Exploring at McKinney Falls

Happy Birthday to Maddy!

This week Maddy turned ten...double digits for our sweet girl!! So here's to our Maddy... She is our animal lover, environmentalist and entrepreneur! She is passionate, curious, energetic, dramatic, sweet, kind, caring, imaginative, enthusiastic, and a really beautiful person! We are lucky to have her in our lives!

The Lone Star State

We left Arizona for the fifteen hour drive to Texas...well...make that closer to twenty hour drive with all our little pit stops. It can be interesting all the reasons we come up with to stop...considering we already have food/beverages and a washroom right on board. The first day we drove until around 10pm and Bill had finally had enough...this led us to our first experience with boondocking. Basically this means you park your rig without any hook ups for the night...we ended up at a Wal Mart parking lot and were pleasantly surprised to find a lot of others there already settled in for the night. It was so nice to just park, go to bed, get up and go! No hooking up, plugging in, setting up...it was fast and it was free!! This just got us started, as now we realize that boondocking is the way to go for us from now on when we are on route to a new place. The next day we arrived in Austin, Texas around noon. It really was nice to see green grass again! There are lots of trees, shade and wind! The kids have wasted no time getting to know their new home...Ali and Josh have already caught their first snake and Maddy is on a first name basis with the office/store staff! Everyone is excited to start exploring our new city!

How to have the perfect day...Life according to Ali

First you find some good friends....then you go hunting in the desert for lizards...you find five different varieties and bring them all home...you create a habitat in a big bin and sit and watch the lizards for hours....then you release the lizards back into their environment...

As we prepare to leave this week we have been taking some pictures of our home...one thing we will miss is the spectacular sunsets. These photos are Ali's from the front of our house...he's such an awesome photographer!!

Mexico??

Well...i said we should go to Mexico during our journey...somehow i envisioned us parked at a nice sandy white beach with a pina colada in my hand...but that would just be too normal, and after all we've been there and done that too many times. So Friday we headed out for the three hour drive that would take us to the Mexican border town of Nogales. We arrived in the early evening and found a "guarded" parking lot that was clearly not guarded...parked the car and began the walk that would take us into Mexico. This is surprisingly easy and quite common to do here. We literally walked into Mexico without anyone saying a word to us...no asking for passports or reminders of what we couldn't bring into their country..nothing. We wandered the streets listening to the locals cheerfully call us to their shops to show us their goods. It was a fun couple of hours as we all bartered for what we wanted to bring home with us. Ali and Maddy both bought necklaces and Bill negotiated a couple Mexican blankets for us.

The Climb to Mt. Lemmon

Our trip to Mt Lemmon was filled with ups and downs and twists and turns...literally. As we climbed to 8000 ft we saw breathtaking views all around us. We also felt the chill...and yes ....even though i insisted we would stay away from snow for the duration of our journey we did encounter some of the white stuff!

Exploring Sabino Canyon

This weekend we spent some time exploring the Sabino Canyon in the Tucson area. It was such a beautiful place to spend some time with our travelling partners the Gooman-Caines. We walked, climbed, relaxed, caught lizards, and some of us were brave enough to put feet in the water! We even spotted a bobcat! A great day with friends!

Native Trails

On Thursday we went to Scottsdale to see the Native Trails celebration. Native American performers show the variety of dances that represent their culture. There was also Native foods, arts, crafts and jewelry. The kids really enjoyed seeing the vibrant dress and listening to the drumming while the men and women did their dances. We also tried a Navajo taco...it was a big fried flat bread with beans, lettuce, cheese and salsa piled on top.Ali and I quite enjoyed it. Maddy liked the sweet version...same flatbread but sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon. After the show we walked into Scottsdale and strolled through some of the art galleries. The kids loved the western paintings and the native sculptures, and collected photographs of their favorites to take with them.

A New Week

So...we are finally back to normal around here. Everyone in the family has had the stomach bug going around here, except me (fingers crossed), and all seem to be feeling good again. Katie was hit the worse and ended up spending a day in the hospital due to dehydration. I am just thankful to have everyone healthy and happy again! This bout of illness set us back two weeks! That means we only have two weeks left to explore Arizona before we head off to Texas...we think...our travel plan seems to change weekly so who knows where we'll end up! These last two weeks will be filled with , a day trip to Mexico, a little exploring of Tucson, a trip to the top of Mt. Lemmon, and lots of local hikes in the state and national parks around us. If we can fit it in we'd love to go back to the Phoenix Zoo, but we do realize our time is limited now so we'll see what we can. I have to remember to give myself time to pack up as well...that usually takes a couple days. Here's to a busy two weeks!!