Tuesday, May 1st
This also marked TTI Day at our work - sort of like a work retreat. So our official plan for this day since TTI Day began at 9:00am, or so I thought, was to wake up, pack everything we could except food and the dogs, attend TTI Day until 2:00pm (where they would be announcing the raffle winners for five iPad giveaways - but you had to present to accept), then head out of town as soon as possible (by 3:00pm).
Well, packing took much longer than we anticipated. And I also failed to verify the actual start time of TTI Day, which was 10:00am. So we arrived at TTI Day at 9:00am both a little frustrated because we were already a little behind schedule on our packing, and then we find out that we'll basically be sitting around for one hour (wasted time) until TTI Day was to begin. Michael then had a brilliant, yet a little on the rebellious side for my taste, idea of skipping TTI Day, go home and finish packing, and then show up at TTI Day at 2:00pm - just to make sure we're present if our names are called in the raffle.
So that's what we did - went home and packed everything, including food and dogs, and left the dogs in the car at 2:00pm while we unfortunately did not win the raffle. But at least we were now ahead of schedule because we left town at 2:00pm instead of 3:00pm. Score!
Finding Cedar Hill State Park was another mis-adventure. In case you're ever in this situation, the website gives the incorrect directions, and so does Google. It is actually located on this side of Hwy 67, not the east side. Once we arrived, we finally selected a campsite that was to our liking. It was really great camping on a weeknight because no one else was around, so we had the bathroom facility all to ourselves, which meant it was the cleanest park bathroom I've ever seen in my life. And because we were all alone at this park, it was just a tad spooky, so Michael kept me company in the Women's restroom so I wasn't scared. :)
We met the Cherrys this evening for a cook-out dinner at our campsite. They brought their adorable son, Jaythan, who wooed our hearts as usual.
We didn't sleep well this night because it was really windy, which was noisy, rattled the walls of the tent, and caused Abby to be restless.
Wednesday, May 2nd
We woke up and had a nice breakfast, and enjoyed the beautiful morning. After packing the car, we headed for the little town called Quitaque, TX where we planned to camp that night at Caprock Canyon State Park.
We stopped for lunch in Wichita Falls, TX at a lovely little park near a school. Since no one was around, we let the dogs off the leash and took a walk near a little pond. Well, the pond had a lot of lily pads on the surface near the point where the ground ended and the water began. Ginger, not knowing this, ran towards the water via the "green grass" which was in fact not grass, but lily pads...so she completely fell in the pond and looked a little startled at what had just happened. Silly girl!
Back on the road, we were really excited about camping at Caprock Canyon park because the website described it as a beautiful place, with bison, and red-rock cliffs.
Upon arriving, it was 102 degrees, the park ranger who checked us in said it was rattlesnake season so to watch our step (meaning we'd also have to watch EVERYWHERE our dogs sniffed around and walked, an impossible task, I assure you), there was a burn ban (meaning we would not be able to cook any of the food we brought), and there was no shade to be found anywhere at any of the campsites. The only other people camping nearby were in RV's -- with air conditioning.
Needless to say...we city folk chickened out -- we snapped a few pictures and enjoyed the scenic views, and then got way ahead of schedule by driving into Amarillo this same day (as opposed to Thursday, May 3rd like originally on the itinerary) and checked into a lovely hotel, the Drury Inn & Suites.
You see, while Michael drove the 1.5 hour drive from Caprock to Amarillo, I was on the phone searching for Amarillo hotels that were dog-friendly, and it came down to three choices in terms of price: cheap, middle, and luxurious. After noticing several reviews that said the Drury Inn has a cocktail hour with free drinks and hors d'oeuvres, we called and found out that we'd make it there with about 45 minutes left in this "5:30pm Kickback" -- we were sold. So instead of roughing it in the desert, likely getting an even worse night's sleep than the first one, we ended up spending a very relaxing and lovely evening at that hotel. Worth. Every. Penny.
We even got to watch one of our favorite TV shows as it aired! (We don't have cable, so we watch all our shows the next day or later on Hulu.) What a treat!
Ginger and Abby were treated like royalty too, and we could tell that they were very appreciative to be pampered the way they praaawpuurly deserved, daaaaarling. Such princesses...
Thursday, May 3rd
We slept in a little bit and then enjoy the lovely and delicious Hot Quickstart Breakfast at the Drury Inn.
