Oklahoma- OK City, Amarillo Texas, Santa Fe New Mexico

Oklahoma - Oklahoma City
By Sandy

We stayed in a little RV park right next to Oklahoma City. It was next to Panera Bread where Wes and the older girls worked during the day.  We went to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial . It had a Memory Lake and  many metal chairs placed around it indicating who died during the bombing. 

We had dinner at Cattleman's Steakhouse which is in the National Stockyard Exchange.  The Exchange was the nations primary source for meat processing and packaging .  Now it is filled with Cowboy apparel,  a place to buy and sell cattle  and a popular place to grab dinner. 

Oklahoma City is close to the historic Route 66 , so we drove the hilly road to a fun place called "POPS" .  It is a store  off the side  of the road filled with every flavor soda imaginable! The kids loved it of course. 

 We decide to skip the Science museum and Zoo this week because it was spring break and everything was super busy. So we went to a huge mall and watched the Cinderella movie .  ( Collin wished we could of watched the Avengers, poor only boy) ;-)

Amarillo Texas- By Ally 

We arrived after a four hour trip from Oklahoma to Amarillo Texas. The reason why we stopped off here is to break up the eight hour drive to Santa Fe New Mexico and of course Amarillo Texas is also a really cool place to stop off! It is so “Texan” because of the flat lands, cows, barns, and red dirt. Even the air smelt like cow! We felt so relieved to get out of Oklahoma city! :) When we got to our campsite we observed the cute little store that the RV office had that smelt like maple syrup. :) The little kids played at the pond. It was so much better than Oklahoma city. After exploring the small cute campsite we were picked up by a limo to be driven to a stake restaurant called The Big Texan, ten miles from where we where staying. The restaurant provides a free limo pick up when you eat at their restaurant! The limos were " old school limos" and it was a neat experience to ride in one . The Big Texan was known for its “Free” 72 oz steak…… well, you get it for free if you eat it under an hour. That is a lot of steak in just one hour and for only one person! We didn’t take the challenge but sat and watched people suffer through the challenge. Ha ha ,no one accomplished it. We ate a yummy dinner. I had a buffalo burger with a steak stew that had okra in it. Good grub. Mom actually got a 8 oz steak and she really liked it. :) We took the limo back, and then the little kids and Dad swam in the pool at the RV site and Shelby, Mom and I exercised in the gym. The next morning we packed up to leave… (We all thought it was sad to leave so soon) and drove a mile up the road to Cadillac Ranch!!!!! Cadillac Ranch is land that someone owns; it has Cadillac cars buried halfway into the ground and t people are invited  to come spray paint the cars. Kind of weird, but really fun. We bought some cans of spray paint and went all out on the cars. It was a really cool thing and we all had a great time. After twenty minutes we hopped back in the RV covered in spray paint and took the next four hour drive to Santa Fe New Mexico.

The Limo we road in

Cow Girl Tori

The Limo Ride 

Santa Fe- New Mexico
By Ally

We got to Santa Fe on a Sunday because we spent our Saturday in Texas. While driving the landscape changed. Massive mountains dotted with “Puffball bushes” as Mom calls them. They are little green shrubs that literally dot the tall brown and red mountains. They are everywhere! Santa Fe has very high altitude of 7,000 feet above sea level. Colin got a bloody nose the moment to got there, our lips began to chap, and it was more difficult to breath because the air was a lot thinner. It took us a while to adjust but by the end of the week we were doing just fine.

