Al the Alpaca

Al the Alpaca in our campground

Thought I'd throw this picture up, thanks for checking on us, my blog has had over 600 views! Thanks Guys

Adventures in Bayfield!

    
      So we moved to a new "RV Resort" It's maybe 25 minutes to Durango and 30 minutes from Pagosa Springs. So pretty smack dab in the middle. They had a wedding here the day after we got settled so everything looked beautiful but everything was also a bit cookoo. They gave our spot away that we picked out the week before, and I found myself getting irritated and then I remembered all the little scary places I visited and how they told me there was no room for us and I decided to be grateful.

    Ian decided to fish with the boys to get out of the wedding craziness and Waylon and I tagged along. We went to Vallecito Lake. The boys took turns with their fishing rod and Ian spent most of the time untangling their line. When I finally got Waylon to nap , I took a dip in the water. I really, really want an inner tube to float in but instead we bought fishing poles, so I just bobbed around. It was refreshing and the scenery was breath taking. It was so clean too, and their was hardly anybody else around. Except for the flies, there were a lot of those around but I sprayed bug spray and they left me alone. After a few hours of only catching rocks, we went to the Pinon River. That was much more difficult to set up camp with Waylon. It was pretty much him and I sitting in a bush, so that didn't last long. Again, nothing was caught, but we had fun. That night, Ian took the kids to the little trout pond we have in our campgound and both boys (notice not Ian) caught a fish, it was a catch and release type thing, but they were happy. Ian is a little frustrated and getting a bit of a complex.  But I had a beautiful day lounging in the lake, just wish I had an inner tube!
We found a good pizza place in town and they have these awesome sandwiches. Here's their secret. they use the pizza dough as bread and they melt the cheeze onto the pizza bread and then stick some more good stuff in the middle, it is ohhhh so good. I had a philly cheese steak sandwich, Ian had a blt. mmm good.
They also have one grocery store in Bayfield, its called "The Grocery Store." Yes , that's it's name. I saw a review online about it and some people said it was bad, some people liked it. One person said they have never seen expired foods on their shelves and you can buy things like oreos for only $6.00" WHAT! I had to check it out, last time I checked, oreos go for about 3.00 at Stater Brothers. So I went in to buy ice and sure enough oreos go for 5.95....I hate it when people exaggerate....Funny Stuff!
Oh okay, this is what else happened. So Sunday evening the boys were swimming in the swimming hole with the other kids. Everyone had innertubes (can you tell I'm jealous, someone tell Ian to get me an inner tube!) Our kids had noodles, there was this pesky dog that thought their noodles were big sticks and she would swim up to the kids, bite their noodles and drag them to shore. It was entertaining but that's not my story. So we were getting ready to leave, when this kid comes screaming out of the water. I'm thinking dangit , I think he's yelling snake. NO, he had a LEACH! AHHHH, are you thinking of Stand by Me? So was I. His mom hollared to his dad to go get the salt! Ian was trying to scoot us along, and I was like " no, I have to see this, in case it happen to one of our kids" So apparently, you sprinkle salt on the little ickies and they shrivel up. Yeah, I'm not going in that water, I'm sticking with the lake, I'll take my chances with the flies. Ian teased me that I'll probably have salt in my purse for the next few years...why not , I have everything else in there.
I hope this doesn't ever sound too snobby. I never knew I was such a "city girl." My mom thinks she lives in a small town but she doesn't. I mean come on, she actually has a Target!
Until next time....oh yeah, I bought my tickets for Califonia in August. I'm coming in for my friends wedding, but I'll be hanging around for a bit so hit me up!

Ever wonder where Waylon is, in the pictures? This is my camp Waylon, I sprayed the tent with bug spray before I laid him down. This is all the stuff, I require for toting an infant around on my adventures. I think I'm pretty brave.

One Month down!

