Almost a month ago now we drove up to Canyon de Chelly. We left as usually on friday night and headed up to El Morro National monument, which has camping and related to it being in the Navajo Reservation the camping is free. El Morro is a Large rock outcrop with a pool that is not big, but about 12 foot deep when completely full. It's feed by runoff from the rock and is the only water source for about 30 miles. So in the early days everyone stopped here for a drink. While they were here they left their mark on the rock so it has inscriptions from indian petroglyphs and Spanish commanders some in very elaborate script, so I guess they remembered to bring the stone carver with them. Madeline was our guide. From there we headed to Gallup and on through Window Rock along some BLM roads to Canyon de Chelly, we got a flat tyre which ment we were back onto the space saver tyre, this didn't slow us down any since the roads weren't up to more than 50 miles anyway. Our first lookout on the canyon rim was spider rock, in Navajo legend this place is home to spider woman who taught them to weave.
The guard rails on lots of the outlooks in National Parks don't really seem designed for safety all Liam and Madeline want to do is climb on them. So Madeline spent most of the time getting in and out of the backpack. Liam was really good about holding hands and keeping safe.
We camped at the campgrounds of the National Monument which we nice the weather however was not. We had thunder, rain and hail just after we got the tents up. There had been weather like this the previous day as well so we decided it would be better not to do the walk down into the canyon to the white house ruins. We viewed the north rim view sites and headed for Shiprock in hopes of finding a tyre repairer for our flat tyre. There are plenty of tyre repair places in and around Shiprock, we were lucky thou to find one who was open so with new second hand tyre on the car we headed on to Farmington and cottonwood campground on Navajo dam.
We were the only tenters but there were plenty of others in their RV's. Liam helped some ladies who were fishing in the river and enjoyed playing in the sandy arroyo at the back of our campsite. We had a campfire which we cooked our New Zealand lamb chops on, very tasty.
We had our first frost while tenting in America. I biggest problem was getting the tents dry in the morning. We looked around at the lake at Navajo Dam and saw house boats out on the lake befor edrrivinng back to Santa Fe for dinner at Tomasitas

hoi poli

Richard and I ventured out the other night to one of his collegues from works place for a fundraiser function for Bill Richardson the New Mexican Govenor. It was an interesting evening they have a lovely house and there was a good mariachi band playing and the food was good. Some of Richard's other collegues were there and it was good to meet them too. We didn't go and shake the govn'rs hand, he can speak well (as you'd hope really) and it was a crowd of old friends and public service people so the speech was directed at what they had achieved in the last term and the goal for the current election. Richard's suit got an airing which it hasn't had since we've been here.

Oh for a quite life.

Why do I do this to myself. We have had teacher problems at school. Our new teacher and our old one don't seem able to communicate with each other. So muggins is trying to mediate and see if they can work together or if we should let the new teacher resign after less than a month.
It's very frustrating because I feel like the children are missing out on the talents avaliable in the new teacher because they can't figure out how to work together.

Up, up and away

There were plenty of beautiful balloon options avaliable at the Special Shapes Rodeo Mass accention which we went to this morning. It involved a 5am start so that we could drive to Alburquerque by dawn but it was fanatastic to see the Dawn patrol balloons going up as the sky started to light up.
By about 8am an amazing array of shapes had lifted off and floated by. Highlights were the cow, the horse and chillis, the space shuttle was pretty spectacular too.
The weather today was perfect, clear blue sky and almost no wind, so the balloons lifted up flew around the park and landed, some back in the place they started from. Following the rodeo event was a prize grab where the ballonists flew from a mile away to collect a tag from the ground and fly off. Great to watch as the huge array of colours flew in dropped and lifted and landed near by. There were balloons all over Albuquereque.

We had thought of going down on sunday and started out early but it was spittling and the rain got heavier so it was cancelled. I'm glad really 'cause I'd forgotten my camera. Today I took 235 picutres ( I won't bee posting them all) so should you NEED a picture of hot air balloons I might have just what you're after.

A picture

From hat

Madeline got a new hat in a parcel from Canada

These boots ...

Madeline got a parcel of clothes from friends here and we shopped for the boots - we think Aunty Megan might like to be allocated this gift. They are very popular. 

Sprinkles?

Madeline and her firends shared a jar of sprinkles at her party. The main activity was icing cupcakes with tubes of icing and decorating with sprinkles. 

