Ok. So here goes a long post. I'll even be nice and put part of it in an extended entry.
The trip up there was relatively uneventful compared to the rest of the week. We left on Saturday morning around 9:10 and spent 20 minutes at Bodacious waiting on them to get me the meat I had ordered the night before. I was bringing my father a belated Father's Day Gift--brisket and ribs. It was worth waiting a bit though because I was informed that I had been overcharged the night before and thus received some cash back. It made me happy.
So around 9:30 Josh and I were on the road going South towards my older brother's because we would be traveling with he and his wife Amanda. We got there a bit later than expected but all was good. Eric and Josh packed the Blazer up and than we were off to Palestine for a bite to eat before getting headed north and west. We ate at El Toro, one of the favorite Mexican restaurants and had some yummy enchiladas. Alas though, we didn't get really going until around 1:45. A later start than we preferred as we still had to make it to Amarillo. We drove and drove, realizing that we wouldn't make dinner at Amanda's grandparents'. Thus, we had a small bite to eat--knowing she still would have food for us anyways, and arrived in Amarillo around 10:00. Still having to drive across Amarillo, we hit a major rainstorm and gratefully made it to the house at 10:30 p.m to corn beef, fresh cantaloupe, and good iced tea. Amanda opened some birthday presents because it was her birthday--this long day we had spent on the road. After this, we all headed to bed because we were only halfway through with our journey to Lake City, Colorado.
Waking up a bit early the next morning, we ate breakfast and actually made it on the road by the desired time of 8 a.m. Settled in, we decided to stop at Capulin Volanco Monument (New Mexico) to see if the wildflowers had bloomed yet because Amanda loves wildflowers. Unfortunately, they weren't. But it did give us a chance to stretch our legs a bit. All continued to go well as we ate lunch in Trinidad, Colorado and decided to take the scenic route over to Lake City--it only added about a half hour, maybe an hour. It was quite a pretty stretch of road from Trinidad to La Veta. I struggled to stay awake for all of it, but failed miserably as all the pretty stuff was best viewed out the rear window on the left side--on which had been done a bad job of tinting as the film had shriveled or something and we couldn't really see.
Outside of Alamosa, we ran into a sandstorm and witnessed the creation of either two really nasty dust devils, or two low-grade tornadoes. Whatever they were, we didn't want to stay around and check. The last three hours of driving to our destination were uneventful and we happily rolled into the G&M Cabins, which my parents manage, in time for them to heat up the Bodacious for a late dinner. We chatted and caught up, ate, were generally entertained by my 18-month old nephew and my 8 months pregnant sister who looked only about 6 and a half months pregnant. We also talked over the general idea of what we would do the rest of the week.
It was time for bed again. Josh was lucky enough to stay in the empty nice cabin for the next few days. Eric, Amanda, and I were staying at my parent's other house. I had the whole loft and upstairs bathroom to myself there. But we weren't to spend a whole lot of time here anyways.
I was planning on trying to sleep a bit the next morning sent Monday was to be spent basically being bums around town. Eric, Kirk, and my dad were going out to Camp Redcloud to fix the garbage truck and other stuff. Failing to be awake enough to ride with Eric and Amanda over to the G&M--a whole five blocks--(Amanda was on crutches for the first part of the week having torn ligaments in her ankle a few weeks before), I walked over around 8 and ate some breakfast--from which Caedin (nephew), kept coming over to get a few bites. But anyways, Josh wasn't awake yet so Amanda, Jennie (my cousin), Karin, Caedin, and I walked over to the coffee shop one street behind us and talked and laughed for a bit over mochas. We came back an hour later to find Josh awake and decided to drive out to camp a little while later so as to see the guys and show Amanda around a little bit. Karin visited with a few old friends and we also toured a bit of the downstairs of Moncrief Lodge--which the camp now owns for family camp use. My dad was fixing the dishwasher there. From there, all of us being rather hungry, we decided to order some Poker Alice pizzas and pick them up to eat at the G&M when we rolled back into town. So after driving back to town and being annoyed by the bicyclists hogging the lane, I picked up our Bacon Cheeseburger and Cannibal pizzas and we sat outside at the cabins eating pizza and such.
