The story of myself is hard for me to tell, cause we spent our time coming here in a La Quinta motel.
We got our food in drive throughs, and we ate a lot of junk, and I think Myra had a time of living in the trunk.
And now we’re all living in our cramped two-story apartment, all because we packed some stuff in our back-seat compartment.
-Caleb
A lot of people have recommended the Durango to Silverton Historic Narrow Gauge Train ride. Chad first suggested it only a few days after we arrived here at Four Corners. It sounded fun but I didn’t think it would be fun enough to justify the price so I didn’t really want to do it. Then people at church and work started asking if we had done the train ride out of Durango yet. They all strongly suggested it so we looked again. Chad found a coupon on line that was up to two kids free and three and under are free so we only had to pay for the two adult tickets and that made it doable. Since it was a big, exciting, all day outing we planned it to celebrate Chad’s birthday.
To get to the train station we were up at six and out of the house. Grabbing a few jackets just in case we ate breakfast on the way and got there just in time to board.
We chose an open air gondola where we were facing out as we had heard it would be a very scenic trip.
The train takes you through a canyon that is shared with the Animas river which looks like one huge rapid some of which are class 5.
The little town of Rockwood is famous for being the location of a Butch Cassidy film.
At times the cliff walls are only inches away from the windows of the gondola, and on the other side of the train there are only inches between the edge of the car and the drop off way down to the river below. This is my favorite picture of our birthday boy.
We had cooled embers and soot all over us.
There were a ton of little waterfalls. Both Hannah and Eve took short naps towards the end of the 3.75 hrs it took to get to Silverton.
The snow tipped mountains were beautiful. One we had passed was Mt. Garfield (I saw no orange or black stripes on it but it may have looked a little presidential). Silverton Colorado is an old mining town it now is mostly supported by tourism. They have a population of 2000 residence in the summer and 600 in the winter. Even in the winter it is more populated than the town I grew up in. It was quaint and we enjoyed the historic buildings.
Check out the elevation!
Eve enjoyed picking dandelions and then giving them to everyone she met one at a time. aTFRggggThe recipients loved it.
We had two hours in Silverton one was spent getting and eating lunch and the other hour was not nearly enough to see the rest of the town but we sure did enjoy what we did see.
We got back in the train at 1:35 and it didn’t take too long until Caleb was out.
We saw the sites on the other side of the train on the way home and it was very scenic. But 7.5 hrs on an open air gondola may have been a touch too much as we were feeling a little sick from the fumes by the time we made it back into Durango. I still feel like it was better than the closed cars as they didn’t have very much air movement and were a little too stuffy for me.
After the ride was over we stopped in at the Durango Train Museum.
Sushi from City Market for dinner and the hour + drive home and we are all already tucked into bed we are worn out from a loooong day of fun and excitement.
We have been planning to go to the Celebrate Recovery fundraiser at Chilies for a couple of weeks. Not only did Chilies sound good but we really wanted to support Celebrate Recovery. So after waking up every little bit all day to look at the clock and make sure I wasn’t over sleeping, I finally drug myself out of bed in what we thought was plenty of time to go get an early dinner and get back to the house before I needed to leave for work.
We arrived at Chilies at 4:30pm and I had to leave for work at 6:00pm…that should have been plenty of time. There were only a handful of families at Chilies that early in the evening, so we thought we wouldn’t have a wait time and we would beat the rush. But when we checked in at the front desk and told them there were five of us they informed us that they didn’t have seating for a family of five right now and so it would be about a 15 min. Wait. Seriously! They were practically empty. I was playing out the times in my head. It’s 4:30 in 15 it will be 4:45. If we order our food at 5:00, and it comes at 5:20, and we have to leave at 5:30, so we have time to get home and changed, that means 10 min. to eat. So we decided that wasn’t enough time and ran across the road to Fudruckers. After all that looking forward to Chilies and fitful sleep all day… Fudruckers was fast but completely disappointing too after being used to the one in Wilsonville.
-Sarah
Ok maybe it isn’t made of gingerbread but it is a house….
Today the kids made an Indian pueblo out of wafer cookies, chocolate chip cookie dough and pretzels.