Language Lessons

Liam's friend has decided he's going to teach us "English" it's making for some amusing conversations. Last night he started with "dinner" I happened to have said tea is ready. This morning trousers are "pants". I know he and Liam have had some other conversations related to this.

A Day trip

Last weekend we stayed in Santa Fe because Richard was leaving for a work trip in Sunday morning (before the crack of dawn). So we went with friends four adults, three fve year olds and two almost two's, to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks which is about an hours drive south from here.

It was a spectacular day after the grey weather and storms of the week, and being south of here the temperature was warmer. (Almost as soon as you leave Santa Fe you drop down off the Plateau and loose a thousand feet) We took Mac 'n' cheese to make for lunch on the hike and tea. Since we were taking the stove. We rather flabergassted the rest of the group with this one pair had a 'cliff bar' and the others a couple of sandwiches. We had planned on enough for everyone, and all enjoyed.

Tent Rocks is dramatic landscape, like the pinicles in the Wairarapa in style but larger, some of the peaks have HUGE boulders perched on top of them. The walk is gentle and we did the loop to the cave dwelling and about 2/3rd's of the canyon trail. It's one of those slot canyons which wind through the rock. There is a lookout at the far end which we didn't get to. Only one of the two year olds had a backpack to be carried in, so we were taking turns, but they had got to the point where they both needed to sleep.

Our seven seater car got a test, and it worked well From the front seat you can hardly hear the loudness of two boys in the boot.

Another Monumental Weekend

The weekend after the fair we went to Chaco Culture National Monument. It's in the North West of New Mexico and there isn't much else out there. We left here after school and got to Chaco about 6.30pm. Having eaten a homemade pie on the way.

Friday night there was a ranger talk at the visitor center which we attended, it was interesting, he showed other areas where there are pueblo ruins near Chaco. The children got a little restless but we were mostly there because after the talk had four large telescopes out. With the remote location and a moonless night the view of the stars and planets was very clear. I haven't really looked at the stars in Santa Fe but we saw Jupiter and scorpio and the operators (astoronomers I suppose) were interested in showing clusters so we saw tight clusters and loose clusters, and a binary star. Liam really enjoyed the telescopes. Especially the very large one which they have set in obsevatory.

We spent saturday looking at the great house and great kiva ruins and completeing the junior ranger program. This one was a bit advanced for Liam but he was able to answer the questions when the ranger went through it with him. There was a what don't we stand on question which he came up with ' criptobiotic' for, thy were after 'walls' but knew what he was talking about.

It's a lovely place and the buildings are dramatic. It got very cold at night, the kids had plenty of stuff but I had only 1 jearsy each for Richard and I, still coats kept out the wind and we got into the tent early.

Sunday we drove home via a scenic route, had lunch in the Santa Fe National Forest by Cuba and drove back past the Caldera and Los Alamos.

The old woman in the shoe

Here's a link to the La Casita pictures from the pet parade.

Time for singlets

In our family as many of you know, when there is snow on the Tararuas you have to wear your singlet.

Today as I drove Liam to school I looked at the mountain in front of us ( I think Murray may have walked up it) and there glistening in the sun was a heavy icing sugar dusting of snow. The nights have definately cooled off, in fact I think we've had a frost or two, but the days have still been warm. Today there is a slight nip to the air despite the glorious sunshine.

Liam and I discussed the tree leaves and how they were starting to turn yellow, he had been finding some trees at school yesterday and matchingthem with pictures, we talked about evergreens and deciduous trees too. He probably didn't need to go to school after that.

Both days our new teacher has been visiting she's had Liam engaged in an activity of some kind. Today they were labeling the new recycle bins and putting "TRASH" labels on the rubbish bins. Liam helped write labels and stick them on and then at meeting he stood up the front and did a presentation on the new system - it was delightful, very detailed and showed ALL the bins.

Madeline had been playing with three other little girls who are only slightly older than her. She initiated several of the activities they did, they all had flowers and crowns on from the dress up area and they feed Coco the rabbit carrot tops. She losses interest during meeting time, thou she's initally keen to sit up with everyone, just then she started taking her clothes off!

You need this at the fair.

Last week the state fair was on in Albuquerque so Richard took thursday off and we all went down. It's like a really good A&P show but we happened to be there on law enforcement day so there were armoured vechiles, tanks and officers of various sorts all over the place.

