Eating Well with No Space and a Tiny Budget

Okay, I am going to step away from the travel blogging for just a second, and venture into another aspect of the travel life: space, budget, and food. Normally I wouldn’t even bring these things up, but one of my photography mentors has challenged us to step out of our usual style of photography and try a genre we haven’t tried, so I chose food. And a blog post idea was born.

(I honestly couldn’t care less about food photography, but I understand how being well-rounded will make me a better photographer in the long run.)

Since we downsized from two incomes (well, technically 5, since I was working 3 jobs and Kevin was working 2) to only one income, we have a pretty tight budget to be able to afford this amazing travel lifestyle. So we have to be very careful with our money, and where our pennies are allotted.

A bigger grocery budget means a smaller gas budget, which means we can afford less travel adventures. So I made our grocery budget into a game:

How low can we go and still eat well?

Another obstacle that we have to overcome is limited food storage space. I mean, have you ever seen an RV refrigerator? Take a tiny little apartment fridge and cut that in half.

We are actually really really fortunate in that we have a relatively large kitchen for an RV that is this size. It was part of the reason why I chose the rear-kitchen floorplan: the kitchen is actually similar in size to that of my first apartment and our trailer is only 30 feet. There’s an actual pantry, albeit a small-ish one. Kitchen and food storage is simply something that you will have to compromise on if you are going to move into an RV. Unless you get one of those behemoth “residential” RVs that we can only dream about affording someday…

So due to a lack of space, by necessity we make frequent trips to buy groceries. We simply cannot hit up Costco and buy 10 lbs of coffee at a time, because we have nowhere to put it. When we lived in our house, I would go grocery shopping every other week, because I hate grocery shopping, but in the RV, we go a minimum of once a week, and often need to make a quick run mid-week for those 2 or 3 items that we just couldn’t make last all week long.

I budget $100 a week (in cash, so we aren’t tempted to “fudge” with the debit card).

Any extra cash we have at the end of the week that we have leftover goes into an old coffee can “Cruise Fund.” The last few weeks we have been consistently hitting between $60 and $80 a week on food. We only have about $100 to go to be able to book our cruise. (Yay!!!)

How can we afford for our family of 3 to eat (and eat well) on $60-$80 a week?

Two Rules:

Rule #1: Be smart about what you buy. 

• I don’t buy a bunch of processed crap. We eat whole food. About 50% of our budget is spent in the produce section (50%!!). About 20% is then spent on dairy, because we love cheese and yogurt in our house. Maybe 20% on beans and grains (bread, pasta, rice, etc), and the remaining 10% on misc. staples like spices, granola bars, and peanut butter.
•  I don’t coupon. I have learned that this causes me to seek out a certain brand, which inevitably costs more than a comparable store brand, even with the coupon. Couponing, at least for me, causes me to spend more money (example: Chobani greek yogurt is $1 normally, but with a coupon for 20% off makes it $.80. The Kroger brand of greek yogurt is like $.50. This coupon would only save me money if my family will only eat Chobani, but since no one cares, I will not spend the extra $.30 just for the allure of “saving” $.20 using a coupon). Plus, very rarely do coupons exist for whole foods; 99% of the time it is for processed garbage.
• We eat mostly vegetarian. Meat is expensive and, honestly, unnecessary. I was a vegetarian for years until I got severely anemic while I was pregnant, and for some medical reason that I never bothered looking up, you shouldn’t take iron supplements while preggers, so I started eating more meat. But now that I’m not anemic (or pregnant!) anymore, the majority of our meals are sliding back into the vegetarian realm.

IF we have money left over after buying our produce, grains, and dairy, we might swing by the meat department and see if anything is on sale or a crazy good deal, and get ONE thing that we stretch for the entire week. Any kind of roast is popular, one week we got half a turkey on sale, sometimes we’ll get the $5 rotisserie chicken, etc and make that work on salads, in soups, or on sandwiches for the whole week. But really, no one needs a 32oz steak in one sitting. No one.

Healthy food being more expensive is one of the world’s biggest myths that makes me crazy. Yes, eating nothing but boneless, skinless chicken breasts and drinking kefir and buying organic pears in the middle of winter will probably get spendy. But a pound of dried beans is less than $1 and will feed my family for a solid week, and beans are good for you, too! Eggs are cheap, versatile, and packed full of protein.  Onion, carrots, spinach, cabbage, etc are all inexpensive and all good for you!

Just be smart about what you’re buying.

Rule #2: Learn how to *really* cook, and seriously question the “meal-plan” model of food prep.

The common wisdom of the internet these days says that if you write out a detailed meal plan, write out a detailed shopping list, and then only buy those things, you will waste less food and therefore save yourself money.

I have not found this to be true.

Really, these experiments are my most expensive shopping trips by far. My family doesn’t eat 7 dinners a week. My family eats 3, tops, and then 4 nights of rotating or re-purposed leftovers, or improvising because we don’t feel like eating what we are supposed to. Plus, 7 meals’ worth of ingredients will never fit in our kitchen at one time.