Next on the agenda was lunch at the Big Texan Steak Ranch Restaurant. But we were so full from breakfast, that we weren't hungry, so we just walked around and took silly pictures. They have a gift shop, a horse hotel, a dog run, an arcade, and play areas. Keeping up with our souvenir tradition of buying a deck of playing cards, we bought one for the state of Texas. After all, Texas is so vast that you can go on so many kinds of vacations without crossing the border. It deserves a place in our collection.
Next we drove a few miles west on Interstate 40 and visited the Cadillac Ranch. If you've never heard of this place, read on Wikipedia here. It's a display on someone's private property, and they allow anyone to walk on their land and visit it. It was so neat! And since we were there on a weekday, we had the whole place to ourselves, so we were able to let our dogs off the leash and run around as we snapped pictures. You can bring your own spray-paint and add to the decoration. Michael found one that wasn't fully empty, so now on one of the tires there is "YAGER '07" to commemorate our presence. If you're ever in Amarillo, this is a must-see.
Continuing on our journey, we crossed the state border into New Mexico. We stopped in Santa Rosa, NM and swam at the Blue Hole. It's an 80-foot deep cavern that maintains 64-degree water temperature all year. When we arrived, it's located in the strangest place - behind an industrial building. And there was some kind of class field trip, so the place was packed with kids. It's free to swim there, and they have a public restroom next to it. With it being so crowded when we arrived, we were afraid we wouldn't get to swim, but thankfully they left shortly after we arrived and the whole placed emptied out except for two people. So we changed into our bathing suits and since the water was so cold, we decided to just jump in from the lowest rock cliff edge. It didn't look that high up, but after we jumped there was definitely a lingering second or two where I had the thought, "Oh my...I'm still falling!" Boy was it cold! Here's a video of Michael jumping a second time from an even higher cliff ledge. Crazy, I tell you!
After the Blue Hole, we drove a couple miles to a different lake we passed on the way to the Blue Hole. It was very large and not crowded so we let the dogs off the leash. There were several signs that said "NO PETS ALLOWED IN WATER". Well, we didn't...exactly...allow...them in the water. You see, Ginger was a street dog. She was a stray, and so she has that "scavenger" mindset that she must eat/drink whenever she has a chance because you never know (after owning her for 5 1/2 years now) when you'll next have a chance to eat or drink. So typical of Ginger, she kept running back to the water's edge (recall the Wichita Falls story earlier) to drink from the lake. Well, there were no lily pads at this lake, but the point where the ground ended and the water began had a tiny bit of a drop-off -- maybe a foot in height. So each time Ginger would drink, she'd be leaning down, stretching to reach her mouth to the water. Well, the last time she did this, she lost her balance and fell in face first. I immediately turned to Michael and asked him to help her, and he replied, "She's fine, she can get out." He says this as Ginger has this pitiful look on her face as she's in the lake with her two front paws on the ground trying to hoist herself back onto shore and she just couldn't make it, so finally Michael went over and scooped her out. Poor, silly girl did not have good experiences with water on this trip!
Continuing on our road trip, we stopped just outside of Albuquerque to drive up to the top of Sandia Crest. It was beautiful to overlook the city, but it was also only 55-degrees up there, so we didn't stay long.
Last stop was at Allen & Julie's house. Ginger is also a genius (except around water apparently), and so she noticed how I unlatched the side gate of their yard, and when all of us were inside, Ginger opened the side gate and let herself around to their front door, looking inside like she was trying to figure out how to re-join Michael and me. Little stinker! So Allen and Michael put a metal cord through the latch so she couldn't open it again.
Friday, May 4th
We all woke up very early this morning in order to get to the departure location for the hot air balloon ride. It was so incredible to see how they setup a hot air balloon! They use a big gas-powered fan to fill up the volume of the balloon while it lays on its side, then they tilt it upright and blow the hot air inside it to finish filling it up. The basket was big enough to hold 12 people total.
I'm a little nervous when it comes to heights, and don't particularly enjoy flying on an airplane, so I was a bit nervous about this hot air balloon ride. But it was so beautiful, peaceful, and quiet (except for the occasional pumps of hot air). We gracefully and slowly lifted off the ground, and then gently floated with the wind current, so relative to you in the basket, there's no wind at all. We were up in the balloon for one hour, and traveled less than five miles. They had a chase car in radio contact with our pilot and they met us at the location where we landed.After the ride we had a champagne toast and breakfast snacks. It was a really fun experience!
Later this day we visited a park that had old petroglyphs. It was fun to hike, but the petroglyphs were a little bit of a let-down for all of us because you could tell that teenage kids had scratched their own drawings on rocks nearby, so when you saw a drawing, it was sort of like you couldn't trust if it was genuine or not.
