It’s normally about a four hour drive from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, with a speed limit of 70 most of the way. When you’re driving in the “monsoon season”, however, you might end up driving around 40 miles an hour for quite a while through driving rain, extending your trip time. Ugh.
We tried to drive on Route 66 several times during our trip. I thought it would be a cool thing to do in Kingman, so we decided to get gas on Route 66. That area of Kingman is not really a place for family travelers. Maybe it was the specific gas station, maybe it was the time of day (midday, so go figure), maybe it was the day of the week (Tuesday!), but I wouldn’t stop there again. It was disappointing for some reason.
Vegas. Many people love Vegas. Many people even take their kids to Vegas. I had googled things to do with kids in Vegas in case we spent any amount of time there. After talking it over with my husband, we decided that driving through Vegas to see the lights would be good enough for us. We weren’t sure what our girls would end up seeing if we stayed and toured around. Some things you just don’t want to explain to kids. Or to anyone for that matter.
Sin City
I was pleasantly surprised with how tame everything was. It WAS only 6:30pm though and the sun was still up, so we might have been too early for the eye poppers. Driving up the strip, I was able to snap a couple of pics to prove we were there. We then went to visit with some friends who live in the area.
The LuxorParis Las Vegas
In the morning we went to the Hoover Dam. Since our youngest is not yet 8-years old we couldn’t take the Dam Tour so we did the Power Plant Tour. Still fascinating, and it was the perfect amount of touring for the girls. It was cool to see the innards of of the dam. They also have a hands-on museum that explains the building of the dam and what it’s actually used for (water control more than electricity!).
One word of warning: if you’re moving across the country and have some of your belongings strapped to the top of your vehicle, prepare to be mistrusted in secure areas. . .
Suspicious with that roof rack!
Bridge over Hoover DamThe turbines – MASSIVE!Learning about electricity usageNevada – Arizona borderOne of the Winged Figures of the Republic – bronze statueThe Dam
After spending time on the Arizona/Nevada border we headed even farther west — California. Next stop, Hollywood!
Northern Arizona is so cool. There are so many things to see and do. If you have AT&T as your cell service, however, don’t expect to be able to talk to anyone about it. Few places offer functional wifi either. So, it’s been several days since I could update here.
We left New Mexico and headed to Four Corners Monument. It’s the only place in America where four states meet at one point: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. It’s also on Navajo land. We spent enough time there to get cool pictures and to walk around the four states.
We’re all in different states!
From there we drove to Page, Arizona and set up camp. Literally. The days were so hot while we were there. And the nights. Hot. I was trying to figure out how to set up a ceiling fan in the tent.
The scenery on the way to PageDriving through the Basin and Range
Every camp needs a Barbie corner!
We took a river raft cruise on the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. It starts at the Glen Canyon Dam, goes around Horseshoe Bend and then back. On the way we stopped at a beach where the brave of heart could jump in the water. A cool 48 degrees! The water comes out of the dam from the bottom of Lake Powell, which means it is always cold! When you walk the path above the beach you come to petroglyphs left by ancient Native Americans. So cool!
Cruising in the canyon
That evening, after viewing Horseshoe Bend from the Colorado River that morning, we walked a 3/4 mile hike from the highway to see it from the top. Amazingly beautiful. Also, there are no protective barriers at the viewing site. It was crazy to see everyone basically traipsing around a cliff to get pictures of Horseshoe Bend. And we were four of those crazies.
Horseshoe Bend from above
The next morning we went back onto the Navajo Nation property for a tour of the Lower Antelope Canyon. I had seen pictures of this and desperately wanted to see it in person. The guide didn’t give us much information about the formation of the canyon, but I think this is because we were the only English speaking family in the tour. August is the month where Europeans go on vacation, so the American West was full of vacationing Europeans! The guide did, however, know what our camera settings should be.
We left Page, AZ and headed to the Grand Canyon. It’s hard to even comprehend the vastness of the Grand Canyon. My pictures can’t even begin to do it justice. We were going to camp here, but with the impending rain, we decided to stay in a hotel room. After viewing the canyon from several different stopping points in the evening, we hiked into the canyon the next morning. We hiked down to Ooh-Ahh Point, which earns its name.
We hiked back up to the top…way up there
Thus ended our tour of the canyons. We left the Grand Canyon area and headed to Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam. More on that later!
13 states so far (we will pick up 14-16 tomorrow!)
4 out of 5 biomes covered (aquatic, forest, grassland, and desert. We won’t go through tundra, thankfully)
5 of the 8 North American ecoregions covered (Coastal Plain, Appalachian Mountains, Interior Lowlands, Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountains. We’ll be in the Basin and Range for the next couple of days and will end in the Coastal Range. We won’t go through the Canadian Shield)
We’ve done a lot, seen a lot, eaten a lot, learned a lot, gassed up a lot. What we haven’t done much of is just rest. Today we took a down day to just rest at a hotel.
The definition of rest, for this family, isn’t sleeping in until noon and sitting in front of the tv for the remainder of the day. I don’t know what our problem is. After breakfast we played at the pool for a couple hours. Then we went to a local New Mexican restaurant for some authentic food. YUM.
