I wanna be a cowboy

6-28-07

Much better day. We started off in Albuquerque where we had breakfast (great place, ask me about it if you’re ever in Albuquerque) and waited around for the four new back tires. Not a cheap day, but hey, it’s only money, and I’m a teacher you know. Anyway, we were back on the road before noon.

We drove to a KOA in Amarillo, Texas, and what a pleasant surprise. The people were really friendly and had our names on a little welcome sign when we got there. We were expecting hot weather in Texas, but it was beautiful – nice breeze and it even got a little chilly in the evening. There is a nice pool and an evening hayride. We ordered Texas barbeque that was delivered right to our RV.

We’re back on track.

Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona (and that was the highight)

6-27-07

Okay, all of you naysayers, here is your chance to gloat. Yesterday (and into early this morning) was horrendous. It started out pretty good. The drive was easier than we expected out of canyon country, and we still had spectacular views.

We also passed through Winslow, Arizona where we stopped for burgers and shakes, and guess what I did?

It was a long driving day, but we were keeping it together. Once we got to Gallup, New Mexico though, things started to unravel. Katie had major blowout that leaked out of her diaper and covered her legs and car seat. Lovely. We decided to wait to change her until we stopped. And then I got off at the right exit, but I inadvertently got back onto the freeway. Seven miles down to the next exit and seven miles back, Katie sat playing with her own, well, you know. When we cleaned her up, it was everywhere. Becky had one bag of trash and one bag of the dirty car seat cover, straps, Katie’s clothes, etc. I dropped Becky and Kit off at Walmart to do some shopping and went to find a laundry. Only then did I realize that Becky had thrown away the wrong bag. We had to buy a new car seat, but it was probably just as well. The other one was old, and I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning it all. Not fun, but the worst is yet to come.

After that we decided to drive into the night to make tomorrow’s drive shorter. I figured that I would just stop at a rest area when I got tired. A little after midnight, we were about an hour outside of Albuquerque when one of rear inside (there are two on each side in the back) tires blew. I called USAA roadside assistance (supposed to be 24 hour), but they tried but couldn’t get anyone to come out until morning. I’ll think I’ll be switching to AAA. Anyway, that took a while, and since we had a full-sized spare, I decided to try it myself. I have changed tires before, but the inside of double tires on an RV seemed a bit out of my league. The jack was a pain, but I finally figured that out, and I thought I had it a couple of times, but I couldn’t get both tires to fit on right together. I finally gave up, and by the time I had the one good tire on (although not straight) so that we wouldn’t be on the jack all night, it was 3:30. I fell asleep around four and woke up at 5:30 to call USAA again. After another huge hassle, by 6:30 they found someone that would come out in about two hours. I again decided to try it myself, and by the light of day (without a flashlight in my mouth), I realized what I had done wrong. I had both tires on the RV in about 15 minutes, and managed to stop the repairman before he had even left.

Not a very fun night, but things could be worse. How does the song go? If you ever want to see a rainbow, you gotta stand a little rain.

Tomorrow will be a better day. I know because it’s really tomorrow night when I’m writing this.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, minus the Romans

6-26-07

We left Vegas heading for Zion National Park. On the way, we met up with Becky’s best friend from high school, Marie, her husband Adam and their two kids, Kaitlin and Kevin. They live in northern Utah, and we had planned on seeing them on our way back at the end of the trip. They are going to be out in California visiting Marie’s family when we go through Northern Utah so they drove 3 ½ hours each way to see us, hang out a little and have lunch. Then they turned around and drove home. It was very cool of them to drive all the way down to Southern Utah just to meet up with us. Thanks, guys.

We drove through Zion’s Canyon after that, and it was breathtaking. Very impressive, like the scenery from an old west movie. We had thought about visiting Bryce Canyon also, but it was hot and the kids were tired of driving. That will have to wait for another trip. We are staying in an RV park not far from Zion’s tonight. The kids were able to swim, and Kit was able to get a good nap. More adventures tomorrow.

FYI - A few people have asked what Neustro Viaje Loco means. For anyone who has been too lazy to look it up so far, it means "Our Crazy Trip” in Spanish. I know that I speak French, not Spanish, but my philosophy is whenever you have a chance to use the word Loco, take advantage of it.