Setting up didn’t take too long and after doing so Mom looked up a place called “The Pantry” to go eat dinner. It was a small little place but their food was amazing! Shelby and I got a chicken bacon avocado chipotle wrap. The best wrap I have ever had. Yum Yum. :) After eating we drove to downtown Santa Fe to just check it out. The first thing we noticed is that all the houses were Adobe Style. All of them. And that bushels off dried chili peppers hung from each side of the doorways. We walked to the plaza and roamed around the little shops. Dad lead us to the Supreme Court Building and made us pose for a picture. :) We got tired after a while and went back home. The next day was Monday and was an online school day for Shelby and I. The internet wasn’t great at our RV site because it was kind of out in the mountains. So Mom dropped us off twenty five minutes away into town at a Panera Bread. We spent the day there doing school. Tuesday we did school in the RV. I was going to dissect my crayfish for biology outside on the picnic table but that day was really windy and all my stuff blew everywhere. So I dissected my crayfish on the small dinner table in the RV. :) It all turned out well, though while I was doing the dissecting some of the insides flew in my face…. yuck.. :P Wednesday was online school day once again and Shelby, Dad, and I worked at Panera Bread. Mom picked Shelby and I up after we were done and took us kids back to downtown Santa Fe. We were going to go to this very well know chocolate shop called “Kakawa Chocoate House” but the prices were very high for just a piece of chocolate. We instead walked around the shops and bought postcards. Thursday was a lighter day of school and in the afternoon we went back to downtown to go to the Palace of the Governors. This is the oldest building in Santa Fe that is still being used. It used to be a building for governors of the state to meet and many of the states decisions were made in the building. They still use it this way to this day, though now it is also a museum. So we went to the Palace of the Governors and saw the museum exhibits then walked just over the courtyard to the History Museum of Santa Fe. Once we were all "museumed" out we went back home and had a campfire whose wood was all the way from Maine! While Shelby and I were doing the laundry a retired couple arrived and it was their first time Rving. So we helped them out and settled them in. They were extremely grateful for the help. :) Friday we took a forty five minute drive to Los Alamos where the first atomic bomb was made during World War II. It was a very scenic drive where we got to see plateaus and snow capped mountain tops. We went to the Los Alamos Science Museum which is like the only thing to do in the small little town. We learned about the Manhattan Project where they built the first atomic bomb to stop World War II. To this day Los Alamos is the main place where brilliant scientist work do further research on atomic bombs for the U.S.A. Dad had to go on a meeting for his work so we left him at the museum and drove a half hour to Bandelier National Park. Here we took a hike through mountains in a valley and explored the cliff dwellings that the Native Americans once lived in a long, long time ago. These cliff dwellings are caves that the Native Americans carved into the mountain sides for shelter. It was a perfect place to live because there was a river running through the area and we even saw a herd of deer eating in the tall grass near by. Those deer would have been dinner for the Native Americans. We also saw other remains of Native American houses and other cliff dwellings. It was getting late so we drove back to Los Alamos to pick up Dad and drove back to Santa Fe and to our RV. We packed up and left New Mexico to Castle Rock, Colorado.

Wes Storytelling Series - Volume 2

I  explained to Tori that there once was a time when each phone call cost a quarter and you couldn't leave the box until your phone call was completed. She said "That doesn't make any sense" (Picture taken from my iphone - New technology Looking back to old technology )

Sandy's forever fitness membership

Often times, when we get to a new city,Sandy and I will quickly get our bearings for good places to get our running in for the week. When traffic is too busy on the nearby streets or it is colder outside, Sandy calls a local fitness gym nearby to ask if she could do a week "trial" before signing up for the full year. They usually accept the offer and Sandy has a full access to all the treadmills in the place 24/7 for the entire week. We leave that city at the end of the week and repeat at our next new city.

The kids now are aware of and volunteer 3 pieces of information out of the blue without any prompting: 1) the local time, 2) the weather, and 3) gas prices. 

Since being on the road, the local time, the weather, and gas prices are always changing as we travel the US. As the kids see gas price signs when we are driving, they spout out the good deals on gasoline and we all take in a nod of approval, or a shrug at the shoulders thinking that there is a better deal down the road. This, I never thought that our 7 year old Lacey would be so concerned about the current gas prices. Hehe. The weather is a real serious responsibility now as father providing for my family (as I write this in Oklahoma City where tornado season starts up right about this time of year), so I constantly look up the weather every day. Often times our 13 year old Shelby is my co-pilot on that front. She either checks another source or confirms what I am seeing in my weather app that I use. (BTW I use the WeatherBug app.) Time Zones are super tricky sometimes. Living in California all these years I never really knew where they drew the time zone lines on the United States maps. For example, in South Dakota, the central time zone delineation line is in the friggin middle of the state! So one half of the state is on Mountain time zone and the other half of the state is on the Central time Zone. That would be hard to get used to if I was a South Dakotan... At one point, the only person in our family who had the correct local time was our 8 year old Tori. She got a brand new watch for Christmas, and we were on the eastern time zone during that time. She asked me to set her watch to the eastern time zone, and "voila", we always asked Tori what time she had, because it was always correct... (until we came back into the Central time zone :)...)