I love me a local chocolatier. I saw this place listed on UrbanSpoon the other day and have been thinking about it ever since. We got taste tests of many of their different drinking chocolates, some mild, some spicy. We settled on two to share and chose several truffles and cookies. Du even got a chocolate covered red chile. I did not try that.
Drinking chocolate and truffles and cookies, oh my!All the truffles – and the drinking chocolate in heated carafes on the counter to the left
Needless to say, we all rolled out of there fat and happy. We came back to the hotel where Du and the kids cleaned out the truck. Somehow a tornado ripped through the back seat and all the girls’ items were thrown everywhere. How could that happen. . .
I got to do laundry. Here’s where I could throw in another tip. Bring laundry detergent. I forgot to buy some at WalMart before we got back to the hotel and ended up having to buy some at the front desk. Not cheap. The laundry took so long that the rest of the family got to swim again while I slaved away in the laundry room, on my computer, searching for more hotels/campsites for the rest of our trip.
We did some school review, and I am very pleased with what the girls are picking up and remembering along the way. I knew I had gathered more material than we’d be able to use, and we are definitely skipping some of it, but I’m happy with what they’ve done.
We were too stuffed for dinner, but ate the leftovers from lunch. After that we cleaned the hotel room and shoved everything back into our suitcases.
So, that’s a day of resting for us! I think we all enjoyed not being in the car for a day.
What’s next? Well, the rest of the trip will be uncharted waters for myself. I haven’t been farther west in the Lower 48 than Santa Fe/Albuquerque. SO EXCITED!!! We’ll be camping for the next three days, and I doubt I’ll have great internet access. We plan on doing a rafting trip in Glen Canyon, touring Antelope Canyon, and touring Grand Canyon. SQUEE!!!! I have one or two experiments I hope to do with the girls — erosion, rock identification, flora and fauna of the Grand Canyon area. I hope that we can manage to fit these in.
We woke up this morning earlier than we thought we would. Our campsite was very close to the main road, and close to the entrance/exit of the park. So, at about 5:50 we were all wide awake.
Breakfast was at a restaurant close to Carlsbad Caverns where half of us tried more local fare. I had chorizo and eggs while Du had Mexican eggs with jalapeños. The girls opted for the tried and true — pancakes.
The Caverns
I’m thinking most school districts are back in session now, or no one else likes arriving right when the park opens because we almost had the caverns to ourselves. They don’t boast to be the largest, deepest, longest caves but they are truly magnificent.
Part of the Big Room
Once we toured the caverns we traveled on to Alamogordo and White Sands.
NM can looks like this, too!Sledding time!
Our goal was to stay in White Sands until after dark so we could do some good star gazing. White Sands National Park is on or adjacent to White Sands Missile Range, and they must be doing testing throughout the night because everyone had to be out of the park by 9pm. We’re not too disappointed though, because I think we’ll do some good stargazing in Arizona. . . if the super moon isn’t putting off too much light. Here’s a link to an article about the Supermoon and the Perseid Meteor shower that will be happening almost simultaneously in a few days.
Onto the P.E. portion. We arrived at White Sands at 6:56 and the visitor center closes at 7:00. We saw that they had sleds for sale in there so I raced in and bought one kid’s sled (and the wax for .75 that was supposed to help it slide better…). We headed out to the dunes and tried several before we found the perfect sledding dune.
Needing an extra push
We all sledded down and raced back up, sledded down and raced back up.
Here I goooo…The big hill!
After Du and I had enough and wanted to watch the sunset, the girls kept racing up the dune, running and jumping down it, racing back up, running and jumping down. It’s the best P.E. they’ve had in a while. They definitely needed to get the energy out.
This is P.E.
So, there’s a little lesson — you can accommodate your school to almost any setting you’re in. Wink, wink.
A type of Yucca?
The next two days will be more like down days for us. We plan on meeting with some family and relaxing. I’m hoping to take some time to catch up on/review some schoolwork I want the girls to know. Laundry and cleaning out the cars may happen as well as relaxing by the pool.
Our trip is divided into two sections. The first half was filled with visiting family and friends across several states. We are now on the second portion, which includes more touristy stops.
Yesterday, we left Missouri and drove to Kansas where we stopped for coffee with some friends. We drove through Kansas to Oklahoma and stopped in Oklahoma City. Our first stop was at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It was somber and so touching. Where the building once stood now stands chairs to represent those who lost their lives. The hardest part was thinking about the kids–we walked past what had been the playground for the kids who were in daycare in the building. No words.
Our next stop was east of OK City and was lighthearted and historic. We drove on a bit of the old Route 66 to get to Pop’s.
It’s a gas station/diner/purveyor of hundreds of various odd flavors of soda. You know you’ve arrived by the ginormous neon soda bottle out front. It is lighted at night, which we didn’t stick around to see.
We all chose different flavors of soda to try. Cream Soda, Root Beer, raspberry flavored water (for the girl who doesn’t like carbonation), and Candied Bacon Cream Soda. All delicious! Nobody was brave enough to try Martian Poop. . . or these flavors . . .