Josh and I decided to wander around town and pick up a few things. We found some cheaper knives and gifts for friends at Guatemala Mike's, shipped off a packaged to a special friend in Georgia, had a late snack of ice cream at San Juan Soda Co., and browsed the little bookstore--picking up some mystery grab bags. Josh wanted a little nap, so he went to take one while Karin and I went to see if my mom was close to being off work. Because there had been a brief power outage that afternoon, she had to work late and we decided to walk around for awhile outside--picking up Josh our our way. We arrived back at the cabins hungry and ready for food. After a late dinner, we watched Calendar Girls which Eric and Amanda had brought my mom for a belated mother's day gift. It was rather entertaining and amusing. Plans were than made to meet up to get a hopefully early start on the Alpine Loop the next day.
The Alpine Loop is a 30-40 miles jeeping trail which goes through Lake City and Silverton over Cinnamon and Engineer Passes. It also has American Basin where one might be lucky enough to spot the fields in bloom.
We arrived for breakfast again the next morning and plans to take my dad's suburban and Kirk's blazer over the loop. Even Karin was planning on going rather than spending the day alone--she wasn't technically supposed to go over 10,000 feet in elevation. We started rather late since Dad had a few things to do first but all was still rather good. We started by going up to American Basin only to find few wildflowers, but Caedin enjoyed throwing rocks into the river. Than it was up over Cinnamon and down to Silverton for lunch at Handlebars. We had snowball fights from truck to truck at the top of C. Pass and Kirk put a nasty dent into his right fender. Dad had been going rather slowly in front of us in Kirk's truck..but then he became hungry for food so the drive sped up a bit into the little town. Lunch was good--Kirk, Josh, and Jennie ate the Rocky Mountain Oysters of a "nutty and tender" flavor. The rest of us chose not to eat them being psychologically disgusted by the idea.
We left Silverton a little while later and hope to avoid the usual afternoon rainstorm at Engineer's Pass. We were lucky enough to do so, but much of the good view wasn't good because of the fog and clouds blocking us from seeing the valleys below. Kirk enjoyed himself driving, but on our way back into town, we were all ready to get out of the truck and not be in motion. So, we worked our way back in and finally were able to get out and enjoy the fresh air. Josh and I picked up some coffee shakes and went to go get my mom from work while the others were at the ice cream shop and than the park with Caedin. We had fajitas for dinner and watched Big Fish and than went back to bed planning to be bums again the next day.
The interesting thing of Wednesday morning was that we went to the museum. Amanda was braving life without crutches. The museum...well, it was Lake City. I didn't like the fact that the hatchet with the butcher display was sharpened--course, a person isn't supposed to touch the displays--but this was hanging above my head, sharpened. Think of the children! It was something to keep us amused for awhile though. Lunch was spent at the A& A Pasta Factory--run by real Italians. It was some good food. The owner gave my dad, his "super super super super super super super friend" a free little glass of expensive wine. According to my dad, and those who managed sips, it was some good stuff. It smelled good at least to me. I enjoyed my meatball sandwhich and Dr. Pepper.
The afternoon was spent just walking, drinking Poker Alice coffee, talking, and stuff. That evening, we attended The Last Trial of Alferd Packer. Packer was the trail guide who was accused of killing and eating all his companions. He was convicted twice (having escaped hanging the first time by a technicality) and paroled after 17 years in prison. The play took place in the county courthouse and 11 audience members were selected as jury members. I really enjoyed it and it is all based (I'm pretty sure at least) off new historical evidence and facts. The play is written to convince someone of Packer's innocence. At any rate, it was quite good and we left the courthouse to witness a huge double rainbow over the mountains. It was stunning! I hope my picture does it justice when I get the film developed. We than left with hungry stomachs to eat steaks that my dad grilled to perfection. The movie of the night was Minority Report but the most amusing event happened when it was time to get Caedin ready for bed. I was helping to change his diaper and after getting his clothes and diaper off, he put up a fight when we tried to put the clean one on. After scrambling out of reach, he planted his feet and bent over with his hands on the floor and screamed. We all laughed. It was such an amusing sight to have the little nude Caedin standing there mooning those of us on the couch. We finally held him down and Karin took him to bed. Plans were made for the next day since Karin had to get to the airport in Montrose--an hour and a half away or so.
