Austin -> Arlington

This morning we headed out early for Arlington, TX. Our friends , Sarah & Kevin Walters, live there. Susan volunteered with Sarah in Kentucky and Sarah is the sister of one of our good friends in Des Moines, by coincidence. They also have two kids about our kids age. 

  • On the way north we stopped by “The Silos” or something of the sort. Chip & Joanna. 
  • The Walters met us at our RV park then we headed to a park for a walk. While we were there Rose fill over a low railing and into the lake. She was a little scared, but everyone was OK. 
  • After the park we went to the Walters’ for dinner. I failed to take any pictures – a massive fail! 

Hope & Mary Visit

Ahh, where to begin? Each of the Reagen kids was scheduled to come visit us this year. Cameron came to San Francisco with Erin in October. Ian joined us in Phoenix in January. Hope just wrapped up her visit in Austin. Hope flew out with Aunt Mary. Their trip coincided with a trip that I had scheduled for Cincinnati. They were scheduled to arrive a few hours before I left, but their flight was cancelled and they ended up arriving very late on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I was gone nearly the whole time they were here. I got back on Saturday afternoon and they left this morning.

Overall, I think everyone had fun. The weather for our week in Austin was maybe the worst weather we have had on the whole trip. It was relatively warm, but very rainy. We like to do things outside and that was definitely a limiting factor.

Dinner at Anna’s

A bonus of our side trip to Carlsbad Caverns is that we got to pass through Pecos, Texas, where my cousin Anna lives. She generously offered to make us dinner. She has 4 girls and combined with our 5 kids it was a lot of kids. It was great to catch up with Anna and meet her girls.

Whites Sands National Monument

Las Cruces is close to White Sands National Monument, a huge dune field made of gypsum, which when it is bright and sunny is nearly as white as snow. Earlier in the week we made plans with Jon and Linda to meet them there after work and then we were going to go back to their place for dinner. Jon was my mentor when I started working at Xavier as a student and Linda worked in the cubicle right next to me. They moved to New Mexico a few years ago, so we don’t cross paths very often. 

It was a good plan, but then I got sick. I ended up skating through work on Thursday and we had already made plans to leave Las Cruces after work on Friday, but we still wanted to see them and the dunes. I was functional enough after work to stumble my way to through the dunes and Jon and Linda met us there to hang out. Afterward we just went back to our respective houses, rather than to theirs. 

Our visit to the dunes was nice. It was a cloudy, rainy day, so the dunes were hard and not as white. It actually made it easier to walk on and the kids still found plenty to do. It was great to see Jon and Linda and I am very glad that I was able to make it and that they were willing to risk exposure. 

Toward the dunes. Photo credit: Andrew
Dunes. Photo credit: Andrew
Burying the little girls.
Kids playing. As the sun was setting the dunes looked just like snow.

Phoenix -> Tucson

After a late night last night we all slept in this morning before getting up for moving day. Susan’s parents are spending the month of February south of Tucson, in Green Valley, AZ. We parked our RV in a storage lot near there and will be staying with them for a week.  

It was just a short, 3 hour drive to Green Valley. Now we are all settled in at the house and ready for a relaxing week.

Dinner at Jerry & Sheila’s

This evening we headed back to Jerry and Sheila’s for dinner. We hung out, played games, did laundry, ate dinner, and Jerry hooked me up with some family photos and videos. 

Apples to Apples at the Appels’
The girls love playing with Sheila.

Sedona

on Bell Rock

Today we headed about 90 minutes north, to visit Sedona. We went for a 5 mile hike, climbed bell rock, visited downtown, and then headed to the airport to catch the tail end of the sunset. On the way home we stopped and In-N-Out Burger for our second visit of the trip.

Old Town Scottsdale and MIM

This morning we headed to Old Town Scottsdale. We were going to head to Sedona, but the weather is questionable to we decided to push that to tomorrow and do some things around Phoenix today.

After Scottsdale we it up the Musical Instrument museum, which is a large museum with instruments from all over the world.