Making 7 distinctly different meals in a week is so wasteful for us. Especially if you go and find 7 different recipes off the internet that don’t even have interchangeable ingredients. And I am not that highly motivated to try to come up with 7 really cohesive but different recipes on the internet. I do not have that attention span.

We did, however, have a really successful week of “Mexican” food. We just made a big batch of beans and ground beef with taco seasoning at the beginning, had plenty of tortillas, lettuce, cheese, salsa, cilantro, and sour cream on hand, and kept re-purposing those same ingredients. Tacos, fajitas, quesadillas, nachos, and enchiladas all require near-identical ingredients just rearranged in different ways. So we only had to buy one head of lettuce, one bunch of cilantro, one container of sour cream, and nothing went bad. We used it all up that week, but those were literally all we bought that week.

Instead of spending my stay-at-home-mom days searching Pinterest for the perfect recipe that incorporates everything in my fridge that’s about to go bad, that my child will also love, and that has the proper amount of nutrients and macros, and blah blah blah, I taught myself how to cook.

Like, how to really cook. Not just follow a recipe. But to cook like a contestant on Chopped. 

Let’s see, I have half an onion, greek yogurt, whole wheat spaghetti, and cheerios, but dang it, I *really* want to put my last $20 into the Cruise Fund instead of buying food for my family, so I will just have to make this work. 

So instead of “pinning” 32 recipes for chicken noodle soup, I learned about mirepoix. Instead of searching for fajita recipes, I learned about Mexican and Southwestern flavors. Instead of giving up and ordering takeout, I learned how to stir-fry. I am figuring out what flavors compliment each other, and which flavors don’t work at all.

Why is this important? Because when I am wondering what to do with the Butternut squash sitting on my counter taking up space (but that we got for $1.10), I can remember that I really liked butternut squash in a curry dish I once had, and since I now have an understanding of curry flavors, we concocted an amazing curried butternut squash stir-fry with wheat noodles, bell pepper, onion, and served it over rice.

No recipe (or Cheerios) required.

I’ve got an upgraded grilled-cheese sandwich idea swirling around in my head that involves bleu cheese and pears… maybe some dijon mustard and would it be weird to have walnuts on a grilled cheese sandwich? I love that flavor profile but I also really love sandwiches.

How does this save us money?

I am learning that with the same handful of ingredients, we can create thousands of different combinations to keep our meals interesting and balanced. I don’t need to buy certain (larger) quantities because I can adjust the cooking to suit (I just have 2 potatoes? Sweet, I only need to buy 1 leek for soup).

And honestly, it saves me a ton of time because I can whip something up without having to read recipes, constantly washing my hands to wake my phone up every time I need to check quantities and cooking times, dig around for my dry measuring cups, and so on. I seriously wont cook anything more complicated than 5 or more ingredients, or if it involves an oven in any way (with the rare exception of baking sweet treats, like cinnamon rolls… yum…)

I know, I know; I’m a stay-at-home-mom and so I have “all the time in the world to cook.” But I still hate cooking. Just because I’m learning how, and it’s easier, doesn’t mean that I enjoy being in the kitchen. It means I figured out how to make it easier on myself. Cooking has never been my forte. Before I met Kevin I subsisted on cereal and Lean Cuisines. I would happily return to that if I didn’t have a family whose health I actually care about.

So I prefer to cook things that require minimal time in the kitchen. And I can throw something together really quickly, because I know how. 

I also still do some form of food prep early in the week. I turn our scratch, raw ingredients into “convenience” ingredients. Like, I will cook dry beans so they’re soft and ready to go in recipes. I will cook beets (I love beets) once, chop them all, throw them in a tupperware container in the fridge, and they’re super easy to toss on top of salads or even to toss in a snack cup for my kiddo, or to toss with some feta and fresh parlsey for a really pretty and super yummy salad.

This is easy to do with our Instant Pot.

Seriously, if you could have ONE kitchen gadget (like if you were to, say, move into an RV with limited storage), the Instant Pot should be it. It’s WONDERFUL. We use ours probably 3-4 times a week.

These really pretty beets that I prepped? Perfectly steamed to the proper texture in 15 minutes. Set it and walk away. I totally forgot about them for like an hour. No big deal, the Instant Pot took care of it, and they are still just as perfect.

I can make chili from scratch, with dried beans, and frozen hamburger in like 90 minutes (when you start with frozen items, it takes a while to get the Instant Pot to pressure, so I always add an extra 15 minutes).

Butternut squash in 15 minutes.

I can make my mirepoix in the bottom of the Instant Pot set on the saute function, build my soup on top of it, then just set the cooking time for the longest-cooking ingredient and done.

