Mexico, you gotta go. NAFTA Reflections

The last stop was a brief jaunt into Mexico before heading home. We considered skipping the stop because it would tack on several hours, and we knew the traffic coming back into the states is always terrible. But it wouldn't be NAFTA if we didn't visit Mexico, so we heroically ventured south. We crossed the border from El Paso into Juarez. We did get stopped for a random search going into Mexico. I'm really glad Aaron spoke Spanish. The agent asked us "what is all of this stuff in your trunk" and we were able to say "lots and lots of camping gear." We followed Yelp reviews to Taco Tote for lunch. Many, many tacos were eaten. There was an employee in the parking lot that was over the top helpful with helping us park, and appearing out of nowhere with a trash can when he noticed that I was changing a diaper. We had no idea what the conversion rate to pesos was, but assumed we were getting some incredible deal. We were a bit disappointed to find out that the meal was like $30- about the same as the two family platters would have cost in the states. 

Team Taco Tote.

A vendor walking between lines of stopped traffic right next to a "no vendors" sign. It took about 1.5 hours of baking in miserable stand still traffic to get back to the US.

And then we drove home!

This vacation was unique in so many ways. We were truly nomadic for over 2 weeks. We really got into the swing of waking up in a new place (almost) every day. Living out of a van is also a great way to realize how few material things we really need. This was especially true for Elliot. He didn't miss his toys at all. In fact, Elliot was probably the biggest fan of the road trip. He told us repeatedly that he wanted to stay on the road trip for "lots more days." We have been home for a couple months now, and he keeps asking when we will go on another road trip. Aaron and I have always been of the opinion that experiences are more valuable than material stuff, and this trip really confirmed that for us. 

Our country is SO COOL. We traveled up and down one vertical slice of the country and saw incredible diversity. There is just so much worth seeing. And it was better seeing it with the Hays. There aren't a lot of people out there that we wouldn't get sick of after 2+ weeks. Their ability to still be pleasant to be around even with a baby who wakes up every 2 hours at night is inspirational. This vacation would not have been as fun if we didn't have other people to talk about it with. And I really do love the Hays kids- I think of them as nieces and nephews, and am sad that I won't be able to watch them grow up as closely.

I hosted a farewell party for Lakin a week after the trip. Lots of people shared favorite memories of Lakin, and it turned into somewhat of a "Lakin testimony meeting." Pretty much everyone had a story of Lakin being there when they needed a helping hand, or her coming up and befriending them when they were new and lonely. Basically, we had the best travel companions ever. 

Carlsbad Caverns

Let us begin the saga of Carlsbad Caverns and the Guadalupe Mountains by noting that this was Robb's birthday. Robb was pretty pumped about spending his birthday in a really cool cave with a bat show at dusk. The first stop was the caves. You can take a super long hike into the caves, or take a 750 foot elevator ride from the visitor's center. We opted for the elevator.

One minute of ear-popping fun as we descended into the depths

We need to work on our scared faces. They are way to smiley. 

 The cave was utterly amazing. Also very hard to photograph. They had strategic lights around the cave, but it was very dark overall. It must have been terrifying for the first explores who explored it by lantern light without the nice paved trail to walk on. 

Elliot was very much done after 20ish minutes in the cave, but we had to finish the loop back to the elevators. He wasn't too pleased with the situation.

Our campground was 45 minutes away from the caves. Actually it was across the border from New Mexico into Texas. We still had the bat show to watch at the caves, but we didn't want to set up tents in the dark. We decided to drive to the Pine Springs Campground, set up our tents, drive back to 45 minutes to see the bat show, and then let the kids fall asleep in the car as we drove back to the campground for the night. 

We weren't allowed to have phones turned on during the show because it messes with their echolocation, so here's a picture from the internet

 The bat show did not disappoint! There is a big amphitheater facing the mouth of the cave. As the sun starts to set, millions of bats POUR out of the cave in a whirlwind. They make cool patterns like ribbons in the air as they disperse. It took a solid 20 minutes or so before the flow slowed down. It was mesmerizing. 

45 minutes later, we carried our sleeping kids into our unfortunately damp tent. It rained pretty hard at the campground while we were at the bat show. It is amazing how you can truly get used to anything- even sleeping in a slightly damp sleeping bag. 

