home!

we are so thankful that we made it home safely. we pulled into our driveway on friday afternoon and it was such a strange feeling to actually be at home. i was expecting to be giddy with excitement at being home, but found that i actually felt very disoriented.

we found the house to be in pretty good order. there was a telephone line down in our driveway, which jeremy picked up as he walked up to the house. that prompted a lot of screaming from me as i thought it was a power line. it seems that someone stole our city garbage can. who would do such a thing? and the most disappointing find of all was that someone broke into our garage and stole our grill and all of our grilling accessories. that is a huge bummer.

but in the grand scheme of things, those are all relatively minor challenges. our house is still standing and we are thankful to be safely home. we put 5800 miles on the car this summer and the only car trouble we encountered was a leaking tire, which was fixed for free!

we are slowly settling in and feeling less disoriented. it was wonderful to attend our church this morning - we felt so welcomed back! and last evening was spent at a nearby fair with some of our friends who we missed all summer. the demolition derby was definitely the highlight of the day! jeremy doesn't go back to school until the end of this week, so aside from a few meetings he has over the next few days, we have a slow start to the week to get things in order. unpacking is happening at a steady pace and all of the stuff we hauled in from our car is slowly disappearing into the drawers and cupboards where it belongs. we took our house off the market for now (due to a variety of reasons), so it is nice to be settling in without having to worry about that at this time.

i think the fact that i was away from our house all summer really took it's toll - i'm full of inspiration for little things i want to get done around the house! my first priority was giving our little one an improved play space, which i have already begun working on. we actually rearranged some living room furniture today, despite the unpacking and putting away we have yet to do. i am excited about her space, and about having a house and furniture of our own to work with. photos will come when her space is put together.

i am tired tonight and i think i will spend some time relaxing on our couch. ahh...home.

on the road again

we are on the way home. today marks the halfway point in our nine day trek towards home. so far, we have been through five states - three of them i had never been in before.

in between staying at the wigwam motel...

 

stopping at the albuquerque  balloon museum...

visiting the ghost-town of cuervo, new mexico...

and doing some spray painting at cadillac ranch...

...we've been putting lots of miles on the car and taking in the scenery. we've also been listening to a lot of old mcdonald, which is a frequent request from the backseat. the little one calls out "yiyiyi-o!" until we put the song on. while she is napping, we've been listening to tim mcgraw and some other country music - it just seems to fit. we make quite a few stops throughout the day...a four hour drive can easily take us seven hours. we always find interesting places to stop and let the little one run around. she is so, so cute and she just seems to get cuter every day. we both love this stage with her, and these travels are fun, though stressful at times. 

we are settled into our hotel for the night. tomorrow will be another full day. goodnight!

real food on the road

it being my anniversary, you would think i would be out on a romantic date with my love tonight. (my sweet husband who hacked into my blog to leave the romantic message in the last post. what a guy). instead, he is at church helping with vacation bible school, and i am at home with our little one who is already in bed for the night. he won't be home until close to 9, and vacation bible school is every night this week, so we decided we will leave the celebrating for saturday. maybe we will go to the ocean. we are only twenty minutes away.

i haven't been feeling well for the past six days or so. some days worse than others, but i must have caught some kind of nasty bug somewhere. due to my being sick, we still haven't celebrated my birthday, which was on thursday (and yes, i did cry because i was sick on my birthday). we are a bit behind on the celebrating over here, so we will have a lot to catch up on this weekend. i am feeling a bit better today, so things are looking up.

while i have a bit of quiet time tonight (except for the neighbor's dog that barks all night long), i thought i would write a post about real food on the road.

on our recent eight day cross-country trek, we learned a bit about balancing our desire to eat real, whole, healthy food with the reality of being on the road for eight days, not having access to a kitchen, and traveling with a one-year old. we ate meals in all kinds of different places, and by the time we finally arrived at our destination, i concluded that we did a pretty good job of eating real food on the road.

i would have loved to make all kinds of things to take on the road with us...crackers, yogurt, bread, etc...but flying home from our trip to california and leaving for our road trip left two weeks to get our house ready to be put on the market and pack up our family of three for a summer away from home. i did what i could and called it good.

