Christmas vacation

We had an 11-day, 3-state Christmas vacation. Crazy! Some highlights of the trip:

• On the first day, driving from GJ to Raton, we lucked out and had clear conditions, even going over Monarch Pass. But, on the 2-lane cutoff from Cotopaxi to Walsenberg, we missed the right turn at Westcliffe and didn’t even realize it until 17 miles later, when I saw some road signs that didn’t make any sense at all. Happily, our mistake sent us on a very pretty, though somewhat snowy, route through the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Maybe we’ll go back there sometime on purpose.

• The second day, on the seemingly endless drive from Raton to Oklahoma City, we battled fierce winds and an onslaught of tumbleweeds. It was like being in a video game, only was I supposed to be dodging the tumbleweeds or crashing into them? I couldn’t help flinching every time one would roll up over the hood of the Subaru and bounce off the windshield. Chris and his mom, in front of me in her minivan, saw tumbleweeds getting blown up an embankment at the side of the road and soar through the air clear across the road.

• That night, we slept in an RV in Aunt Bev’s backyard, but it was more like a houseboat, the way it was continually rocking and swaying in the wind. I felt a tiny bit seasick and had a bit of trouble in the morning with the first few steps I took on solid ground.

• The third day we arrived in Kansas. This was the first time I’d seen mom and dad’s house since they painted it and built the new deck! It looks beautiful. Makes me really want a deck at our house, though.

• Things that scared Cailan: barking miniature Schnauzers, whirring miniature helicopters, moving miniature trains, horses, and of course the blender. Happily, he wasn’t terrified by any of his relatives, and after a few days he was even curious about the horses.

• In fact, he loved playing with Abbey and Quinn. All three kids played outside on Christmas afternoon. Abbey did a great job of keeping track of Cailan and including him in their games. He is still talking about playing hide and seek with Abbey. I wonder if Q & A are still singing the pachycephalosaurus song.

• Dinosaur songs. Cailan played songs on the piano, giving each a track number and dinosaur name. At Abbey and Quinn’s birthday party, he sang dinosaur songs (the name of a dinosaur, fit to a rhythm, and chanted over and over) while dancing around the table. Alan made up some dinosaur songs with him, one of which he is still repeating, to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree: Dei-non-y-chus, dei-non-y-chus, How tall are you, dei-non-y-chus

• We had a great trip to the zoo, where we saw the gorillas cavorting, chasing, wrestling, and doing somersaults. There were 2 young lion cubs hanging out with both parents and a 3-week-old giraffe baby. Cailan tried to read the signs at every exhibit.

• Cailan and I took a bike ride with Grandma and Grandpa. We had a picnic – although it was a warm day for December, there was a brisk wind, so we tried to shelter on the lee side of a big pine tree. Then we biked around the paths at Sedgwick County Park. I would have expected Cailan to be miserably cold in the wind, but he was having a great time.