…and then they ate it!
Yazzie, Begay, Nez, Bitah, and Tsosie are Navajo sir names that are seen frequently on posters and billboards on the Navajo Reservation. The names of towns and mesas recall to mind their specific details and rock formations as we have driven by them on this trip. We have been in a reconstructed hogan at Salmon Ruins. Maybe these are the reasons in which I was drawn in and able to relate to Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII by Nez, Chester, Schiess Avila, Judith (2011). The recollections of the Long Walk of the Navajo, The Live Stock Massacre, cruel matrons and life as an eight year old child at boarding school are just the beginning. The detail in which battles in the pacific are recounted and the struggles to fight off battle fatigue as Mr. Nez attempts to reintegrate into civilian life after the war with no recognition for his heroism or even being cleared to tell his family exactly what he had done in the war.
Code Talker is a fairly easy read and leaves you with a desire to learn more about World War II, the Navajo people, Code Talkers, and the Geography of the Pacific Islands. As I finished reading this book this afternoon I decided to search YouTube for Chester Nez and it has quite a bit. After watching a few recent news clips I was shocked to note the date of his death was so resent. Wednesday June 4th, 2014, this very week. I was reading his book on Wednesday as we camped in Colorado…now he is gone…the last living of the original 29 Code Talkers. A piece of living history, Chester Nez, with the help of Judith Schiess Avila, has made a memoir that will allow the Code Talkers to continue to tell their story to the generations to come.
I guess I am hoping that someone out there is feeling a little like they are traveling too through the pictures we have taken and the information we have learned and shared here. I know most jobs are not portable, and two weeks off a year is only enough time to sneak in a camping trip and visit family for the holidays. This is especially for friends who have wanted to travel and see the states but their responsibilities have not allowed it, and for my fellow homeschool families who are studying U. S. History this next year we want to do this blog so that you all can experience this adventure with us and learn beside us.
I am curious. What would you like to know about the Four Corners? Arizona? Utah? Colorado? New Mexico? The Continental Divide, The Grand Canyon, The Great Salt Lake? The Navajo Indians, Hopi, Ute, Anasazi, Ancient Puebloans?
We will attempt to discover the answers to your questions and share them with you. We can learn together.
The kids made a re “construction” paper picture of their favorite places we have visited so far,
Hannah’s favorite place being White Sands National Monument.
The spiky plants with the white flowers are Yucca the state flower, the green trees are cotton wood.
Caleb has done Lake Vallecito in Colorado, where we went camping.
Has cousin play ever been as fun as when you have been separated, then see each other again? Camping was great. We seemed to have found the perfect campground and site for the kids to run around having lots of room to play, and options like playing in the beach or in the water, or playing in the tall grass or little grove of Quaking Aspen trees, or just digging in the dirt and pine needles near the tents. With a post card view of the lake, and a slight breeze most of the day, it was also a perfect spot for us adults to step out and away from the craziness of our everyday routines.
The big boys found several geocaches and Suzanne and I took a sunset walk a ways down the hiking trail that skirted the lake.
I think my parents would love camping here I’m kind of sad that we had to leave but also overjoyed at the discovery of such a beautiful little lake tucked up in the La Plata mountains at 8,000 feet elevation.
With one last day together we revisited one of our favorite National Monuments Mesa Verde and Four Corners.
So sad to say goodbye, but really, it is just see you later. It was sooooo good to just hang out for a few days. We love you guys, thanks for coming!
Vallecito Reservoir in southwest Colorado 85 miles from Farmington, is a small quiet reservoir with several camp grounds around it, none of them overly full. We are enjoying the view from our site, the breeze, and the feeling of being out here by ourselves. It is a completely different feel than the crowded state campgrounds in Oregon.
z
– the Owens & Moore families in colorful Colorado
The kids have been eagerly awaiting their cousins since we broke the news to them a week and a half ago, . . . OK, who am I kidding. I have been awaiting their visit just as eagerly. I don’t think we realized how much we were missing our family until the last few days, when the anticipation was just about too much to bear.
Well, they are here now and we plan on enjoying every moment.
Owens Endeavors 