There was an Indian Pueblo village where we watched some Aztec dancers. Their costumes were bright with fabulous feathers.

We looked at animals and the kids did a McDonalds Farm activity in which they were farmers who havested, drove tractors collected eggs, milked a cow, sold their wares and got an ice block for their rewards. 

Who started school?

Some how school seems to have taken over MY life, not just Liams. I've been helping out with the after care as our after care teacher is doing the main sessions since our new teacher resigned before school started. The board seems to be raising lots of issues in emails and we are trying to find, interview and appoint a new teacher which adds a few more emails. Our ideal person will partner with Lynn and have a desire to become the director of the school over the next couple of years, allowing Lynn to retire. Obviously they'll maintain the schools missions and philosphy but bring their own strengths and talents. Oh and we're a non profit so they won't want much money for this either! We have someone to interview tomorrow so hopefully they fit.

Today I participated (as well) and made scones from memory, and trying to make allowances for altitude. Several of the children helped, it was good. The scones were slightly soda-y but not too bad. They all got eaten anyway but maybe that was the jam.

I did my clean up and left as soon after 12.30 as I could knowing I need to be back for 2.30

Desfile de Los Ninos (Pet Parade)

Yesterday was Pet Parade in the Santa Fe Fiestas. La Casita had a float which was the Old woman who lived in the shoe (she had so many childern but she KNEW what to do) Several of the dads and some others built a fabulous shoe which Lynn, our teacher rode in and the children and parents pulled along. Liam was a very enthusiasitc puller. He also wanted to tie his rope onto himself and all sorts of other things.
There were heaps of people watching the parade and many of them called out to Lynn, one mother called out saying this was (I can't remember the boys name) and he went to La Casita and now he's second year in college. Lynn was delighted. Hopefully we'll get some photos but I left my camera behind.

Banishing old man gloom

It's Festas here this weekend. It kicks off tonight with Zozobra.
We thought about going.
Most people said we should.
But its pouring with rain so standing (or sitting) around outside to watch the burning of old man gloom doesn't fill me with enthusiasm.
The Santa Feans wouldn't be gloomy though they have to comment on how good the weather has been lately, all this rain!

In fact today they are putting rainbow trout in the Santa Fe River, they have been releasing water from the reservoir so that the dam's don't fail. Usually there is no water in the Santa Fe river so I hope all the trout get caught before they get to the end of the river, or it dries up again.

Tested

This morning Liam had a check up at the pediatric center here so they could look at him and say it was/ is OK for him to go to school. I booked this about three weeks ago and today was the first appointment I could get. So we headed over there for our 8.30 appointment, arriving early because it was his first visit and we needed to do paperwork first. I got there early with insurance cards but I'd forgotten his plunket book, with his immunisation record in it and the form the school wants signed, still I know know he is 38 pounds ( Madeline is 30) and 40 3/4 inches tall. His eye sight is 20/30 in both eyes and his hearing is perfect. He's had a couple of extra vacines which are standard here but not in NZ.

So when he's loud he really is just shouting at you! He can hear a pin drop.

So, late on his first day at school Madeline and I dropped him off with not a backward look. Getting Madeline to leave is harder.

Now they work on cornering

Liam currently looks at things and runs into them. today he did this to his sister as well (she's OK but is avoiding himon his bike).

Today he got much better on corners 

This is a boy whose pleased with himself!

Richard and Liam have been riding around the block for a week or two and yesterday they took Liam's training wheels of and went for a ride at the school. Liam was off by himself from the first run. 

Eat peaches!

We have a lovely peach tree in our yard it has been covered with peaches since we moved into the house. We had moments of concern when the thunderstorms lead to large hail stones, and people mentioned previously lossing tomato crops to golf ball sized hail. Over the last few weeks they have ALL become ripe so we are eating a lot of peaches. It's hard to complain about peaches which are ripe and sweet and warm from the sun. But if your nearby do pop in for a bag as there are still more on the tree and the fridge and freezer are full. It was peach muffins today. I'm thinking of peach salsa with pork for tomorrow. Getting peaches into the main meal is something I haven't achieved so far.

Humm...and Rambings

So recently we decided to rebuild my PC, it was not performing as well as it could and it was full of old stuff of Richard's. So first we went for reloading it with win2k that it was already running, seemed better but there were a few things I wanted which would be better with XP. Since it was all backed up already we decided to go ahead and move it on up.