I'd been really wanting to get to Ouray again, so Karin and I finally had everybody convinced to go by Thursday morning. Ouray has a huge hot springs pool subdivided into sections based on temperature and activity. It's also a rather cute mountain tourist town. So my dad, Eric, Amanda, Karin, Caedin, Josh, and I all piled into the suburban the next morning after breakfast at Poker Alice and drove to Ouray. We relaxed in the giant hot tub and had fun going from a colder section to the warmer section. It was good for my knees which had been acting up all week. The noontime was approaching, so we got out and went to find lunch. After driving through Ouray to give Amanda a good glimpse, we settled on a sandwhich place. More good food! Than it was time to take Karin and Caedin to the airport. But first, we needed to make a short stop at Wal-Mart for bottled water and something. While Dad is inside getting what we need, the phone rings. Eric answers. It is Kirk. Apparently, the guy who mowed hit the gas valve or something so that gas had been leaking inside a cabin (propane gas). The gas lit up from the flames on the hot water heater and the hot water heater caught fire. Luckily, they heard the smoke detector go off so they shut off the gas and Kirk put out the fire with the extinguisher. The water heater either needed replacing or repairing. Since we were in Montrose, Dad could just pick up a new one--which we did after the airport stop. It was a good thing, the one that caught fire was black up one side. We rolled back into town in time for dinner and Eric convinced us that we wanted to eat at the Crystal Lodge. My parents were fine with this and thus we went. I had the trout--best trout I have ever had in my life and it went well with the grape juice. I also had a piece of Turtle Fudge Cake, polished off with my mom's grape juice since the stuff hurts her stomach. The chocolate cake was so moist! I drool just thinking about it. After relaxing for awhile there and my dad going to inspect a water leak, it was time to leave. It was so quiet without Caedin now. We needed to get an early start the next morning and still had packing to do, so we headed back to the other house for packing and sleeping after arranging to have breakfast the next morning.
Unfortunately, we didn't get as early a start as we wished. We had hoped to leave around 8, but we didn't get out until 830 or so. Amanda wanted to see what the cheap lodging in Taos was like that she had found on the internet, so we decided to make a detour through Taos. We figured out what route to take and off we went. Amanda wanted to find a Chama t-shirt for her sister, so we made a "short" stop at a gift shop we found. They got held up in buying something, so it wasn't as short as desired. But we got back on the road and continued on. Well, mountain miles are far different from straight plains miles, so it took a bit longer to get to Taos than we thought. We were all really hungry, so we opted to go to lunch first and than head back to check thing lodging near the slopes. Michael's Kitchen had been recommended to us by the people at the gift shop. They deserve something for that recommendation. I had really good French Toast made with fresh-baked bread. I also had some of the others' sopapillas. Oh those were so good. Best I have had yet in my life. Finally, we headed back to the ski valley and couldn't find it on our first shot, but tried one other turn and found what we were looking for. Oh my. Trailers, tents, chickens, a peacock and mismatched buildings. Eric and Amanda went inside to try to find the owner. They crossed the place off the list as possible locales to stay at. We laughed our way out of town. In order to try to shave off more time, Amanda and I decided that we should try this New Mexico state road that looked to drop us down to I-40 instead of driving back to Clayton and taking 87/287 back to Amarillo. It was a good thing. I elected to drive from Cimarron this new route. I discovered that the Blazer was a squirly driving truck and I think I made my brother nervous as I fought to keep control of the strange steering. I decided that I really disliked driving this vehicle. I made note of a few odd things--such as odd acceleration but we figured it to be me being disfamiliar with the vehicle. We discovered what the real problem was later. When we finally got down to the interstate, I pulled off to let Josh drive because my arms hurt from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I was counting the miles down to Amarillo and dinner when I noticed a strong smell and Josh asked about white smoke as I looked into the mirror. We pulled off and quickly got out of the car--Eric was afraid it was about to blow up. It didn't (thankfully) but I noticed a nastly leak near the bottom--a combination of different fluids. We decided to drive slowly to the nearest open gas station for transmission fluid. The transmission was toast. It's fluid was black. We filled it up and slowly made our way into Amarillo on a slightly shaken note. Good food--steak, corn, bread, fried okra, awaited us and Eric and Amanda made up a plan of what to do the next morning. We had a few different options. But first, we needed to sleep.
