Well, I was going to forgo blogging during our trip, but hello, it’s my journal! And we are going to have quite a bit of downtime; right now we are in the hotel room and the boys are having their introduction to Home Alone. They are laughing like little hyenas, because we turned it on just as Kevin has started to wreak havoc with the criminals. Priceless!
Alright, run down; we left home around 1pm on Monday to drive to New Hampshire and stay the night; our flight left at 6 am on Tuesday so we had to be nearby. We stopped in Freeport and Portsmouth on the way down…
just kind of bummed around with no agenda. We didn’t get to Manchester until 9 pm, which was later than we had intended…Anyway, around 9:30, Ryan was holding the room door open for us, but it slipped from his grip and smooshed his fingers. Oh lawsy, to hear him scream…I was in the room, inches from him, but Erick was down the hall. He came swooping in, picked Ryan up and literally barreled right through me getting Ry to the bed. LOL. People were coming out of their rooms; oh man. It wasn’t good. BUT the fingers recovered, and about 15 minutes later I tried to plug in the iron to prepare our clothes for the next day, and was met with a wicked shock, which scorched my fingers and blew the electricity.
There was no quick fix for restoring electricity, so we had to pack up all of our belongings (by flashlight!) and trek a floor below.
And then I never fell asleep. I think the shock wired me or something; I literally had no shut-eye that night. I decided to shower at 3:30 in the morning, then we all got ready and met the 5 o’clock shuttle to airport.
Alright! Tuesday morning, the flights went fairly well minus the fact that mom came very close to passing out on the plane; something with her ears and altitude makes flying a pretty terrible experience. Luckily the second flight went a bit better for her than the first; when we landed in Albuquerque we all made a bee-line for the restrooms. Mom was the first one out, but didn’t realize that the rest of us had gone in, so when she couldn’t find us she went to baggage claim. However, the rest of us eventually came out and figured she was still in the restrooms, so 10 minutes later when she hadn’t come out I went to see if she was still there (twice) and couldn’t find her, so here we all are thinking “she’s gone missing; we only thought she was well, but now she isn’t here and has lost her mind and wandered off…” LOL. We eventually caught up with each other and had a good, relief-filled laugh.
Straight from the rental car place to Little Anita’s in Old Town, where we had a delicious meal and I totally made a fool of myself calling it red sauce instead of red chile (I’ve been away too long, ok?) Oh, and Ryan dumped his entire drink in my lap; good thing it was water. Sheesh.
Next stop, Old Town.
The boys bought their first-ever Pez Dispensers; they are still nuts about them today, which says alot! It was so hot outside; we wandered over to a shady spot to have a bit of chocolate and ice water. Just enjoyin’ overselves, ya know. Then all of a sudden, a policeman came over to talk to a guy right next to us; turns out this particular guy had been asked to leave somewhere because of his attitude, so the policeman came to ask him about it; the guy TOTALLY flipped out and started bleeping this and bleeping that. The boys put their hands over their ears, which was funny and appropriate, and we were thinking “surely this will end!” but it didn’t, and the policeman (who kept his cool and did a super job with this guy) had to put the guy in cuffs. Alright, maybe it will end…nope, the guy starts to violently resist arrest so we grabbed our stuff and ran. There was quite a crowd, all with their cameras taking video…we’re probably out there on Youtube right now. LOL. Y’all, I felt so sorry for the policeman. The perp was this huge guy who could have easily snapped him in half; he had to whip out his billy club and insert it through his arms even while they were cuffed behind his back. Backup took FOREVER to come, I’m so glad it finally did. I wanted to go up and give that jerk a piece of my mind; “hello! ladies and children present! have you no respect?” His girlfriend kept trying to calm him down…I just felt so sorry for her. If he had no self control in that situation, I hate to see what he is like day to day. Good grief. Get out while you can, lady.
That episode soured us against staying around, and it was hot anyway, so we decided to head down the road before the traffic got too bad. We arrived at our hotel, and discovered that my laptop didn’t make the trip. After multiple calls and holding our collective breath…turns out I left an “unattended package” in the bathroom at the airport. Laugh Right Out Loud. What an ending to the day! It’s safe in Lost and Found, so back to Albuquerque we go tomorrow…
On to Taos. For Dad’s 60th this year, we bought him a day with Geraint Smith, who gives photography workshops. He and mom are out with him right now, galivanting around the area, hopefully learning some wonderful photography tricks. Exciting!! In the meantime, Erick and I thought it would be nice to take the boys to the Rio Grande Bridge over the Gorge. The weather was awesome this morning and we talked up the Gorge, and they were so excited to see the bridge!
And then.
And then we arrived, but the bridge was blocked off, because they were recovering a body from the river.
Welcome to New Mexico! Dodging violent criminals, shielding our eyes from recovered bodies…all within the first 15 hours!
I managed to snap a picture, in the opposite direction of the bridge, and then away we went lest the boys see the body come up.
Anyway, here we are, back in the hotel room, after lunch at Sonic, games in the lobby, and swimming in the pool.
I think we’ll stick out the evening in the hotel room, lest any other quirky thing happens…
We are off to Clovis in the morning! I’ll check in again soon!