It was all going quite nicely until yesterday when my hard disk died!

Not sure where we'll go from here - today I've stollen Richard's machine since he's out (in pouring rain and thunderstorms) playing with those new carbonfibre shafts he purchased last week.
Last weekend we went away again, our current plan is to keep heading northward's while it's warm and as it cools we'll go to some places to the south. So we went to Capulin Volcano National Moument. There has been so much rain lately that the place looks more like Taranaki than a desert, especially around Capulin where it's a volcano field. We walked around the rim, Liam and Richard went into the crater, I didn't feel like walking up again so I skipped it. It's much like most of the Auckland volcanoes craters so I don't feel I missed much. We did the junior ranger program, so Liam has another badge for his hat.

We camped by a very pretty lake, yet again there was a canyon so 'they' had to dam it. It's reputed to be very good fishing, we weren't fishing, and there are dinosaur tracks which were exposed after they dug the spillway for the dam.
Unfortunately for us a group of loud teenagers turned up about 11 and decided to camp next to us. Liam and Madeline slept on fine and I think Richard slept most of the time but I was awake a lot. I'm pretty convinced NZ and US teenagers are much the same, I recognised the music there were no astonishing conversation topics, they threw stones at things, all I noticed as different was the size of their vechiles. Even kids have enormous pick up trucks.

We were backtracking to head home on sunday so I saw less of the plains but I woke up before we got to Kiowa National Grassland in Harding county. We visited the Canadian River Canyon which has some interesting history. I had fun with two cameras taking pictures of the ruins of the buildings. The new camera came with an 18 - 55mm lens so when I put it onto my old camera it give a really wide angle - quite fun. I have black and white film in it currently, hopefully I'll get some arty results. It is nice to have the instant results of the digital, thou I haven't downloaded it yet( thankfully with the hard disk having died ) so you can't see any pic's.

We had our own car back for the trip which was nice it's taken about two weeks to chevy to get the parts and panel work done after someone drove into the rear wheel when Richard was driving round town. We've been driving a red ford explorer, Liam really likes cars with extra seats in the rear, he sat in the very back and got into the car through the boot.

Liam's excitement for the weekend was a yard sale across the road had bunk beds for sale, we saw them as we went to LLL on friday and they were still there when we came back, we had to run over because someone else was aproaching the yard sale and Liam was concerned they'd get the beds before us. Charles needs to be aware the bottom bed has been alocated as his. (too bad if Madeline decides she wants her own bed before then). The people were really nice to and delivered and set the beds up. So now Liam sleeps all night in his own bed. Except tonight when he's staying at Alex's place.

He went to play this morning and so Madeline and I went to the outlet mall, we returned successfully with underwear, shoes and books.

So apparently WE needed these!

Richard came home for lunch today because the FedEx track that he was watching said these were sitting on the front door step. He had with him a crochet set and kids golf bag and clubs ( 2) that he'd found at the goodwill this morning. 

Food and Friends

We stayed around Santa Fe this week-end and started the week-end with some unsuccessful yard sale-ing. We tried a local cafe for breakfast which was a most successful find. The area we are in had a street party event so we had a look but we were there a bit early really as we left at about 12 and I think most of the live acts were in the afternoon. We however were off to the party we'd been invited to. It was from 3pm and a storyteller was arranged for the kids from about 4ish. "Dave" is well known in Santa Fe and apparently used to tell stories at Borders in town before they rearranged, he was very well received by the children and we didn't see them for several hours.

I only know a handful of people in Santa Fe but one of the other league leaders arrived at the party with her children and husband too - Santa Fe is a small town. It was realy good to meet some more people. Everyone was very well travelled and doing lots of exploring around New Mexico so we have some good recommendations for further weekend (and longer) trips.

Tuesday night we had our friends from the hotel over for dinner. Liam and George haven't seen each other for about a month so they had a great time at the school next door, and making a mountain of gravel of the back. I attempted to make a pavlova in the oven here, without an electric beater with an Australian recipe = pavlova slice! It was tasty but I've since brought a $15 electric egg beater and found my trusty Vegetarian Adventure for a better recipe next time I'll have to blame altitude and gas stoves for failure. I made a tasty meal from New Zealand Food, Wine and Art, and even found a bottle of New Zealand Chardonnay to go with it, not the recommended Gladstone Wairarapa Chardonnay but a very nice wine none the less.