Going to Canada with our SENTRI passes

As we went to Canada for  day trips while staying in a bordertown of Blane, WA, I had this super dumb idea of getting into the "fast" line to see if our US issued SENTRI passes worked for Canada. We had always used them for Mexico, and all the literature I read said that we could use these for Canada as well. The major point hwer I had crossed my wires somehow, was this is only the case for entering the USfrom Canada and Mexico, not leaving the US. After the fact I pinched myself, because I knew this subconsciously. So, naturally, the Canadian border patrol had to humiliate me in front of my family and tell me that it was a stupid idea to try to present the US issued documents to Canadian authorities. Hehe. They told us to pull over and park in the "inspection parking lot" and to follow them into the inspections building. Well after waiting 20 minutes (with beads of sweat forming on my forehead), they said. You are all clear to enter Canada! I asked if this "incident" was going on my permanent Canadian record, and they gracefully said no.

Texas- San Antonio,Austin, and Dallas

San Antonio Texas, by Ally 

The Alamo 

Chris Madrid's

It seems like there was a magical line somewhere that we crossed once we reached Texas that distinctly marked  the crossing over from the east side to the west side of the U.S. We started to see trees that we hadn’t seen in months as well as hills that we all have missed so much. My Composition teacher used to live in San Antonio and he recommended a hamburger place there in town. So the night we arrived, we parked our RV and then headed to a place called Chris Madrid's. They are known for their massive hamburgers and we finally, after waiting in line for a very long time, ate some of their yummy hamburgers. While we were at the restaurant we got our first dose of Texan culture. Men and women wore boots and flashy belts, talking with a “twang” in their voice and occasionally saying “y’all”. 

The next day was Sunday and Dad found out that there was a Mega Church near by whose pastor is the well known Max Lucado. We went to his church that Sunday morning and got to sit right behind the pastor as well as listening to his sermon about Lazareth. 

After church we ate lunch at a place in the market called Mi Tierra and ate some yummy tacos and some sweat bread from their bakery.  

San Antonio has a high Mexican population and the market reminded me of a “cleaner” Mexico. All the vendors were selling ponchos and other trinkets on the streets.

Once we were done eating lunch we took a walk on the River walk. The River Walk is a river that flows through and under the city and there are shops and restaurants all along it as well as cute little gondolas floating down the river. I thought it was very pretty and such a good idea to make something like this!  

Suddenly maps become very important 

The River Walk 

Collin trying out his skills

We made our way to the Alamo and went inside of it and got to see where the Alamo battle took place between the Texans and the Mexicans. Mid week we needed to go grocery shopping, hallelujah for Trader Joe’s! We haven't seen one for a long while. :) Along the way mom took a couple wrong turns on the spider webbed shaped freeways. They are constructed so that there aren’t many off ramps but “turnarounds.” They were quite confusing and added on at least twenty more minutes to our drive. Friday we actually hiked! Yes ,we hiked, Yay for actual hills! This hike was called the Eisenhower park trails. It was nice to finally get out there and hike some. :)

Dad being crazy ! 

Austin Texas, By Ally

The day we got there we found out that there was a In N’ Out burger place in Austin! Finally and In N’ Out! So we went there for dinner. The next day, Sunday, we went to a Church that was held in a High School gym. While we were driving to the Church we saw the local “lake” (the locals call it a lake, but it looks like a river) it was steaming because it was so cold outside. It was warmer in the lake then it was outside. There were a lot of people at the church and the pastor was a great teacher and taught about the trinity and how to live with the holy spirit inside of you. Afterwards we went to this hippie restaurant called Taco Xpress. It was a weird funky place. The lights were dim and made out of strainers. One was covered in a pink skirt. Tricycles and other funny objects hung from the ceiling and odd trinkets sat on lopsided desks. Though it was a weird environment their food was amazing!! I had a wonderful steak burrito stuffed with rice and other goodness. 

