Day 13

Day 13 – Saturday – July 30, 2011

0621 Get up. Put Darby out. Start the coffee. Shower. Straighten up the car a bit and get ready to reload.

0805 Wake up Felisa and Ryan. Bella was already awake.

0908 Car is loaded. Pictures are taken. We are ready to go.

0913 The girls are putting dates on their new little calendars. Which reminds me – we missed Seth’s birthday last week. Oops! Guess we’ll get him something when we get there.

0915 Starbucks Drive Thru

0922 Good-bye, Pikes Peak. I’m going to miss you!

0950 Thinking about Brandee… Interesting how people’s lives are often nothing like what you imagine.

1013 Sonic in Pueblo West. Excruciatingly slow service!

1026 Eating my breakfast burrito. Not sure why it took so many years for this inspiration to strike, but putting green chiles on the burrito instead of jalapenos is much yummier! Of course, this won’t work at every Sonic but at least at the locations with green chile cheeseburgers on the menu!

1033 Tie-dye grenade decal on the SUV in front of me. The colors are pretty but not what I would expect to find on a hand grenade. I wonder what the message is exactly.

1039 Evraz billboard. Rocky Mountain Steel company. Which is the logo that was on the Frisbee Dad gave to Bella. Now we know what Evraz is.

1100 Rest stop.

1121 Cows.

1126 Call from Grandma D. Said the yardwork was done and it looks good. Nice to know things are still happening when we are away. She talked to the girls for a while.

1142 A rock formation that looks like a lizard with a spiky back.

1156 Trinidad. Sign warns us to watch for wildlife on the road.

1158 Ron called.

12:11 p.m. New Mexico. Raton Pass. Now for a little social studies lesson, compliments of Wikipedia…
Raton Pass (7834 feet or 2388 meters elevation) is a mountain pass on the Santa Fe Trail along the Colorado-New Mexico border in the United States. Raton Pass is a federally designated National Historic Landmark. Ratón is Spanish for "mouse."
The pass is located on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Trinidad, Colorado and Raton, New Mexico, approximately 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Santa Fe. The pass crosses the line of volcanic mesas that extends east from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains along the state line, and furnishes the most direct land route between the valley of the Arkansas River to the north and the upper valley of the Canadian River, leading to Santa Fe, to the south.
12:18 p.m. Capulin Volcano National Monument. Sounds interesting. Maybe we should go there one day.

1219 Traffic jam at Raton exit. Good thing I wasn’t planning to stop here.

12:40 p.m. A flipped car on the highway. Looks very recent. Very scary. Lots of people helping already and I have no special skills to offer. Say a prayer and slowly ease past the scene.

12:51 p.m. Ambulance headed north from Springer. Wonder if it’s headed to the accident scene.

1:13 p.m. Sheep in Wagon Mound.

1:17 p.m. Antelope

1:50 p.m. Las Vegas. Stop at Taco Bell. Darby is going on strike and refuses to get back in the car.

2:00 p.m. Leaving Taco Bell. Darby actually bites at the bag, trying to eat the tacos. Bad dog!

2:02 p.m. Stop next door at Sonic for a cherry limeade. It’s happy hour so my drink is half price!

2:12 p.m. Stop for gas, $3.69/gallon. There are lots of motorcyclists in town today. Buddy is not very happy about this.

2:20 p.m. Darby is still not cooperating. He won’t move all the way into his spot in the middle and is crowding Ryan’s feet and legs. What has gotten into that guy today?

2:36 p.m. Amtrak – passenger train headed north.

2:40 p.m. Pecos River

2:41 p.m. Looks like rain up ahead.

2:47 p.m. Motorcyclists have pulled over to put on rain gear.

2:48 p.m. Lightning and another motorcyclist gearing up.

2:49 p.m. Buddy is in timeout for trying to eat Darby’s food. He’s cheering about being in shotgun so I put him on his head. Then he starts cheering about riding upside-down shotgun. That dog is trouble! Since he’s having too much fun being punished I send him back to Felisa. How’s that for punishment – the fun is over!!!

2:51 p.m. Raining

2:57 p.m. Pecos National Historical Park. Another interesting sounding spot.

3:08 p.m. 63 degrees. It has gone down 20 degrees after the rain. Much more refreshing than the east coast where it usually becomes a sauna after the rain.

3:26 p.m. Back up to 83 degrees. No rain here!

3:38 p.m. Stoneartistas.com stone carving. I’ll have to look that one up but not sure we have room in the van for a giant carved rock!

3:45 p.m. Rio Grande River

4:02 p.m. We’re here but no one is home! All the doors are locked so we go to Elena’s to get a key.

Dinner is pizza from Dion’s. Very yummy.

Lots of thunderstorms roll through in the evening. The cousins are all happy to be together again.

And finally… bedtime!