Remembrance Day. Awake at 6:30am and both kids clambered down from the bunk and came into our bed for snuggles. The best. Jonathan set up Wylie Coyote & Roadrunner on his phone and we watched some cartoons in bed in anticipation of the desert scenes on our journey ahead. Eventually I got up and made french toast, oooh la la. We took a look at the weather forecast (last night was very cold and we woke up to some ice formed on the ground outside!!). Seeing that it was -20c in Bryce Canyon, we realized fully that we needed to pivot our plans for heading up towards Utah as it would be too cold for the rig and too cold to enjoy our time there. So our original plan to visit the Grand Canyon-Bryce Canyon-Zion-Antelope Canyon was now off the docket. Called my parents to advise that we'd need to head south instead and we had an alternate plan for our trip while they visited us on the road.
We took the time this morning to do a clean up of our dinette (it's ben inn-undated with art supplies and paper and clothing) and reorganize the side panel storage. The kids explored a bit and we all learned very quickly that the sand/grass spurs are horrendous here. You couldn't walk around the vehicle, nevermind the rest of the campsite, without getting 50 or more spurs and thorns imbedded in the bottom of your shoe and sides of your feet. Ugh. My poor birks will have some thorns in there forever I think.
The kids also decided it was best to say farewell to our cactus, Jerry, and release him into his natural habitat. Jerry started his journey with us in Montreal from a cute little plant shop right downtown. He was irresistibly cute with all his little bobbles. We did our best to care for him over the past couple of months, but honestly he was more delicate than he first let on. He was losing "balls" left, right and centre. Seemed he was down to his last little nub now and so the kids took him out into the edge of the parking lot (campsite) and found him a nice little space close to some cactus friends and settled him in. Hopefully the frost doesn't finish him off tomorrow night and he lives a long and happy life in the desert! Goodbye little prickly friend! and good luck.
Jonathan walked the kids over to the campground store that we went in last night. Our kiddos love looking through stores of any kind (gas stations - and there's been some interesting ones!!, campstores, KOA office stores, Wal-Marts, etc). Jonathan bought himself a nice New Mexico t-shirt. The kids were a bit fishy and Amelia scooted me off to show me where they planted Jerry, then she couldn't remember. Anyhow, after finding him she led me back to the rig and when I went inside the dinette had some black magnetic stones on the table. Amelia had her magic wand (from Salem, MA) out on the table and picked it up. Casting a magic spell, she was able to make the stones move around the table!! It was incredible!!! They had bought the "magic" stones at the gift shop with daddy. Strangely, Oliver was nowhere to be found... and there was a lump of blankets stuffed under the dinette table. ;-). I was suitably impressed with her powers.
After "finding" Oliver, we packed up the rig and began to drive away from the campground. Jonathan had called his mum to chat on the road. This was when we had to pull over when we heard the incredibly sad news that our friend and neighbour, Anthony, has passed away suddenly back home. Anthony was a big part of our little neighbourhood community - most particularly at Halloween - his favourite time of year. Their house was always decorated to the max and Anthony and Tina had the best costumes. We talked with the kids about what happened, and recalled some of our favourite things about Anthony - his love of all things Scooby Doo - and how he shared that with all the kids in the neighbourhood. Such incredibly sad and sudden news. It would take awhile to process that when we returned home, Anthony wouldn't be there. Our hearts ached for his family.
By 11:30am we pulled out of the campground headed north/east to Roswell. This was a bit of a detour off our westward bound route, but it was so close we couldn't help but go check it out. We got passed by trucks carrying huge bales of cotton. We took a left at Carlsbad to San Jose Blvd and google zig-zagged us through town, past industrial/oil fields... Jonathan got a kick out of the 4-DINKUS ROAD.
By 12:40pm we pulled over at the Atoka Gas & Ice store into their parking lot to make some lunch. There was a large trailer that pulled up containing horses with western saddles on. Looked like a cowboy's trailer. Jonathan made Kraft Dinner and a smoothie and some tea. I wrote a few postcards. We departed within the hour for Artesia - another oil town and onwards to Roswell for 2:!5pm.
2:15pm we were passing the UFO themed welcomes into Roswell, NM - the site of the alleged 1947 UFO crash landing. We parked in town by the Chamber of Commerce and poked our heads in to see if anyone in there had some suggestions on what to do/where to go while we were in town for the afternoon. The two ladies in there were SO FRIENDLY! Very sweet and gave us lots of good information, and loaded the kids up with little souvenirs an enamel pins/coins with alien themes.
It was chilly. 10c outside. Felt like a brisk winter day. The town was open for business despite it being Veterans Day here in the US. Loved that the lamp posts had alien eyes on the lights. Almost every store had a UFO and alien theme to it... boutiques, cafes, tourist attractions, etc. We walked over (not quite warm enough with our hoodies on) to the UFO Museum where we read all about the events that took place here in 1947, and all the copies of supporting evidence and affadavits about what happened. They had some neat displays and interactive sections of the museum.
The chamber of commerce ladies had recommended Pepper's restaurant for dinner, so we walked over there the few short blocks (the town is small) and got a booth. Family style Tex-Mex restaurant with a very colourful and friendly waitress. (green and purple make up matching the alien theme of the whole town). An older gentleman in a bright pink dress shirt and black waistcoat came over after awhile and asked us how our meal was and if we were enjoying our stay, where were we from, etc. Super friendly and we presumed him to be the owner of the restaurant. We had a great meal (and yummy margarita in an adorable cactus glass) and enjoyable time.
Heading back towards the RV, we walked to check out the Virtual Reality place. It was too late to go inside and we'd check in tomorrow morning when they opened. On the corner was a fairly large geode/rock shop that Oliver was keen to explore. We popped inside and admired the vast array of rocks and petrified wood, amethysts and large geodes. Oliver chatted with the owner, Donald, for quite some time. Interesting guy and very sweet with Ollie, answering questions.
When we were about to leave, Ollie pulled me aside and said, "That guy was super nice... I'd like to buy something to support his store." XO So we agreed that maybe he'd like to use some money to buy himself a geode. He chose something in the $10 range and with the fun little sign saying "Geodes : You buy it, you break it". He chose one (or the geode chose him, as Donald remarked) and paid for it. Donald walked Oliver over to the huge chain breaker and set the geode into the chain, then Ollie pressed down on the arm and cracked his geode! Super cool inside.. white with little spindles. Very fun.
It was dark and cold by now and we hustled back to the RV and drove the 5min or so to the TRAILER VILLAGE RV PARK for the night. It was $45 cash and had a plug-in... it was below freezing at this point so to have the heater going was good. We went online and booked the KOA in Tucson in anticipation of Gma/Papa's visit with us and messaged them that the accommodations had been booked. (site for us and a cute little cabin for them with bunks for kiddos).
Jonathan and Oliver tucked in for a game of tiny chess. Amelia and I snuggled in the back cozy as bugs. At final bedtime, we left Amelia in our bed asleep and Jonathan curled up in there with her for the night. I tucked in up on the bunk with Ollie (I face out at the edge of the bunk and can sleep quite well without any claustrophobia attacks these days!).
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