Ice cream

Liam had school three days last week and Madeline and I participated on the final one, it's the end of summer school so it was a party week. The pool party from tuesday got posponed due to inclement weather so thursday, when we were there was pool and ice cream party.

Making the ice cream was the activity that I and the other participating parent were involved in. Lynn (one of the teachers) gave us a list of purchases to bring with us I had 4 quarts half and half, vanilla and cones, the other list was rock salt, crushed ice and sprinkles ( there was already sugar at school).

The plan was that you have small empty cans (like tuna or slamon cans) in the freezer and you put 1 part rock salt and 4 parts crushed ice into a container, about an inch bigger than the can all round, and into the can you put 1/4 cup half and half 2 t sugar and a 1/4 teaspoon vanilla and stir. After about 5 -6 minutes you should get ice cream.
One of the dad's who was there (like many of the parents) works at Los Alamos he said they super cooled water in class using rock salt, ice and acohol so the theory should work. Our problems were, most of the kids wanted to mix all the ingredients in one container, they wanted to eat the ingredients, they lost patience with the stirring.

We did have one girl who stirred and stirred but the containers we had the ice and rock salt in were to small and there wasn't enough ice up the sides of the cans. I tried one later in a larger container of ice and after initally thinking the whole thing was a faf I left it on the table and came back to ice cream. We had a plan B anyway which was fold frozen raspberries into whipped cream fold and fold its just like ice cream and was defineately popular for snack. (plan C stayed in the freezer)

Some people get stamps at post offices

While we had overseas visitors we went to the Post Office. Liam and Grandma went in, they got stamps but while there Liam managed to make a new Friend. I gave his mother our contact details and she called a few days later.

We visited with them late last week it's really good 'cause there are two five year olds and two almost two's, so the older two play and the younger two ignore each other or follow the older ones around. Liam stayed for the afternoon at their house while Madeline had her sleep.
We did the oposite yesterday except in the morning we went swimming at the indoor pool (and Ice ring!) as it looked like rain, outside pools close if it rains, they don't want you out there in a thunderstorm, and Alex came over for the afternoon. Madeline slept all afternoon so the two boys played unsiblinged all afternoon.

They have invited us to a housewarming at their place on saturday -our first party!

So I was sitting here at the computer fully intending to use this time while Liam is at school and Madeline is sleeping to tell you what has happened here, but instead I've read your blog's and some other peoples and looked at the new photo's I just got (but haven't put up anywhere yet) and now it's time to get Liam from school again! How did that happen.

So this is/was Garden of the Gods we were there two weeks ago.

Too cool

Liam seems to have a theme going at the moment.
He was sticking his head into the bath to get the front of his hair wet so he could spike it "Jimmy Newton" style Jimmy Neutron is the cartoon character. Still he a Madeline had a bath together which he's been refusing for a while and she thought it was a laugh.

Water Boy

Today when we were at Target I got Liam a diver who came with fish seaweeds and a shark.

As soon as we got home he ran a bathtub full of water, dressed the diver in flippers and mask and they all got into the water. I'm now hearing "I'm going to eat you" and other shark type sounds coming from the baathroom.

Our House

This is the inside of the house. Playroom, Lounge, dinning area and Kitchen. 

I've got rhtyhm

Last night after we did somethings round Santa Fe we went to the Santa Fe Brewing company for burgers. They had a live band who started playing while we were eating. Liam was fascinated. He started out waving his arms around then shook his head (reminded me of Ray Columbus in the She's a mod video), he was totally engrossed in the music and having trouble with how it made him want to move. His attention was totally focussed on the band and the music. After the first song, and he realised we were looking at him he started eating as well, I thought it might have the oposite effect but he ate all his dinner while engrossed in the band. According to Liama they were too good! High praise, maybe we should have more dinner bands.

Aproaching the edge

It's a while ago now but the bread did turn out tasty. It wasn't really a picnic, we ate the bread on our lap as we drove 80 m/h along the I-40 West from Albequerque to Flagstaff AZ, a new state so we photographed the border sign - happened to be some nice rocks there to but a bit hot for much time out of the air con.

We managed to get away from Santa Fe before 3pm so most of the driving was in day light, but most of it was also on the straightness that is the I-40
Liam was distracted by the creatures we saw road side. They went on for several miles so it was a great distaction. Once we left Flagstaff it was beginning to get dark so we could only faintly make out the canyon landscape around us in the final leg to Desert View Campground. When we arrived the welcoming party was out and two children excitedly exited the car to see their grandparents. Liam had been keeping himself awake but he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon. Still several walks later and a cup of tea we had our camp set up an all got to sleep.

