Thursday, Oct 23...Trip continues.....

Hey everyone! I hear it is cold in Alabama.....we must have brought the Alabama weather to Colorado because it has been absolutely beautiful here. During the day it is around 70. Anyway, On Thursday we traveled from the edge of Oklahoma, through the top of Texas, to the middle of New Mexico. It was so cool when we crossed into Texas and were at the "Welcome to Texas" sign, and a tumbleweed blew along side the interstate!! The Texas landscape was different-- very flat and a lot like the scenes in a western movie. We came up on the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere and had to stop to check it out. There were scenes from the crucifixion all the way around the cross. It was awesome!! Check out the pictures......

We soon crossed into New Mexico.....OK...imagine going down the old Route 66. Did you see the movie "Cars" by Disney??? Remember how the road is just out in now where....nothing is around but road, dust, and scenes from western landscape. We were in an area like that at one point on the trip and the U-Haul just started spraying out something onto my car. Now...we were in a place where I thought any minute I would see a sign that said "Next gas stop- 1000 miles." I called Mike and asked what it was and he did not know anything had happened. Soon the radiator light came on and we thought oh goodness.....this is a scene from the movies. Of course both of us started praying, slowed down so the U-Haul would not over heat and finally made it to the next exit where there was a gas station AND a parts place.....wow! God is good and I want to give him the praise for taking care of us. Turns out, the clamp on the radiator hose came off so Mike was able to fix it and we were back on the road. Between Amarillo, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, the land is beautiful and so different. There is hardly any houses or trees....lots of desert bushes but no trees. We spent the night on the other side of Albuquerque and the hotel had an indoor pool that the kids loved!

I really enjoyed seeing this part of the country but by the time day 4 (Friday) rolled around, I was so ready to get to Colorado. (Now take note, that because we were both driving, we chose to take our time and stretch it out to 4 days so we could see some sites---you might could drive it in one 22 hour day but planning to drive it in two days is more sensible). The drive from Albuquerque to Colorado was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!! The pictures just does not do it justice. The mountains are different and just beautiful country. Again, not alot of houses. I would almost say that view is worth driving the whole trip (Or you could fly into Albuquerque which is 3 hours away!)!

We arrived in Bayfield, CO, around12:30 and went straight to the school to register the boys so they could start on Monday. We met their teachers and both seemed very nice. We then headed to the house and arrived there around 2:00 (it is a 20 minute drive from the school to the house). When we pulled in, there were 17 people from the church waiting on our arrival to help us unload. So Grace family, they did help us unpack the van and stayed to help unpack some of the boxes also (I know many of you were concerned that we would not have help). Now, getting almost 4,000 square feet of stuff into a 1,400 square foot house was definitely a challenge!! Thank GOD they cleaned out the church storage building so that we could store some of our stuff there!! I am still unpacking and trying to find a place for everything. That sums up our trip from Bama to Colorado so tomorrow I will start with Colorado info. Drop me an email anytime....I would love to hear from everyone! (We have DSL.....YEA!!!!!)