At the Beginning


Day 1: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico



We are making a beeline for the coast and so the first two days will be some of the longest driving days we’ll have for the entire trip.  All three states have interesting things to offer, but we bypassed most of it.  We did a side trip to Mesa Verde National Park and since it was free with our parks pass, it was no skin off our teeth that it was going to take longer to do then what we wanted to spend on it, so we ate some lunch and headed back to the road.  
We stopped in Bloomfield, NM for gas and it is the most literal town on earth. 





This seems to be New Mexico thing as it was similar in other towns we drove through. 

 We stopped for dinner in Albuquerque at this cute Mexican place, Papa Nachos.  SO good.  I realized right away that I'm just wasting money on my kids at dinner time.  We were close to staying within budget but the three hardly touched their food. Arg.  I am going to have to be creative this road trip because I am not wasting $30 in food that I could have spent in road trip treats!


We thought we could make it to Amarillo, but we fell short. The kids finished their 6th movie as we hit Santa Rosa, NM and we called it a night.  We found a Days Inn and went in to speak with the manager.  She got a kick out of our plan for the month and the looks on our faces upon reaching the end of day 1.  

It's nice to stretch out and relax a few hours before tackling Texas tomorrow.  But at least we have ice cream to look forward to. 

The kids have held up pretty well.  Lila (6) got really whiney when we were carting all our stuff upstairs to the room.  I think we just pushed her a little hard.  Also, we didn't plan this leg of the trip, so we didn't start looking for somewhere to stay until we got here.  We'll have to do better tomorrow.  

 Day 1 is in the books.  I'm maybe not as giddy for day 2 as I was for day 1, but I'm feeling much better this morning after a night's sleep. 


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