It's a giant!

We are getting ready to go away tomorrow. Liam and I made bread to have to tea tomorrow night. Referred to as a "Jamie Bread" many of you will have consumed some. It has, in this case, prosciutto, egg, basil, sundried tomatoes, brie, blue, sharp, feta and parmesan cheese. 

An unseasonal day

This is the outside of our house. It's a pretty typical central Santa Fe house, you can't see the bits of wood that stick out across the front 'cause they're behind the tree - but we do have them. We also have a porch swing but its on the back porch, it's very pleasant in the late afternoon and evening. It was hailing this day as we arrived back from our drive to Taos. 

O'keefe country

 

Scenic Steam

Having seen many stationery steam trains it had been promised to Liam that we would ride on one. Friday night we packed up again, after what seemed like no time at all in Santa Fe, and headed back to the northern part of New Mexico. After Espaniola we took a different route than previous trip and headed past Ghost Ranch through some fantasticly sculptural landscape. The colours in the rock are hard to describe. I think they range was possibly greater with the rain wetting the rock in places. We camped at Heron lake which was giving a good demonstration of how severe the drought had been here. The water level must have been 10 -12 metres below normal. There's a marina and boat ramps which all looked very strange. The ramps go off a cliff to nowhere and you look down a long way onto the floating marina pontoons. The lake must be very deep as there are still some large boats there. I imagine the fishing might be easier - less places to hide /try with less water.
Still while we were there the rain decided to fall so we set up camp in the rain, one of my least favourite ways to set up a tent. It rained almost all night, enough for the water to run down the road, the ground was very soft and as we left the next morning our car was sliding with so much mud on the tyres.
The train station was in Chama and the train we were catching the Cumbres and Toltec scenic railroad which runs from Chama to Antonito in Colorado. It's a narrow gauge railroad and the remains of a much larger system dating from mining, farming and forestry activites in the area.
The train left in the rain but the weather cleared as we chugged along. Richard and Liam spent lots of time outside on the open carriage. I wasn't so keen to take Madeline out there so we enjoyed the view from the carriage windows. The motion soon had Madeline asleep. The advantage of all the rain we've had is that there are alot of wildflowers in bloom , they have lovely names like Indian paint brush and fairy trumpet . The train winds up through rocky country to Osier for a lunch stop. We had a look around the engine here to while the engineers oiled bits and refilled water and things. After lunch you either return to Chama or head on to Antonito, we did the later a longer trip but very worthwhile. There were two tunnels in this section and some amasing rock formations. the track winds down off the mesa again one corner is named whiplash curve because of the corners. The trip takes about six hours with a bus ride back to Chama. The road follows the rail track for alot of the way so you see where you've been. What takes 5 hours by train takes 1 by bus. We had dinner in a cafe called cookin' books the food was excellent as was their selection of books, they had so many I wanted to read I couldn't choose. We'd decided we'd drive back to Santa Fe that evening it was only a couple of hours and then we'd have sunday at home.

As we were leaving Denver the sky was looking grey and we were watching lightning in the sky but it cleared as we drove into the hills, we took the 285 out of Denver and turned off at Grant onto the Guanella Pass Scenic and Historic by-way, our map showed some campsites here. We camped at Burning Bear campsite, and though several other cars came by they didn't stay so it was us and the squirrels and bugs, worst bugs we've had anywhere!

Richard and the kids made dinner and I set up the tent.










Richard Liam and Madeline climbed up the rocks behind the tent in the morning after we had our first rainy night in the tent, held up OK and since it was fine again by morning the tent was dry again to pack up.

You can't see it very well but there is a little creature in the photo with the car (our car incase there was any doubt). The other two photos are just scenic views from the camp site.

