Saturday, June 20, From Amarillo to Creede

We woke up Saturday morning to pouring rain in the yellow city. Brady didn't know what that meant, so I reminded him that amarillo means yellow in Spanish. Ahhh, the light came on.

We communicated via text message and coordinated our hallway meeting for 9-ish. The hotel served breakfast until 9:30 and we wanted to take advantage of that before we got on the road. The breakfast included everything from fresh fruit to cereal to bagels and pastries to waffles. Naturally, Dear had to try out the waffle iron. His creation was a huge waffle in the shape of the state of Texas. Interesting. He tried to make one for Kristen, but it didn't get all the way done. So she only ate the El Paso part. Good choice, K.

B pulled the Pilot up under the hotel canopy so we could pack everything inside without getting soaked. It didn't take long to get it stuffed and we were on the road about 10 a.m. North to Dumas, west to Dalhart, and we were out of Texas.

On some of our previous vacations we have stopped at Capulin Crater in New Mexico. The boys have walked the rim of the crater and, if I remember correctly, we've all trekked down to the center spout-hole thingy. Unfortunately it was still raining and the clouds were very low when we got there today, so we didn't go this time so K missed the full Capulin experience.

We did stop at the only little quick-stop place in Capulin for a potty break, but the sign said "Restroom for customers only" so B&K and Dear felt obligated to make a purchase in return for the use of the facilities. K bought a bottled water, and Dear bought a refrigerator magnet (uh, have you SEEN our refrigerator lately?) and a jar of apple butter.

Back in the car and we traveled on through the northeast corner of New Mexico to Raton. That's where we stopped to eat at a Pizza Hut. B had mentioned during the last driving jaunt that pizza sounded good to him and were we all game? Of course. Thus, Pizza Hut in Raton, NM. The other 3 of us discovered during the course of the lunch-table conversation that B had awakened early and was watching the History Channel special on the popularity of pizza in the United States. AHA! That's why he wanted pizza! Good thing he didn't watch one of those whaling shows...

By the time we finished lunch, the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the clouds on a regular basis. YAY! Dear took over the driving duties out of Raton and our next stop was the Walmart in Alamosa, CO -- the last of its kind on our route to Creede and the best place for us to buy our groceries (food) and necessities (fishing pole, tackle box, lures...) for the week. We made our purchases and managed to squeeeeeeeeeeeze everything into the already packed Pilot. Dear retained his driver's seat spot with B&K threatening him bodily harm if he did the "brake-check" stomp and brought down groceries on their unsuspecting heads.

Next stop: Creede! We pulled into Antler's Lodge at 6:30 p.m. to an outside temperature of 38 degrees. Heaven! Antler's looks just the same as we remembered and the Rio Grande is much higher and faster than it was the last time we were here (2005? I think). We paid the balance on the cabin, got the keys and drove around to the Commodore -- the first cabin right on the bank of the Rio Grande. We unloaded the Pilot, put the groceries away and sat down to our first cabin meal: turkey sandwiches, chips, grapes and chocolate chip cookies. Mmm, mmm good!

Since I'm taking this master's class in finance, the fact that Antler's offers free high-speed Internet access was a great relief. I have 2 quizzes and 1 exam to take before Monday, so Dear and I walked back to the office/gift shop/game room to check out the Internet accessibility and availability. It took a couple of tries to get hooked up, but we eventually got it working. The office closed at 9 p.m., so I didn't get any Internet work done but I did finish up some reading back in the cabin and planned to do Internet stuff on Sunday.

While Dear and I were at the office/gift shop/game room, B got his fishing pole out and K got her camera and they went down to the river. In less than 15 minutes, B had caught a fish about 8" long and threw it back, and K had taken a bunch of pictures. B also got his line caught on a rock, in a tree, and on a piece of wood. I took pictures of him trying to get his line free. Thanks, Mom.

If you know us, you know that we are electronic travelers. Meaning that wherever we go, we travel wherever with all of our electronic gadgets. We knew that we would be able to play DVD's on the laptop(s), so Dear brought a 19-inch flat-screen monitor for ease of viewing AND a CD/iPod player for ease of hearing. We're so spoiled.

Dear and B hooked up the laptop to the monitor and player and we popped in the Rat Race DVD as a comedic end to our very full day. We made it through about 20 minutes of the movie and K was already asleep, Dear was nodding, and B and I were also ready to call it a day.

The cabin is equipped with a gas heater/fireplace device, so B turned it on for a few minutes to get the chill out of the room before we turned in for the night. We all retreated to our designated bedrooms. Dear plugged in his new white-noise device and I plugged in my snore-resistant earplugs. Goodnight, Colorado!

Photos are posted to my Facebook photo album (Kasi Pierce Jones, Vacation June 2009). It's easier there than here.

ttfn