Stats: 1,758 miles traveled, 138.85 gallons of gas burned, average miles per gallon 12.66, 4 states visited

I worked hard to cut out pictures.  There were a lot today.  No wonder Georgia O’Keeffe found inspiration here and made it her home.

Scott cooked up some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Cody licked off the frosting.

This is the view from our campsite. See the island? We visit it on our canoe trip in the afternoon.

The kids were hamming it up on our exploration hike this morning. Between Cody’s hat and his glasses it is hard to get a picture of his eyes. We are pushing for the kids to keep on hats and sunglasses though.

Remember these merry-go-rounds? They are hard to find in parks these days.

The park at the campground.  First Scott taught Cody how to use the excavator and then Cody directed Scott.

After the park we headed to the campsite where the kids worked on excavation and Scott and I worked on trying to figure out the journey for the rest of the week.  A few challenges: no Internet and most of the places we wanted to stay are closed due to forest fires.  With the holiday weekend we wanted to try to be proactive and plan instead of the usual carefree method.  Scott’s sister, Tiffany, was our super secretary and looked up campsites for us on the Internet.  We might still be gambling with a place to stay, but we are intending on camping just outside Flagstaff on the fourth.  We find it humorous that we had five bars of service strength from AT&T at our campsite in the middle of nowhere and at home we only have two or three bars.

After lunch we canoed on Lake Abiquiu.  We stopped on the island and played for quite a while in the water.  There were names written in rock on the island and Brooke wanted hers there too.  Scott sunned himself in the canoe while Cody threw rocks in the water asking if Scott felt the splash for each and every one.  Putting the rocks in the Brooke formation was tougher than it looked.  The island had a steep grade and some of the soil was very loose.  Consequently the very warm sun baked stones slid down at times.  The rocks were so warm I worked at stone delivery while Brooke worked on stone placement.  It was worth every oh so warm stone to watch Brooke’s creativity.  Notice on the B and R she tried to pattern the color of rocks.  By the second o I hurried her along and the pattern wasn’t present anymore.  She definitely has more patience for artistic creativity than I do.

Brooke was very excited about finding a large stick cut on both ends by animal teeth. Cody ran around with his sticks like they were light sabers.

After our canoe trip we headed down the road about 15 miles in order to drop Scott off for a bike ride.  He randomly stopped at Echo Amphitheater in Carson National Forest.  Some people in the parking lot were a bit curious as to what he was up to.  I explained, “He likes to get dropped off in the desert in random spots.”

Echo Amphitheater in Carson National Forest

The kids loved Echo Amphitheater.  As the name suggests you can yell as loud as you want and hear yourself repeated at least a few times.  Brooke was singing as loud as she could, “It’s raining. It’s pouring.”  As the afternoon shower came down.  Cody preferred to just scream.  Yelling, “Hello and Goodbye,” were other favorites.

Rain falling but not all the way to the ground

The picture above is of a strange phenomenon that we hadn’t heard of until this campsite.  Our camping neighbor explained to us that sometimes it is so dry that the rain falls from the sky, but never reaches the ground.  We send apologies to our friends and family back in Chicago who are still swimming in the monsoon season.

I started to type, “We wish there was a way to trade out some of the rain.”  Scott piped up, “No we don’t!”  He feels we made up for the lack of rain on this trip with the monsoons we endured in Canada and Alaska three years ago.

Brooke dug a bathroom complete with a urinal cookie. I wasn’t going to include this, but Scott thought it was hilarious. He laughs when he thinks of the years to come and her embarrassment over this photo. Sorry kids. We really do love you.

As I type, some fellow campers are struggling to clean up a swimming hamburger mess in their cooler.  We are attempting to fix the problem of food doing the backstroke in the cooler with super locking plastic containers.  We shall see how they hold up.  We have also moved the cooler to the driver’s side of the van as the passenger side is above the extremely hot exhaust system.  Consequently the new five day cooler Scott bought is lasting one and a half to two days at most.  Another cooler challenge is keeping things organized.  Keeping the refrigerator clean during the activity-filled school year is challenge enough, but trying to keep the tiny cooler organized is even more challenging.  We found two one pound bags of watermelon that mysteriously disappeared buried beneath some butter, bacon, gifted trout, sour cream, and cheese.

After our dinner of Jiffy Jambalaya we headed to the showers.  Note to self on the Jambalaya, no diced tomatoes with chiles.  Scott was loving the extra spice.  The kids and I had to choke the dinner down with a lot of milk.  Brooke proclaimed at dinner yesterday, “I love camping!”  Scott asked why. “Because you don’t make me drink milk with every meal.”  Well at least she likes camping.

Tonight’s shower was our first since Thursday morning.  We only went three full days without a shower, not bad. The only problem is Brooke’s super sensitive skin.  I brought her prescription cream just in case, even though she hasn’t needed more than a tube in half a year.  However, the extra sunscreen, sweating, and playing in the dirt are making her skin look terribly raw. I have been trying to scrub her legs and get the cream on more consistently.  This however leads to the dilemma of trying to get her prescription refill on the road. We will have to work that out soon.

After I settled the kids Scott and I enjoyed the campfire and the lightning show while some bats softly squeaked and swooped around us.