Viva Las Vegas

6-25-07

Today was way cool. The kids (and adults) had a blast in Vegas. I had no idea that there was a full amusement park inside of Circus Circus. The kids got all-day passes and rode on tons of rides. They have full sized roller coasters, a Sponge Bob simulator and many upside-down rides that Alex and Zac loved. They have the park planned so that the rides all kind of tangle in with each other so they fit an amazing amount of rides into a small space. So there wasn’t a ton of walking and hardly any lines either. They also got the go swimming too.

To top it all off, we went to see the “World’s Greatest Magic Show”. It was very amazing, and the kids and grownups alike had a ball. It was playing at the Greek Isles, and I would recommend it to anyone in Vegas, especially with kids. One child is free with every paid adult. Check in the morning at the half-priced ticket counters to see if you can get a deal. One of the magicians chose Alex as his volunteer from the audience, and he was pretty amazing as he levitated a paper flower with Alex’s help, and then he turned it into a real flower and gave it to Alex. They didn’t let us take pictures at the show, but they are supposed to email us some pictures that they took. We did get some pictures with the magicians after the show. A fun-filled day!

On the road again...

6-24-07

We said goodbye to Simar, Angad, Bobby, Herlin and her parents this morning. It will be hard on the kids that they won’t see their best friends for five + weeks, but I promised Alex and Zac that we could call them every few days. Then we re-commenced our trip eastward. Next stop… Vegas, baby.

Again, we had to take it easy as we drove back into the heat. We didn’t actually overheat, but we had to turn off the AC when we pulled some of the hills. We made it though! Tonight we just checked into the RV park at Circus Circus, had dinner and walked around to see what there was to do.

We did have a small miracle occur also. When we were in Arizona, the heat killed off our fridge in the RV. The freezer was working maybe as good as a fridge, and the fridge wasn’t really working at all. We had to throw out all of the food. The guy who helped us with the propane also told us that 100+ degree weather was often too much for older fridges like in our RV. I turned the whole system off when we got into the cooler weather in CA, and restarted it after a couple days rest, but it still wasn’t working after it ran for a couple of days. So I bought some blue ice, froze it at the motel room we had at wedding, and was just using the freezer as a fridge. As we again drove into 100+ degree weather this time in Nevada, the fridge and freezer magically began working again. It’s been fine for the last couple of days. Go figure.

What we wouldn't do for a good meal

6-23-07

We went to our first Sikh wedding. Jaslin married a girl named Jaswinder (I may be misspelling that). The girls got up early to get their hair done, and then we went to the Sikh temple. Becky, Alex and Zac were all wearing traditional Indian clothing. We had breakfast there and then attended the ceremony. It was very cool although we didn’t understand what was being said.

One of the traditions is that the sisters of the bride steal the shoes of the men in the groom’s party (you have to take your shoes off before going into the temple). I (Pete) was asked to be part of the groom’s party so they stole my shoes, but I was the only one who didn’t know about the tradition. I was pretty surprised when I couldn’t find my shoes at the end. People just should not mess with my Birkenstocks. The groom had to pay the sisters off from some of the money he had collected as wedding gifts. As soon as they brought the shoes out to finalize the negotiations, I snuck behind the girl who had them and stole them back. It was all fun, but nobody better ever touch my sandals again.

Then there was a dinner reception where we had AWESOME Indian food. Overall, a tiring day, but a lot of fun and a great new cultural experience for us. Congratulations Jaslin and Jasminder.

I will eventually have better pictures with all of us, but other people were taking pics, and I was busy chasing after kids, negotiating for my shoes, etc. So I didn’t get a chance to take too many shots today. If not any sooner, I’ll put up more pics after the trip.

Becky gets a tattoo

6-22-07

We said goodbye to Kaye, Ben, Robert and Cameron. Thanks for all your help. It was good seeing you. We’ll see you again in August.

The festivities for Jaslin’s wedding began today. Becky, Kit and Alex joined Simar and Herlin in getting henna tattoos on their hands, and then we had an Indian dinner at the bride’s family’s house and the girls participated in some of the traditional ceremonies before the wedding.

