Traveling north....

People think we're crazy, but we LOVE to drive home in the summer instead of fly. Not only does having our own car give us the flexibility we need with our various destinations for family time and C's research, but we love taking a few days to head home and seeing as much as we can. (See summer 2010)

This summer we had the luxury of driving home in our NEW car. Who knew it could be so relaxing to drive all those miles in a car where the windows could roll down with no oil leaks and no water draining into the backseat. Yes, we have become pretty fancy. Did you know our new ride even has a cd player? Talk about futuristic.

Our first stop was Palo Duro Canyon in north Texas. (After driving for an entire day and STILL being in Texas it was nice to have something fun to stop and see.) Despite our early morning efforts to beat the heat, we still ended up doing the Lighthouse hike in the afternoon due to some flash-flooding that morning. Miles and miles of serious heat, but it was great fun. We then stopped by Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo and got some great grub in the tiny little town of Vega.

The next day we drove through Clayton, NM (and stopped for some awesome pictures for obvious reasons) and then visited Capulin volcano.  We surprised ourselves by driving right by Philmont Scout Ranch, so we pulled over for a quick visit to see what the place was all about. As luck would have it, it was LDS week. Funny stuff. That evening we rolled into Taos - which had long been on my list of places I wanted to visit.

We really enjoyed Taos. It's similar to Santa Fe, but more laid-back since it's a smaller town and prettier, I must say, because it's surrounded by mountains. We had an epic dinner the night we arrived and enjoyed walking around the Plaza. The next day we hit up some historical sights (The Ranchos Church and Taos Pueblo) before continuing our voyage. On our way out of town we stopped at the Rio Grande Gorge and then had a surprise stop at the Earthship (great name, right? Look it up....kind of crazy and kind of cool) Visitor's Center.

Our final stop on our trip home was Great Sand Dunes National Park. I had wondered how the park would compare to this stop on our trip last year. Aside from the mass amounts of sand, they were actually pretty different. The dunes at Great Sand Dunes are massive. From the distance they almost appeared to be another mountain range. We enjoyed a sunset stroll/hike around the dunes and would have loved to have been able to spend more time there if daylight had permitted - and if the wind hadn't already given us some extreme sand-blasting.

The next day we stopped for dinner with Grams in Price and then headed home. We left on Monday morning and rolled into American Fork on Friday night. Not a bad way to spend a week on the road.