Monday, June 30, 2008

RAFTING- white water style!

Monday June 30th:


This was so much fun. Best day ever! Our raft guide's name was Jared and he talked very quietly. So we are like paddling like crazy and he's telling us what to do, when to stop when to go. So the seating arrangements go like this:



And that is a major problem cause deaf women is seated the farthest away from our soft-spoken guide. SO the trip goes like this:



Jared:Paddle (everyone paddles)
Jared: Stop paddling
(everyone stops paddling except for mom who is working up a sweat paddling like crazy)
Jared: Stop paddling
(mom still keeps going)
Jared: Stop paddling
(mom still keeps going)
Me: MOM STOP (as i whack her on the back with my paddle)
Mom: What? oh you want me to stop... OK.



and this goes on... and on... and on... the entire trip.. it was very amusing.





When we got done the guides brought out snacks, which included watermelon and... The best snack ever!!! What you do is take peanut butter put in on a tortilla chip and then dip it in salsa!!! I LOVE IT

Then we drove to El Santuario de Chimayo Shrine. Also known as, The Holy Dirt Place.

Anyway, the deal with this place is that this dude, OK excuse me, this priest saw a light shining from the ground so he dug up this cross. Pretty cool right, so anyway he moves the cross to his Church, but the next day its gone. Well, he finds it back at the place he dug it up, so again he takes it back to his Church and the next morning it was back at the other place. This happened once again, and the dude, sorry, priest, finally got the hint and built a shrine at the place he dug up the cross. Now the shrine is still there and there is a hole in the ground where there is blessed dirt that heals people. In the room outside of the dirt hole there are a bunch of crutches and walkers just left there. It's pretty cool. There was a cute pony there! He would trot along the gate and follow us.

From there we headed to Oklahoma City and we stopped in Amarillo Texas at the RV Site. It was a nice site, they had a pool, and doughnuts in the morning, but in moms words, "it stinks like a herd of cattle took a dump in our RV!!" It did.... we were like right next to a huge cattle farm. Who is stupid enough to put an RV site right next to a poop farm!! Well... it is Texas.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Another day in Santa Fe and a big rock

Sunday July 29th:

We went to church at St. Francis Basilica, which was celebrating it's 400th birthday. Gosh, i thought it was a big deal when St. Alban celebrated it's 20'th!! The church wasn't all that pretty, but i think i'm biased cause I'm in love with the St.Louis Basilica!



The we walked over to the Loretta Chapel. Which is the CUTEST chapel ever!!!!!! The nuns who built it needed a way to get up into the choir loft, and they prayed for a builder who could help them design stairs that wouldn't take up any of the seating room. Then all of a sudden this man came and built the stairs for them, and then left. Here's a picture of them


When he built them, there were no handrails, and they kept it that way a long time, but then they put them in, because it was scary! The weird thing is there is no center beam for support and they have lasted for a long time!!!! Another gorgeous thing in the chapel was the stations of the cross. They were the prettiest ones i've ever seen.



After the chapel we shopped around the square and mom and dad fell in love... with a rock. Ok, alabaster tone, but it is still a rock.

We shoped around a bit more, had lunch at Plaza Cafe. Then everyone except me, i was feeling a little sick, had Roasted Corn from a Cart. They all siad it was delicous!

Then we shopped at walmart!! Yay!!! We bought som hemp so we wouldn't get bored. Then we got to the scay place.....

CREEPY!!!!!! We hid in the RV.

Sedonna

Wednesday June 25th:
We drove from the canyon and went to sedonna. So much red rock!!! i mean it's everywhere, and it is so pretty and ... well, red. But we had another accident, the muffler on our car was all twisted up so we had to cut it off!
When we arrived at the RV park, probably the nicest one yet, we went down to the creek and swam and played with the rope swing. Then when we went back, the little kids next door (there was like 8 or 9 kids ages from like 2-8) put on a circus so shelby and chris went to play with them. exactly one week till we get home!!!!!

Thursday June 26th:
We woke up really early in the morning, well early for us, and went on a Pink Jeep Tour. Bob was our driver and he was pretty cool. At first i thought it was going to be boring because we were driving on the street, then when Bob pulled over and started rearranging all the car parts, i realized this was no ordinary tour. We went off-roading for about 1 1/2 hours.


