We began packing the day before. The boys packed their duffel bags with toys and games and a book or two. Jackson rounded up the ipad, walkie-talkies, and the DVD player for the car. Rylee selected some of his Pirates of the Caribbean Legos and put them in a plastic container so they wouldn't get lost. Cyndi washed the bedding and packed all the boys' clothes. I tried to winnow some of our gear, bought some last minute food, and started the car packing.
Janey planned to come with us. On Friday morning, I had a client meeting at 8 and then came home after getting some ice, while the boys were still at a summer bible school and Janey had just arrived. Most of the camping gear fits in the back of the Dodge Durango: our tents, camp kitchen, food bins and cooler, a water container, and bedding, along with all the duffel bags of clothes, fishing poles, pool toys, and a bag of shoes. It always looks like we'll manage to fill the back so I can look out the rear-view mirror, but inevitably last-minute bags, hats, snacks, clothes, and blankets fill up the space. I'm just thankful that the passenger areas are not filled up, too. Once the back is packed, I throw on a car-top carrier for the odd-sized items (a grill, camp chairs, baseball bats, a bicycle pump, rugs, an extra sleeping bag, and, this year, the boys' big tumbling ball). I strap the bag down and by the time I am mounting the bicycle rack off the back, the boys are piling into the car, anxious to go.
So we're off! But then there's a stop for cash at an ATM. Then filling up the gas tank at the Bien Muir station on the Sandia reservation. Then through the construction on the way north out of town and finally through the local traffic of Bernalillo, until finally we are on the highway that heads towards the Four Corners. At this point on our trip, there's miles of blue skies and mesa tops and white puffs of clouds ahead of us. The radio is playing a classical station. I have my shuffle ear phones on, the boys are watching a DVD in the back with Janey between them, Cyndi is reading a magazine and taking short cat naps, and Jackson is assembling some new flashlights. Janey brought some birthday gifts for Rylee, including a book, and they're opened and assembled and read.
Before we know it we are close to Cuba and we're thinking El Bruno's for lunch. I haven't packed a lot of food for this trip. Don and Elley and Nicholas and Lauren arrived at the campground on Thursday, and Pete and Dorie and Brendon and Jordyn stopped overnight in Farmington and may be checking into the campground about the time we arrive in Cuba. There was some thought, since we were leaving later in the day, as opposed to a pre-dawn hour that the boys prefer for these longer trips, that we might go into town for dinner after setting up the tent so that I would not have to set up the kitchen, cook, or clean up the first night, but Elley told Cyndi that they'd plan to have some hot dogs for us this first night.
We didn't plan much for the few days we'd have: probably some pool time at the campground, probably one meal downtown, maybe some fishing down by the river, maybe a hike, probably some bicycling within the campground, and maybe some baseball. Mostly, I imagined spending the day Saturday around a big breakfast and a big dinner, while the cousins played and the adults talked over coffee and wine. There was some talk about rafting after the boys, Cyndi and I went last year. Surely, the girls would want to go into town for shopping. There wasn't much talk about Thomas the Train, which had started this annual pilgrimage years ago.
El Bruno's burned down a few years ago, and then they opened across the street. Over the last few years, they've been under construction and expanding from the original drive up they moved into. It looked completed this time, and there was a nice, cool patio in the back where we had lunch. Good New Mexican, a tad over-priced for lunch. The boys had their usual whole bean burrito. As usual, Jackson ate his up. Good chips, good sopapillas, great chile.
Back on the road, heading north out of Cuba, here the sky is blue and the land rolls out in a semi-arid cover of grass and shrubs. We have left the Jemez mountains behind and entered the vast plateau of the San Juan Basin. This is also Navajoland, and along our way there's a road that leads to Chaco Canyon, the Anazasi civilization. This is a good time for Travel Bingo, and we each take a card and a pencil and look for a bus, a mailbox, a gas station, a stop sign. Our cards last for the next few hours. We search in vain for an airplane. We find small mission churches here and there. Past Nageezi, we find a water tower at the complex oasis of school and health clinic. It's not until Bloomfield that we find a bridge, a stoplight, and more flags than we can count. In Aztec, we find a bird on a wire. After entering Colorado, along the mesa top known as Florida above the Animas Canyon, just before the highway winds down to Durango, Cyndi shouts, "dog!" Almost a full-card bingo. Jackson jokes about finding a dog on a wire. It's not until we arrive downtown in Durango that we find a railroad crossing.
We grabbed a six pack of a local microbrew, a bag of ice, and a carboard box on the way to the campground. At the campground, we find everyone is already there and find our tent site under the cottonwoods between Don & Elley's pop-up and two bicyclists from the Netherlands touring the region. We put the beer on ice in the cardboard box while we set up our camp, Cyndi finds the tablecloth for the picnic table, and I begin to unload the car. Jackson helps me lay out the tent and stake it down. Once it is up, Jack pumps up the air mattresses and Cyndi readies the beds for the night. I also set up
All this while, Elley is making hot dogs, Nicholas is making "hobo meals", Pete is setting up another tent, and Jackson is blowing up the big red ball. The tent sites are full, and there's lots of children eyeing the ball as Jackson inflates it. Soon the ball is rolling on the grass behind the tents, one child tumbling inside, while the other children run into it, bounce off of it, and push it in unison.