Whatcha doin' next? We're going to Disneyland.

6-21-07

One more day at Disneyland and California Adventure, but this time we stayed until closing. We got Bobby, Herlin, Jaslin and even their dad to try Tower of Terror. Simar and Angad’s grandma even went on Soaring Over California, and Alex and Simar rode some of the big roller coasters like California Screamin’, Matterhorn, Space Mountain and Thunder Mountian RR (Zac even went on the last two). Fun day, but my feet are sore!

Walk da plank, ye landlubbing scallywags

6-20-07

Disneyland: the happiest place on earth. What more can I say? We rode ‘em all. Well, not quite all, but quite a few. We met up our friends Bobby, Simar and Angad so the kids had pals to ride with. Along with us and Kaye her kids, we were quite the crew. We tried the new Finding Nemo Subs, and it was pretty cool. Alex still loves the Hollywood Tower of Terror, and Zac’s a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Manison. Katie loved It’s a Small World, and Grandma Kit was in awe of Soaring Over California. Becky just loves it all, and Pete manages to tolerate the whole experience (just kidding, Pete’s the biggest kid of all; it’s not a visit to Disneyland if you don’t fly with Peter Pan).

This evening we went to the Pirate Dinner Adventure theater with 16 people total. They made Simar’s uncle Jaslin stand up and congratulated him on his upcoming wedding, and also recognized Simar’s grandfather’s birthday. The kids had a blast, and Alex, Simar, Zac and Angad all yelled their heads off cheering Saxon the Pirate and booing for all of the others. Shiver me timbers, matey.

Going back to Cali...

6-19-07

Just an FYI. A few people have emailed us on our home account. When we have been connected to the Internet, we have been able to retrieve emails from that account but not reply to them. We have a web-based account that is the same address as the other account except it ends in @juno.com. Try us there if you want to send an email.

We drove to Becky’s sister Kaye’s house in Southern California. On the way, we heard a loud popping sound out under the RV and smelled propane. It scared us, and we pulled over right away. We could see anything wrong so we drove on to the next town. It was early in the morning, but we were pretty blessed to stumble directly upon a great guy who ran a propane fill station and RV repair shop on the outskirts of town. He took a look, and said the guy at the last gas station had overfilled the propane tank which caused some to burst out of an overflow value when it expanded from the heat of the road. He showed me how to bleed the propane and we were on our way.

At Kaye’s we got a chance to relax and go swimming with her kids Robert and Cameron. We get to go a few days now without a large amount of driving. Yippee!

We aint afraid a no ghosts

6-18-07

I forgot to mention that we went to visit the visitor’s center of the local LDS temple last evening, and that was very cool. Some great sculptures and paintings.

Got a chance to just relax this morning. Then this afternoon, we took the kids to visit a real live ghost town (oxymoron?). Grandma stayed at Hubert and Amy’s to beat the heat, and we took two of their kids, Julia and Payson, with us. We had fun, but I don’t think they had as much going on as they do on the weekends. That was okay because it was a touch on the hot side. This evening Hubert cooked an awesome dinner, and we had a chance to visit more. We were sad to leave, but we wanted a head start otherwise we would have a long drive tomorrow. We left about 10, drove for a couple of hours and stopped for the night at a rest area. Thanks, Hubert, Amy and family. We’ll have to get together before another ten years pass.

Time to visit friends

6-17-07

Happy Father’s Day, everyone. I know that this will probably be posted a day or two late so I’ll try to put the date at the top of every entry. We started the day by trying to make it to church, but by the time we got the RV re-packed, unhooked and dumped out (always fun), we were too late although we did find the building.

We drove to Sedona, and the canyon was beautiful. I had no idea it even existed, but it was spectacular. Thank you, Alex (not our Alex, a friend who told us about Sedona). We intended to stop longer and look around, but it was packed. We couldn’t find any place to park the RV so we just pulled off the side of the road and took some pictures. After we got through the main part of town, we found a place to stop and had a great Father’s Day lunch. Thanks, Grandma Kit.

