Meeting friends, old and new

We've been out in the hinterland for most of this vacation, but we have had the chance to meet up with a few boxers. Many thanks to Alamocito for showing us the wonders of Aztec National Monument and many thanks to the great Santa Fe boxers (and their partners) for showing us the wonders of New Mexican food (although we already knew that).

I like meeting other boxers, but the circumstances have to work out. This vacation, we've had to balance what each and every one of us wanted to do, so sometimes letterboxing has been at the bottom of the pile.

In general, I've found that I much prefer meeting in a small group. I am a social person, but I don't enjoy huge crowds. This has come up in gatherings too. I think I prefer a gathering of no more than 50 people, so that I can have time to box, time to chat with folks I know, and time to meet new friends too. I actually retired all my personal travelers because I felt sort of overwhelmed with them at large gatherings. A slew of people would come up to me, list in hand, and as soon as they got the PT image, they were off. I don't blame them; someone else was waiting and they had more PTs and exchanges to get, but it didn't prompt any discussion or getting to know you conversation. I just wasn't enjoying that aspect of the hobby, so I cut it out. I may add some back in, goodness knows I have a backlog of stamps perfect for PTs.

Anyway, just a note for those of you waiting for clues to the Carver's Castle. I'm still on vacation, but I've had a chance to work out some of the puzzles for the event. Look for them to be posted soon.

Wandering

When I was a kid, after my dad got more established, my family would pack up our car and head out for three weeks every summer. Sample destinations included Maine, Shenandoah, the Blue Ridge, the Smokies, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota and Canada. We would camp mainly, spending a few nights in motels in between longer destinations. These trips provide the bedrock for my childhood memories.

My dad would halfway get us up at 4 am that first day, and carry my sleeping sister and me to the car, so we would go back to sleep. That way, he could get a good 5 hours in before anyone had to go to the bathroom or needed to eat.

I saw large swaths of the country this way, except for the Pacific coast and the Southwest. My husband was a geology brat and most of his childhood was spent overseas. His family would return to the US just to visit family primarily, so he missed out on the American Road Trip experience.

Anyway, we're taking two weeks this summer and having one of those Road Trips. We're staying mainly in motels, because we're not plopping in one spot for two long. And we're a little less focused on the destination, and more about experiences along the way. So far we've visited abandoned mines, driven on country roads through breath-taking vistas, rockhounded, eaten in local dives, hiked and taken more photos than you can believe (no limitations of rolls of film).

There are some similarities though to the trips of my childhood. My dad would forcibly take my book from me because I "needed to see this beautiful country." We take the electronics. Kids still fight in the backseat and ask how much longer (it's just that now I'm the parent, not the kid).

We've found some great letterboxes along the way too. I really commend those planters who have placed their boxes in thoughtful locations. As a visitor to your town or community, your box placements are like recommendations of where to go. We had a great hike yesterday along the Molas Trail near Silverton, CO. A box led us there, but the beauty and the pleasantness of the day led us to linger.

Traveling with Children

I always say that you can do anything while traveling with children, you just can't do everything! Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten my own motto. Consequently, we've overdone it a bit trying to see way too much. The result is some sulky behavior and some exaggerated yawning from the backseat. Tonight, to compensate, we tried to make an effort to get to the hotel earlier so that everyone could relax. We did manage to get here (Bluff, UT) by 5:30 pm, so everyone had a chance to play legos, read and swim. We wanted to get here by 4:00, but couldn't resist Canyon de Chelly (well worth the trip).

My motto's true for letterboxing as well. You can do any box, you just can't do every box. We've been picking and choosing boxes as we go, but today I totally blanked out on one of Sprite's in Ganado, AZ. We were at the spot, I had the clues in the car, and somehow I just had a moment of brainfreeze and forgot about the box. 10 miles down the road when I remembered, my husband offered to go back, but really turning back is hard to do on a car trip.

Anyway, we had a number of things planned for tomorrow, but.....my youngest threw up shortly after getting out of the pool. This may put a hitch in the activities. That's the other part of traveling with kids...unexpected emergencies. I travel with a full medicine chest which gets used more than you can believe. My youngest fell down at Pit Park in Deming NM (cool letterbox there) and scraped both knees; my oldest fell down a slippery slope at an abandoned mine and scraped both his knees (they match!). Today, they were both trying to look through the spotting scope at petroglyphs at the same time and bumped heads, leading #1 to cut his lip....and so on.

