originally, we had planned to stay in a state park this week. we arrived, only to discover it was nestled in a narrow canyon. it was really beautiful, but internet was scarce. and by scarce, i mean non-existent. which doesn’t work for us, because derek has to work to support this lifestyle. so, we had […]
national parks
pecos national historical park.
on our travel day to exotic (sarcasm) springer, new mexico, we stopped for a field trip to pecos national historical park. it is yet another pueblo ruin, once inhabited by local native folks, who were taken over and run off by europeans in the 1500s-ish. we stopped in the visitor center to pick up some […]
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. […]
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 […]
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, […]
white sands national monument.part one.
saturday morning, before we were even to our campsite, we decided to head to white sands national monument. basically, its a giant area of sand dunes, made from fine white gypsum sand. we picked up some sleds at walmart and we were good to go. white sand. blue sky. hazel wasn’t a huge fan of […]
guadalupe mountains national park.
on sunday, we woke up bright and early, ready for our second adventure of the weekend. this time, we drove past carlsbad caverns into texas, where guadalupe mountains national park is another 30 minutes down the road. (technically carlsbad caverns national park is in the guadalupe mountain range). guadalupe mountains is home to the highest […]
carlsbad caverns national park.
after our last adventure in big bend, we made our way north to new mexico, where we are staying just north of carlsbad. a stomach bug made its way through our family, so we had a very low key week, but this weekend, fully recovered, we were ready for some adventures. on saturday, we hit […]
big bend. hot springs canyon.
warning. this post is at least 50% pictures of anna posing with beautiful landscapes… so, in my last post, i said that the kids wanted to go back to the hot springs. i managed to convince anna to hike there with me this time, instead of drive to the quick little path. she could earn […]