I woke up to phone calls to various dealerships advertising suburbans. Eric and Amanda had been looking to buy for the last month anyways and trade in their own two cars. We drove to one promising looking dealership and found a red 4WD suburban within their price range. It looked in mostly good condition and ran quite well. Eric talked to the guy while we went to see if there were any other suburbans for sale. We didn't find any. We got back to find that Eric and Amanda couldn't decide about the trade-in value offered. I was personally, and silently, rooting that they go for it because I didn't trust the Blazer to get back and it seemed to be dragging things out by leaving it in Amarillo until who knows when to be fixed. Amanda's granddad was encouraging them also and offered to help with the down payment so as to reduce their monthly payments on the new one. After some discussion, they decided to go for it and Eric went in to sign the papers. After a bit, we unloaded the Blazer and loaded the suburban with all the luggage and stuff and than waited some more while they dealt with the financing paperwork. Finally, we headed back for lunch at Amanda's grandparents and got on the road around 1:30. First we had to pack in two ice chests and three boxes of food plus a few bags of other things from Amanda's grandmother who loves to shop sales for her family and friends. Far later than we would have liked but in a nice ride now--Josh and I didn't have to scramble in and out of the 2 door Blazer now and had more leg room in the back. It took awhile because we opted to drive within an acceptable speed limit range to avoid getting pulled over with the 4th. Dinner was at Braum's as was dessert. I've never had ice cream that cheap before anywhere. We got two ice cream cones for less than the price of one at Marble Slab! Than it was back on the road for three hours more till Eric's We decided again to change routes through Fort Worth/Dallas and other than getting sidetracked a bit after a map misread, it did seem to ride smoother and go a little faster than taking 287 all the way down to Grapeland. We finally made it to Eric's at 1030, seeing a few scattered fireworks and the line of traffic headed back from the big show in Grapeland. Apparently it draws a fairly big crowd with a major bluegrass festival and stuff. We unloaded the suburban and packed our stuff into the 4runner, and took some of the food from Amanda's grandmother off their hands since they don't have a lot of time to cook in the summer with the camp and all. Finally, we got onto the road at 1100 p.m. I had originally planned to stay if we couldn't leave before 10, but I just wanted to get back (not as much as Josh). So, we headed out and took things a bit slower than normal since there were more cops and idiots out on the roads. We called in one Cougar that was definitely being driven by someone a little more than tipsy and we saw plenty of cops who had other pulled over. Going the speed limit took us an extra half hour or so, but we finally got to LU around 115 in the morning. We unloaded and made our way to bed. I opted to take my shower after sleeping and did so after a long 12 hours of beautiful sleep.
and thus, my brief description of our trip to Colorado. Things went rather well with the whole family--no major fights or anything and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Hard to believe Karin will have two kids soon. My family is growing and we are getting old.---er. My parents are still trying to decide what they are going to be doing after this summer. I just hope they don't work themselves too hard. My dad looks so tired. It has been a good week and I'm glad I still have tomorrow off before going back to work. I need to readjust to the schedule and stuff again.--although I kept waking up early in the morning all week since I was used to it and an hour behind Central Time. It was rather annoying. Anyways, it's also nice to be back now and making rather than spending money. Goodnight all. I have blogs yet to read!
Posted by Anna at July 4, 2004 04:05 PM | TrackBack