We made it to New Mexico! After a brief stint with a sick 3 year old, we landed in Brantley Lake State Park outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico. We spent a great few days there, explored the caves, earned another junior ranger badge and enjoyed the sunrises. We also drove through White Sands National Monument…
Left the bustle of Houston for some WIDE open spaces farther north in Texas. Great week visiting with friends, exploring museums, getting MAIL, and taking the kids fishing for their very first time. We leave Texas tomorrow and head towards New Mexico. Being back on Mountain Standard Time will be weird!
Cara and Andrew fought over some game they were playing in the car. This resulted in both of them getting scolded by me. Silence for a few moments while both of them pouted. We then overheard this conversation: Cara (trying to start up again): And my guy was knocking on the door…. Andrew (super grumpy):…
Cara has started learning letters other than A-B-C. Those three were the only ones she recognized for months on end, and then I think something clicked and now she knows almost all of them. Its such a relief to have her shouting “Mom!! Look there’s a Tappin’ T!” instead of just A over and over…
We’ve talked quite a bit about compound words during school. How you take two words and smash them together to make a new word. “Star” and “fish” become “starfish”. Cara has even caught on, although sometimes she makes up her own. After spending an early evening in the French Quarter, New Orleans eating Beignets (ben-ya)…
Excited for the newsletter 🙂
Great talking to you at City of Rocks SP! The astronomy night worked out perfect. Kids inspired, great clear weather and got to swap traveling family stories. Perfect! Looking at your website – which looks incredible btw – I see so many similarities to our trip. The most surprising of all was your pic of Robot Turtles! We have that new game, too (backed it on Kickstarter). The developer is a neighbor of a friend in Seattle. We’ve only played it a few times, but have enjoyed it so far. We love games and have a number on the trip with us.
Lastly, my wife says the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum was good, but not an absolute must. In the end, it’s a zoo. A good zoo, but still just a zoo. Hope that helps in your decision process. Enjoy Saguaro Natl Park. Also, if do visit Phoenix, we definitely recommend Lost Dutchman State Park. We enjoyed the science museum in Phoenix, too. It’s a long drive from the campground, but fun and free with the museum reciprocity.
Happy and safe travels!
New Mexico has a number of wonderful spots. We stayed at Brantley Lake near the very end of our last long trip. We only stayed two nights as that was our “lodging” location for visiting Carlsbad.