Now Entering Texas

In Santa Fe, I learned that it used to be part of the Santa Fe Trail. The pioneers who traveled on that trail had to face high winds and other disasters. The museum that we visited was fun to look at. I learned about the sculptures too.  Fort Worth is six hours from Santa Fe. My mom’s friend, Mr. Ty, lives in Fort Worth.  It will be fun to visit with him!  We hope to see him today.          

We were camping at a very beautiful place called Copper Breaks State Park.  This part of Texas is in the Great Plains and the interesting part is that the sand is red in the Panhandle, which is the northwestern part.  So when we camped this time, it was warm and sunny, there was a swimming pond nearby and a playground.  We had to watch out for rattlesnakes!

We learned about Quanah Parker who is well known in these parts because he was the last great chief of the Comanche people.  They named the town nearby after him.  Quanah was an Indian whose mother was taken away from her white family when she was little.  She grew up with the Comanche people and became part of their tribe.  When Quanah was an adult, she was taken from the Comanche people by the white people.  So she was kidnapped twice in her life.  She had a little daughter with her when she was taken the second time.  She was not allowed home again to the Comanche and was forced to live with the white family that she didn’t know.  The baby died of illness and Quanah’s mother died of sadness a little while later. 

Once you get to Central Texas, you are roughly halfway to New York. We are on our way to Fort Worth, which is right outside Dallas. What is Interesting about Texas is that the roads are different.  Mama thought that the cars were coming from in front of each other, but they were coming from behind.   The lights are horizontal, not up and down.  There are five lights at the intersection instead of three.  The exits are not like in California.  For example, if you want to go to the gas station, the driveway to the gas station is actually ON the freeway.  That makes it hard to slow down fast enough without getting hit from behind to get into the driveway.  Mama sure is glad she doesn’t have to do that with a trailer!

New Mexico to Texas

We just left New Mexico. We are now officially in Texas. Texas is known as the Lone Star State because it used to be its own nation. We are headed to Fort Worth. I have some stories to tell about New Mexico.

 Yesterday, when we were going to go the Santa Fe Museum, it was sadly closed. That was because we had crossed a time zone and didn’t even know it and the museum closes early on Mondays.  But, we went to the sculpture garden outside the museum. It was interesting to look at and I liked most of the art there. 

We also went camping in The Santa Fe National Forest. It was fun and cold, and windy. In the morning, it started to snow. It was fun until my hands started to freeze. My hands got numb until I couldn’t feel them anymore. I had to sit in the car to warm them up.

Texas has some of its laws on big billboards when you come into the state. One says: Don’t mess with Texas, and under those words it says:  Don’t Litter. You also have to drive the speed limit, which is the law in all U.S. States.  In Texas, the law says a car can drive 70mph in the day time but only 65mph at night.  Mama was driving 65mph anyway because it was so windy.

 Texas gets more tornadoes than any other state. In Texas, The girls are all about hair. You have to have your looking nice or they won’t want to play or talk to you. The boys have to be tough. They do not want to hear whining at all.

In the South, the people are nicer. If you break down or are stranded on the side of the road, people or truckers will stop and help you. Today, my mom had a problem with the car. She stopped at a gas station and asked the cashier some questions.  A trucker offered to help her. He was heading west and we were heading east. He said that if he was going east, he would follow her until she arrived safely at an auto shop.  When we arrived at the auto shop, it turns out there was nothing wrong with the car.  The system on it just needs to get used to the new fuel filter and until then, it will drive a little differently than before.  Mama thought it was really nice that the mechanic didn’t charge for a diagnostic.  She said back home that would have cost her $40 or $50. 

The pictures are below of the road into Texas.  It looked like this for about six hours before we even crossed the state line.

Remember, Don’t mess with Texas!

Arizona to New Mexico - Happy Easter!

Yesterday, we went to visit the Grand Canyon. It was amazing to see. The Canyon rocks are 2 billion years old. Some of the younger rocks are 5,000 years old!   The Grand Canyon was formed by the Colorado  River, which starts at the Hoover Dam and flows south. We also saw Route 66, a highway that used to be the main highway until Highway 40 got paved over it. There are parts of Route 66 in Arizona, New Mexico and it originally went all the way to Chicago.

Here are some pics of us at the Grand Canyon and some animals we saw there.

at the Visitor's Center looking at rock formation

at the edge of the Grand Canyon

this squirrel wanted to attack us!

ranger giving a talk on the California Condor

Elk are much bigger in person!

