We made the first short leg of our journey in the dark. We only went to my parents house near Ocala, and played disks of Christmas music and watched for Christmas light displays along the way. Our favorite was two miles from Mama's house: animated reindeer that looked like they were running.

We exchanged Christmas presents with Mama and Daddy, and then the kids voluntarily hit the sack!

The weather sure surprised us this day. We were anticipating temperature drops, but the gulf coast got warmer and warmer. It rained between Pensacola and Mobile but the temperature stayed high. We shed layers of clothes and kept going.

We had made reservations in Alexandria, Louisiana because we knew we had made it there by dinnertime before and that gave us a bit of leeway for weather conditions -- and traffic conditions. It turned out that we needed that leeway. The interstate around Hammond Louisiana was being resurfaced. At 4 PM in the afternoon traffic crawled to a standstill. We sat still for an hour watching other cars overheat while the sun set. We crept within sight of an exit and Michael thought the Suburban was overheating when he began to see wisps of smoke. It turned out to be fog that settled in with a vengeance. We got off the interstate and took State Road 190, which parallels the interstate. It had plenty of traffic too, but 30 mph was an improvement over 10 mph. Finally, most of the traffic went back to the interstate as we approached Baton Rouge. 190 actually cut miles off our journey so we crossed the Mississippi on the north side of Baton Rouge. The fog stayed with us all the way to Alexandria.

Fog, fog, fog. We kept hoping to drive out of it. The Weather Channel had predicted fog for eastern Texas, but the fog never lifted during the entire trip to Amarillo. We did have low clouds and drizzle from Wichita Falls to Altus, Oklahoma where we dropped off our friend, Joy who was meeting her daughter there to help drive her back to Florida. Then we had more fog. By the time the sun set, visibility was barely two car lengths. Michael was exhausted, but he would have been more tense as a passenger. We make a great team. He's the pilot, I'm the navigator. We crept along and finally got to Amarillo around seven. Diner at El Chico's was fantastic.

Snow! Snow! Snow! We woke the next morning to 3 inches of snow on the ground and more falling. Kevin and Lydia sat by the window and watched, fascinated. When Kevin first stared out the window I heard him saying, "ha, ha, you can't get in." When Michael asked who he was talking to he said it was to the little bugs outside the window that were swarming around trying to get in. We told him there couldn't possibly be bugs outside in the snow. He pointed out the little white swarms outside the window-- Snowflakes!

We had planned to take Lydia to the Quarter Horse Museum, but when we realized we would be driving through snow all day I knew the remaining six hours of our trip would become closer to nine hours and we didn't want to drive it in the dark. So we stopped briefly at the museum to make sure they would be open the following week and pushed on.

We were still in Texas at lunchtime and heading into less populated areas. We ate at a steakhouse, gassed up and drove through Oklahoma quickly. The highway had been ploughed and salted. Then we hit Colorado. The Comanche National Grasslands were a sparkling white beauty, but the roads in Colorado are not salted and were extremely icy.

We turned west after finally finding U.S. Highway 160. It was so snow covered you could barely tell there was a road there. It was dark by the time we reached Trinidad, but we were on familiar roads at that point. After supper at Burger King we headed for Walsenburg. Other travellers headed for Denver were stopping in Walsenburg because of the icy conditions. We were glad to be stopping where we needed to be.

The room at the Best Western is a family suite with two bedrooms and a shared bath. The only flaw is the windows are high and I can't see out them. In the summer that would be no big deal. We'd barely be in the room then. Right now, about 2 hours out in the cold is all I can stand at the time.

 

December 22

Our first morning of sub-zero temperatures! We got up and drove through Walsenberg and down to LaVeta. We stopped at a variety store and bought two little plastic sleds. The snow is brilliantly white and sparkling. We decided to find the county road that would take us north to our land. It was not plowed, or paved for that matter, but not icy either.

We found the place with no problem. Joy had been by the place last summer and had stuck a red plastic bowl on one of the trees. We spotted it right away. This day we stopped at the first little ridge. The kids found a small slope and used their sleds. Kevin has a talent for sliding under trees and getting stuck. We wandered around for an hour or more, then headed back to town, then to Trinidad for dinner and the movie Pleasantville.

We also stopped in downtown Walsenberg and found a round sled and a yellow plastic snow board to try out the next day.

We had so much fun wandering around our land that we went back and did it again. I explored the creek bed, which winds from one side of the land to the other. Michael climbed the second ridge with the kids. They used their sled and snowboard, but liked climbing better. I watched Kevin climb and slide down an almost sheer cliff. I couldn't believe it when he just sort of dropped the last 15 feet! Fortunately, he didn't break anything. I found a little hill that will make a great place to build a fire circle.

For dinner we went to Chef Liuu's Chinese Restaurant. The food was terrific. Then we shopped for food we can cook for Christmas dinner, and ice cream for an evening snack. We watched the videos Small Soldiers and White Christmas in the evening.

Christmas Eve. We decided to drive to Pueblo and catch a couple of movies: A Bug's Life, and Star Trek: Insurrection. In between movies we went to Barnes and Noble. I found the address for a Lutheran Church that was having a 6 pm service and found a map to show us where it was. We also ate dinner at Ruby Tuesday's. Lydia decided to call the Star Trek movie "Circumcision" which left the rest of us almost incapacitated with laughter.

