House in Taos

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Geo: 36.4072, -105.573

85-96 degrees and sunny
214 miles
3 hours and 34 minutes
3 Rootbeer floats
2 US Air force security checkpoints
10 hungry giraffes
1 zoo

Another fun and tiring day. We boogied out early to go to the Cheyenne zoo on the mountain side. Pretty unique...and tiring. The zoo is built into the side of the mountain so you have to climb hills to get to different vantage points and exhibits. I was still feeling light headed and climbing doesn't help your oxygen intake. Paul's hiccups never came back. This zoo lets you really get up close to the animals. The kids liked it. The giraffe's are always cool and these were super friendly. Or hungry. We love the Battlecreek Zoo for the African Encounter where you can feed the giraffes. This was similar in that you were free to hang with the giraffes as long as you want and touch them and feed them. They are so beautiful. We saw most of the animals. As the temperature rose, we got tired and hot. We also wanted to get to the Air force Academy before we left town.

Next stop, the Air force Academy. I heard a lot of good things about it and Paul has always wanted to go there. Our first attempt to get through security was thwarted by the fact that Paul had to actually have a military ID to get in. Jeff or Cody, we needed you. They turned us around and directed us to the visitor entrance a few miles away. Duh. At the visitor center we saw a brief movie about the first year of a freshman at the Academy. My kids were like, "Hella NO!" No the didn't say it like that. Though Ben would like to. It is not for the faint of heart or a momma's boy. It's no joke. I have a new found respect for my nephew who just graduated from Tulane and was commissioned as an officer into the marines because he started in ROTC when he was in high school and busted it out all these years and if it was anything like what I saw in the movie...well done. Proud of him. The campus is neat. There are students marching around in formation, exhibits and he chapel is amazing. It is a Chapel for many denominations. The top floor is Protestant. Below is Catholic and in the back behind that is Muslim. It is worth a visit. See the movie before you see everything else. You'll have a better idea of what is going on.

 Then on to Taos. On the way we ended up behind this big truck with a smell of poonse so bad like dead bodies. For real. Ben smells it and says, "did someone gas? (Pause) please do!!" We all started laughing. A fully loaded toot would smell better.

The weather all day was great. We knew there were some storms moving through Colorado Springs in the late afternoon. We headed out around 2. I have been using a cool app called Weather Bug. I used it in my classroom many years ago but it's come a long way with mobile tracking. It knows where I am and can tell me what is going on around me. Click a button and it will show me where all the lightening is around me. Since I know the weather on our route this year has been plagued with some crazy weather over the past few weeks, I have been keeping an eye out for bad weather. As I've said in earlier posts, we have been dodging weather left and right. Once again today, we slipped between storms. As we left CS, a storm moved through and stretched to the west moving east along our route to Taos. Somehow, by its angle and the curves of the road, we missed weather all around us. At a couple points, we were in between two storms driving in the sun. So weird.  

We are in Taos now. Our house is beautiful and such a New Mexico feel. It is a whole different world here. You could almost swear you were in Mexico. A bit of a relief to know you are still in the US. 
We have a 3 bedroom, 4 bath house with a hot tub. The kids like the hot tub. It is nice to be in a house. We had dinner in town at Kyote. The food was great. A lot of it was New Mexican American fusion. We ordered everything and filled the table. We had gazpacho, enchiladas, parmesan polenta fries with romesco sauce, Chips and salsas, Pork Posole, Colorade flatiron in green peppercorn sauce and a special with sausage and wild rice. The kids ate everything. They have been great at trying new things on this trip. Paul and I love to eat and eat adventurously. We want our kids to as well. We got some groceries and now lights out. 
Can't wait to see the light of day and xplore a little tomorrow. Buenos Noches mi amigos y mi familia. 

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Comments

[Gramps]

Wow! That house is gorgilicious!