When we got up in the morning while in Demming New Mexico, I made a couple calls and found an availability for a week in Sierra Vista, at the Fort Huachuca Army Base. We thought that would be a nice place to visit and it was close to Tombstone AZ., another place we wanted to visit.
Another thing we wanted to do with the kids was to eat at a Southern California Style Mexican fast food place. We had a Filiberto's Mexican food place right outside of the base that we enjoyed carne asada burritos at.
We checked out the museums about the Buffalo Soldiers that were prevalent on the base back in the day, and we also went to Tombstone and walked the streets and took a tour of the Bird Cage theater that was still in it's original condition from back in the gun fighter days.
When we were originally on this trip, but before we had big car problems back in Ranger TX, we were planning a day in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, before we would head up to Colorado. Obviously those plans got ruined but now with looking at the huge cold front getting ready to move into Colorado and most of the country it was time to move south. Since most of our plans are cast in Jell-O, and the farther south we went the better, we decided to head that direction.
We left the Air Force Academy on Monday the 5th of Dec., and headed straight down the map. The cold front was already starting to blow in and made for some wiggly driving as the wind made the RV hard to keep in a straight line. It was a long day but we made it to the Walmart in Carlsbad about 9pm and went to bed.
We woke up early as I had a plan for the afternoon in mind, but it would require leaving the caverns by lunchtime to be able to fit them in, but I didn't want to just rush through the caverns either. We got to the caverns just as they were opening and were some of the first down the trail.
We walked the Natural Entrance to the caverns and also did the Big Room loop. We took lots of pictures but most are of the same things you can see doing an internet search, and those professionally done ones put ours to shame, so here are just a few of our favorites.
The hike was long, but made even more difficult for mom with her fear of heights and claustrophobia, but she did a great job. After we finished the trails it was time for the elevator ride back up to the visitor center. Once the doors opened for us to go in the Ranger at the bottom said it was a 75 story elevator ride and mom just about bolted back out of the elevator. I caught her and the Ranger realizing her fear assured her it was only for 58 seconds. She did the ride up with her eyes closed while the kids and I marveled at the rock walls that you could see out of the elevator windows as we were going up. Once at the top, mom stumbled out of the elevator and needed to find a place to sit down and preferably outside in some fresh air. We all thought it funny how she had descended on foot close to 800 feet, walked up and down hills for over two and a half miles, legs were sore, used her inhaler, and it was the elevator ride back out that got her. She said that she was almost ready to hike the way back up the trail rather than ride that elevator.
We left Carlsbad Caverns after having lunch in the parking lot, and we headed toward White Sands National Monument. I told them that White Sands was a missile test range, which it is, but left out the other parts. We got there with almost two hours left before it closed. I went to the gift shop and was purchasing the saucer sleds when the rest of them came out of the restrooms and found me. It was then that my kids eyes lit up as they figured out what we were about to do.
We drove into the park on the white gypsum that had been compacted so hard to make roads that even a 22k pound RV pulling a vehicle could safely drive on it. We found a big parking area that was surrounded by large gypsum sand dunes and started hiking to the tops. The kids and I took turns sliding down the hills and having a great time.
Only took a little wind to get buried.... Just kidding. View looking back over the dunes toward the parking area.
It was after dark when we left and we even got to see a great sunset. We drove to Deming NM. and stayed at another Walmart. We had tracked about a cup full of sand all over the RV as evidenced by the pile we swept up. We were planning to head to Tucson, but I made a few phone calls and found an RV park in Sierra Vista AZ. that had a cancellation for the next week so off we went.
We came back to Colorado Springs from Westcliffe on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Got our RV out of storage and re-set up and took care of some errands like getting groceries.
The next day we made a visit to my Grandmothers apartment and spent lunchtime and the afternoon with her. I helped with a couple of items around the house and we visited. We also went to a game room and let the kids play some air-hockey and work on a puzzle that had been left out. It was a good time to be able to sit with her without too many distractions and she got to show off her grand kids to her friends.
Thanksgiving was spent at my parents apartment. Grandma came too and so did my sister and brother-in-law from Westcliffe. She and my daughter made the traditional Thanksgiving dinner while the parade was on (We cut the cable cord a long time ago and don't get to many movies so out of the huge list of "stars" I think I only knew the Muppets and Santa Clause). Football games on TV and lots of visiting consumed the rest of the day.
Friday we went over to my aunt and uncles house and had a great lunch of lasagna and meatballs and sausage. My parents, sister and brother-in-law, and grandmother were also there. We spent the afternoon in their basement with the local Air Force Academy football game on the TV and playing games. They have a pool table with a ping-pong or air-hockey insert so that was in use and there were also several other skill games being attempted.
My kids have worked up a routine to be able to show off their Rifle Drill skills, so they performed for our family in the back yard. They did a good job and all were impressed.
Saturday, my family along with my aunt and uncle, took a drive to Denver to a Colorado history museum. We really wanted to spend some time with my cousin and his new wife and finally meet there son but scheduling conflicts prevented them from being able to come down for the holiday so we met them half way and spent time in the museum and having lunch and walking around the 16th street mall in downtown Denver. Their son had just recently turned one and my daughter really wanted to hold and play with him so we are glad that this worked out.
The Kids got another chance to hang out with their new Civil Air Patrol friends from the squadron that we have been visiting. They were having a fun night that was being spent at an indoor Go-Cart track.
Son in front, Daughter right behind.