We roamed around Pueblo until the church service started. It's a nice little town, much like Ocala was when I grew up there. It doesn't have a lot of new walled subdivisions like Tampa does, just streets and streets of little houses. We looked for a Post Office, which must be downtown, somewhere, but we didn't find it. I really did write Christmas cards, but it won't be the first time they don't get mailed until after Christmas.

When we returned from Church we opened presents. Lydia seemed to like her Garth Brooks t-shirt and disk the best. Kevin was thrilled with the Star Wars CCG cards. He got a Yoda which he says is worth $30. We also gave him card holders and a zipping notebook and he began sorting and arranging the cards before he went to sleep.

The reindeer everyone got for Christmas were a big hit. We gave them western names, mostly after the mountains nearby. Michael's is Kit, for Kit Carson. Mine is Blanca (she's white), Kevin's is Cheyanne, and Lydia's is Pike for Pike's Peak.

We slept late and went out with the sleds again. The temperature is warming up, but the wind was up too. I found a little corner of the creek bed out of the wind and built a little fire while the others roamed around the rocks. When the sun dropped behind the mountain we headed back to the motel.

Christmas dinner was a progressive affair. We set rolls out to rise before we went sledding. When we got back we baked them in the toaster oven first. Then Michael and I ate tossed salads while we cooked the kids' turkey pot pies. Then we cooked our pot pies while the kids ate theirs. Then we cooked an apple cobbler for desert. It may not have been home-made from scratch, but it tasted good.

After dinner, Michael and the kids taught me how to play the card game "Sheepshead" which they play with Michael's parents. It was lots of fun.

Ski day. We drove up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Cuchara ski area. The pine trees are taller, the snow deeper and the temperature lower. Michael hurt his wrist on Kevin's snowboard so Kevin, Lydia and I signed up for ski lessons. It took an hour to get the equipment rented and put on. What a complex operation! The boots I had fit fine in the feet, but were 'way too tight around the calves. That caused an awful lot of pain all afternoon. No one told me your pants were supposed to go over the boots. The legs of my jeans were too tight to pull up and too thick to tuck inside comfortably.

I don't think I've ever attempted anything that terrified me more than this. I finally figured out how to stop, which helped. Walking in the boots was like being 9 months pregnant again, a condition I've never cared for, and I fell down a lot. At one point I ended up lying on my back in a snow bank on top of my skis and I felt like a turtle lying on its back. At that point I was pretty exhausted and perfectly willing for someone to dig me out once spring came.

What I did like was the chair lift. It was so much fun gliding silently up the mountain over the snow. That was definitely worth falling off the mountain for. I got to ride the chair lift twice and would have done it again, but I knew I was too exhausted to make my way down the mountain.

Kevin enjoyed skiing too. He fell as often as I did, and neither of us ever got the knack of standing gracefully back up, but we didn't hurt ourselves, so it was a pretty successful day.

Lydia cooperated in the lessons until we made our way to the chairlift, then removed her skiis and refused to continue.

The sleigh rides were booked until 9 pm that night, and there was no way I would still have the energy to enjoy it by then after trying to ski all day, so we'll save that activity until next time.

I didn't realize how wet we were until we were back in Walsenburg at the Iron Horse Restaurant eating dinner. Both Kevin and I were shivering and completely exhausted. Showers and a warm bed were very welcome, along with tylenol. The instructor kept telling me to relax, but I was awfully tense. Somehow I couldn't reconcile relaxing with falling off a mountain.

I woke up with pounding sinuses, a running nose and a sore throat along with sore shoulders and aching legs. The most strenuous thing I did was drive to the laundromat to wash some clothes. I wokded on my cross-stitch while the clothes were washing. Then I typed part of a story I've been working on while the kids and Michael went out to roam the hills one more time and play football with the Nerf Green Bay Packer football that Michael got Lydia for Christmas. They returned at dark with Pizza Hut pizza and we spent the evening playing Sheepshead after we packed the truck.

Time to head for home. We aimed for Amarillo as soon as we could get everyone up and in the truck. This time we chose Raton pass. Michael says he'd rather be shot in the head than use U.S. 160 to cross Colorado again. At least this time there was neither ice or fog. We reached Amarillo in half the time and took Lydia to the AQHA museum as we promised. Kevin's request was to eat at El Chico's again. I spent the day taking decongestants and was relieved to turn in early.

Smooth sailing from Amarillo to Alexandria. We ended up in the same room at the same motel.

Almost home. We had a long uneventful journey through the Gulf Coast states. We reached Ocala around 8 pm and were only 20 miles from my parents house when the transmission gave out in the truck. We were almost a mile from the last exit, so after calling for a tow truck and calling my father, the kids and I walked back to the exit. My parents came and got us and we picked up Michael after the Suburban was towed to the transmission ship. It was nearly 10 pm when we finally got to my parents' house for supper.

We spent the day hoping to get the transmission fixed, but making plans to get hime in case that didn't work out. Michael's parents drove my car and theirs up to Ocala from Plant City and packed the kids and a trunk full of stuff up and took it home. Michael and I packed my little car full of stuff and left behind at my parents' house only things we knew we didn't need, like heavy jackets and extra clothes. We hoped the suburban would be ready at closing time, but it wasn't, so we left my father the money to pay for the truck and asked him to pick it up when it's ready on January 4. We'll go back up for the truck the following weekend. The last seventy miles were definitely the hardest to make, but all-in-all it was a wonderful trip!