 It was really fun, although it hurt my back and neck a bit, it was still a lot of fun! We went down these crazy hills and stuff, it felt like we were going to flip right over.

We also went rock climbing.....

great picture huh?!?!

Then we went shopping for a while. There are a ton of little shops all around with some great stuff! We saw this guy making candles that glow when you light them. They are really hard to explain, but they were sooo cool. Shelby bought one that was on clearence for 8 bucks. Christopher was so facinated by it that we stayed for like an hour!!


We also met two little Chihuahuas that were for sale . We wanted them soooooo bad!!! but dad said no... surprisingly.


Saturday, June 28, 2008

Acoma and Boring Burros

Saturday June 28th:

We went to Acoma Pueblo Village . It was a village all on a huge rock. AND there are still people living there! I thought it was fascinating. There is no electricity, and it is soooo quite, except for a few generators people dare to bring up there. I think it would be a perfect place to live for a few months to get some peace and quiet. Life is so simple up there. They also have no plumbing, so each house has it's own bathroom (a.k.a. wooden out house). There was no running water, so they had a "water catch" which was basically a shallow hole in the ground where rain water would collect. It was weird.



The village is up on that rock: These are prayer ladders, that is where the men pray:
Then on the way to Santa Fe Mom and Dad decide it would be fun to go to a Burro Fair, a.k.a El Rancho De Las Golondrinas. WOOOPIE! I was in a very bad mood that day, and on top of that we had to sit around and watch burros. I do admit though, they were extremely cute!!






The entire ranch was kinda neat, but the activities were really boring. We learned how to pack a mule. We watched a blacksmith heat metal. We learned about the difference between mules donkeys and burros, except i don't remember because i wasn't really paying attention. We watched mule racing - i slept through that one.




We also saw a little Mexican village they had built. i got a great shot of the storm coming in. I thought the little town was cute, everything was so surreal. Well probably because is was a fake little town, but still.




I was looking back at the journal my mom wrote, my quote of what i though was there, it reads:
"t- thought they were a bunch of fat asses. Did i look like i enjoyed it?"

Then we walked around Santa Fe. What an adorable town! I love it. There are tons of little shops, and in the middle there is a huge square. They were having some sort of music fest there. I would love to go back and spend a few more days there. We went to eat at a very fancy, ok not that fancy, Italian restaurant. The served gluten free pasta, so mom and Chris were very happy. I had a pizza with 4 cheeses. Best pizza i've ever had period. Christopher was also happy because he got to order his new favorite dessert, creme brulee, he liked it very, very much.


Friday, June 27, 2008

Slide Rock

Friday June 27th:

On our last day in Sedona we went to Slide rock. If you have ever been to Johnston's Shut in in MO then that's the same general thing. It was so fun, but a little scary at first. What it is, is a giant "slide". Basically a long river where the rocks are really slippery and you just slide down in!!

Here's some fantastic action shots. The hardest part, aside from trying not to get a major wedgie, was actually getting in the water. You'd think in Arizona the water would be warm!!




Look how red the rocks are:



The five of us jump in, our first slide: ..... Yeah i was scared.
I think i actually landed on him once we dropped in the water...
After slide rock we drove! To New Mexico!!!


The RV Park where we stayed was on an Indian Reservation. It looked like a parking lot. The bathrooms were a conundrum. They were beautiful.. they looked like a master bathroom in someones house. The only problem was, they were very large and there was no shower curtain, so it was FREEZING!!! And the water pressure wasn't all that great either. SO i'm standing in this massive bathroom stark naked, trying to fit my entire body under the little stream of water trickling out of the shower head, while a breeze is coming in and giving me goosebumps. That was an interesting experience.



Tuesday, June 24, 2008

June 24th... grand canyon

Wow... i bet when the first explorers came to the arizona area, they were riding their horses super fast and just fell into the Grand Canyon. i didn't realize that the grand canyon was just a giant hole in the ground!!!! It is, i might add, the prettiest hole in the ground ever!!! We hiked around the rim for about 2 miles. It was beautiful, then we went back to our RV and hung out the rest of the day. It was a great relaxing day. We got some really great shots:

Monday, June 23, 2008

I'll be your dam tour guide and answer any of your dam questions...