The next week was all about car and RV repairs, and chores, and getting some school done. We did meet with some friends of ours that we knew from high school and college and had fun reminiscing about old times (oh glory days). On Sunday we spent the day with my parents and did some packing. The temperatures were getting colder over the last week and it was getting more difficult for the RV to keep from freezing it's pipes once the temperatures got down into the teens at night, and we were often dropping to single digits overnight. The forecast was also showing a huge cold front coming for the next week so it was time to say goodbye to Colorado. We are scheduled to be in Mesa AZ by the 14th of Dec. but didn't have concrete plans for what to do in between. We thought about Tucson, and even decided on Las Vegas, but ultimately went somewhere else.
Needed to get out of town before more of this happened.
We went and spent a week at my sister and brother-in-law's place in Westcliffe Colorado. Well technically they live in a town called Rosita but it's an old mining town/area and is included in Westcliffe for mailing purposes even though they are about 10 miles from there.
House up on hill, small barn below, Notice Deer to the left of the barn.
Their VIEW. I know we are not to covet, but come on.
Wife enjoying morning view
They live up almost to the top of a hill that gives them an extraordinary view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It makes looking off of their deck or out their windows just an awe inspiring experience.
Mountains turn Red for a short time right at sunrise.
The deer in the area just walk through the property like they own the place and are almost tame enough to feed by hand. I'm sure that all of our Colorado relatives are bored of all of the deer talk, but for those of us who have lived most of our lives in cities outside of this state, this is a real treat.
Deer right off of the deck.
It didn't quite happen, but it was fun to try.
It was a relaxing week as we left the RV in storage at the Academy, so I didn't have any projects I could do. I even played with puzzles. If it weren't for being at 9000 feet elevation and always feeling like I was trying to catch my breath, it would have been perfect.
Daughter got some excellent cooking instruction from her aunt, and both kids got some video game time with their uncle.
Kneading bread with her aunt.
"I made these from scratch" Pumpkin Cupcakes.
"Haven't you guys heard of Instant? Can't believe I got to crank this thing".
One of our favorite stops on the way to or from Westcliffe is a stop at Cañon City. They have a great burger joint called Big Burger World, and as you can see in the pic, the burgers are huge. There is also a great park in town we like to stop at if we need to kill some time, and a road called Skyline Drive, that goes right up on the ridge of a mountain. At the top of the mountain is a ridge where a dinosaur walked in some mud at one time. The foot prints were buried in a layer that turned to rock and the mud layer disintegrated over time leaving casts of the footprints.
Recreating an old picture from when the kids were here once before.
Bumps coming out from bottom of rock ridge are left over dinosaur tracks.
View of city from Skyline drive.
Video below is of Skyline drive. Mom was not to happy with the drop offs as she is afraid of heights. She didn't even get out of the car to get a close up look of the foot prints.
Since we have been here in Colorado, the kids have gotten to three Civil air patrol meetings with two different squadrons. They need attendance and some other requirements to promote and are working on getting those accomplished. They have new camouflage uniforms at the tailor getting patches sewn on, so they have been going in their dress uniforms and they get a fair amount of looks with all of the bling they have. The two squadrons here don't have an active honor guard or rifle drill team, so they have been asked by many who see them what the extra rope on their jackets is for. They have also been approached by some who want to start an honor guard program and one squadron even had a couple of rifles that they found in a closet to let my kids show what they could do. It was neat to see them show off a little.
This video was added late to a previous post, so in case you didn't see it before I thought I would add it here as well. It's of a drill that was done at our permanent squadron just before we left. My kids are in the back, on the stage.
Mom, who is still helping out the old squadron in Virginia, found an administrative officer here, who was using a newer computer program to help track members accomplishments, has been getting lots of instruction on how to use it and make record keeping much easier. Hopefully she will be able to help our old squadron even easier.
The kids have also gotten squadron patches from both, so that might be a great to have more souvenirs from the trip that are small and fit in the RV easily.
This week was a start working on school again week as the kids had off for most of a month as we were getting started and doing lots of sightseeing and seeing friends and family. We're not sure what school is going to be like on the road, but we are sure that they need to keep up with some subjects, especially math and language.
While the kids were doing school, I was knocking out a honey do list at my parents, and trying to get our Mi-fi fixed so we could get Internet.
We are staying at the beautiful Air Force Academy campground, but there is no Wi-Fi here, only a couple of small Mi-fi signals at the laundry facilities that don't reach more than a few yards away. Of course most of you know who have Windows 10 installed, there have been a few updates lately and they have been slowing our computers down or even making them inoperable while the download is in progress. We had to take our computers over to my parents place the last few times we went, to take advantage of their fast Internet to get them done. This and our own slow Internet and life in general have made it hard to post lately, hence why so many came at once. I wrote them when they happened but couldn't upload them with any pictures, so I just waited.
We've been able to do a little exploring after school and toured the Air Force Academy, and also hiked around the Garden of the Gods. We even saw a deer that didn't seem too woried that we were there, or that some other hikers had dogs nearby (the dogs didn't bark though so I'm sure that helped).
Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel
Mountains behind the Academy
Hiking through garden of the Gods
Not so afraid deer.
Iconic Pic from Garden of the Gods Parkway
Nice wide roads with bike and hiking paths. One way roads.
The must do pics at Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods.
I think this one might make it to our Christmas Cards. ;)
Son still loves Airplanes, even ones on the play set in the campground. (I talked him into this one)
Our Explorer is fixed, but I'm finding new problems with the Bronco. This would be a good place and time to fix it, but the bills are adding up fast. The Explorer fix needed a shop cause it was out of my realm, and 45 year old Bronco parts aren't cheap, but necessary. Guess I know what I'll be working on in a couple of weeks after the holiday.
We are going to be in Westcliff Colorado till just before Thanksgiving, visiting my sister at her place up in the mountains. It's beautiful there and the deer just walk through their property and look in the windows of their house. It will be a great week.
