October 25, 2024: The Long Road Home

 We woke up as the sun was coming up at the Pecos West Rest stop to get ready for the final 5.5 hours drive home. Laura went to the bathrooms on site, and met one of the TDOT workers who made a coffee for her! We then shifted the kids into the truck, and got back on I-10 heading east. 

About 10 miles past our second bathroom/gas stop, 94 miles from Kerrville we heard a loud POP! A blowout tire on one of the fifth wheel tires. Since we were 5 miles from even another exit, we pulled over on the side of I-10 to change the tire. Luckily, Trey is always super prepared for things like this and went straight to work. It took about an hour and a half total, but we got the trailer lifted, spare tire put on, and an appointment at Discount Tire in Kerrville scheduled. 

The kids were rockstars and stayed buckled in in the truck, reading, playing, and looking at a deceased butterfly Mom had found. 

In Kerrville, the Discount Tire team was amazing and while we had lunch at Chili's, they changed all four RV tires and we were back on the road for the final 2.5 hours home. We pulled in around 5pm and started the task of unloading the tire. 

We all had a blast on this trip, and are ready to start planning the next one! We definitely want to try more off the beaten path, or at least more in nature, based camping... so happy planning!

October 24, 2024: A Final White Sands NP Sunset

The kids slept in this morning! I guess we have been rather active this trip! We made a nice breakfast and got started on our schoolwork. In between meetings, Trey and Laura worked on packing up for the evening’s departure. The kids even made it to the rec room for some ping pong and hot chocolate!

Around noon, we decided to check out one more Alamogordo site: The Toy Train Depot. We took a little train ride around the park and then had a tour of the train museum. I will say, they are enthusiastic about trains and extremely knowledgeable. Trey and John had a blast seeing all the different train sizes and set-up. They even had teeny tiny “T” size trains. Elizabeth liked it best when the trains were moving about scenes. 

After we made a quick stop at the playground we had seen from the train before heading back to the campsite.

We finished up some schoolwork, took some showers, and got everything packed up. We left the fifth wheel at the site while we went back to White Sands NP. We stopped at the visitor centers to turn in their Junior Ranger packets, take the oath, and get their newest badges.

Then it was off to get in our final sleds! We met some nice people on the dunes, and John enjoyed smoothing out paths for them while Elizabeth convinced one to read her a book! The boys played with the RC car again and decided that the gypsum dunes were the perfect landscape for the car!

(Can you find the RC car?!)

We stayed for one final sunset over the dunes and a few last photos.

John really wanted one last family photos. 💜 Elizabeth… not so much. 🤦‍♀️

After that, we headed back to get the fifth wheel and start the first half of the drive back home. Instead of a 10 hour day tomorrow, we decided to try splitting it in half and stayed at a Texas rest stop near Ft. Stockton. We are trying to transition to a little more boondocking so figured this would be a good experiment. 

Our road warrior children did great and went to sleep rather quickly. Our driver supreme, Trey, was a rockstar and made the drive smoothly pulling in just after 1am CT. We stayed attached to the truck, got the kids in bed and slept for a few hours ourselves. We had the white noise of idling big rigs to lull us to sleep! Final stretch tomorrow!

October 23, 2024: All About Launches

While Laura did morning meetings, the rest of family slept in this morning! We decided to check out a few museum today before heading to White Sands. We knocked out some schoolwork, ate a quick breakfast, and headed to the New Mexico Museum of Space History and International Space Hall of Fame. A five story building plus outside it was stuffed full of all sorts of space information. Trey and John geeked out while Elizabeth and Laura pretended we were flying space shuttles a lot. 

Then we took a little space walk on the moon! 

This is also where HAM, the space chimp, is buried.

Next we grabbed a quick lunch as a local Mexican restaurant before heading to the White Sands Missile Range Museum. We didn’t realize they would have to search the car to get onto the range… we apologized for our overly packed car filled to the brim!

The museum was small but packed with history, even a propeller of the first plane shot down by a missile during a test. Outside they had models of tons of different missiles including two John ones!

Then, of course, it was back to White Sands for some more sunset sledding.

Last day here is tomorrow!

October 22, 2024: Alamogordo, NM

Today we were able to slow down a little and hung around the campsite until early afternoon. We are staying at a KOA so there is a playground, horseshoes, and tetherball. It's been fun teaching John one of our favorite childhood playground games (that are no longer allowed on school campuses!). John and Mom had some intense tetherball battles!

The kids rode bikes and scooters around as well, found a missing dress of Elizabeth's, and did some of their schoolwork. They met a few other kids at the playground and spent some times looking at photos with Dad. Once the workday wrapped up, we packed up a cooler of hot dogs, snacks, and s'more supplies to head into White Sands NP. Last night, we met some lovely travelers who passed along their sand sleds/saucers, so we packed up everything and off we went for the rest of the evening. 

We found a good picnic spot that wasn't very crowded, and Trey got the grill going while John and Elizabeth went sledding, played with John RC car, and just ran about the sand dunes. 

We had a lovely dinner and then used the grill to make perfectly toasted marshmallows after! It was a nice evening outside with a gorgeous view. We are all tired so it's bedtime!  We will explore more that Alamogordo has to offer tomorrow. 

October 21, 2024: Back to New Mexico We Go!

We had our longest drive of the trip so far today, about 7 hours plus stops. We managed to get on the road a little before 8am to start moving back towards home. We should take a minute to tell you about our road warriors. First, Trey is our extraordinary driver - he drives all the hours pulling the fifth wheel, and most of the other drives as well. He does so with focus and is willing to do whatever crazy plan Laura has come up with! Laura is the activity and snack packer, the gas station bathroom racer, and stops planner. John and Elizabeth are also total rock stars: we don't do screens in the car (except the map of course!) so they are mostly tasked with keeping themselves entertained. Now that John has his Kindle, he spends most of the time reading, about 5 hours on both Saturday's drive and today's! Elizabeth looks at books, maybe naps for a little, and has elaborate pretend play scenes. Both kids love music and podcasts as well, so we will spend an hour or two doing that. John is also a great helper unloading, loading, and traveling! 

We did the drive as quickly as we could this time, eating packed lunches in the car and just stopping for gas and bathrooms. We drove out of Arizona and into New Mexico as we headed for White Sands National Park in Alamogordo. We went past the Trinity Site where the world's first nuclear test occurred. We drove though a 5,000 year old lava field. Then we pulled into our RV park in Alamogordo, NM, unhooked quickly and drove 20 more minutes to see White Sands NP. 

When you first drive in, it doesn't look like much. There is what looks like little sand hills, but covered with various plants. As you continue into the park, the foliage dissipates, and the dunes grow. John kept calling it snow. Technically speaking, it's gypsum, a type of mineral, not regular sand. 

Now when you put kids in a car for 7+ hours, then bring them to one of the largest sandboxes they've ever seen, you have two happy kids!

We went out to one of the sledding hills area, Kakali Hills to go exploring. We stayed for sunset, watching the sky fade from blue to orange to pink and then dark before heading back to the RV for dinner and bed.

John made shrimp for him and Elizabeth! He has been promoted from dishwasher to cook!

We made a change to our plans and have decided to finish out our trip here instead of trying to squish in one last destination. There are a lot of things to do here in Alamogordo and Trey and Laura both have work to get done as well. The kids are excited and want to go sledding everyday!