It’s a pressure cooker so it forces flavors to “meld,” making anything taste like its been simmering all day. I honestly can’t tell the difference between spaghetti sauce lovingly simmered on the stove for 8 hours or tossed haphazardly in the Instant Pot for 10 minutes.

I might get hate mail for that statement from the Spaghetti Sauce Purists, but I am not a sauce snob, nor is my 2-year-old, so easy and fast wins every time.

So to recap:

1. Make smart shopping choices. Buy store brands where possible, don’t buy watermelon in December, and remember that filet mignon is a rare treat, not a nightly staple.
2. Learn how to actually cook without recipes. Recipes can and should guide you, but you should be able to make swaps or omit or add ingredients with confidence so that random rutabaga in your fridge doesn’t go to waste.

 

If you all have made it this far, I challenge you to see how low you can get your own grocery budgets. Start with $100 a week and go from there. Let me know how it goes!

 

Four Corners Monument

 

The Four Corners Monument is a monument that is owned and run by the Navajo Nation in a spot where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. It’s the only point in the United States where the corners of four states intersect.

Because I generally love life, and I love travel, and I get excited about the smallest of things, and I’m the nerdy friend who shamelessly adores tourist-traps, I don’t often have anything negative to say about, well, anywhere we visit. So I will say this:

If you really really really reeeeaaaally covet one of those photos with your shoes and your bae’s (seriously, how did that even become a word?) shoes in 2 different states each, or you want to let Insta or Snapchat know that you were in “in 4 states at one time!!” while you hold a pose that looks like you’re playing State Twister (left foot: Utah! Right hand, Arizona!), then, fine, go. Pay the $5 per person for the photo. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go.

I’m saying that you should be prepared to be disappointed.

Seriously, it is, in my opinion, over-hyped and under-whelming.

And in 2009 there was (is still?) a heated debate on whether or not the monument is even geographically accurate…

Which pretty much kills it for me. Inaccuracies of any kind make my neurotic eye twitch.

We made the mistake of stopping by without doing our homework first, because I am impulsive by nature. And by “stopping by,” I mean “drive an hour away from our nice, cozy KOA, and into the desert to a perfectly nondescript, unremarkable tourist trap.”

Live and learn.

Seriously, guys, I didn’t even get a photo of the little bronze medallion because after paying $10 (kids under 6 get in free) to the completely apathetic lady at the gate, trying to park in a pothole-filled half gravel/half mud “parking lot” that hasn’t seen maintenance in years, and seeing how small, and, frankly, un-ineresting this “monument” was, my heart just wasn’t into it.

And I tried. I tried to pretend like waiting in line to snap a photo with complete strangers photobombing in the background was fun. Because that’s what we are supposed to do, right?

Zero effort put into this snapshot. And also, why is that lady smiling at the camera? The line was behind us… this was the exact angle everyone was shooting photos from… She couldn’t have chosen any of the other 50 unoccupied benches to sit at? So weird…

 

I even tried to get into the spirit by walking the perimeter, which is lined with nothing but souvenir booths, and maybe even buying an obligatory nick-nack to commemorate the trip. Because I could think of nothing else to do…

At least 70% of the souvenir booths were unoccupied, leaving only a handful of booths selling your average, run-of-the-mill dreamcatchers, turquoise jewelry, beads, and the token bone knives that you can buy at literally any powwow in the entire country or every single gift shop in the Southwest. To add insult to injury, as I tried in vain to find anything unique enough for me to willingly give them my money, not a single vendor acknowledged my presence as I shopped their booths. Most of them were on their cell phones and wouldn’t even so much as glance up. Who knows, maybe I would have parted with some cash for a beaded hair clip (that most likely would collect dust in my drawer) had a seller actually been friendly and engaging. I wanted so badly to make this trip not feel like an epic waste of my time.

Even the fry bread sign was attached to a deserted food truck that looked like it had been inoperable since the 1990’s. [Cue sad music.]

We spent maybe 20 minutes there, trying to like it. Even our photo wasn’t worth the $10 (it kind of kills the excitement for me to learn that the only reason it’s even considered geographically correct was because in 1925 Congress said, “Yeah fine, whatever. Do what you want.”)

But if the photo is what you want for your Facebook Profile, and you are happy to pay for it, and you are already in the area and have nothing better to do, then go. It’s kind of interesting to say, “yeah, we’ve been there.” But do not go with great expectations.

Maybe “Four Corners” is Navajo for “Disappointing Tourist Trap.”

Mesa Verde National Park

During the 7th Century, while Mohammed was busy starting the Islamic religion,  the [would-be] Koreans were perfecting Tae-Kwon-Do, Europe was heading into the Dark Ages, China was hard at work making the world’s 1st books, and quill pens were the iPhones of the times, there were actually some things happening in America, too.

Who knew, right? Not me. Either I slept through every history class I’ve ever taken, or Oregon public schools simply didn’t find it very important for me to know much of what was happening to the ancient people of what would be the United States. Granted, I didn’t learn about the beginnings of Tae-Kwon-Do, either, but I couldn’t resist adding that fun fact.