  
    I can't believe we've been living in our trailer for a month! Time has been flying by! Space wise, it's kind've like living in an apartment, except instead of a dinky patio you have all of nature, right outside your door.  We'll after my last adventure, I decided to take it easy on myself. We spent the next day at the pool in the campground. We even took Waylon in and he seemed to like it, except for when I dunked him. But the kid needed to cool down somehow!
    One of the best parts of Ian's new job is that he's working 4 10s. So we had a three day weekend together. We've never had that on a set schedule and being out of our usual surroundings, it felt like a mini vacation. Friday, Ian took me to an RV Park that's about 20 minutes from Durango and 45 minutes from Pagosa Springs. It turns out they had availability. YAY! They're also open year around, so that's convenient since we don't know how long we'll be here. They don't have a pool but they do have a "watering hole." I'm guessing we can grab some tubes and float around in it. Also, the farmers market is right across the street on Saturdays. So, it sounds pretty good and they're much more reasonably priced, so we're moving there tomorrow.
   Saturday the town of Durango had something called "Daddyfest" so we popped over there and it was pretty cool. They had a ton of old cars there, which Ian enjoyed looking at, they even had a DeLorean (like from back to the future) so that was awesome. They had a little panning for gold station, Houston and Ian made a wood carving sign that said "#1 DAD." I ate an amazing bratwurst on a pretzel bun, yeah that was my high lite, it was delicious! So we had a good time. It felt like the most time we'd had as a family since we've come out here. We even explored a river on our own a bit and then decided to sign Ian and the big kids up for a river raft for Fathers Day!
  So naturally, on Sunday morning, Wrex threw up! So Ian and Houston went on without him. They we're suppose to take a 4 hour trip but seeing as they were the only ones signed up, the guide talked them into taking a 2 hour trip twice. So meanwhile Wrex and I were hangin out, watching movies, he appeared ok, maybe he had a nervous tummy, I don't know. So we decided to try and take pictures of the boys on the raft, so we headed to  a park and waited. Wrex pointed out some rafts with the "southwest" logo on it and I'm looking through my zoom lens, I didn't see them. I remembered Ian had on his bright green board shorts on and then zoooom  I see a blur of green  whizzing by in a canoe and little Houston's head is thrown back bobbing around! It turns out Houston wanted to canoe down the river the second time and the staff was so impressed with him that someone lent him his helmet with a go pro camera on it. How cool is that! So we have their whole trek on film. It's actually not too exciting to watch, but Ian and Houston were so proud of themselves and it was such a shock seeing those two in that canoe. I don't know maybe you had to be there.
     So the weekend was awesome, I'm going to have to take Wrex rafting sometime. It looked like a blast. This week we got back to reality. I had to get some work done and the trailer needed a good cleaning so we hung out at the pool and we're going to head to the rec center again today. So that's what's happening here. We're having a good time and the next time I write you I will be in Bayfield, so wish me luck! MUAH

Welcome to Durango!

      We made it! It was a journey, should've been a 7 hour drive we made it in 10 1/2. Ian compared it to "Grapes of Wrath" I thought it was more like a Griswold Family Vacation! The truck was over heating, the hitch was moving around but driving through Moab Utah was worth it. I have to go back. We didn't stop but i had Wrex take pictures out the window, I'll have to see how they came out. Wrex and I had a dance party in our car to "Single Ladies" that was pretty fun. Houston and Ian roughed it in the truck, I'm sure they made a mock man cave, complete with beef jerky and warm water bottles. Anyhow, it was long but we made it.
    Sunday we were exhausted but we did take a stroll through town and got to see people white water rafting through the Animas River which runs through town. There was one guy, stand up paddle boarding a rapid. Ian said he could probably pick it up faster than the guy and the kids laughed when the poor fellow wiped out. Poor guy, I know we don't sound like a very nice family. The worst part is i reminded everybody that we were close enough for him to hear us. Ah yes, our many adventures. Houston cannot wait to ride a rapid and i cannot wait to watch Ian admit, it's harder than it looks!
    We found an awesome recreation center. It was mainly an indoor pool with a smaller outdoor section. Inside there is a lazy river, a water slide, a high dive and an indoor water play area. The kids had a blast and it was very affordable. The next few days we spent finding grocery stores and ice cream stops.
    Yesterday, I ventured to Pagosa Springs, which is an hour and fifteen minutes away. Ian is working there and we're thinking of moving closer to save on gas and rent. I went in expecting these country bumpkins to be hungry for my 6 month long commitment. Instead I mainly got parks that were mostly booked for the summer. I was not expecting that, I know southern California is booked but I wasn't expecting that in Southwest Colorado. Deflated my ego a little bit.  I am not joking when I say country bumpkins, and I mean it in the most endearing way. Ian and I were speculating that Pagosa is like a town, when they get a batch of bad meat in the grocery store, it would take out the whole town. Scary!We went down one dirt road and I swear I hear deliverance playing my head and when I pulled up this one eyed three legged dog came out barking at us. I almost floored it right there and then. Turns out the gal was real nice but yeah it scared the bee geezuz out of me. Houston said the dog was from outer space. Another park owner told us " they never bothered to bring the cable out here! " Another park they were painting rocks for an activity. The kids we're real excited about it.
   Yeah,  It has personality but I don't know if I'm ready for that kind've switch yet. I felt such relief to get back into the town of Durango. ( Oh yeah, did I mention on our way home, they closed the road for "blasting" we sat for about 25 mins) However, they really don't have room for us here through July either, so I gotta figure something out...Yesterday was stressful, can you tell? The kids were such good sports, I promised them today we would do nothing but play in the pool. So that's what's going on here, I'll let you know when I figure this mess out. Today I'm taking it easy.

