Day 12: NM - TX - Cadillac Ranch - Childhood Home

We said goodbye to Colorado and headed south to take a walk down memory lane to visit the town where I lived. We moved from Ohio (where I was born) when I was 3 years old and moved to Wisconsin after I completed 6th grade. But first we got to check another state off the list as the GPS routed us through New Mexico on our way to Amarillo. We decided that, in order to fully take advantage of this trip we needed two separate routes. We took the northern route to get to CO and the southern route to get back home.

We were schooled in New Mexico's Volcanos because we had no idea!

And then the much-anticipated entry into TEXAS!

Once a Texan always a Texan.

Right before the city limits of Amarillo is a now-famous site called Cadillac Ranch.

Another eccentric creation, but this one has some personal history. I have pictures of me as a kid standing under one of these cars before graffiti was a money-maker, and before the movie CARS (along with other  nods to this epic site) put it on the map. I don't remember how old I was but I was invited to go to the home of the sponsor/owner of Cadillac Ranch to play music for an event he was hosting there. It was such an interesting home. When you drove through the gate onto his property he had exotic animals walking around and peacocks everywhere. Inside he had multiple wall maps that you could pull down, animal fur rugs in every room and stools made from actual elephant legs.  It was bizarre!  Anyway, I've told the kids about this Cadillac Ranch place for years and I was excited to watch them experience it for the first time. Now, it looks NOTHING like it used to when I was a kid (the spray paint acts as glue holding pieces of the old cars together in some places and looks like stalactites dripping off of other pieces), but it was nostalgic none-the-less.

Over the years I guess they said, "if you can't beat 'em, make money off of 'em". They now have a truck that sells spray paint and merchandise. Luckily I knew that so I bought paint before we went so we didn't have to buy the over-priced stuff for the amateurs, ha!

Then we got in the car and I showed my kids the home where I grew up.

Again, nothing like my memory tells me it was, but I kept getting these glimmers of memories when we'd turn down a street or drive past a familiar place.

After we got all unpacked and situated at the Airbnb Josh and I took a walk around the neighborhood as we watched the sun set.

Sites, smells and weather are such strange reminders of the past.

Day 11: Bishop's Castle - Penny Arcade

 After we checked out of our cabin we had two stops we wanted to take on the way back down to my Aunt and Uncle's where we would spend the night one more time.

Bishop's Castle was quite a site. An eccentric man dedicated much of his adult life building this castle by hand all by himself. I have no idea how it is able to be a public attraction where anyone can climb literally ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP! I made it to the first outer wrap-around wire walkway but I couldn't will myself to go any farther. It was terrifying! Zeke went much farther and captured some epic drone footage. Cai and Rainy made it to the top, the VERY TOP and lived to tell the story, which I am eternally grateful for. Parts of the castle were really beautiful though. A mix of medieval cathedral if you will. I do wonder what the builder's overall idea was in the making of this one-of-a-kind castle.

You can actually see Zeke in the middle of that upper bridge in this first pictures.

This is as far as I got!

There was a goat on-site that kept jumping up on picnic tables and eating people's food. It was hilarious!

After this we headed to the Penny Arcade in Manitou Springs.

Josh got some really cool pictures he shared on Instagram. I walked around in the very crowded, un-airconditioned arcade, made a note about how cool it was and swiftly made my way back out to sit on a bench and wait for the kids to have their fill of this vintage arcade. The boys really liked it!

We were pretty exhausted after the day and were once again glad to walk into my Aunt and Uncle's for some rest as we prepped for our trip home. I am SO sad I didn't get a single picture with them:(

Day 10: St. Princeton Hot Springs

Our last full day at Deer Valley was spent at the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs.

I hardly took any pictures, because I was swimming and sunbathing in the pools heated by the natural hot springs from the mountain. Pretty cool. You could get passes to go down the slides. There were two of them and Jude especially had a blast going down them over and over.

We ended our day eating delicious mexican cuisine in Beuna Vista together with everybody.

And then back to the cabins to get in one more swim at the Ranch and begin getting our car ready for our trip home.

Day 9: Train Ride - St. Elmo

 Today's agenda started with a train ride. We drove to Leadville (I used to walk these streets as a kid) and boarded a restored train that preserved a portion of the old railroad system. Again, Zeke has some amazing footage from this trip. It was beautiful. One of the workers told stories and history the entire trip up. The trip back was for viewing pleasure only (hence the quick little nap Josh and I took before we stopped).

After the train ride we meandered downtown Leadville for a little bit before heading back to the cabin.

Some of the kids wanted to go swimming so we dropped off the swimmers at our cabin and Rainy, Josh and I headed to St. Elmo's, a ghost town, to walk around and feed the chipmunks.

Day 8: Horse Ride - Family - WWII

I loved the cabin we stayed in. And the kids did too. It was literally right next to the pool where they were pretty much any other time they weren't out on our daily adventures. I promised I wouldn't post the picture I took of the boys in their workout headquarters. They seriously had the best room though. No, seriously. They got the master suite, ha! JUDE had the entire king size bed to himself while Cai and Zeke took the bunkbed in the same room. That allowed them to have their own bathroom which the rest of us sure didn't mind. They held daily workouts together with the weights we brought from home because muscles are important. 

The other bathroom had the girls room on one side and me and Josh on the other. It was perfect (minus the oven that didn't work, but whatever).

I got up the next morning and did a solo hike around the property collecting wildflowers.

This was before heading out to Mt. Princeton Riding Stables for a ride through the terrain on horseback.

Shortly after we got back from riding, my Aunt and Uncle (who we stayed with in Colorado Springs) and their two kids (you'll recognize Danny from when we went through Denver) came bearing dinner and a sweet night hanging out. My cousin Becky is almost my age and Danny is almost my brother's age. We were the best of friends in the summers growing up!

We settled in after dinner for a presentation my dad has been tirelessly working on. Back when my mom was teaching fifth grade, her students would go through WWII in history. When I was a kid I remember the summer they asked my Papa to recount war stories triggered by a stack of pictures. They recorded the stories on cassette and put together in a slide show, correlating the photos on slides and the stories on casette tape to play for my mom's students. My dad recently converted it to one format (I believe that is the true technical word) into a video that we watched together. It was the first time some of the kids had ever heard their great grandpa, much less hear the war stories of him as a feisty, hilarious and not-afraid-to-get-into-trouble medic in WWII. It was really special to be able to view that altogether.