We left and headed to Texas to spend the night. After an early morning stop at Target to pick up some things we have been desperately needing (pencil sharpeners –the first ones were lost; batteries; dental floss; fiber and probiotic gummies. . . ahem) we headed west to Carlsbad Caverns.
We arrived too late to tour the caverns today so we set up camp and then went over for the bat viewing. Each night from maybe March to October, the bats exit the cavern at sunset for their nightly feeding. The talk given by the ranger was fascinating (bats are sorely misunderstood), and she quit as we signaled that the bats were beginning to surface.
We stayed there for over an hour; it was too dark to see anything when we left, but the bats were still flying out. The ranger said some nights there are tens of thousands and other nights there are hundreds of thousands!
CAMPING — A great way to save money on long travels! If the weather is nice. This is our first night camping on this trip and we have several more nights scheduled peppered throughout. We’ll be in desert climates the whole time, BUT that doesn’t always mean warm nights! I hope we’re prepared.
We packed the bare minimum that we would need for spending the night outside–not being backpackers. We have a tent, two air mattresses, sleeping bags, and camping chairs. That’s it. Usually when we camp we bring practically our whole house with us. Usually we’re in more remote places as well.
Tomorrow includes visiting Carlsbad Caverns again, then driving over some mountains and farther into the desert landscape. Hopefully it means more stars as well. I’m sitting outside under the stars, typing this post on my phone. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of lights from the campground.
1 starfish (or sea star as they are now called, but I’m old school so it’s still a starfish to me)
Anyone know what kind this is?
We all know, nothing ever goes as planned. That maxim indeed held true for our first week of the move/roadschool. We’ve had tons of fun, seen lots of friends and family, and hopefully have learned something along the way. We’ve also (especially me) had to adjust to life on the road and to things not going quite like we (I) planned.
Here are my observations:
1. first and foremost – expect the unexpected! Plans will change and you will have to deal with things unforeseen. It’s important to be able to go with the flow, especially if it’s nothing life threatening.
My husband is driving the vehicle with the girls in it. He’s not the one that came up with this master schooling plan, so he doesn’t really know the best way to implement it. I have purposely not been interfering on the walkie talkie (that’s another tip) because he needs to know that I trust him with schooling the girls. I didn’t get my master plan printed out before our printer was packed up, and due to some of those unforeseen circumstances, we haven’t been able to print it out yet. So, he’s been pinch hitting with their schoolwork. And that’s fine. I had built in some down days, so I’m hoping that we can use a day or two of those to go over some things that were missed.
2. As mentioned above, if you’re driving more than one vehicle you need a set of walkie talkies. We figured this out early into our marriage…and it probably helped save it. Now there’s very little likelihood of losing each other and driving several miles down the highway before you realize your better half got off at the last exit to gas up. It’s a great way to keep the lines of communication open (cell phones don’t always have coverage), and it prevents HUNDREDS if not thousands of fights and ticked off feelings. Ahem.
3. As you’re coming and going from many different houses, hotel rooms, camp sites, etc., help each other go over a list of things that might possibly get left behind. Say phone cords. Or bathing suit bottoms. It’s so much easier to take those things with you than to have to replace them, or ask your AirBnB host to mail them to your next stop. . . just conjecturing.
4. Don’t count on having cell connection or wifi everywhere you go, or even in the most touristy of places you go. We stayed a night in Panama City, and there was absolutely no cell coverage in the condo. There wasn’t great coverage even on the beach. I’m several days behind in posting because we’ve been without internet when I least expected it!
5. Don’t forget to pack all the little doodads and medicines you use in everyday life. You are still living, even though it may be out of a car. I packed all our medicine in one bag, and it’s easily accessible, to include bandaids. I’m keeping our sunscreen and bug spray in the car door pocket. We don’t have to hunt for that at all, and it’s easy to slather on and then put right back in the door pocket. Cell phone and computer chargers; toothbrush chargers (if you use an electric one); contact solution; EXTRAS of things like contacts; bandaids; even Dramamine in case someone’s head/tummy isn’t as suited to cross-country travel as you’d like. It’s easier to have this stuff on hand than to assume you’ll be able to get it if you need it.
Since we’re schooling, I made sure to pack extra pencils, a pencil sharpener, a tiny stapler (it was cute, that’s really the only reason), a hole punch, a ruler, magnifying glasses, etc. I should have packed a portable printer, but who knew I’d have so much problems with trying to get something printed out! (See tip #1)
6. Be flexible and let the little stuff go. It adds years to your life. Really. Even if it’s school related. If you’ve been homeschooling for any amount of time you know that they obtain the information sooner or later. So what if you wanted to cover the Ocean Biome while you were at the ocean, but didn’t get around to it. When we do get around to reviewing it my girls will have first hand experience with the ocean and will be able to remember that. It will still be meaningful.
I’ve forgotten any other observations I might have made. I’ll add those in another update. I’d like to show you soon how we set up our “school room” in the car. I need to get pictures of that. . .
Not So SAHM
Not So SAHM 