In the American Southwest, in an area that is referred to as the Four Corners Region (meaning where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet), an ancient civilization was also taking off. This civilization is often referred to as the Anasazi.

The term “Anasazi” is actually no longer considered correct. Archaeologists originally used the term because it is the Navajo word for “ancient foreigners.” However, the Anasazi are believed to be descendants of several Puebloan tribes currently in the Southwest, and the Puebloan people wonder why the word for their ancestors actually means “enemy” in their language.

So they prefer for their ancestors to be referred to as “Ancestral Puebloan People.” Seems fair.

And when they left in the 1200’s, they left ruins of their civilization behind for us to find almost 700 years later (the ruins were discovered by a couple of cowboys in the late 1880’s). Mesa Verde National Park is in Southwestern Colorado just outside of Cortez.

Since I was determined to be way more prepared for this visit to Mesa Verde National Park than I was for our spontaneous stop at Petrified Forest National Park, I had read up on their website to see what all we needed to see. I saw that there were ranger-guided tours that allowed you inside the ancient cliff dwellings at the park. Um, hellooo. Yes, please! There are a few different options regarding the guided tours: you can visit the Long House, the Spruce Tree House, the Balcony House, or the Cliff Palace. Or all of them if you have the time and desire!

Because we were visiting so late in the season (October), the Cliff Palace was already closed for the winter. I researched the other tours and decided that the Long House tour would be the best fit for our little family.

I also read that the tours fill up quickly so be sure to get there early in the morning.

They were not kidding.

We arrived at the visitor center parking lot at 8:05 a.m. Five minutes after the park opened. We walked in, Kevin went straight to the line for tour tickets while I chased the toddler around the visitor center (toddlers hate standing in line), and the people ahead of us got the last tickets for the Long House tour.

Getting there at 8:05 is five minutes too late.

We asked about the other tours. The Spruce Tree House tour wasn’t available due to unstable conditions (yikes). The Cliff Palace was closed for the season. That left us with the Balcony House.

The Balcony House is listed as the most physically challenging site to get to. It involves a climb up a 36-foot primitive ladder, another 9-foot ladder, scary-steep “steps” carved into the face of the cliff, and a tunnel that you have to crawl through that is 9-feet long but only 24-inches square in some spots. Bigger people have to literally wriggle through it. There is a “practice tunnel” in the visitor center if you are worried about claustrophobia or if you simply wont fit. The Balcony House tour is not recommended for people with heart conditions, respiratory problems, joint problems, etc.

Kevin was all, “Sounds awesome, sign us all up. Can I bring my toddler?”

Cliff Palace

We got into the very last tour of the day, scheduled for noon, so we had a few hours to kill. The ranger gave us a map and suggested that we go on a self-guided tour through the park and visit some of the other ruins until it was time for our tour.

First piece of advice for anyone wanting to visit: Make sure you top-off the fuel in your vehicle before driving through the park. Fill up in Cortez. It takes almost an entire hour of drive time from the visitor center to the “hub” of where most of the archaeological sites are. The only fuel in the park is at the campgrounds, which are near the visitor center, so not particularly helpful. Luckily, we were fine with 3/4 of a tank, but definitely don’t show up on 1/8 of a tank and expect to get there.

Mesa Verde means “green table” for those of you who chose to take French in High School instead of Spanish (like, ahem, moi). The mesa top is where the Ancestral Puebloan people farmed. Early people (like in the 550’s and 600’s) also lived on the mesa tops. Carbon dating shows that by the A.D. 1000’s, they had started to move their villages under the overhanging cliffs to take advantage of nature. So the oldest sites aren’t even cliff dwellings. They are scattered across the mesa tops and are easily accessible to visit by car.

As you are driving along, keep a lookout for a little brown sign announcing the presence of a site. There is space on the side of the road to pull over. When you see one, pull over. I cannot express enough how much you do not want to miss these.

The National Park Service built these huge buildings over the archaeological sites to protect them from further damage from the elements. Even with the buildings, and being literally 20 yards from the main road, these are impossible to spot without the assistance of the signs.

We were very fortunate that we were there early enough, and during an “off-season” time, that we usually had these sites to ourselves to explore.

One of the many pit houses. This one dates to 600 AD, although archaeologists and carbon-dating indicate that the pits have been remodeled and the stones re-purposed up until the 1200’s. There is a short walking loop that brings you to two others on this same path.

The Ancestral Puebloan people dug these pits in the grounds, called kivas (kee-VAH).  Like many other things in archaeology, their purpose is debated between archaeologists and generally considered to be speculation. On one hand, they could have lived in these, which would protect the people from the elements and camouflage them from the outside enemies (the original kivas had roofs and blended into the environment). On the other hand, many archaeologists believe that the kivas were used for religious ceremonies or for political meetings.

