The Great Texas Road Trip!

Damon thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to drive to Texas for our family vacation this summer.  Yes, I was crazy, but we had an amazing vacation that was well worth all the craziness and miles in the car.  I'll have to break the vacation up into sections because it would be a Texas sized blog if I didn't.

First stop- we took off Friday June 7th around 5pm.  We drove to Cortez, Colorado.  We drove through Moab and right past Arches National Park (we decided to save that for a fall field trip).  We were headed into uncharted territory for all of us so it was a bit fun.

After breakfast the next morning we headed into Mesa Verde National Park.  We always joke about how many foreigners we meet at national parks.  The first we met here were from Italy.

 We started at the visitors center and then headed to Spruce Treehouse and the museum.

We then went on a guided tour of Cliff Palace.  It's one of the bigger cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde.  It was amazing!  Noah got to be a pueblo Indian.  After our hike out we stopped for some ice cream.  It seems to be our tradition to get ice cream at the national parks.  It's always so good!

 We saw some interesting landscaping on our drive to Four Corners National Monument and then on to Farmington, New Mexico.  We stayed with our old friends, The Larson's, who used to live near us in San Diego.  There is nothing like seeing friends.  I forgot how much I laugh when I am around them.  The kids enjoyed seeing each other again.  Didn't get any pictures of them though.  Melissa was one of the first people I met when we moved to Scripps Ranch and she befriended me and made me feel so welcome.