Day 17

Day 17 – Wednesday – July 7, 2010

0645 Wake up. Was having some crazy bad dream.

0820 Still packing and loading. Guess we’re not leaving at 8!

0900 Shower

0935 Talk to Shannon. Gave him an ETA of 4 p.m.

0948 Pictures of all the kids together before we leave. Thomas and Seth both had grumpy faces but only Seth was crying at the “torture” of being in a picture. Thomas was suffering silently.

1001 Leaving Elena’s house in Rio Rancho… Texas here we come!

1020 Stop at Twisters to try out their breakfast burritos. Luckily there was a Starbucks right next door so I was able to grab an iced latte while Ron was getting the burritos.

1114 Horse Motel. Interesting…

12:36 p.m. 2 double horse trailers in a row. Two pickups pulling two trailers each. They were all empty and clean so I’m guessing maybe they were being delivered.

1:00 p.m. Geronimo Springs Museum in Truth or Consequences, NM. A spur of the moment stop.

1:45 p.m. Leaving the museum. Favorite parts:

Bella – the fountain with the head statues

Ryan – the hand-carved wooden figures and the cowboy
hats

Felisa – the log cabin

Ron – the Geronimo exhibit

Sheila – the local flavor (posterboards with class pictures
of each graduating senior in each graduating class and snapshots donated by
locals for example)

1:57 p.m. Gas, $2.89/gallon. I bought Ron a coke and some lottery tickets and a Hershey’s dark chocolate bar for myself

2:00 p.m. Asked the kids what their favorite parts of the trip so far are:

Bella – Colorado (specifically Casa Bonita with Jacob and Daniel) and seeing the cousins

Felisa – when Daddy came and seeing the cousins and hiking

Ryan – New Mexico, seeing the cousins

Ron – driving in the wild west, scenery etc.

Sheila – getting to see lots of different things (I look at a map and want to stop at all of the points of interest!) and the mountain drive in southern Colorado

2:09 p.m. Elephant Butte Lake. I wonder how it got its name.

2:12 p.m. Rio Grande River (again). It is starting to look more substantial, more deserving of the status of “important river”.

2:26 p.m. Hatch, NM. Lots of green chile farms. Current temperature, 93 degrees.

2:33 p.m. Sign for the NM space port

2:56 p.m. Pink Firebird in front of us with Lady Corgan all across the back window. Definitely an attention-catching car.

2:57 p.m. Sonic in Las Cruces for a snack.

3:15 p.m. Pecan orchards

3:18 p.m. Construction traffic jam

3:22 p.m. A feed store with camels, zebras, and I couldn’t see what else in cages in the parking lot.

3:26 p.m. Feed lot cows. L

3:29 p.m. Dust storm! Wow – that was a strong wind!

3:36 p.m. Texas

3:55 p.m. Hotel

4:40 p.m. Arrive at Shannon’s house. The kids play with Harley for a few minutes and the adults spend some time catching up.

5:50 p.m. Headed out to dinner at Rudy’s BBQ.

6:57 p.m. Adventure Zone for a round of mini-golf. The final score had Dana in first place. Ron and Shannon had second and third place (I can’t remember which was which) and I came in 4^th. Luckily I beat the kids but not by much! That course had some crazy water hazards! I fished 3 balls out of water and we ended up losing 2 others completely. It was fun though.

Back at the hotel we had a quick swim then came back to the room for showers and Mythbusters (Duct Tape Myths!) before bed.