(I’m over here wondering why they couldn’t have been multi-purpose, since they had to be a royal pain to build, but I am also not an archaeologist.)

One of the more primitive kivas, this one features the usual fire pit and sipapu.

The kivas are very traditionally laid out. The doorway tunnel faces the South. The fire pit is in the center, and towards the North is a small hole called a sipapu (see-PAH-poo).

The modern-day Hopi tell sacred stories of the sipapu as a place where humans emerged from the earth, from the 3rd World into the 4rd World. Different tribes believe their sipapus, or places of emergence into this world, are in different places, such as from the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. As such, archaeologists believe it is why the sipapu was traditionally dug into the kiva floors, as a religious symbol to never forget their origins.

The ranger read us the Hopi sacred story about the significance of the sipapu. I thought it was very charming, not unlike the story of Adam and Eve, and there is no way I can do it justice by paraphrasing, so that is something you will just have to Google.

A larger, more-modern pit house. Also, the ruins above-ground indicate that there may have been towers built. This is part of an entire village. The different rings of the kivas intersect, also indicating a lot of remodeling happened to the kivas as the village grew.

A more advanced kiva. The fire pit as the main feature, and now there is a stone in front of the ventilation tunnel to deflect the wind. This caused the wind to circulate around the kiva and push the smoke out of the side vents and the top without disturbing the fire itself. Next to the fire pit is where they ground their corn, and, of course, in straight alignment with the door and fire pit is the sipapu hole. Also noteworthy is the introduction of benches along the outside all for people to sit.

Not all ruins were under ground, either. The Sun Temple is a large structure across the canyon from the Cliff Palace. Again, archaeologists aren’t sure what the purpose of the Sun temple was, but they do know that it was built to last. The masonry was very advanced for the time period and it has withstood the last 700 years very well.

Looking through a window of the Sun Temple.

Sun Temple gutter system for water runoff.

After visiting the Sun Temple, we decided to head over to the Balcony House for our tour. We were a bit early, but seeing as how I was much more prepared this time around, I had packed us lunch, so we decided to eat before we went on our tour.

Sadly, there is no view of the Balcony House unless you are in it. I would have liked to see what it looked like from the other side of the canyon (Soda Canyon), but currently there is no access to the other side.

Our tour guide was awesome. Her name was Jan, and she had been an archaeologist for 20 years before semi-retiring to work for the National Parks system, so she was a wealth of information.

She started off the tour giving us all of the warnings: no heart problems, no joint problems, probably shouldn’t go if you are scared of heights or claustrophobic. If you get to the first ladder (which is 36 feet high) and decide that you can’t do it, that is your time to turn back, because once you go up the ladder, there is no going back down. You have to finish the tour. Altitude sickness and dehydration are also very real possibilities at an altitude of 7000 feet.

We tossed the toddler in the hiking backpack and said, “let’s do it.”

We were not the only ones on the tour with little kids, though. Someone even had an infant in one of those Kangaroo packs, so I felt better.

And now, a bombardment of photos:

Our tour descending to the trail that will take us to the Balcony House

Kevin and the kiddo in “the baby packer.” Caleb, fortunately, loves being in the baby packer. probably because he is up high and can see everything.

The ladder we had to go up to get to the Balcony House. It wasn’t terrible, but I did discover that when people say, “just don’t look down,” there is a reason they say that. It’s oh so very true.

Before we got up the ladder, we had to stop to learn about a natural phenomenon known as a Sandstone Spring. The rainwater landed on top of the mesa, watering the crops, and then seeped into the ground, was filtered by the many many layers of sandstone, and came out of little “springs” under the cliff edge. This was the Ancestral Puebloan People’s main source of fresh drinking water.

Watch your children: there is no railing. There is floor and cliff. Even the kivas are unprotected, and 30-feet deep with a stone floor. Don’t fall in. That might hurt. Plus, I’m not sure, but I think bleeding in a federally-protected archaeological site is highly frowned-upon.

Original timbers that used to support a balcony. Hence the name “Balcony House.”

According to modern-day Puebloan people, they still use balconies to make important announcements or to perform special ceremonies.

Grinding stones.

One of the two Balcony House kivas. They estimate that about 30 people, or 2 extended families, lived in the Balcony House.

Random people on our tour… I never got tourist-free photos of some of the features. That’s what happens when your tour group has 30 people in it.

See where the sandstone has turned black on the walls? That is apparently what happens when the oils from human hands constantly touch the sandstone. it turns black over time. That is why the rangers ask that you not touch anything; to preserve the architectural integrity of the ruins.

How to get out, Part 1 (Okay, the ranger asked us to hold onto that corner so we didn’t fall).

How to get out, Part 2: You have to crawl through a tiny tunnel under that wall, and if you look closely through the “window,” you can see yet another ladder on the other side.

Tight squeeze, but we made it out! We had to take the kiddo out of the baby packer and send him through the tunnel after Mom. He was all over it.

