The Terrified Timber

The first big stop on our journey to Arizona was at Petrified Forest National Park. I'd heard of it, but never thought much about it until I saw it happened to be on the way anyway, so of course we stopped. We were impressed. It wasn't an overly large park, but there were a lot of cool things to see and check out. Apparently, quite some time ago, there was a big forest in this now desolate part of the world. These once massive trees fell to the ground, were buried by the water and dirt, and somehow that I don't fully understand, turned to stone. It was almost unreal, because it literally looked like ancient loggers had been there, cutting down trees, sawing them in chunks, and sometimes scattering pieces about. Parts of it looked like there had been a giant wood chipper sending chunks of rocky wood all over the otherwise smooth, sandy landscape. We took a few short hikes and drove through the whole park. They made sure to tell everyone that it's illegal to take any of the wood, because it was definitely tempting. Back in the day, people apparently used to haul it all off, but the National Park was created to protect it from that. But there's so much of it in the surrounding areas that we were able to find a pretty big petrified wood store outside the park and bought some souvenir, uh, rocks... for ourselves. The pictures online don't do this place justice... check it out:

This old car and some telephone poles is all that remains of the once fabled Route 66 that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, passing right through the park. Tourists used to roll through Arizona in cars like this... I'll bet it was hot in the summertime without AC. The weather was perfect for us... even after it rained and snowed on the drive up.

Kind of hard to see here, but the dunes were often blue and almost purple in color.

Looks like you could throw it in your campfire... not sure it'd burn though.

 

 

A Long Drive to El Paso...

Spring Break finally arrived! We had been planning out a journey to the Grand Canyon for a while, and the middle of March seemed like an opportune time. The boys got the week off from school, I took off from work, and we all took off on the long drive north. Any drive out of Texas is a long drive though. It took us all of the first day just to get to El Paso. We'd never been that far west in Texas before, so it was all new sites and sounds for us. El Paso sits directly on the U.S. and Mexico border, so rolling into town you can see the river and Cuidado Juarez on the other side. We actually stayed a little farther up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but we stopped in El Paso for a few minutes and checked out this state park in the Franklin Mountains. Called the Wyler Aerial Tramway, the park had a gondola that took you to the top of Ranger Peak with a great view of the city, Mexico, and three states. It was significantly colder at the top than at the bottom and the winds were a bit high, but it was a cool view of the sunset.

 

Around and About

Things have been going on around here, so I have plenty of photos to post. First off, March came in with a new baseball season and two of the boys decked out in full gear, ready for action. I decided to coach Adam's team, as this will be his last season in coach-pitch before he moves up with the bigger kids again. Nolan is in full T-Ball mode... but unfortunately, he's a member of the Red Sox. Poor kid. But he's having fun nonetheless. Here they are:

We also got to check out the replica Vietnam Memorial that came into town this month. We've seen the real one in DC, but this one is a pretty spot-on model, and much larger than we expected.

And both of these two performed at the school. Adam sang along with his classmates and Paul played in the Ukulele club - here sporting the required Hawaiian uniform - which is also, coincidentally, typical March attire in Corpus Christi.

Paul also won the Science Fair for all of Fifth Grade at his school. This photo was a while back, but he's gearing up for the district round coming up next week!

Adam was Student of the Month again this year. Three years running!

And when it comes to school stuff, Nolan is enjoying his last year of freedom, hanging out with Dexter, Farrah, and mom! Definitely growing too fast...

Don't Jump in the Lake

A couple of weeks ago, the oldest and youngest boy came along for a Cub Scout campout at Lake Corpus Christi. Adam was still recovering from a week off of school with the flu, so he didn't make it this time unfortunately. The lake is about a 30 minute drive from Corpus Christi and serves as the primary water source for the city. In times of drought (which seems to be often) they're always worried about the lake's current level and putting restrictions on watering lawns - which isn't as bad as when one of the local industrial plants pollutes the water and causes a week-long water boil. But right now, the lake seems to be at full capacity and filled with fresh water. We went up on a beautiful Saturday, which was actually almost summer-like. I broke a sweat setting up the tent in February. The evening was perfect, with an impressive sunset over the water, and the kids enjoyed hanging out with all the other scouts and wreaking havoc on the other peace seeking campers. However, sometime after midnight, winter returned in full force. The wind was ripping off the water and trying to blow our tent away and bringing some light rain with it. It made for a slightly miserable morning, but we still survived.

Not sure if there are any gators in there...

The storm is coming!!

Trying to stay warm in the morning... might have been smart to pack something other than shorts.

Sunny Winter Beach Weather

As I mentioned in the last post, if you're coming down to Corpus Christi in the winter, the beach is likely your destination. It does get cold, but not compared to most places, and the the water was even still warm enough to get in. The boys, as always, don't let South Texas "winter" keep them out of the gulf waters:

 

Nolan's got Disco Fever apparently...