breakfast:
most of the hotels we stayed in had a free continental breakfast available in the mornings. as we were on a tight budget for this trip, we appreciated this but it was challenging for us as we are used to eating eggs, smoothies, quiche, or soaked oatmeal for breakfast. we compromised. a couple of times we brought our own bread (ezekial bread) and jam (raspberry) to the dining area and made toast. one morning i decided i was going to have a waffle (you know, the kind that you make in the little waffle maker?). i didn't feel very well after that and didn't do that again. our little one ate instant oatmeal - i chose the one with the least amount of things added to it and decided i had to be okay with that.

there were a couple of hotels that didn't offer breakfast, so i brought boiled eggs and yogurt and granola along for those mornings and that worked out great. we all liked it, and it was easy. one morning near the end of our trip, we went to the hotel lobby for breakfast and there was nowhere to sit. we were staying in a historic little town at the time, so we decided to try a local place for breakfast and we were really glad we did. we were able to get eggs, and we also treated ourselves to bacon, hash-browns, and toast. we met some locals, sipped some hot coffee, and enjoyed a breakfast out.

yogurt and granola in our hotel room before we hit the road.

suggestions for next time: bring some instant oatmeal to eat for breakfast, definitely bring the yogurt and granola again

lunch:
we decided before we left that we wanted to do picnic lunches. we figured it would be a good way to break up the day, it would save us money because we wouldn't be going out, and we could decide what we wanted to eat. for the most part, our picnic lunches worked out great.

on day 1, we were getting ready to stop for lunch just as a massive thunderstorm was moving in. we had a big breakfast that morning and we weren't that hungry anyway, so we just snacked in the car. we had our picnic for supper that day instead. on day 2, we spent the entire day driving through 40 mph winds and decided not to attempt a picnic. we stopped for lunch somewhere that day, but i don't remember where. another day, we were driving through the desert and could not find anywhere to stop and have our picnic. we finally came upon a little desert town but couldn't find a park (or shade!) anywhere, so we ended up eating at a sonic. there was another day when it was very windy, so i quickly threw together some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a parking lot and we ate them in the car.

what did we have for our picnic lunches?

sandwiches made with sprouted ezekial bread (until it got moldy and then we bought the best bread we could find at a grocery store along the way), lunchmeat (nitrate and sugar free), tomato, hummus, and mustard

carrots, celery, and hummus

raisins

for a break from sandwiches one day, we had salmon on kashi crackers

we also had bananas and oranges along, so we had a nice variety of options for lunch.

suggestions for next time: consider making sandwiches in the morning, especially if it is going to be a windy day

supper:
there were a couple of days when we had sandwiches for dinner in our hotel room, but we usually ate at a restaurant for dinner. it was nice to go out for dinner after a long day of driving. we chose local restaurants and enjoyed the experience! because we were on a budget, and because we couldn't really keep leftovers anyway, we almost always shared a dinner. it worked out really well. one night we shared a buffalo burger, one night a grilled chicken dinner, one night a steak, and the rest i don't remember. our little one ended up eating macaroni and cheese or spaghetti for dinner most nights.

fort collins, co. coppersmith's brewery. beer bread. yum!

suggestions for next time: rack my brain to try to come up with something we can bring along for baby to eat for dinner (she is very picky these days!)

snacks:
we took quite a few snack breaks during our trip. when baby needed a break (or we needed a break) or when it was taking longer to get to our destination than we thought and we needed something to tide us over...out came the snacks!

pecans

pistachios

granola bars

annie's cheddar bunnies (for baby!)

homemade trail mix (peanuts, sunflower seeds, and raisins)

and of course, fruits and veggies.

treats:

what is a road trip without treats? we got a couple of treats along the way. actually, we kept saying, "today we are going to stop for ice cream"...and then we wouldn't be able to find an ice cream place, or we would see one but the little one would be sleeping and we wouldn't want to stop, and we would get to the end of the day and we wouldn't have gotten ice cream! we did finally stop for ice cream.

