On The Road Again...

We hit the road back to Texas and I tried to get a million pictures of the beautiful mountains in Utah, and I think I succeeded!

 Abby trying to kill some time by putting the arm chair covers of her booster seat, on her feet. "Look, at my slippers mom!" What a goof!

Wilson Arch in Utah

 A very nice lady chased us halfway up to offer to take our picture together. So nice of her! And she was from Texas, here's a fun fact, every single person that offered to take our picture was from Texas. No kidding, Texans are nice like that.

 The hike up looked pretty easy from the car, you know the saying "looks can be deceiving".  We were deceived by Wilson Arch!!! It was harder than we thought but not totally terrible, nothing like doing a little hike to reaffirm the fact that you are out of shape! 

 But it was worth it for those, pretty views!

 Next up Durango Colorado

 I should've edited these photos a bit, but it was such a pretty day and everything looked so green!

 We stayed the night in Durango, which has the Animas river running through it, we were there when the EPA (apparently attempting to clean up a gold mine) caused massive contamination of the river turning it a nasty yellow or orange color. We ate lunch at a park that had the Animas river running through it, and the area next to the river was roped off with a giant sign saying the river was closed. Where we were it wasn't yellow, but it's all we heard about while there and it had a pretty big impact on the region. Great clean up job EPA (that was sarcasm)! ;)

 Then went to Mesa Verde National Park what an awesome place! I really loved it!

 The kids completed the requirements for the junior ranger program and got an official badge and everything. They earned it by learning about the Natives in the region and there habits and way of life. I think this is something you can do at all National Parks, we saw a little boy that had a badge from at least 20 different parks.  This was at the museum at the top of the trail where you could learn all about the Cliff Dwellers..

 We hiked down to one of the cliff dwellings, I can't remember now which one this is, because there are several in the area, this is the only one we hiked too though. It was so interesting! I was so impressed at not only the structures inside the cliff and how well built they were but also sort of amazed about the location of the cave, we had a nice little paved path to walk on to get there. And it's in such an obscure location.  So how the Indians even knew it was there and got there in the first place is pretty amazing.  

You can see how the cave ceiling is burned, that's where the kitchens were so to speak..

 We were told that these upper rooms likely held food and other goods 

and rooms for different family groups, but in the ground of the cave were Kiva's which were small round rooms that were likely used for religious practices.

No we didn't turn into demons once we entered the Kiva, that's just the flash and weird lighting. Ha!

 I didn't get any pictures but the Pre-Pueblo/ Anasazi/cliff dwelling people made beautiful baskets and clay pots. They would cover their baskets with a tree sap of some kind that would act as a sealant so they could use them to gather food and even water too. 

 Then we drove to Amarillo and stayed over night, I discovered that Palo Duro Canyon is about 25 miles south of Amarillo and wanted to go check it out. Not really knowing anything about it, we discovered it's the 2nd Largest Canyon in the U.S. You would never suspect that such a thing was in Amarillo! It's totally flat farm land and then BOOM giant canyon!

It was really quite pretty with the red dirt and green trees and brush. It was HOT but really pretty. So we drove down the the bottom of the canyon and had a late lunch, early dinner at the little store/cafe. And just drove around. Alex was funny and kept talking about rattlesnakes, like it would be cool to go camping there but I bet there's a bunch of rattlesnakes, I wanted to go walk along a trail but couldn't because Alex said they're might be rattlesnakes, and we saw a boy scout camp just outside the canyon and he was worried for the boys because of rattlesnakes! My big tough guy husband apparently is scared of rattlesnakes.

Not sure what's happening here, but whatever it is it's pretty funny!

And then we made it home that night about 1am, Alex was so funny. He was so tired and sick of driving that he wanted to stay in the Woodlands at a hotel. THE WOODLANDS...Like 15 minutes from home. I think he was delirious. But we made it safe and sound and I really loved our little road trip. The kids did great and we got to see some really cool stuff we probably wouldn't normally get to see. I love adventures!