June 23:
Hoover dam and grand canyon west rim.
The hoover dam was big...really big...really really big...I got nothing else. It was a big dam.
we did rub the angles toes to give us good luck.
It was too hot for me to remember, so heres a picture:

Then we drove to the Grand Canyon West rim to go on the Skywalk. That was breathtaking, literally. Jess and Dad were very scared to go on it at first, but when we did actually get out on it, jess was fine, but mom and dad were a little wary.


it was an amazing first view of the grand canyon. The colors were beautiful and it seemed to go on for miles. I really enjoyed that, i could have stayed on the glass bridge for hours.
I'm sorry for the incorrect date on the blog. e haven't had internet for a while, so i am trying to catch you up on everything that has happened.

Ice......

Yesterday was another day on the town. We went to church and then went to MGM grand. Funny thing is, the shirt that christopher innocently chose to wear said, Rain Forest Cafe MGM Grand Las Vegas. We didn't realize that until after we had eaten at The Rainforest Cafe.

Then we went to see the lion exhibit in MGM. It was the coolest thing ever. You could walk under the Lions because the "cage" was all glass. They were right on top of us. And these were not your regular zoo lazy lions, these cats were up and about tackling each other and playing with their toy. It was really fun to watch.



Then we shopped around a while. We went to Miracle Mile and watch a laser show and a rainstorm inside. It was really weird, it felt like a movie set. Then we went to see the Sirens at TI show. That was a little risque. I asked christopher what he though and he said " I liked the explosions and fire and all that stuff...." He did not mention the skinny barely-clothed girls that were dancing all around.


THen we went to the our first Vegas show, which was Ice. I loved it. It was beautiful and breathtaking, and very strange. There was a girl who hula-hooped like 30 hoops on ice, then guys and girls on unicycles, girls who would skate around and then lift them selves up with these ribbons attached to the ceiling. Tese guys even did backflips and jumped off see-saw like devices and fliped in mmid air, ON ICE! It was really cool. This morning we are going to a buffet breakfast at Circus Circus and then we're off!!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

My mom is NOT 43 years old!

Yesterday we explored Vegas! We had a ton of fun, except for the fact that it was 108 degrees and possibly the hottest wind i have ever felt. We walked through lots of casinos, including Circus Circus, Belagio, New York New York, Treasure Island, The Mirage, Excalibur, and the Venetian. They are all so pretty and glamourous. We didn't see any shows, but we just wandered around the city looking for stuff to do. The Venetian was def. my favorite because it looked like italy, there was even Gondolas!

When we went to Excalibur mom wanted to do one of those "I'll Guess your Age". So she's goes up, and all the kids and Dad hide behind this wall. (so we could con the man into thinking she was younger) Well it worked and he guessed 36!!!! So we got to get a prize and we picked a little stuffed chicken. It is adorable. We named him Vegas and he is a 43 year old English chicken who lost his eyes in a Bar fight with a Pig.
Hmmm... what else did we do. We saw the Belagio lights, that was great. We saw an amazing Acrobat Act at Circus Circus. These guys were insane, they were jumping on each other creating "super-men" It was really cool. We also went to the MnM "factory" which is basically like a use merchandise gimmick. It was still fun. We saw a cool light show on the ceiling in down town Vegas on Freemont street. It was a big tribute to Queen.


I think thats all we did. Today we are heading off to church and then going to see some shows, hopefully.

Friday, June 20, 2008

death..........

Right before Las Vegas we drove through Death valley:
HOT HOT HOT!!! The only word to describe death valley. It was not beautiful, nor breathtaking, just super hot. It was cool (wow that's ironic) to drive through the lowest point in America, but it was too hot. We did try to fry an egg on the asphalt, and the car, neither cooked.
One good thing did come out of Death Valley though, i bought a really pretty ring!! it's hearts linked together.


So that night we were supposed to stay in the valley, but the kids and mom decided against it, so we forced dad to drive us all the way to Las Vegas.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Yosemite was the best!

So we spent two full days in yosemite!
Wednesday:
We traveled into yosemite and first thing we did was take a open-air tram ride all around the park. It was great because, well we weren't in the HOW and we still got to see the whole park without walking. There are some beautiful falls in this huge valley. Me and dad both think its the best National Park yet. Its great because the whole park is routed with roads and shuttle busses that take you from place to place. We hiked and went to see the Lower Falls. It was a tough climb but def. worth the knee scraping and mist spraying.

