we just finished up a whirlwind week in santa fe, where my mom and terry flew in to stay with their friend david/dash, who moved away from their hood a few years ago. we met them saturday and quickly made our way to the plaza in downtown santa fe. we were pretty much starving, so […]
bandelier national monument

warning. this post contains a billion (or 46) photos. and i exercised great restraint while choosing. i promise. on saturday morning, we departed from the walmart albuquerque and headed to a campground in santa fe. my mom had flown out the day before and was staying with her friend dash from horseshoe lake, batavia, ny. […]
albuquerque day (explora and breaking bad).

for our spontaneous one day stay in albuquerque, i was faced with a pressing decision. free science museum OR petroglyph national monument. since we had already seen a bunch of petroglyphs at three rivers and had just visited a national monument the day before, i figured the kids wouldn’t be super excited about petroglyph that […]
salinas pueblo missions national monument.

we took a slight detour on our drive from oliver lee to the walmart parking lot in albuquerque to visit the salinas pueblo missions national park. there are three mission ruins locations and a visitor center in the middle of them all. i had hoped to hit all three spots, but only two were on […]
oliver lee state park.week two.

our second week at oliver lee state park (alamogordo) was pretty low-key. we kicked it off with easter sunday. the kids had already had an egg hunt and eaten all of their candy, so all they had left by way of gifts and celebrations was a basket with a couple of toys. it’s pretty hard […]
dog canyon trail.

today (i’m almost all caught up!!!), i abandoned my family, and headed up the very same mountain that we have been staring at out our camper door all week. here i am, all ready to go. the entire hike is 5.1 miles out and up. and then 5.1 miles back and down. i wasn’t sure […]
three rivers petroglyhs (mostly).

yesterday (saturday), we took a family excursion to three rivers petroglyph site, about an hour north of our campsite. so, naturally, on the way, we stopped for a ginormous breakfast. and then we were off for adventures. three rivers petroglyphs is on BLM (bureau of land management) land. it contains over 21,000 petroglyphs (carved rock […]
oliver lee state park. week one.

we are halfway through our two week stay at oliver lee state park in alamogordo, new mexico. it’s one of the better locations we have found ourselves at, in terms of the view. it’s a state park, so we don’t have sewer hookups, which mean bath houses and trips to the dump station and extreme […]
cloud climbing rail trail.

somehow. last week. i convinced the two bigger lidkids to go on a three mile hike in lincoln national forest. i did a little research and found a loop that went down into a canyon a bit, then up to an old railroad trestle and then back down further, before back up to the top. […]
white sands national monument. part two.

on monday, after working on their junior ranger workbooks, the big kids and i went back over to white sands, so they could finish them up and get their badges. while they wandered around and identified plants and their uses to early inhabitants of the area, i snapped a pic of the visitor center sign, […]