The girls go for walks and runs and bike rides and showers. The younger kids are playing with the big red ball in the grass or watching the trains go through or playing quietly in the small dome tent. Don is doing work on the internet, parked in a camp chair beside his pop-up. Pete and I are still drinking coffee, just sitting, while Brendon talks about rafting.
I wasn't sure but there was so much talk about rafting that I thought I should call and see what was available, how were the conditions. The spring runoff had been very gradual this season and still the river was running very high. I heard it was running at 4500 cfs, which seemed high, and indeed the Class III rapids at the south end of town were reportedly flipping rafts. The adults conferred, and it was decided we would do the one-hour "float" and take out before the Class IIIs. We had to get to the rendezvous place in about 40 minutes.
There were about a dozen of us and we got into two boats. The float was faster and higher than the year before, and once in a while the guide could steer into a wave sufficient enough for a good bounce and a cold splash for those who were sitting in the front. The children were more than happy, and the adults were glad to have no worries for their safety.
After our adventure, we went into town and ate at the Steamworks, where we had microbrews and rootbeers, pizzas, grilled cheese sandwiches, hamburgers, portobello mushroom sandwiches, and I had a wild Alaska salmon BLT. We dispersed a bit after that, the girls going on a shopping stroll with the idea of taking the trolley back to the camp. Pete and I and our kids went back to the camp to go to the pool, and Don and his kids opted for a short visit to Thomas the Train.
Cyndi and the girls returned to the camp later than expected, after getting on the wrong bus in town and taking a tour of Durango. Dinner became a free-for-all, with grills and stoves putting out potatoes and corn and sweet peppers, hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwursts, and steak. More S'mores that night as the camp chairs were circled again, the kids roasting the marshmallows over the flames of the Coleman stove. As things wound down, Jackson went to sleep with Cyndi and Rylee curled up on my lap outside the tent and fell asleep in my arms. Later, I put him with Janey and turned out the lantern.
In the morning, it was Father's Day. I called my Dad before we left and also talked to Mom, who was recovering from a dislocated hip. She seemed in remarkably good spirits, though I'm sure she's uncertain about any movement. She was just bending over to tie her shoes when it happened. I had talked with Ariel before she left to Costa Rica with Chris and she left me a message on Saturday when they arrived. Jackson and Rylee and Cyndi gave me a cool shirt that I wore that day, a nice card, and a journal.
Before anyone woke up, though, I was feeling so grubby I had to take a shower even though it was still very cool in the morning. My plan was to keep breakfast simple so I could relax and take my time tearing down the camp. I rinsed and cut some strawberries. I boiled water for the instant Starbucks. I toasted English muffins and had a schmear of cream cheese & strawberry jam. That was my plan.
Pete was next out of bed, and we drank some coffee as the sun came up over the mountains and the campgrounds began to stir. A woman walked by on her way to the showers. She stopped to talk with us, and asked jokingly what was for breakfast. She said she had watched us all weekend, preparing these great feasts. She was on a two-week drive that would take her and her daughter and her grandchild to the Grand Canyon and eventually to the Dakotas before returning to the Midwest. It didn't sound like they were having great meals on the road. She seemed glad for a muffin and schmear.
Pete left and came back with bacon and cooked some eggs at the tent site. Janey cut up kiwis and mangoes to add to the strawberries. As a special treat, one they had anticipated long before the trip, the boys got to walk up to the store to buy boxes of cereal for breakfast. By the end, it was another pot luck brunch.
While the kids played with the other kids at the campground, chased the trains, and even went swimming, I began to slowly, methodically tear down the camp. Cyndi packed the clothes and the bedding. Jackson deflated the big red ball and the mattresses and helped me fold away the tent and the footprint. Rylee packed up his Legos and toys right away. Somehow it all got done. Pete and Dorie and Brendon and Jordyn pulled out about an hour before we left; Don and Ellie and Nicholas and Lauren about 15 minutes before us.I took a last minute shower and put on my new Father's Day shirt.
We all met up again in town. There were some last minute stores to see. One, a candy store that sold Lego candy bricks. Another, a toy store, where Rylee got a toy pistol from Janey for his pirate get-up. I went down the block and ordered some espresso iced frappes and some fruit smoothies and we drove away.
We went a different route home, going through Pagosa Springs, where there's a geothermic spa of hot pools along the river and highway. We stopped. It's set up very nicely, but the boys did not like the pervasive earthy sulphur smell.
We continued on through the forests to Chama, where we grabbed a good bite at a local hamburger stand, then through "Georgia O'Keeffe country", then toward Santa Fe. There we saw another plume of smoke drifting from a fire in the Sangre de Cristos, north of Santa Fe. On the relief route around Santa Fe, looking toward Albuquerque, you could see the smoke from the Wallow Fire in Arizona. It was very windy in the Rio Grande valley.
These trips end about the same. The gear gets unloaded quickly. Jackson always helps. Cyndi put things away. There's maybe some time for a bite to eat, for taking a bath, and then an early bed. And some very tired kids and sore muscles.
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