Today is the first day of spring break. I planned a last minute get away to the Four Corners area. we planned to leave after the first session of General Conference on Sunday, thinking we could listen to the rest of it either on the radio or our phones. That idea almost worked. We made it to the end of the first session before losing radio reception in Spanish Fork Canyon. That's a win.
Destry's sister, JuNette agreed to watch Sadie, our dog, for us. Her house in Price was on the way to our destination so that was perfect. It was lunch time when we arrived so we asked if we could picnic at her house. I remembered everything for the meal except the main ingredient. Brats. I brought condiments and sides and buns, but left the brats at home in the fridge. We had hoagies for the first of two meals today. Not the worst thing ever, but our first "almost" of the trip.
We we're almost able to listen to the afternoon session. The radio was completely out and our phones were in and out. Destry even called XM radio to see if the church had a satellite station. They don't. I know Conference will be available later so that will work out too.
Our first big "almost" took place when we pulled up to the locked gate at the entrance of the Four Corners Marker at exactly 5:50 p.m. We were greeted by a sign saying, 'Gates close daily at 4:50 p.m." big disappointment. We'd been on the road for six hours and needed a destination. We were not alone there. Several others cars came and went.
We than drove the last hour of our journey to the hotel in Farmington, New Mexico and enjoyed our hoagies for dinner. I was able to book a two bedroom hotel with a kitchen for a great rate. There was supposed to have been a sofa bed that I thought would accommodate two people. I knew that would put us one bed short, but the three girls had shared a queen bed before.
The sofa bed was only a love seat size and was terrible. Fortunately, I decided to bring a single air mattress and sleeping bag. Just in case. Emma slept on the love seat. Estelle got the air mattress that Destry had to blow up because he took out the pump that needed new batteries any way. We made a bed for Sarah out of a chair, ottoman, and cooler. She quickly fell asleep, but didn't stay that way.The boys got one bed and Destry and I the other.
Sarah joined us around 1:30. At 4:00 I heard vomiting in the bathroom. It sounded like a boy, but I wasn't sure which one. I peaked in the bedroom to see Spencer sleeping peacefully. It was Taylor. I located his PDM, test strips, and poker. When he was finished and cleaned up a bit, we checked his glucose. It was over 200, but that should not have been high enough to cause vomiting. He said he felt better, but I was uncertain what the cause was and didn't want him breathing flu breath on Spencer if he had a stomach bug. I woke up Estelle and sent her to bed with Sarah and Destry and settled Taylor on the air mattress. I went into the refrigerated room that had been the boys and tried unsuccessfully to turn off the AC. I crawled into bed hoping to warm up. I didn't. Not wanting to wake up a potentially grumpy guts, I used my phone as a light to guide me in successfully turning off the AC this time. I drifted in and out of sleep until Destry came in at 8:30 asking if I wanted to get up. I did. It was an hour later than I had hoped to he up. Oh well.
We dressed, sang Happy birthday to Sarah and let her open a couple gifts to start out our celebration of her 10th birthday. Everyone but Taylor ate the hotel breakfast. He had cereal in the room so he could be close to the toilet if eating made him sick. It didn't and he said he felt fine so we headed out to the Aztec Ruins, which as it turns out are not Aztec at all, but we're misnamed. They were really built by the Ancestral Pueblos. It was amazing and we enjoyed ourselves in spite of the drizzle of rain and the brisk 39°.
We attempted to visit Chaco National Historical Park. It is located far off the beaten path which includes eight miles of dirt road. Pot holes, wash boarded, rutted, muddy, and water logged. We plugged along adventurously until we spotted a truck and car stuck in the mud about a quarter mile ahead. My heroic teenage boys jumped out to help. Destry joined them. Long story short, after a cold muddy hour the truck was free and a tow truck arrived to help the car. We were three miles away from our goal, but decided that under the circumstances we would not chance the fates of our fellow travelers and turned around. Again, we almost made it.
We got back to the hotel at 2:30. We girls made another meal of hoagie sandwiches while the boys went to the car wash to clean off themselves as well as our Yukon. We swam, read, and chilled in our room for the rest of the afternoon. We are going to go to out to dinner for more birthday celebration before calling it a day. Lucky for Sarah, you can't almost have a birthday. No matter what else "almost" happens she will still be ten. The first of her double digit years.
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