On the Road Again....Durango, Clorado here we come!

     So when Ian went into work yesterday, he was told that his work there was done! We knew it was coming, so it wasn't that big of a surprise. The job was winding down. So he went and put his name on the books through his apprenticeship, cuz that's how these union boys do things. Well he had a new job call out within the hour. We are headed to Durango, Colorado. So yesterday was a frenzy of Ian getting the hitch put on his truck and me doing laundry and picking up temporary License Plate. Our's still hasn't come in, it sounds like we're major procrastinators, which I really don't see myself as...funny. So again last night we had to say more goodbyes, to the families we've become friends with in Utah. I was just getting settled, but this was a great experience and a good place to start.So some last minute thoughts on Salt Lake City...
I've noticed that the billboards are not selling as much consumerism here as they are self improvement. For instance, anti- tobacco, or there's a tattoo removal billboard with a gal with a bag over her head saying "pretend it never happened." Or there's one for "lifting Utah" for breast augmentation and face lifts. Or Hair removal, I like that one because someone drew a goatee on the model, I wish I could take a picture of that one, but you know, two hands on the wheel. There are others that I don't feel comfortable writing about, but lets just say these one's are considered sins and the folks of Utah want you to know where to get help....Very interesting and I felt this change was noticeable from California.
On another note, I've noticed that I feel much more free to sing at the top of my lungs and dance in my car to the radio when I know, nobody knows me around here. I'm a bit quiet by nature, I'd be mortified to bust a move at home and turn my head to see the baseball coach or something. Here, there's less fear of embarrassment. It's been fun, not quite ready to leave but Durango sounds pretty cool too. Most of you know, I have been excited to get to Colorado. So Here we go...On the road again....

2012 Utah Lineman Rodeo

        So the Rodeo was totally not what I expected. I don't know what I was expecting, but lets just say I had a cute dress picked out with cowboy boots. So yes, even with my limited space conditions, I decided the cowboy boots must come with me on my travels. So it became to clear to me that morning that the dress was not going to work out, it just kept slipping down so I wore a pair a jeans with a tank tops and kept the boots on, I was still ready to rodeo, whatever that meant. Well, that meant watching Ian showing me what he's learned in the past year. Which was really cool. I was so proud of him. They had to compete in 3 events. The first one was sort of an obstacle where he had to climb a pole and complete several tasks while he was up there. He was hanging off of poles, using a hot stick, which is like a pole that he moves thingies with and walking on a tightrope, at least that's what it looked like. Then he performed a hurt man rescue, which is what they practice in the event that someone gets injured while working up on a pole. Ian wanted me to say that the dummy he had to hoist down, weighed more than him. The last event was a speed climb, he had to climb a pole with a tool bag in his teeth (in the tool bag there is a raw egg) take the egg that was in the tool bag at the top of the pole drop that bag down, replace it with your bag and climb down with that egg in your mouth. You cannot crack the egg in your mouth, that's probably pretty obvious. Also you have to do it as fast as you can. All these events are timed.
        So it was a long morning, In the beginning the kids were so antsy and we were just waiting for Ian's turn. Then we ran into some other families that live in  our park that also are apprentices and we had such a good time together. We all cheered on our men and the ladies helped me out with the kiddos, it was really neat. Oh yeah , it was also hot, very hot and not a lot of shade. Everything was on a donation basis and all the proceeds went to the burn unit in the local hospital. We also went on a crane ride, Ian, Houston and myself that is. Wrex was too scared and Waylon stayed on the ground with my friends. The kids got to ride on a mechanical bull, so that was about as rodeo as it got. No line dancing. I don't know what a rodeo is? But what I do know is, I was so proud of Ian and what he's doing. It is not easy and it looks crazy, the poles were swaying underneath his weight. But he's following his dreams and he's passionate about it. That's why we're doing this, we're supporting him. But I wasn't expecting what a gift it would be to meet other families doing the same thing. We had a great time and I'm so glad I was there to see Ian at work. Oh yeah and he did that whole speed climb obstacle in 49 seconds, not bad huh? He didn't break the egg but he did say the egg had teeth marks in it...bleh!