In the morning we continued on to Georgetown, an old silver mining and train town, which is very pretty especially with all the flowers and flags out for Independance day. Our trip was developing a mining theme so we comtinued on to Leadville, home of the National mining hall of fame and museum, naturally there was a train as well. We visited the museum and matchless mine which is associated with it. Interesting but kind of kitchy too. The dioramas gave Liam a good understanding of mining thou. Madeline wasn't very keen on the walk through mining types. It was raining again as we headed out south and east we passed through Beuna Vista and over cottonwood pass(12126ft) on the main divide to Taylor park resovior and the Taylor creek. We'd planned on stopping at one of the many campsites along the river but we'd forgotten to get cash and campsite envelopes don't take plastic. So we drove on down to Gunnison, got cash and dinner and headed to another campsite on the lake nearby. The lake is another dammed canyon and along the side in places are some dramatic pinnacle formations, the digital camera battery had runout by now so you'll have to wait till the film is developed for those pictures.
Campsites are commonly a pull in area a table and some grass area with a metal fireplace/BBQ, so you can park you're RV and put out an awning over the table and have a fire. The ground isn't always that flat but we've done OK so far. Interestingly you can have a campfire here which is the first place we've found,everywhere else is too worried about fire risk. I this case we had views of the pinncales and lake from the tent door. After breakfast and pack up in the morning we drove further up the side road we'd taken to the camp and went for a walk. The weather had improved when we crossed to the west of the divide but there has been enough rain for a lovely display of wildflowers. We didn't walk too anywhere but after about an hour we turned back, just after we started to hear thunder so it seemed like a wise choice. Along the way we had some great views of the pinnacle formations and the creek we were walking up appeared to be occupied by some industrious beavers. We also found a tree which chriped and on further investigation housed some woodpeaker, there were about five very round holes up the trunk, and as we stood we saw a baby peak out, mum was getting agitated by our tanding round though so we walked on.

Lunch was just over before the rain started. Richards current complaint is sweet bread, most of the white bread tastes sweet, I think it's lack of salt in the dough but it's not that good for ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches.

It was a long but very scenic drive from here back to Santa Fe, we followed the Rio Grande river alot of the way it we hit the plains and some very straight roads. Got back to town in time to visit friends still at the Marriot and watch the fireworks which were put on at the high school. There was a dramatic lightning show at the same time west of the fireworks which was one of the best we've seen. We were looking onto the side of the front so the lightning was in much the same place all the time.

Water world

For the fourth of july weekend we joined a collegue of Richard's and went to Denver.
We left home on friday night after work collected takeaway at Las Vegas and found a camp at Sugarite State Park before dark. Sugarite Canyon is a beautiful with cliffs along the top edge there has been extensive coal mining in the area in the past. The top end, almost on the Colorado boarder has been damed to form a lake (Lake Maloya) We camped at soda pocket campground about half way up the canyon. The drought here combined with the thunderstorms and dry ligtning strikes has ment that the campground closed on the 3rd of July, this is happening alot around the state they are most concerned about people getting trapped by fires rather than creating them. Still it provoded us a a conveniant stop and we saw deer, hummingbirds and butterflies.

Since we had a destination in mind we headed straight up the I-25, we stopped for supplies at Pueblo and had a look at Trinidad and Colorado Springs, in fact we joined hundreds of other people at Garden of the gods park. I think it was just as well we weren't trying to walk any of the trails as it was bedlam. Much like Bandelier was on Memorial day. But the rock is incredible, so the slow traffic wasn't really a problem.
We had thought of camping near Denver but weren't really surprised to discover the campgrounds full when we arrived. We decided to stay in a hotel in Winchester the Marriot Springfield suites, very similar to the Residence Inn we were so familiar with. We did some shopping had dinner across the road at an Italian resturant, it was really nice though the area seemed very new and there were no houses near by. We were headed to a water park in Denver It was much bigger than the one in Amarillo, lots of rivers which you ride rafts on and a couple of wave pools, some big sides and a nice area for the under 48"ers with several small slides and water fountains and things. We had a great day there, Liam liked the Lost river of the Pharaohs best. Madeline enjoyed the river rides as well thou she wasn't so keen on going backwards, but neither was I!

We left the park about 4ish and headed into the hills.

Rid'im cowboy

Some time ago now it feels like we spent a saturday in Santa Fe, we went to the market and did things round here. That evening we went to the Rodeo. It was fun, Rodeo queens and princesses, who need to be able to ride AND be pretty. Cowboys in big hats and chaps. We were sitting near one end of the ground so could see the animals and cowboys all getting ready. There's more to rodeo than I realised, bucking horses, riding bulls, ropeing calves alone or in a pair, barrel racing for the girls and mutton busting for the kids 4 -6ish (try riding a sheep!)


Liam has cotton candy - after a transation problem -they don't know what candyfloss is here.