Day Five -Heading North to Rio Rancho

After breaking camp we were in the car again heading north to Rio Rancho. We stopped in Roswell for alien ice. Yum! Next we shopped for a few minutes at our favorite store. Liz and Lizzie rode with us and the six hours sped by.
We hoped to catch the meteor shower but the ambient light was too bright so we settled in and got a good nights sleep.

Day Four - My Spelunker Hat

After a delicious camp breakfast we drove back to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to tour the cave. I had not planned on joining the family in this adventure but they convinced me to come along. Thank goodness they did. The cave was phenomenal. We walked about a million miles and then came back to the campground where I crawled into our tent and promptly fell asleep.

Day Three - Beware of Bats Hat

Early in the morning we moved to a larger campsite and set up our tent. I met an interesting woman named Kelly who is a schoolteacher, traveling around the US on her summer break. She was quite adventurous and was doing it solo. She had seen the bats a few nights before and went back because it was so wonderful.

There was no shade so we headed for the pool. Needless to say, we got nasty sunburns. The wind picked up and all the unpacking and camp set up had to be tied down and repacked. As you can see from the leaning tree, its pretty constant. We had sixty mile an hour winds that whipped the tent so bad we filled it up with as much as possible so it would not blow away.

In the evening we jumped in our cars to drive the 32 miles to Carlsbad Cavern. Heading out of the campground, my worst nightmare came true...there was a huge snake in nearby. To our amazement, it was being bullied by a road runner. I learned that road runners eat snakes. Circle of life.

We arrived at Carlsbad in time to get seats for the bat flight. The park ranger gave a short presentation then the bats did their show. Wow, I cannot describe how awesome a half million bats can be. They swirled out of the cave in a counterclockwise vortex and then headed north.

Back to the campground we slept well....except for the sunburns.

Day Two - Westward Ho to New Mexico

We had reached Oklahoma by morning light and stopped for gas and coffee at the Seminole Nation Travel Plaza. With coffee mugs in hand, we refilled then went to pay. The clerk refused to take our money for the refills since we had brought our own cups. We insisted but she smiled and answered - It's only coffee! This had to be the most un-Starbuck comment ever spoken.

A couple hours later, we had breakfast at IHOP mainly because they offered free wifi. I checked in with the world and then we headed west again. During the afternoon Jim spotted a thrift store from the highway so we checked it out and bought shorts and a shirt. We briefly ran into a Walmart to pick up something for a afternoon picnic lunch and I bought some 1/4 yards of fabric to add to my quilting collection.

Texas was hot, very hot. At least there was a breeze but the breeze was hot, too. The heat was the least of my worries when I saw the warning signs at the rest area regarding the rattlesnakes.

Hours and hours more driving then we had to decide whether to stop for the night or just keep going. We had already gained an hour and knew that another was waiting when we crossed into Mountain time. A cell phone call to the in-laws made us chose the "just keep driving, driving, driving" option.

We rolled into Carlsbad at midnight mountain time, took a quick shower, then slept beneath the stars, too tired to put up the tent. We saved hugs for morning when we wouldn't smell quite so sweaty.

Day One - Westward Ho to New Mexico

Being Hunts, we got a late start on Friday morning. However, we had already decided and agreed that we were on vacation and schedules did not apply. We were casting our fate to plannidippity, the best way to travel. The first leg of our trip went well, at least until west of Carrolton when we saw a sign that said road construction 4 miles. We had thought of taking the river route on 42 but knew this would slow us down quite a bit. Unfortunately, it would have been the faster way to go. As we learned at the top of the next hill, where we found ourselves at the tail end of several miles of parking lot. We car danced to the Ragbirds and enjoyed each other's company not allowing this to deter our joy.

We stopped for lunch at the Hard Rock in Louisville then headed southbound.

Heading west on the by pass to Route 40, we came upon another parking lot between Nashville and Jackson, Tennessee. Nine hours after we left, we met John & Vicky Lecroy for dinner. This was dejavu of our last trip out west when it took ten hours to get to their home which normally takes six. They took us to an interesting restaurant at the Casey Jones village. We look forward to stopping for a longer visit on our trip home. They invited us to sleep over but we were already hours behind schedule so we drove through the night, taking turns at the wheel. We stopped at a rest area west of Memphis after we crossed into Arkansas but the smell, the heat and the bugs were more troublesome then driving in the wee hours. With plenty of good homegrown music mixed in with some Moody Blues, we were serenaded by Mike Helm and Bromwell Diehl and Ashley Peacock. One day into our trip, we were finally making progress.....or so we thought....

Stitch by Stitch

I have almost completed Kalee's birthday quilt. It is bright and colorful and I have named it "Bee Happy". I am excited it give her something handmade for her first birthday!

While choosing fabric for her quilt, I found some colors for mine which will be named "Bohemidippity"...my new favorite word. After reviewing over a dozen books with quilt patterns, I decided to go simple on both to make it more pleasant and less stressful. I usually knit in the cold months and quilt in the warmer ones. Its surely a form of Zen mediation. If a pattern requires too much focus and becomes work, why bother. Hobbies should be fun, not taxing, in my opinion. With quilting, it all looks good so the pattern doesn't always have to be too complex.

Simplicity, serendipity, bohemidippty....I sense a theme!

Hamilton Farmers Market - August 1, 2009

The voice, like the rest of our body, needs time to wake up. Mine woke up around 10 a.m. last Saturday which would have been alright except for the fact that I started singing at 9 a.m. It went well though. I just had to coax it out a bit more than usual. Two hours of singing without Peg or Tim to help fill in the spaces is a bit daunting at any hour but from 9 to 11 on a Saturday morning, it was good experience. I was pleased to have enough songs that I could share and I only repeated two, Tom & Huck and Banks of the Ponchetrain. Jim's drums added a lot and he did his usual great job on the sound system. Carol snapped this shot during a happy song. She met us at Hamilton and after the set, we said hello to a few of the market vendors then loaded up for the GOH to the Dublin Irish Festival.

At the festival, my first objective was to see Niamh Parsons. There are never enough "chick" singers at these events, mostly bar bands and high energy entertainers. I'm a ballad singer and I love to watch a good ballad singer live. Niamh did not disappoint. Although I have to admit that I was a just a tad bit envious. She has a guitarist and she only has to sing. Sounds like a luxury that I could get used to! (It's Monday and my fingertips have just stopped hurting from the two hours of guitar playing in Hamilton)