Mule Deer near the entrance

Right now we are on our way to Santa Fe,  New Mexico. I will blog about Santa Fe later. We are in Albuquerque and are going to eat Navajo tacos, and then we will get back on I-40 (the letter I stands for Interstate).

Here are some pics of New Mexico.

Happy Easter every body! I will blog again later.

Leaving Las Vegas

Hi there. First stop, Las Vegas, is almost over! Las Vegas is also known as Sin City, because people sin there. Vegas is the home to gambling. People try their luck in Las Vegas. When they start to win, there is a saying that lady luck is on their side. In Las Vegas, there are a lot of things to do. There is Circus Circus, which is a hotel and amusement park, which is indoors. That was one of the funnest places we went to.

The first day, we packed up the trailer and headed off to Las Vegas. It took 12 hours to get to Vegas from Forestville, so we left at 4:00 in the afternoon, after Daddy said good luck on our trip.  The first day, when we passed through Livermore, the moon was full. It was day time, but the moon was out and surprised me.  Here are some pictures of the drive between Forestville and Las Vegas.

 

It started out rough, but is going smoothly now.   That’s because in between the time we left and today, we sold the trailer, our car broke down and my mom was sick.  But now, the car is fixed, Mama is better and we are going back to empty the trailer on Friday.  

A tow trucker told Mama to get rid of the car carrier or relocate it to the back of the car because he said in roll-overs, all the passengers die from car carriers caving in the roof on people.  That was too scary for Mama so she said she was going to take care of that as soon as we pick up the car.  We all thought she was going to throw away the car carrier and everything in it but she said she's going to ship home a lot of our stuff to Mina and have it put in storage and only keep the very most important things.  So, we all felt better after that.

Las Vegas is in the dessert, like the one in this photo below

Tomorrow night, we are camping outside of Hoover Dam.  After our visit to Hoover Dam, we are driving to Mama’s friend’s home in Arizona, which is only four hours away.    I’m really excited to see the real Hoover Dam and have breakfast there the next morning.

A Word From the Editor

Hi all!

Emilio asked me to post these pics for him.  He's sleepy and in bed.  Hope you enjoy them.  Emilio plans to blog again Thursday evening after dinner.  I created a map of our route and destinations and approximations of arrival dates but I was not able to figure out how to get it on the blog (bummer!).  I will keep working on that.  Anyhow, we are having a lovely time!  Thanks to Eddie, Tab and Michele for being so supportive and your great suggestions... Today, I met a 73 year old woman who is a native of Bermuda.  She and I had a long chat about travel and life.  She is wicked smart and was funny, too!  She loved that I was homeschooling the kids across America.  She said they would learn so much from the travel.  She said she had been a teacher herself and always had admired homeschooling parents.  Her own children are now a CPA and an architect.  Pretty good!  I will take that as a sign from the Big Guy Upstairs that I am proceeding in the correct direction.  Amen!

xo,
Li

ps - Solina wears the blue dress almost every day.  It's her favorite dress!  So most of the pictures have her in that same dress. I'm making her take it off tomorrow to wash it, LoL... She might not like that very much, LoL.

Walking on the Strip

     

                                           Below:  Inside Ceaser's Palace                                                    

                        

     

Below:  Outside Ceaser's Palace                                                   Below:  Treasure Island

 




 Below:  pretending to be monsters while eating

  

Vegas Pics and Videos - First Few Days

 Pics of the Moving Statues Show at Ceasar's Palace.

Here's a video of that show, too. 

Here's some video of the Volcano Show at the Mirage:  

Here's pics of the Pirate's Show at Treasure Island we saw:

  

Here are some of us having fun at different places.

 All we could eat ... we stuffed ourselves!

  At the Acquarium.

Last but not least, some cool shows at Circus Circus, including the Ribbon Lady.  

We don't have pics of the swinging trapeze artists but they were up there almost an hour doing tricks, too.  

We all really liked the Hoola-Hoop Girl.  She looked like she might be my age, maybe 13 years old.

These cool magicians could change their entire wardrobes in seconds.  The lady changed the guy's clothes while he was all tied up in a few seconds!

These videos were uploaded from youtube.com but we took some video too.  This video quality is a little bit better than ours though.  Hope you like what you see.