I have nothing but good things to say about each La Quinta hotel we stayed at along our route. All were very clean and very well priced. The boys loved the super bounciness of thier beds and their large swimming pool type bathtubs. Their double beds however are a bit small for my tastes. I like to sleep on my side with a knee thrown out to the side, I also like a little bit of distance between my face and my other half’s face. I like his face I really do but him breathing on me in the middle of the night is odd and disturbing to my beauty sleep. So being the smart folks we were we tried to share a bed with one of the boys. I got Z Man and Big C got the Little C. It was way worse than having the Big C snore in my ear and breathe on my face. He was a worm, put his feet all over me, stole the covers, smacked me once in the head, and talked in his sleep. “That was a good choice” to be exact, that’s what he said out loud and clear in his sleep. I was begging for 6:30am to roll around on that digital clock.
We had a nice sit down breakfast at Cracker Barrell in Albuquerque with G & G Alebis on Sunday morning, day three of our trip, which also happened to be Grandma’s birthday. She hit double nickels, or 55 but doesn’t look a day over say 48. 🙂 I love ya mom. Our road miles actually weren’t too bad, it was only about four or so hours to Durango and we had a planned stop at the Aztec National Ruins in Aztec, NM. Aztec was 183 miles from Albuquerque and the scenery changes were amazing here (I was doing the driving this leg so no through the minivan window photos) and at one point we crossed the Contenintal Divide at 7,000 feet. It was a long stretch of road with not much on it, mostly Indian land with a dot or two of a casino.
The ruins were very cool, they are called the Aztec National Ruins but it’s a misnomer since they were actually built by the Pueblo Indians. Z Man added to his Jr. Ranger badges here by answering a few important questions the Rangers asked. The doorways of the ruins were so small that I really think the Indians must have actually been very short in stature, maybe my size or smaller. Must have been a hard working folk though and seriously resourceful. The Kivas were very interesting, especially the main Kiva that they reconstructed. A very spiritual feeling building.
When we were leaving Aztec Big C pulled over and took some photos of the Animas river under the highway bridge. He has a great story of how he, his brother, and his dad survived a few day rafting trip down the Animas from Durango and by the time they reached Aztec they were dishevled and starving and climbed out of the river here and sat in a corner of and A&W restaurant while thier dad called their mom to come pick them up.
We drove into downtown Durango early afternoon and scouted our way to the place we were staying. It was a little concerning at first but we finally found the main house where we met the lady who owned the farm (her husband had passed away last year and it was just her running things now) she was sitting on her back porch shooting prairie dogs. What was really funny was that she kept saying she couldn’t see so good to shoot. Her property stretched down to the Animas River itself and was a very nice place. The house was very nice also minus the low water pressure. The boys were thrilled with the 3 foot pile of snow in front of the house and spent the afternoon (minus our trip to the grocery store) playing there. They were able to reuse their saucers from White Sands with some success.
We barely had phone coverage here though and absolutely no internet connectivity which made things nice but harder to check in. We had a nice dinner at the house that night and hit the sack after making a lunch to take with us on our train trip.
I have nothing but good things to say about each La Quinta hotel we stayed at along our route. All were very clean and very well priced. The boys loved the super bounciness of thier beds and their large swimming pool type bathtubs. Their double beds however are a bit small for my tastes. I like to sleep on my side with a knee thrown out to the side, I also like a little bit of distance between my face and my other half’s face. I like his face I really do but him breathing on me in the middle of the night is odd and disturbing to my beauty sleep. So being the smart folks we were we tried to share a bed with one of the boys. I got Z Man and Big C got the Little C. It was way worse than having the Big C snore in my ear and breathe on my face. He was a worm, put his feet all over me, stole the covers, smacked me once in the head, and talked in his sleep. “That was a good choice” to be exact, that’s what he said out loud and clear in his sleep. I was begging for 6:30am to roll around on that digital clock.
We had a nice sit down breakfast at Cracker Barrell in Albuquerque with G & G Alebis on Sunday morning, day three of our trip, which also happened to be Grandma’s birthday. She hit double nickels, or 55 but doesn’t look a day over say 48. 🙂 I love ya mom. Our road miles actually weren’t too bad, it was only about four or so hours to Durango and we had a planned stop at the Aztec National Ruins in Aztec, NM. Aztec was 183 miles from Albuquerque and the scenery changes were amazing here (I was doing the driving this leg so no through the minivan window photos) and at one point we crossed the Contenintal Divide at 7,000 feet. It was a long stretch of road with not much on it, mostly Indian land with a dot or two of a casino.
The ruins were very cool, they are called the Aztec National Ruins but it’s a misnomer since they were actually built by the Pueblo Indians. Z Man added to his Jr. Ranger badges here by answering a few important questions the Rangers asked. The doorways of the ruins were so small that I really think the Indians must have actually been very short in stature, maybe my size or smaller. Must have been a hard working folk though and seriously resourceful. The Kivas were very interesting, especially the main Kiva that they reconstructed. A very spiritual feeling building.
When we were leaving Aztec Big C pulled over and took some photos of the Animas river under the highway bridge. He has a great story of how he, his brother, and his dad survived a few day rafting trip down the Animas from Durango and by the time they reached Aztec they were dishevled and starving and climbed out of the river here and sat in a corner of and A&W restaurant while thier dad called their mom to come pick them up.
We drove into downtown Durango early afternoon and scouted our way to the place we were staying. It was a little concerning at first but we finally found the main house where we met the lady who owned the farm (her husband had passed away last year and it was just her running things now) she was sitting on her back porch shooting prairie dogs. What was really funny was that she kept saying she couldn’t see so good to shoot. Her property stretched down to the Animas River itself and was a very nice place. The house was very nice also minus the low water pressure. The boys were thrilled with the 3 foot pile of snow in front of the house and spent the afternoon (minus our trip to the grocery store) playing there. They were able to reuse their saucers from White Sands with some success.
We barely had phone coverage here though and absolutely no internet connectivity which made things nice but harder to check in. We had a nice dinner at the house that night and hit the sack after making a lunch to take with us on our train trip.