After that, we drove to an unspecified city (again, I don’t want to give out too much info about anyone online) to our friends Hubert and Amy’s house. I (Pete) first met them when I was a missionary in France and they were newlyweds. They now have six wonderful kids four of who have been playing with our three, and the two oldest are in France visiting with their grandparents. We’re having a great time visiting with Hubert and Amy, and having a little break from traveling is nice too.

Grand Canyon, old west style

6-16-07

Just an FYI for anyone who doesn't already know, you can see larger versions of any of the pictures by clicking on them.

Fantastic day. We began by making pancakes in the RV. Then we saw a Wild West Shootout near the train station. No-good, card-cheating, horse-stealing cowboys. We then took the old fashioned train from Williams to the Grand Canyon. We had an old-time fiddle player and a cowboy entertain us during part of the ride to the canyon. The Grand Canyon visit itself was fun although Kit was feeling the effects of the altitude and heat. It wasn’t blazing, but it wasn’t exactly cool either. We walked a lot and got some great pictures. On the way back, we heard a country guitar player and singer, and the train was robbed by a group of cowboys who looked suspiciously similar to the outlaws involved in this morning’s shootout. Then, I took the kids swimming this evening. We’re a little tired but had a good day.

Late, but worth the wait ( I mean drive)

We made it to Williams, AZ today, but we definitely had a few hiccups on the way. Last night we left almost three hours later than we had planned, didn’t make as far as we wanted and spent the night in the parking lot of a Fresno Walmart. It was hot, Zac rolled out of two beds that we put him in, and all-in-all no one slept very well.

Today we had a long drive. The RV stays very cool up front, but it gets hotter the closer you get to the back. So Pete drove most of the way, and everyone else except Katie took turns sitting in the front. We had one moment of panic when the RV stalled on a hill in the heat of the day, but we managed to get it to the side of the road. I had an I-can’t-believe-this-seven-week-trip-is-over-before-our-first-stop moment. After turning the AC off though, the RV started up again right away, and didn’t give us any further trouble. In the next town, we let it sit for a little while, and then we even used the AC fine after that although we did turn it off when pulling any steep hills.

The RV park is awesome. It’s part of a larger resort that includes an indoor pool and play area for the kids. They had a great time once we finally got here. The weather is even cooler than we expected. Well, so far the bulk of the trip has been packing and driving. The real vacation begins tomorrow…

One more tag along

Oh yeah, my mother-in-law, Grandam Kit, is coming with us. When I tell people that, they really think I'm crazy. In reality, I get along very well with my mother-in-law, thank you very much. Whether we still will by the end of this trip is yet to be seen. Actually, this trip is kind of for her, but I'm sure we'll get into that later.

Meet the gang

Hi, this picture is from last year, but we don't have a lot with all of us together. Either Becky or I are usually on the other side of the camera. Most of you reading this, already know us, but I'll name the major players for anyone new to the scene. I (Pete) am the cool guy with shades on a cloudy day. Becky is the gorgeous redhead. Alex, on the right, is now 8. Zac, now 6, is the one trying to catch flies in his mouth. I'm holding baby Katie, and yes, she is sticking her tongue out at you.

Howdy ya'all

I'm not really a blogger, but I was convinced by some of my doubting Thomas colleagues at work that I needed to keep a blog this summer. I'm a teacher who has worked enough years now that I can finally afford to take my summers off. So this upcoming Thursday, we're beginning a seven-week RV trip across the county. It's going to be a blast, but some of the other teachers began some good natured razzing about the trip. (I'm sure this was done out of jealousy, but they're good people anyway). I've been told to watch RV with Robin Williams. We have it, and we'll watch in en route.

Anyway, it was one of my fellow teacher's idea to create a blog so I thank her for the suggestion. I'm not going to use too much actual information about us; you know, that whole not giving out too much information about yourself on the Internet thing. So I'll only use first names, and I won't mention where we're from. For friends and family, you already know all about our crazy family, and you can follow along on our adventure. For anyone who just stumbled upon this, bienvenue, but run away while you still can.

Testing 1,2,3

Just seeing how this works