Taco Xpress

Once we were done eating we headed to a bookstore called “Book People” and read there for a while. Mom let Shelby and I buy a book. :) Austin is known for their bat bridge, where a congregation of bats live underneath a bridge. However it wasn’t the right time of season to see them so we just passed by and looked at the bridge. Monday was Online classes for Shelby and I. I presented some poems for my Comp Class about my Rving trip. I went on webcam and showed pictures. It all turned out really well. Iwent on to Webcam to show a picture I had drawn of an inside of a  earthworm since we were learning about earthworm anatomy in Biology class. Thursday I dissected “Robert” my dead earthworm for a Biology Lab. It wasn’t as bad as I thought and I got it over with quickly. 

Friday was  the warmest day of the week ,55 degrees, so after we did Math mom took us on a walk around Lady Bird Lake also known as the Town Lake to the locals. It was a very lovely walk around the city and around the lake. Then, after our walk Mom took us to a coffee shop called Summer Moon. It is known for its moon milk which taste like warm liquid vanilla ice cream. Mom got Austin’s famous Wood - fired coffee with the Moon milk in it. Wood - fired means that the grains of coffee are toasted on an open wood fire. We got some hot chocolate made with Moon milk. It tasted so frothy and yummy! On Saturday we took the four hour drive to Dallas Texas.

Dallas- By Sandy 

Bennion & Gantzer Families 

Judy and I

Jamielynn, Ally,Shelby

We stayed in Aubrey TX, which is near Allen, Frisco, Plano, and McKinney.  After spending three weeks in different parts of Texas this was our favorite. It had a family feel to it and the pace of life was slower then the previous locations we stayed at.  We pulled into town Saturday night and we went to church with the Gantzer family that night. Judy Gantzer is one of my friends that I have know since I was around the age of five.  She and her husband Brian got married around the same time as Wes and I. She was also pregnant with her first child Jamielynn the same time I was pregnant with Ally. We have not seen them in about 10 years and over that time they have had 5 more children and we have had 4 more. Between us there are 11 children and we had a blast catching up over some good In-n- out.  Later that week the Gantzers had us over for some wonderful fellowship and delicious home cooked food. The kids all had such a fun time playing together. Collin was so excited to have a boy to play with and hit it off right away with her son Isaac. Tori and Lacey felt right at home with Arabella, and became immediate friends.  Ally and Shelby were able to relate to Jamielynn about homeschool life and talk about memories playing together as toddlers.  On Friday we went with Judy, her kids, and her mom Darleen to the Perot museum. It was super crazy busy because of spring break, but the kids had a blast together exploring the exhibits. That night we went to dinner together at a restaurant called Furrs, which is buffet style. The kids all stuffed themselves and the adults enjoyed our last night together chatting away

Judy, me,  and Darleen 

Wes working in the middle of the madness at the Perot Museum

On Sunday morning we were great full to attend church with the Seim family who are our friends who just moved to Mckinney  TX  about 9 months ago from CA. We were moving into the RV the same time they were venturing out of San Luis Obispo off to Texas. We have known them for 10+ years and were glad to be able to visit them in their new hometown.  After church Kari made lunch for us at her home and then we took a short walk to down town McKinney.  It was such a darling downtown filled with fun little shops. The highlight for the kids was the candy shop where they each picked out a treat.  It was pretty cold out side so we walked over to a fun coffee/pie shop and grabbed a coffee then walked back to their home.  The kids had a blast playing games together. Later in the week we joined them again for dinner at a Texas BBQ place called Hutchens. It was our first experience eating good’ol Texas BBQ and it was delicious!!  It was a sweet time of encouraging one another and catching up on the last 9 months.

Bennion and Seim kids

Us,and Kari & Aaron 

-All this past week Ally has had a high temperature and  a nasty cough , thankfully between temps we were able to still visit our friends. 

~The Blessings, Friendships, Connections, and Adventures Continue…

On to Oklahoma