When we woke up, we found out that the Hays tent had been hit way worse than ours. They have a much bigger tent and the rain fly doesn't cover it nearly as well. They had standing water in their tent and a lot of their blankets were soaked. They decided to spend the night sleeping in the van. Happy Birthday, Robb!

The report was that the kids slept great (minus Emmett who never sleeps great). Robb and Lakin were not nearly as comfy in the front seats. 

We got around to eating his birthday cake the next morning for breakfast

Taos Pueblo & Santa Fe

Taos Pueblo is a village of traditional pueblo buildings that is still inhabited today by the Taos Indians. The pueblos are considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the US! The original structures were built about 1,000 years ago. They have been continually updated and expanded as needed with traditional adobe construction. Some of the homes have been converted to stores for tourists, but they have been sticklers about not allowing in modern conveniences like electricity or running water. It was cool to see some well maintained adobe structures after touring so many ruins. The whole village is a living time capsule. 

Unfortunately, that day it was a cold, rainy time capsule.

Outside the Church

Our tour guide was a girl who grew up partially in a pueblo home and partially in a modern home in the nearby town. 

The Pueblos were 4 stories tall in some places! They have doors now, but historically the only entrances were on the roof. Those ladder climbers must have had massive leg muscles. 

The tarps covering the traditional adobe stoves only slightly diminished the experience

Many many drums in one of the stores we checked out

We would have spent a lot more time exploring if it wasn't raining. 

Our next stop was to rendezvous with the Hays at the Silver Saddle Motel in Santa Fe. It was a whimsical place to stay. They had an outdoor dining area for the breakfast buffet that was filled with all sorts of interesting junk. There were some seriously impressing flower gardens around the parking lot as well. All in all it was a great stop. With beds!

The bandaged thumb

Smelling the flowers

We warmed up some soup and ate it on their picnic tables #classy

That night we sat outside the motel rooms on these little benches after we put the kids to bed. It started raining pretty hard, which made us extra grateful to be out of tents for the night. Night talks with the Hays were some of the best parts of the trip.

The next morning I ate 3 hard boiled eggs at the breakfast buffet. Annie hadn't been feeling that great, so she wanted to nurse a lot. This was bad because I forgot about that whole egg allergy thing that we suspected. Well the egg allergy was confirmed when Annie broke out in hives all over her body. Poor baby! I felt terrible. We gave her some benedryl and it gradually went away. But not until after she puked at the silver saddle breakfast area. She had a good rest in the car and was acting more herself by the time we got to Carlsbad. 

Chaco Culture

Chaco Culture National Historic Park was a hidden gem. Very well hidden. You have to pass through a lot of mostly empty Reservation land, and then drive on a very long, VERY poorly graded dirt road to get to the park. It was by far the least busy place we visited. Chaco Culture is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has an exceptional array of ancient pueblo dwellings, both with quantity and quality. This area was a major trade hub from around AD 900-1150. There are several "great houses" in the area that were pretty much a 1 building village. We went on a self guided tour of the biggest of them, Pueblo Bonito. 

A wonderfully informative diorama in the visitor's center. They just finished construction on the visitor's center and there were some blank display cases. 

Pueblo Bonito! The structure was constantly renovated and expanded when it was in use. It had at least 650 rooms and was 4 stories high in some places. Tragically, some of it was destroyed by the appropriately named "threatening rock" a few decades ago. 

There was a nice paved path leading up to the great house, so we decided to take the stroller. 

It was a huge mistake. We didn't realize that we could walk through a ton of the structure, which was definitely not built with accessibility in mind!

A lot of the doors were T shaped

It was super interesting looking at the corners and figuring out where the additions were made. They were very creative with their windows and doors. 

Colby was quite vigilant about making sure Claire didn't fall into a kiva.  

His concerns were valid- our kids have not been trained to navigate terrain with huge pits all over the place

Just a little pueblo dancin'

The self guided tour booklet was awesome. Definitely get one if you are visiting.

This room had the ORIGINAL CEILING. Those sticks have been there for almost a thousand years!

Aaron cheesing with some very old sticks. I loved that you could see how they used layers of sticks with different thickness to make  a sturdy floor for the next story of the structure. 

Pueblo People

 We camped at Gallo Campground. There were several small pueblo ruins along the cliff right next to the campground. The cliffs also featured a large population of Swallows that were fun to watch as they swooped in and out of their tiny mud nests on the cliff face. 

