Bumps in the Road

On our way to Eagle Colorado, cresting the Rockies, I started getting a warning beep and message that my trailer was disconnected. After pulling over several times to check the connection, I realized there was something electrical wrong and the trailer was secure--except for the fact that my trailer brakes wouldn't work whenever the warning flashed! Yes, this is a big deal coming down from mountains. Despite several stops at auto parts dealers, no one could help and we proceeded for our last week of travel to Green River, Utah. It is a little town, in the middle of high desert that is smack dab in the middle of some amazing sights.
Our first full day there, we spent some time at Green River park, one of the tributaries of the Colorado River. That evening, we drove to Goblin Valley State Park for some hiking. nathaniel had read, that the place is really cool in the evening and night==I told him we would have to play by ear how late we could stay for safety reasongs. This place was truly amazing. The soil is not so much rock as it is a clay base. As water and wind have traveled through, unusual formations were carved out. Cowboys discovered it in the early 1900's while searching for lost cattle. Apparently, parts of the movie "Galaxy Quest" were filmed here in this unusual terrain. The pictures don't quite capture the eeriness of the place. When we arrived at almost 7pm the heat was still draining, so we hiked in to the valley and waited in the shade for the sun to go down enough to cool things off. It was still light until 9pm, so that gave us plenty of time to hike around. We stayed until the moon rose over the valley. Nathaniel was right, evening is the best time to be there.

We spent a day trying to track someone down to look at the trailer connection and decided for safety reasons (as no one seemed to be able to solve our problem) to fore go our next destination--Bryce Canyon, so we'll have to make a trip back sometime. We did however, tour Arches National Park on Wednesday.
We got an early start due to the heat and hiked the various sights until 2 pm when Micah started to wilt. Temps here are over 100 degrees and the sun is intense. The formations are really amazing. I've seen plenty of pictures over the years, but it is so much different seeing these arches up close and hiking in them and through them. Our favorite was double arch.
The boys were wondering why their faces felt so gritty after all the hiking--especially after the the older ones hiked a precarious cave we had a little trouble getting out of. I explained that was salt from all of the sweating. If we stayed much longer we may have started to resemble Lot's wife!
We left on Thursday for our last drive. We had to get to Las Vegas where Mark was flying in to help us get the rest of the way home. When crossing a huge mountain range locals refer to only as "The Swell", the truck started to lose power, I lost my steering and we overheated. We pulled off and called AAA. I was hoping they could put in some antifreeze or something and we would be one our way. After waiting 2 1/2 hours, our tow finally arrived from Moab. We were towed into a garage in Green River (back where we started from that morning). Our serpentine belt broke. Because they are out in the middle of nowhere, a new one wouldn't arrive until the next day. Guess we are stuck in Green River another day.

Focus on the Family!

We arrived in Colorado worn out from two days of driving. I hardly thought we would be able to tour The Focus on the Family visitor center the next day, but we did.
We got there fairly early and toured Odyssey, the Narnia room, Whit's end and play area and the giant three story slide.
We stopped for a while to check out the KidsRadio and met a woman who's children were actually making a radio program. She informed me this was their third time at Focus trying to sign up for the radio program and they finally made it by being the first one's there at 9 am! Well, she received the surprise of her life and found out they were the 3 millionth visitor! She actually said they had lunch planned for her to eat with Jim Daly the President of Focus! I felt honored meeting her. You will probably see her family's picture in the next magazine!
Well, I had given up hope of the kids getting in for the radio program, but right in the middle of our chat, a tour person came out to the waiting area and asked if we were waiting to sign up! Yes, they had one more spot! Hannah and Nathaniel got to have speaking parts and Micah and Aaron were sound effects people. There are actually two episodes of Adventures in Odyssey pre-recorded with the parts missing for two actors and some sound effects. After the kids did their parts in the sound room, we were given a real live episode of Adventures in Odyssey --starring our kids! That alone was worth the trip. But of course, we still had to eat ice cream in Whit's End and go to the bookstore. I am posting just a small part of the episode!

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While the trip to Focus was fantastic, we found Colorado Springs and the surrounding area to be a little uncomfortable. As beautiful as the area is, it is highly congested. Traffic is serious and the people are more so. We only lasted another day and then decided to move to a little town east of Denver called Eagle, located on the Eagle River. This was more our speed. Small town, friendly people, beautiful scenery.

I am getting so behind in my posts I am forgetting what came next! After KY and the Creation Museum, we rushed to a town just outside of St. Louis, Missouri--Granite City , Illinois. Mark had to fly out of St. Louis the next day. The weather was so hot (almost 100) and really humid (85 degrees is bad when it is humid), that we wondered how people could survive there. That night, we had yet another rain storm. We had been getting rain since Ohio on the way out, rain the whole time in PA and again in Ohio, now in Illinois. It was getting tiring (even for a person from CA that appreciates rain) as we discovered two leaks in the trailer. However, this time that rain made quite a difference. We woke up the next morning to much cooler weather and a lot less humidity. We had some time to do laundry and swim and then took Mark to the St Louis airport. We had seen some local publications listing all the many things to do and see in the St Louis area, I thought after we dropped Mark off we might see if any were close to the airport.
We settled on the "Magic House-Children's Museum". It was in a very nice suburb of St. Louis and built in an old mansion that had been donated and fixed up. What a fun time we had! There was a construction zone, and Jack's Beanstalk that climbed three stories. They had exhibits on the Oval Office, Congressional meeting rooms and Federal Courts. There were science exhibits and literature exhibits and a beautiful garden outside complete with a wading moat and boats. We stayed until the place closed and then packed up the next morning to head to Salina, KS. We stayed just one night and then on to Colorado Springs! We'll fill you in on Colorado on the next post!

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