This evening Allen and Julie invited some friends over who used to attend Grace, and we all played Quelf. It was a really fun and amusing evening.
Saturday, May 5th
We all drove to Bandelier National Park and hiked the trail to visit old tribal ruins and cliff dwellings. This was one of the coolest things I've ever seen! They actually allow people to climb a ladder and climb into some of the old cliff dwellings, and that was a really neat experience.
Close by, we drove to Caldera National Preserve, which was where lava traveled through the valley a long time ago, forever changing the soil conditions. So as you're driving through a very forested, mountainous area, all of sudden you turn a corner and there's this vast open grassy field (looks very prairie like) that's several miles wide and long. There were bunches and bunches of groundhogs or prairie dogs (I don't know the difference) that chattered and crawled around and then jumped into their tunnels.
For dinner we stopped in Santa Fe's Old Town (lots of shops and old churches) and ate at a pizzeria. It was fun to see old buildings and quaint shops.
Sunday, May 6th
Allen and Julie took us to a local chain for breakfast called the Flying Star Cafe. Oh. my. goodness. We had the BEST Bread Pudding of our lives! Words cannot describe how good it was. You just need to fly to Albuquerque and try it. Seriously, buy the plane ticket now. NOW! (And please bring us back some bread pudding too...as you'll read later, Allen and Julie managed to do it, so you can to!)
Our only tourist place to visit was the Albuquerque Botanical Garden, Aquarium, and Zoo. It was a lot of fun visiting all of those places, especially (for me) the zoo. I have not been to many zoos in my lifetime, and the ones I have been to were much smaller than this one, so it was neat to see so many different kinds of animals. I'm torn too because part of me must be an animal rights activist because I think that they look depressed being kept in captivity, but then again they are likely receiving better care than they would in the wild. I don't really know where I stand on this issue, so for now, I will say that I enjoyed visiting the zoo.
Monday, May 7th
We left Allen and Julie's pretty early, and headed towards Roswell, New Mexico. Once we arrived, our first stop was at the free-to-the-public Spring River Park and Zoo. Well, after the Albuquerque zoo, this one looked much worse off -- smaller, dirtier, and the animals looked even more depressed. I hope they're well taken care of.
Next stop was the Roswell Museum and Art Center. Michael and I are not big museum fans. Let's face it, they can be pretty boring, and a lot of what other people consider "art" looks like something I could draw...at the age of 4. Anyway, this was a free museum to attend, so that was nice. We didn't stay very long, but it was a very nice museum (well organized, clean).
The next place was just for some silly fun...Alien Zone. We had a choice of visiting a more serious "UFO Museum" or this place. Reviews clearly stated that the Alien Zone was intended for goofy photo-opportunities. So that's what we chose. We paid $3/person and got to take as many silly pictures as we wanted. The staff was really nice too.
For lunch, we ate at Pepper's Grill. Reviews I had read indicated that this place was delicious. Michael and I must be spoiled by our normal diets, because we completely disagree. The food was just okay - plain, bland, and average. It just didn't impress us.
We ended the day by driving to Abilene to stay the night with Michael's family.
Tuesday, May 8th
We concluded our journey by driving back home and enjoyed settling back in. There really is no place like home!
BONUS
The last little treat associated with this trip came in the form of an unexpected and wonderful surprise from Allen and Julie. After having just left their home on Monday, they actually ended up staying over at OUR house Friday, May 11th because they were in town for Julie's sister's graduation. Michael and I had raved so much about how good that bread pudding was, that Julie called the Flying Star Cafe, asked them to freeze two pieces, and she traveled to Texas and brought them with her. Are those true friends, or what!? And since it was Michael's birthday weekend, it was the perfect time for them to surprise us with that treat. Thank you again guys!!
Hope you enjoy the pictures from our trip! (Click on the thumbnail picture below to go view the slideshow of all the pictures we took.) You can also watch videos of the hot air balloon ride by clicking on the "Home Videos" button at the top menu bar.
3 comments:
Sounds like such a great trip! We were planning to visit Amarillo, Abilene & Lubbock last fall, but we ended up going to Emy & Simo's wedding instead. Maybe this year!
Finally finished reading the post... I enjoyed all the stories and reviews. Sounds like a great time. Thought the lily pad story was funny. So glad we got to enjoy dinner with you guys too!
I really admire how organized your whole trip planning was :)
Glad you guys had such a fun trip AND got to visit the wonderful town of Amarillo! :)
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