Some of the ruins at the campground. They were much smaller than the great houses- probably home to a farmers family.

 As we were wrapping up dinner, the sky made a rapid pivot from cloudy to “SEEK SHELTER NOW!” We quickly threw everything in the vans and jumped in our tents. The wind was howling and the lightning got closer and closer. There was one lightning strike that must have hit the cliff just a few hundred feet away from us because it was LOUD. It was loud enough to wake up Annie, who cried for a few seconds then passed out again (shout out to our angel baby). Elliot required a family snuggle pile and many soothing words. This is actually one of my favorite memories of the whole trip. I would never choose to go camping in a storm like that again. The wind was strong enough that it was whipping sand and rain through the mesh parts of the tent under the rain fly, so we were all a little moist. (The Hays had it way worse- part of their tent flooded and Claire woke up soaking wet) Despite that, there was something great about being able to make Elliot feel safe enough in our windblown tent that he could fall asleep as the storm raged on around us. 

Breakfast at Gallo Campground

Just in case Gallo Campground wasn't memorable enough, we had our major injury of the trip here as well! It was Sunday morning. We were getting the kids dressed in church clothes and breaking down camp. Robb was rummaging through the cooking supplies bin and accidentally grabbed the knife that had slipped out of it's (wholly inadequate) oven mitt sheath. He cut his thumb pretty deeply. Lakin bandaged him up, and we set about breaking down the rest of the camp. It quickly became apparent that we are much slower with Robb out of commission! We weren't as familiar with how to break down their tent and how to tetris all their stuff into their very packed van. By the time we finished, we were too late to make it to church. We decided to split up. The Hays headed to Santa Fe to find an Urgent Care (they didn't want to go to the closer by one in the Indian Reservation), while the Bloods made a stop at Taos Pueblo before meeting back up in Santa Fe.

Mesa Verde

We now begin what could be called the Ancient Cliff Dwelling section of the road trip. Apparently many tribes throughout the American southwest all started building these awesome cliff dwellings around the year 1200. They were all abandoned for mysterious reasons about 200 years later. 

The first stop was Mesa Verde. There are 3 tours available there that take you to the best preserved pueblos, although there are as many as 600 dwellings throughout the park. We chose Balcony house, which is the "adventurous" option. The tour includes climbing a 32-foot ladder and crawling through a 12-foot tunnel. The tunnel was the only way in or out of the settlement back in the day. Those people must have been fit! The doors are so small that even exiting your room required some athletic exertion. It is crazy imagining how much effort it would have taken to haul a deer up or down the cliff face to take it back home. 

Stock photo of Balcony House from across the canyon

This was definitely not a kid friendly adventure, so we took turns watching the kids.

A Kiva. I still don't understand the purpose of these rooms despite the tour guide's explanation and several informational signs. 

Balcony House has 40 rooms, which makes it a medium size cliff dwelling for the region.

The balcony! This was a 2 story building. You could walk along the balcony to reach the upper rooms. 

A window from one plaza to the other. One plaza had nothing to stop you from falling off the edge of the cliff. The other had a small wall on the edge. Apparently this was the "nursery" where babies could crawl. This terrified me, but the tour guide said that they have found shockingly few human remains that died from falling off the cliffs. They dumped all sorts of trash over the edge, but the people who lived here learned to be sure footed.  

One advantage of living under the overhang is that water percolates through the porous sandstone, then seeps out in a little pool when it hits a layer of hard rock. The result was that they had a little water alcove right in the settlement!

Kiva selfie

The tunnel exit.
Apparently Balcony House is notorious for all the butts that end up being photographed on the ladder and tunnel. 

One other cool thing that happened at Mesa Verde is that we ran into Clarice Bird from the stake at our campground! She and her husband are retired. They decided to spend the summer travelling across the country with a canoe that they strap to the top of their SUV. They have a motorcycle in a cargo carrier on the back of the SUV that they drop off at the end point on the river, then drive to the start point to unload the canoe. When they finish their trip, Brother Bird jumps on the motorcycle to go get the car. Genius! Aaron and I were very inspired by this retirement plan, except we fully plan on having a self driving camper van. We'll take our time road tripping between all our kids to visit them and see lots of sites on the way. We will be very disappointed if self driving RVs still don't exist in 30 years.