We also stopped at a nice little spot by the Merced River. Me and Mom decided that we are building a house there, the tour guide said he would move in next door. It was absolutely gorgeous!! So peaceful and surreal.


Then later we hiked for about a mile up to Mirror lake. Big let down, but still beautiful. Shelby, Jess and Chris walked across the lake in their clothes while i was fighting the battle of Skeeters vs. Taylor. Apparently all the bugs love me, and the lake.

Thursday (a.k.a. today):
We took another tram tour today around the Mariposa Grove. Its a bunch of really big Sequoia Trees. They are stunning. They are the largest living thing. ever.... The trees are really interesting too, we learned a ton about them, but it wasn't boring at all. We saw some GIANT trees.


Then we drove... again. there seems to be a lot of that on this vacation. We stopped a few times and saw the valley from up high. One of the stops we slept... and the other, well.... there was an accident.

Well, we were taking really pretty picture by this lake. When all of a sudden, disaster strikes. So here's what went down: Jess mom and i wanted to take a picture of us sitting on this log in front of the lake. So when jessica had to climb aboard, she lost her footing and fell. To her death. No not really. But, as she was falling she grabbed hold on already-sitting-on-the-log-not-really-well-balanced mom. who, in all her graceful glory, tumbled down with her. I laughed.... so did dad.. and mom for that matter. But jess was seriously hurt. Just some flesh wounds. The funny thing was the way mom bandaged her up after wards. You see, staying in an RV has its disadvantages; we really don't have adequate gauze and linens to dress wounds properly. So my girl-scout mom pulled her resources together and did what she could. Well... just look at the pictures....



So after that incident we took a hike, without the mummy-jessica. We climbed, and climed and climed. And the thing is, we were already at 9,945 feet (exact;y cause Ranger Parker told me so), and we just kept getting higher. Shelby and I almost died. No seriously i think we stoped every two feet. It was only 1/2 mile up but it felt like 3 years. The altitude was really getting to us. It didn;t bother chris and dad though... oh well. Well the lake was beautiful (the lake was at the very top ) but i'm not so happy about the hike up. Though very pretty, i think i suffered from my first heart attack.



So from todays amazing height of 10,100 feet, we will travel to Death Valley tomorrow... at the amazing hight.. wel depth of -200 and something feet!!! Its gunna be sooo hot.

Alright, i'm going to go beg mom for some of the Tillamook cheese we bought. its some good stuff

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Driving...

Today we drove. A bunch. I really have nothing else to say.
The RV park we are at is wonderful. There is a petting zoo with Llamas!! We also swam in the pool, and made a fire.
Other than that we really did nothing today. We had a great drive... i guess i just read the entire time.
Tomorrow we drive into Yosemite, no showers.. probably no internet, or phone service....
Shortest blog ever..... bye!

Monday, June 16, 2008

The beast is tamed!!

So we left our cousins house this morning. It was a teary goodbye, but I’ll see you all in 27 weeks for Christmas!
Yesterday we spent almost the entire day at Alcatraz. That was probably my favorite thing so far. It was extremely interesting and informative, and a bit creepy. Our tour guide/ranger was great and gave us a “behind the scenes” tour. We then took an audio tour and, thank goodness, it was inside. We got to walk through the cell blocks and see where all the famous prisoners stayed, like Al Capone and Robert “The Birdman” Stroud. It was a bunch of fun. We could have spent another
2 hours there easily, but in all we were stranded on the island (a.k.a. The Rock) for 4 hours!!
Then we walked around fisherman’s warf on Pier 39. Except for the fact that it was FREEZING, we had a great time. We ate dinner at Wipeout and then went to go see the sea lions. But on the way we stopped by the candy store, and Mom picked up another pack of ciggies. Shelby just couldn’t bear being without her smokes. So we had another eventful night with cigarettes in hand wandering around the city.
Last night it was freezing in our little RV. And it wasn’t until morning that we figured out why. Dad forgot to close the front door of the RV cab. I swear I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours consecutively on account of the need to bundle up in order to survive.
So today we drove down the California coast some more. We stopped in Monterey Bay Warf. Very quaint cute boardwalk shopping strip kind of place. We ate lunch right next to the bay.

