Mom, do you have a bucket?

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We spent last night in Silver City, the biggest city relatively near to Gila Cliff Dwellings. Jeff and the boys had a big breakfast at Holiday Inn Express and we headed off the forty-four miles to the monument. We should have worried a bit when the sign said "travel time two hours," but we've done worse. About 1/4 of the way in, Liam asked the title question. Since the answer was no, he puked all over himself and his car seat (fortunately not all over everything). I was able to find his tray which served as a bucket for the next few times. Did I mention we were on a narrow windy mountain road with no shoulder? By the way, he had sausage, eggs and cranberry juice for breakfast, among other things.

We made it to Gila in less than 2 hours, even with a stop to clean him up. He felt fine, so we took the mile long walk to the cliff dwellings. The weather was perfect, the boys very well behaved. I was glad about the latter since we were walking on narrow paths with a poor alternative. Liam danced much of the way up and down the trail and asked the volunteer Susan many questions. The volunteers were fabulous, by the way--very knowledgeable, kind. We saw a couple more lizards, took some great pictures.

We took an alternative route out of Gila which worked much better. Our first stop east was at White Sands Missile Range, which has a missile park. We saw many different missiles, including Honest John, Patriot, Redstone, Dart, Sidewinder. I'm not posting pictures just in case I didn't follow the guard's directions to the letter. Jeff and I were very impressed that they test launch some of them from Utah and Idaho. Does anyone really wonder why my boys like guns and all things military?

Our final stop was White Sands National Monument. The sky was bad, so there wasn't a lot of contrast. It didn't really matter to the boys, because they had a blast. Cole's favorite part was dumping sand on Liam. Liam's, I think, was rolling down the dunes. We could've spent a lot more time if it wasn't evening.

One last gross note: we ate supper at Chili's. Liam and Cole did really well. Liam had mandarin oranges, chocolate milk and mac and cheese. He told us he needed to use the bathroom and then told us his tummy hurt. We asked if he needed to puke, but he told us he didn't. Once we got to the car, though, he changed his mind and puked all over their parking lot. And then he felt fine. I wonder what we should do about feeding him tomorrow.

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Photos

Gila Cliff Dwellings Nat'l Monument
a crevice spiny lizard

White Sands Nat'l Monument
Liam and Cole had so much fun playing in the sand