How to get out, part 3: Once out of the tunnel, you scale another ladder, then scramble up the face of the cliff with these scary-ass steps that were carved into the cliff face. The National Park service had to carve them bigger than they were originally due to modern-day people’s much larger feet… No fancy camera angles, this is literally how steep it was. Hang onto the chains.

The verdict?

This was absolutely worth the trip. I would have happily paid 5x as much as they actually charge for the tour. It was amazing.

Now we can’t wait to go back and take the other tours (see? The Bucket List rabbit-hole).

Of course, if you visit, you can’t miss stopping at the Far View Terrace for their Navajo Tacos. Soooo yummy. Fry bread as big as your head, chili, stewed seasoned chicken or pork (we both preferred the pork), and whatever toppings you want. A word of advice: one taco will easily feed two people. We each got one and couldn’t finish them. The fry bread/chili combo definitely makes the taco. Sadly, we didn’t get a photo because we were too busy stuffing our faces.

But definitely, definitely visit.

Of Camels and Buckets; The True Story of Our Failed Visit to Soapstone Prairie

A true story, and a potentially uninteresting story. But I did get some very moody photos. I don’t know why they are moody. I didn’t mean for them to be. It just happens when the sun is playing peek-a-boo behind the clouds, I guess. Random dark and light areas.

Soapstone Prairie is a natural area in extreme Northern Colorado. Like, it’s pretty much Wyoming. It looks like Wyoming. I mean, it’s a prairie, after all.

I know, I know, I promised a couple more Arizona posts. They’re on the back burner still. But [insert whiny voice] I’m tired of writing about Arizona. We get it, your state is awesome. But now I get to see autumn, and go to the mountains to play in the snow, and drink my coffee hot, and it’s still 100-degrees there (and last I checked, the saguaro cacti don’t turn pretty shades of orange in the fall), so neener neener.

So the plan was to go to one of the 500 natural areas in Fort Collins (okay, I have no idea how many natural areas there are, but there are a lot) so I randomly picked one on a map that we had picked up. I chose Soapstone Prairie. Then, since it is on the Wyoming border, and we needed to make a Wal-Mart run, I suggested hitting up the Wal-Mart in Cheyenne rather than backtrack and go back south to the one in Fort Collins.

Mission in mind, we loaded up the kiddo and the dog (Tucker loooooves visiting the natural areas) and headed up County Road 15, the last 7 miles of which were not paved. The child cried nearly the entire drive there because we are the meanest parents in the world for not letting him drive. Mind you, he’s two years old, but pointing that out to him was pretty futile.

Naturally, as we pulled to the entrance of the natural area, two highly inconvenient things happened. First of all, the kiddo passed out in the back seat. Because arriving at our destination was clearly the best time for him to finally fall asleep for a much-needed nap. I am NOT waking it up.

Then, we noticed the signs. No dogs allowed. Anywhere. Not even on a leash. Not even in your car. 

WHY???? Who came up with that rule??? I have a hard time liking any place that doesn’t allow dogs.

Since there was no one staffed at the entrance booth, we did what any normal dog owners would do; we told Tucker to lay down in the back and drove on in anyway.

Kevin picked up a brochure on the way in, and we learned that, in addition to a strict rule against dogs, there is also a rule against flying kites, and allowing your falcon to harass the wildlife.

Well, there goes all of our plans for the day.

I mean, I was with you for the no kite-flying rule, and mildly irritated about the no-dogs-even-in-your-personal-vehicle rule, but not allowing me to harass wildlife with a falcon??? Now you’re just being unreasonable.

We agreed that since the kiddo was sleeping and since we had contraband in the back, in the form of a dog who just could not remember to lay down and keep a low profile, we would just turn around at the parking lot and head back out.

With a few stops for me to hop out and take some photos, of course. Usually those involved me screeching at Kevin to “stop!!” and “back up!!!” and honestly, I’m amazed the kiddo slept through all of the slamming of brakes.

The prairie was super- pretty, and I would have loved to have gone on a family hike, but it just wasn’t in the stars for today.

Plus, I’m not allowed to harass the wildlife with a falcon, so there’s that…

We hopped back on I-25 and crossed over into Wyoming. I love Wyoming. I was eagerly staring out the window looking for bison (I have an unnatural obsession with buffalo), and, of course, checking out the horses. I have never outgrown the urge to yell out “pony!” when I see a horse. Even though I own one and have been riding since I was, like, 6.

Kevin and I were in the middle of a heated debate on whether or not we needed to stop at a fireworks stand (which are apparently open year-round in Wyoming) when I spotted camels.

Camels.

Camels. 

Every single one of my mental “browser windows” (My next argument against fireworks, my shopping list for when we get to Wal-Mart, my calculations of how long the child had been asleep for, every little thing that women can keep in their minds at any given time) came to a screeching halt. My brain seriously short-circuited and I hyper-focused on the camels.

Why are there camels in Wyoming?