Oh well, some of the best vacations I can remember from being a kid are when disaster struck. Like the flash flood in Mesa Verde that caused a hillside of mud come down into our tent and screened-in fly (resulting in a hotel stay). Or, the time when it was so cold camping in Canada that we were just huddled around the campfire afraid to move. When the people from Saskatoon left because it was too cold (and they were in a camper too), that gave us permission to skip out too (another Holiday Inn). That said, we're heading for Mesa Verde tomorrow...I'd prefer no flash floods.

Blazing Blue Skies

We finally made it out of Texas. It was close-going there for a while, because in El Paso, we had to stop at the Wal-Mart. There's no Wal-mart near us and we never go (partially by choice) and the joint was hopping on a holiday. We split up for efficiency (our missions: duct tape and bandannas and toothpaste) and almost didn't find each other again. More time than you'd like later, we were finally on our way. The kids liked the fact that driving on I-10 through El Paso, you could see Mexico out the left window.

We headed to our first major destination of the day, Rockhound State Park. I warned the kids that it was going to be hot. "How hot?" they asked. It's 85 degrees now. My son scoffed, "It's way hotter than that in Houston." Now that is true, so on we went. Rockhound State Park is all about its name. There were some folks in RVs there, but mainly it's about hunting for rocks. For your $5 vehicle fee, you can hunt all you like and bring out 15 pounds of whatever you find. My little rockhounders were delighted. You follow the appropriately named Thunderegg trail until you get to a little rise, and then you're free to fan out over the hillside and hunt away. There were people fully decked with shovels, picks and hammers, but we just had our eyes and hands.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun. I would definitely suggest going in the cooler months if you have a choice, but honestly it wasn't that bad.

We found three letterboxes today--Deming by AZRoadie, Fly me to the Moon by AstroD and MarshMellow by Astro D. All of them were high quality boxes in lovely, worthwhile locations with great stamps. We had a lot of fun driving around New Mexico and seeing the sights. After yesterday's hard day in the car, it was great to have a more relaxed time with more time for side trips. Towns we visited included Mesilla, Hatch, Truth or Consequences, and San Antonio. We like getting off the Interstate and seeing more of the towns than rest stops and fast food joints.

All in all it was a great day. If you want a hint of one of the activities on the agenda, google the very large array.

Whaddya mean we're still in Texas?

So, driving on I-10 through Texas is one long endeavor. We live close to exit 765. To the east, the last Texas exit is 877, so getting out of Texas is an easy enough feat. But, to the west, there’s 765 long miles to go. We scratched out 627 of them today, but it’s hard to believe that you can drive 9 hours and still have two more to go to get out of Texas.

The beginning of today was just like it always is when you’re trying to get out of town.

The kids had spent the night at their grandparents’ house to free us up to get finished and ready to go. We got the car packed at about 1:30 am, at which point I couldn’t take any more and went to sleep. I set my alarm for 6am, so that I could finish some pre-trip letterboxing responsibilities. I got up, made coffee and promptly fell asleep on the couch waiting for it to brew. When the second alarm went off at 7:30, I knew I was in a spot of trouble. Long story short, I prepared 1 ½ swaps that I was trying to complete before I left. That means some folks will be waiting an awfully long time for their cards, but that was all I could manage before my husband threatened to leave without me.

Traffic was bad and it took us a while to get to the grandparents. Then, they made us come in for coffee and pancakes. I took one look at my older son and knew we were in for a long day—his exhaustion was writ all over his face. After the shortest polite stay we headed off. Of course I asked if everyone had been to the restroom. Of course they said yes. Of course, we’d been three exits on the highway before someone needed to go. We found a McDonald’s in Katy, TX, which turned out to be a good choice because by then it was 11am and the oldest was starving. So we loaded up with lunch and then, finally hit the road.

They actually did fairly well, and we made a minimum number of stops before we hit our destination of Van Horn, TX. It’s a town wedged between some hills (I can’t quite call them mountains) relatively picturesque and looking very different than green and flat Houston. I have some photos taken out of the car window (we really didn’t stop) like the one on the left of a West Texas wind farm.

When we arrived, the oldest needed to go straight to sleep. Even though he had a dinner of potato chips and beef jerky, that was the best possible remedy for all that ails him. We’ve got some actual activities planned for tomorrow, so that should be the real start of our vacation. I can’t wait.

I'm trying to blog this trip a little bit more, so hopefully I'll have more info as we go.