Than we stopped for ice cream…. It was the most disgusting experience of my life…. Here is what went down:
I asked for a strawberry sugar cone. She scooped out a large helping and handed it to me happily. I was content until I took the first lick… It was full of icy bits. Now I am not normally picky, but this was gross ice cream. So I asked if she could get me another and explained the icy situation . She agreed and then proceeded to dump MY ice cream cone BACK into the ice cream bucket. Mom stopped her and said, screamed rather, Your going to put that back??. She looked at my mom like she was crazy but decided to put the ice cream in the trash. First of all, that is GROSS… not only did I lick it, but I returned it because it was so nasty, why would she want to put it back for other customers to enjoy. But not only that, the other older gentleman working there stared at the young girl accusingly and asked what she was doing. She explained the ice situation, but they both seemed to think that putting the ice cream back was the better alternative. I swear we had to hold my mother back, she was going to tear their eyes out. It was pretty gross.

I realize I need to stop writing… I put a lot in this one, dad will be proud. Just one more crazy story:
The thing is, a few days back, in Oregon, the awning came undone in a huge windstorm, while we were crossing a bridge. You can read about the whole story on my DADS BLOG. It was pretty crazy, and we knew it wasn’t totally fixed. SO just a few minutes ago we heard a FLAP FLAP FLAP-ing noise. We knew it was the awning. We pulled over and started work. About 20 minutes later we had the beast tamed. After unrolling the entire thing, and practically setting it up for camp, we finally figured it out and rolled it bak up successfully, and now hopefully the beast will stay that way for the entirety of our trip!!
The coast was just beautiful!!!
Alright. Sorry for the long blog, but I actually have time to write now, and I am, for once, not too tired. Oh well, Enjoy!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

WE have arrived in SAN FRAN!

So friday was the 13th, my lucky day (my lucky number)!!! We went through the avenue of the giants. Saw some more beautiful trees. We "drove" through the big tree. What i mean by "drove" we parked the RV, got out, and walked through the tree. Our HOW was to fatty to fit through the dumb tree!! We also saw the "enchanted tree house" which was supposed to be this really cool gift store in a tree. But it was really a dark damp little hole in a tree with nothing in it.. it was cold... so we left. Then we drove to SAN FRAN!!! We saw some war activists sitting on motorcycles outside of a gas stations with signs telling us all abut the bad war.... That was interesting. Then we reached our cousins house. 
They live in a gorgeous house in a beautiful neighborhood. We took the tour of their house then walked down to the farm where we met, rio and mac!! Two pretty ponies!! And we also met some pigs. and a goat. and some ducks. and a chicken. and four turkeys. and peacocks. and a llama. and some mules.*  Today was much more eventful. After an amazing breakfast in more spacious kitchen that that of the HOW, we drove to the golden gate bridge. It is more beautiful than the pictures. It's pretty awesome, but Dad was disappointed because it wasn't gold... he was serious too. Then we drove to china town and spent the day wandering the city and shopping and pigging out on Chinese food!! We drove down the winding crazy Lombard Street!
 Then one of the little un's got ahold of some ciggaretts and pased em around. We got a bunch of wary glances. Don't worry, they were only bubble gum, but they looked pretty real. After we told Angela (my 5 year old cousin) that the brown part of the cigarette goes in your mouth, we had an easy time convincing people on the street that all seven of us, ages ranging from 5-16, were smoking. The comments we got were halarious. people would take a double take and mutter, that's disgusting. We were acting like total crazy people, and then we had to stop at a candy store... wooo hooo the energy level went waaay up. 
Now i am sitting up with my little cousin and she is helping me write. She really is just excited to look at the pictures, so i am about done writing. Well thanks for all the comments and thanks for reading my blog!!! I love all the feedback!!! Alright, bye!!
*the italicized sentance was edited by all the cousins.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

From the redwood forest... this land was made for you and me...

Wow are redwood trees HUGE!!! They are so very very very big. We took a bunch of hikes today all though the woods and stood in awe of these giants!! We also took a nice walk along the beach. The sun is out for good hopefully, knock on wood!! Great weather and great sights. Only a day until we get to see our cousins!!! Yay!!! Thats about all we did today, we also had a really nice lunch by the cliffs on the ocean. Now we are doing laundry, and lots of it!! We've started 4 loads, with more to come!!
The biggest tree!!
Lunch near the ocean!
Can you spot me?????