Does someone raise them?

It looked like they were in a pasture in front of a church. Does the church raise them?

What is the purpose of keeping camels?

Do people ride them?

Does that church use them in a living Nativity scene at Christmas?

Is that cost-effective?

How well do camels do in a Wyoming winter? Aren’t they desert animals?

Where does one even get camels from, anyway?

Just… so many questions that I couldn’t move past until we got to Cheyenne. I have only been to Cheyenne once before, but I was pleased that I could kind-of tell where we were, and my pride in my marginal navigational ability helped dispel some of the lingering camel questions.

Then, just when you thought this story would never end, the wind blew a bucket into the road and Kevin couldn’t avoid it. So we hit it, it got wedged under the car, and we had to pull into to the closest parking lot to pry it out from under the car.

We got the bucket un-stuck from the undercarriage, but it had been wedged under the exhaust. I don’t know a ton about car anatomy, but I believe that it was where the exhaust pipe meets the manifold. Since that crap gets HOT, the plastic bucket melted onto the exhaust.

It melted! There was molten plastic adhered to my car’s exhaust system. My biggest question was: how critical is it to get the melted plastic off the exhaust? Because I’ve already set one car on fire, I don’t need to repeat that whole episode. Plus, I’m pretty sure that at this point the insurance company would get suspicious.

Charred remnants of my Mercedes after it spontaneously combusted while driving to the Oregon Coast 2 years ago.

Fortunately, I think Kevin’s dad might be the only person on Earth who would know the answer to; “Will melted bucket plastic on my exhaust system catch my car on fire if we drive home to Colorado from Wyoming?”

Kevin called his dad, and, just like I had anticipated, he did, in fact, know the answer. He had run into a similar situation involving a quad several years ago. He asked a few basic questions like, “What color was the bucket?” (white) and “where exactly on the exhaust is it?” (the manifold/exhaust pipe junction) and told us that we could either try to heat it up and scrape it off with a stick, or just drive it and eventually it will disintegrate (but we would have to deal with the annoying and possibly highly toxic smell of burning plastic while we drove).

We chose to just drive it off. Because “potentially carcinogenic” is less scary (short-term) than “molten plastic that can burn the flesh off your bones.” We’ll roll the dice that if/when we develop lung cancer, hopefully modern medicine will have treatment dialed in by then. But I’d like to keep both of my hands, and Kevin’s too, thankyouveryuch.

Really, we just should have stayed home today.

Here are some pretty pictures that I took from the car:

 

 

We made it back to Colorado. It didn’t stink too terribly bad. We have a road trip planned for this weekend so whatever hasn’t burned off yet likely will. Hopefully our upcoming trip works out better than our day today.

 

Why the Petrified Forest National Park Needs to be on Your Bucket List.

 

When we were traveling from Phoenix, AZ to Loveland, CO for our next assignment, we decided that the least mountainous way to go would be to go east through New Mexico and then north to Colorado. We left Phoenix at 3 a.m. to avoid pulling the 5th wheel in 117-degree heat. Also, it allowed the kiddos to continue sleeping in the car for a good portion of our trip. Kevin drove the rig; I followed in my car with the two kids.

When we got to the Northeast corner of Arizona, it was still mid-morning (but felt like we had been driving FOREVER). I saw signs informing us that Petrified Forest National Park was coming up, and to tune into some AM radio station. I did, because I had nothing better going on in my life at that moment, and I listened to someone extolling all that The Petrified Forest National Park (PFNP from now on) had to offer. A 2-minute sound byte on repeat.

Honestly… I had never heard about it. I had no idea what was there. It sounded mildly interesting on the radio. I was tired of driving and we did have our National Park Pass that we purchased at the Grand Canyon and hadn’t used since. But I wasn’t interested enough to call Kevin to ask him if we could detour, since he had the much more stressful job of towing a 30-foot 5th wheel. I was just there for moral support, not to get in the way.

When Kevin turned on his blinker to take the exit, though, I was stoked. I love adventures! It was like he read my mind! Or he just knows me really well.

Thankfully, PFNP had a well-designed parking lot that had RV parking in the back that we easily pulled into. It was almost empty, but it was also 9:30am on a Thursday. We moved the dog from the back of my car into the trailer, gave him breakfast, water, and cracked a few windows and headed into the ranger station to see what there was to see.

The answer, in short, is a lot.

 

Who knew? Not me. I mean, I didn’t learn about this place in school. It’s just not super-well known to anyone outside of the Southwest, or outside of the Paleontology world.

