rotunda was stikingly similar to Texas. Of course ours is bigger!!

After Denver we headed out on the longest, straightest highway I've ever been on. If you'll notice the truck in the picture below....we passed him on five separate occasions today! Scott would pass him, then someone would need a potty stop, or once we were pulled over by the Colorado highway patrol for doing 72 in a 65, and the truck would pass us. Then Scott would have to pass him all over again. Today was a really long drive, with nothing but tiny little towns with one gas station...if you were lucky. We weren't ever really sure when we hit Kansas, as the highway we were on had no state line or "Welcome to Kansas" sign.

However, once we did realize we were in Kansas was about when the stink began. Yes, Kansas stinks...literally. We passed several slaughter houses, or "cow factories" as Scott calls them. There is no stink quite like that! This is pretty much how we drove through Kansas today...

Scott wanted it noted here, on the blog, that we hit the 5000 mile mark today. He even took a picture of the trip odometer for you....

We are in Dodge City, Kansas tonight, our last night in a hotel. Scott is pretty excited about that! Tomorrow we are headed to Edmond, OK to stop and visit with my cousins, Scott and Patty. I think we are all really looking forward to being some place familiar! The kids can't wait to play with their cousins, Colton, Parker and Hudson.

Thomas's Top Five:

1. "Playing in the river."

2. "Skipping rocks"

3. "Seeing the capitol."

4. "Seeing the House chamber." Yes, that is exactly what he said....he does me proud!!

5. "Hopping from rock to rock in the river."

Grace's Top Five:

1. "I liked playing in the river."

2. "I like the gold on top of the state captiol."

3. "Skipping rocks"

4. "Freezing my feet off in the river."

5. "Going from rock to rock."

We are finally back in the central time zone, so if I don't head to bed I'm going to be all messed up tomorrow!

Blessings,

Leslie

YMCA of the Rockies!!

This morning Scott took Thomas and Grace to the dining hall for breakfast, while Mandy and I were lazy and stayed in bed! When they came back, we all headed for the stables. Scott, Thomas and Grace went on a one hour trail ride into Rocky Mountain National Park. I took Mandy on a pony ride there at the stables. Mandy's horse's name was Strawberry and she was a little afraid at first, but the young man that worked at the stables whispered in her ear and told her to give Mandy the best pony ride ever, and after that Mandy was fine!Thomas and Grace had the best time! It's all they could talk about for the rest of the day!! Scott enjoyed it too.

After the horseback riding we came back to the cabin for lunch. While we were having lunch the guy came to collect the trash. They do this daily so that the bears and racoons don't get into it. Scott took what we had out to him because we had some poopy diapers that he really wanted out of the cabin and said so. Mandy just went off! She had this huge colossal fit, laid down in the floor screaming,"Bring my poopy diaper back!" She got even more irate when we all laughed hysterically and took her picture. She's definitely hit the terrible two's!After this we went into town for a bit. As you can imagine we were very thankful when she conked out in the stroller! We had supper, shopped for a bit and then headed back to the cabin. The kids practiced their archery for a bit and then headed to the pool.

This place is really cool and we will definitately be coming back here. You really could spend your entire stay here at the YMCA and never leave the property there is so much to do! I had three of the dirtiest kids you've ever seen today. In fact, when Mandy had her huge fit, she had mud streaks down her face from her tears! But, that's what so awesome about this place....kids get to play hard, ride horses, dig in the dirt, fish, hike and be as dirty as they want! They were all asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow tonight.

Thomas's Top Five:

1." Horseback riding"

2. "The name of my horse. 'Cuz his name was Shotgun!"

3. "I liked learning how to ride and using my heel to make the horse go."

4. "Getting a new knife."

5. "Getting ice cream."

Grace's Top Five:

1. " the trail ride."

2. "I liked the name of my horse because it was Princess."

3. "Riding the horse of the cliff!"

4. "Archery"

5. "Swimming."

Tomorrow we leave the Rockies :( and are headed to Dodge City, Kansas.

Blessings,

Leslie

Estes Park

This morning we slept in and woke up to the cool mountain air blowing through the windows. We had to sleep with the windows open because the Stanley doesn't have air conditioning. It reminded me of sleeping on what we called "the sleeping porch" at my grandmother's house when I was a little girl. We had a beautiful oval window in our bathroom at the hotel. It opened, had no screen and this was the view from it...

While Scott loaded the car I took the kids to play at the waterfall in the courtyard one last time.

We loved our stay at The Stanley and would highly recommend it to anyone. And, I am happy to report that we had no ghostly activity during the night! Since it was only 11:00 we didn't think that our cabin at the YMCA would be ready yet, but we wanted to stop in and get the list of activities for the week. But, to our surprise, they let us check in early! We have a two bedroom cabin that is adorable. You know, you never know what your getting when you book a cabin, but these are very nice and very clean. There are a million activities to do here at the Y. Today we just laid around, checked out the grounds, and let the kids play at the park.

After their time at the park, Mandy and Scott had a nap! We headed into town for dinner at a great pizza place and then hit the grocery store. After we got back the kids went on a hike with Scott and then a drive to look for wild animals! Tomorrow we are scheduled to all go horseback riding at 4:00. We haven't decided yet what else is on the agenda!

Blessings,

Leslie