no...we didn't buy her two ice cream cones. when we stopped for ice cream, the only time she wasn't crying was when she was holding both of our ice cream cones! we ended up leaving the restaurant and eating the ice cream in the car while we drove.

and of course we got sarsaparilla floats. and they tasted so good in the middle of the desert!

we also brought several treats along with us. we figured that this stopped us from buying more unhealthy sweet things along the way. here's what we brought:

newman's own licorice. i bought this at the health food store before we left because i thought it would be a good treat to bring along. this is the tangerine flavor, which i didn't like, but we also tried the raspberry flavor and that one was really good.

chocolate chip cookies

dried organic apricots.

sugarless peanut butter fudge brownies i made a while back and took out of the freezer before we left.

so...that's what we ate! i am pretty happy with how it all went. of course, there are always unexpected things that come up when traveling, but i think we did pretty well overall. we will be doing it again in two months when we drive home, and it's nice to have more of an idea of what to expect after doing it on the way out here.

we're here!

yesterday we drove past this sign! we have made it to our destination state.

we are enjoying a couple of days with family and tomorrow we will settle into our new home. 

also...this one wore pigtails for the first time yesterday.

 

we learned that pigtails and our little one are a dangerous combination. she was so cute that we couldn't say no to anything! pigtails are going to have to be a rare treat until we can get over the cuteness. (i don't think we will ever get over it!).

oatman, arizona

yesterday we drove deep into the desert, through this...

 

in 109 degrees, to get here...

 

 

an old mining town turned ghost town turned tourist destination...

 

a town with a fascinating history where wild burros come into the city every day and roam the streets greeting visitors and looking for food.

 

unlike any other place we have ever been.

the oatman hotel (where clark gable honeymooned) is no longer a hotel, but the building remains.

 

a couple of other old buildings turned to shops with clever names...

 

plenty of burros to feed...

and the biggest sarsaparilla floats we ever saw.

 

 

the burros were friendly. most of the few people who live there were not as friendly, but i said that i probably wouldn't be friendly either if i lived up there in the middle of the desert.

 

 

it was worth it. definitely worth it for the burros, the history, and the sarsaparilla floats.

june 4

yesterday we went to mesa verde national park.

 

we went on a tour and this little girlie loved it! 

 

on the drive out of the park (it was really long!)...

 

we had this beautiful view from last night's really nice hotel. (tonight's hotel? definitely in the not so great category. but we won't talk about that right now...)

today we went to four corners, and then drove through the barren wilderness of northern arizona for hours. trees and civilization were a welcome sight when they finally made an appearance again.

 

and we went to the grand canyon!

 

 

 we also almost got in two head-on collisions today (NOT our fault in any way), saw a dead moose (or elk?) and two dead deer on the side of the road, and drank a lot of water.

stay tuned for a post or two about eating real food while on the road. i am planning on writing this post after we get settled in our new home and i took some photos for it today!

it was a full day. my two loves are sound asleep and i think i will join them in dreamland. goodnight!

pics from the road

we've been keeping busy and having a great time on our road trip. yesterday and today were by far the best days yet! here are some photos of a bit of what we've been up to...

 rocky mountain national park!

checking out some elk...

 lots of this little face (can't get enough!)...

 

our family of three high in the mountains...

 

a visit to bear lake in the park. still lots of snow up there!

 

some time spent admiring these creatures...

 

and then on to the celestial seasonings factory in boulder for a tea tasting...

  

a visit to the colorado capitol building. and burning off some of the little one's energy by running up and down the hill (can you find us in this photo?)...

 last night we stayed at the home of some of our friends who live in denver. we didn't have as much time to visit as we all would have liked, but we really enjoyed the time we did have together.

garden of the gods...

and royal gorge. we had planned on riding the aerial tram in estes park, but it is closed this year for repairs, so our consolation was going to royal gorge today and riding the aerial tram there. it's quite a ride.

and we took the incline railway down into the gorge.

we had planned to go to great sand dunes national park today, but by the time we were almost there, it was so windy and our little one wanted out of her carseat, so we headed straight for the hotel. it was a bit disappointing, but we are going with the flow. it's definitely what works best when traveling with a toddler!