There is so much history here- so much significant history- that I can’t possibly go over it all. There is a 30-minute video at the visitor center that we watched, and I couldn’t even retain it all to tell you. Here are a few highlights of what I remember:

This park is historically, archaeologically, geologically, and palentologically significant:

• Historically significant sites include The Painted Desert Inn (where we stopped and spent a good hour and a half) and the Route 66 Alignment (where I also insisted on stopping).
• Archaeologically significant sites inside the park include: the Agate House, which was built by Ancestral Puebloan people, made entirely of petrified wood; Newspaper Rock, which is a giant rock with more than 650 petroglyphs carved into it; and Puerco Pueblo, which are partially excavated ancient ruins.
• Geologically significant sites in the park include Blue Mesa; the Painted Desert; and Rainbow, Jasper, and Crystal Forests. We only had time to see the Painted Desert and Blue Mesa.
• Palentologically, the park has a collection of over 300,000 specimens of fossils and prehistoric tools and pottery. It’s one of the biggest sections of Triassic-aged rock anywhere. They joke that the park should have been named “Triassic Park.” This is one of the only National Parks that is open to continued research from palentology departments of colleges and universities from across the country. Fossils are still actively being uncovered year-round in the park.

A giant fossil- a piece of petrified wood. There used to be thousands and thousands of these throughout the park, but sadly, tourists over the last century have been taking them home as souvenirs, leaving only a handful scattered around the park. Because of this, the National Park System has started the Vanishing Treasures Initiative, making it illegal to remove items (like petrified wood) from National Parks. And they’re serious, too. We had our car checked by a ranger on out way out of the park. 

The ranger gave us a map (a very large map), and pointed out the highlights. There were like 15 “Not To Be Missed” highlights, out of 20+ Points of Interest. Because of time restraints, we had to settle on 3 or 4. Sad face.

Seriously, guys, make sure you have PLENTY of time here.

We hopped in the car and drove to the first viewpoint, Tiponi Point.

Painted Desert from Tiponi Point.

I couldn’t help myself; I immediately started comparing PFNP to Grand Canyon National Park. Obviously, it’s like comparing apples to oranges. You can’t compare anything to the Grand Canyon because there is nothing else like it.

But, there is also nothing else like the Painted Desert.

And in terms of breathtaking views and a feeling of wonder at this vast, diverse, and beautiful country we live in?

Same.

The same feeling. The same thoughts.

Next stop on the docket: Painted Desert Inn. In the 1920’s, it was a tourist destination. The entire inn was made of petrified wood. In the 1930’s the CCC renovated it using adobe. It is a museum now, but it is definitely worth it to stop by.

 

(I really really like to photograph architecture. And for some reason WordPress wont let me caption a collage. Hence the parenthesis.)

Handmade stained glass skylight from the 1920’s by Hopi artists. Beautiful. 

Once we had explored the Inn, we hopped back into the car and continued on to our next point, the Route 66 Alignment. This was a must-see for me, because I have a huge fascination with Route 66. I have Route 66 memorabilia and artwork that I had displayed in my house before we downsized to a 5th wheel. To me, the Mother Road is just so representative of classic Americana.

While historic Route 66 is still drive-able in some areas, there are other spots, like in PFNP, where it is nothing but clues of what used to exist:

Evidence that there was once a road there…

And this rusted-out shell of a Studebaker. Watch out for rattlesnakes. 😉

At this point we were running short on time and starting to get anxious to get back on the road. The goal was to make it to Albuquerque that day, so we still had a few more hours of driving ahead of us. Had I known how awesome this place was, I would have definitely made this it’s own destination for at least a full day, but probably 2 or 3.

We looked at the map and the remaining 20 points of interest we had to choose from, and we settled on Blue Mesa.

I took this photo out of the car window as we were heading into Blue Mesa. Our first sighting of the iconic blue rock. 

The Blue Mesa badlands, as they are called, are between 220-225 million years old, and the rocks are a mix of blue, purple, gray and green mudstone. There is a paved trail that takes you down into the badlands so you can be immersed in the rock formations. This was the most visually stunning hike I have ever been on, and I tried so hard to capture it in photos, but there are some things (okay, most things) that are just better experienced in person.

We made the mistake of not bringing the hiking backpack for Caleb. Since there were some steep cliffs, he rode most of the way on Dad’s shoulders. We didn’t anticipate hiking that day, but it was not something we were willing to miss. 

Jaid checking out the views.

Stunning backdrop. I don’t even know how to convey what it was like to be inside the Blue Mesa. 

Looking down into the badlands, you can see some hikers ahead of us on the trail. 

It was like being on another planet. Definitely an “otherworldly” experience. I so badly want to go again. I want to spend a few full days exploring the entire park.

While I am a believer that the best way to experience a location is on foot, this park is very accessible by vehicle. You can drive to every single viewpoint and attraction. I would strongly recommend packing a lunch, drinks, and snacks. There were plenty of places to picnic but no restaurants that we saw.

Even though we have technically already visited this park, Kevin and I have added a repeat visit to our Bucket List, just to see the park in it’s entirety. Visiting the Petrified Forest National Park really ought to be on everyone’s Bucket List. It’s just so freaking diverse that one area is nothing at all like another area.

Of course, Jaidyn got her Junior Ranger Badge at this park, too.