4 Wheels 4 Girls

We all have to pull our weight on this trip, and sometimes the work required is not so fun. But everyone chips in to help clean, cook, fold the laundry, maintain the bikes, hookup and breakdown at campgrounds, etc. One of the dreaded, endless jobs is doing the dishes after every meal in our little, dishwasher-less galley. But, everyone takes a turn and that makes the job a lot less cumbersome.

Here is Ana at the sink, doing the dishes all by herself for the first time. She looks like she might even be enjoying herself.

Ana doing the dishes by herself

You’re probably thinking, What the heck does that mean? Well, can you guess? I couldn’t.
Asah Gweh Oou-o is the Native American name for Eagle View, which was the awesome campground we stayed at for two days and two nights with only Dad. You might be thinking I had a terrible time, but it was actually great with only Dad. He was so fun- he hauled himself over to the pool, because we weren’t allowed in there without someone over the age of 16. I felt really bad dragging him to the pool, both days, when we were supposed to be spending time with him. He brought his computer and worked in the shade under a gazebo-like-thing in a chair with rubber straps where you sit and stretch your legs out. He looked pretty comfortable to me, so I started to felt less guilty.

I had so much fun in the nice, heated pool, where I could do front and backflips, where I could be free and have fun, even if I looked dumb sometimes. But what really made me feel good was making new friends and having fun with them. My sisters and I did relay races with our new friend, Sarah, and taught each other different strokes in swimming. We all had a lot of great laughs at the attempts, and wore ourselves out.

Dad was great with us. Even as we were leaving, and trying to pack up the bikes, he let us ride them around the campground with our friend. As we were biking, Dad took our picture next to a big Saguaro cactus. When you look at this, you can see how big they really are.

You can get a feel for how big the saquaro are

Our time at Eagle View passed too quickly for me. I just had so much fun, it was hard to leave.

On Saturday, March 26, it was a bumpy ride into Saguaro National Park. Our dad told us that the cacti we were looking at were saguaro. We saw huge saguaro standing with arms pointing in all directions. There were mountains covered with saguaro and other types of cactus. The saguaro looked like tall prickly green things with arms. Daddy said the saguaro looked like crowds of people standing around all over the mountains. When you looked at the saguaro closely, you saw lines and lines of prickles and you even saw holes in them. The holes had birds flying in and out of them. A park ranger told us later the birds were cactus wren.

On the ground were prickly pear cactus. All of a sudden, our dad yelled, “There’s a critter by that prickly pear cactus!” We all looked and saw the critter. He was a small and cute rodent, and he ran away quickly.

After driving on the bumpy road for a long time, we finally saw a sign that said “Visitor Center 1 mile.” We all cheered because we had finally made it to our destination. We did the junior ranger program. We watched a short movie about saguaro.

Dad says saguaro teach us to reach high

We went for a walk in the desert and looked for birds. Here are some pictures of us imitating some of the cacti we saw:

Ellie as an Ocotillo

Dad as a Chain-fruit Cholla

Stella as Saguaro. Dad says they teach us good posture, too.

Greta as a Prickly-Pear

At the campground near Chiricahua, they served waffles for breakfast. Once we got to sleep, I was dreaming about waffles. We made our waffles in the morning. I had two waffles and Barb gave me a lot of syrup. She was nice.

In Chiricahua, the first thing I saw was a big rock with a little rock under it, balanced.

Holding up a huge boulder with one hand

After Chiricahua, we drove to a city name Tucson. We ordered a pizza. The pizza took a long time so we went out to see some fire-dancing. There was a boy and a girl. She had a stick of fire and a hula-hoop with fire on it. He had a stick with fire and then he had a rope with fire on it. It was very cool. Our pizza came. It was very yummy. 🙂

On our hike into Chiricahua I had to overcome my fear of heights. When we got on the trail to hike down from the top, I looked over the side and I saw a huge drop. I knew I was not up for this walk. I was scared because I did not like being up high where there was nothing to support you. For a long time, I did not like the hike at all. I knew I couldn’t be scared for the rest of the hike, so I decided I had to stop being scared.

We had lunch at a big rock hanging over the edge. I was really scared but I decided I was going to get up on the rock and look over. When I looked over, it wasn’t that bad. Then we continued our long hike down.

Up high in the grottos along the trail

Hey aren’t you glad I can pronounce that let alone spell it? Haha. On March 25th, we went to this awesome national monument. When we got there we had to get on a whole bunch of hiking gear ’cause we planned to cover a lot of ground in the park. In the visitor center there was a very nice park ranger named Suzanne who taught us a lot about the park AND she got us a ride up to the top of the ridge. When we got there we started to hike down the ridge and look at the spectacular rock formations. We hiked along an easy trail for a while and really enjoyed the beautiful view of the balanced rocks. All the huge rocks looked like statues of Native Americans standing in a big cluster. After about a mile or so we got hungry and stopped for lunch after exploring some really cool rock grottos. We sat on these nice smooth rocks in the shade and enjoyed the view. Here is a picture of Stella and I eating lunch:

Eating lunch on the rocks

After lunch we had food in our bellies, but we still had quite a ways to go; at least a few miles. The hike was nice but soon my sisters started to get tired and the signs were showing. We started to go up a longer steeper hill but we didn’t have a flashlight (it was going to get late) so we decided against it. When we were about halfway back down to the visitor center we stopped for Girl Scout cookies. (yum! 🙂 ) After five miles of hiking we finally made it back, and Ellie and Ana saved the last of their energy to run the last 100 yards. I thought they were insane. We ate another cookie at the bottom.

I forget exactly where we took this, so I’ll just put it in here. Here we are in front of a big balanced rock:

Geez don't you think that rock has to work hard to stay in that position!?

I really liked Chiricahua National Monument! 🙂

We camped in Willcox, Arizona, and in the morning we drove to Chiricahua National Monument. On the way I saw this little drive-in restaurant called Carter’s Drive-In. I decided to take a picture of it for my friend:

You like this, Carter?!

This is for you, Carter. Miss ya! 🙂

White Sands was REALLY cool. We rode into the dunes in our camper and the road was super bumpy. When we got there we tried to find a nice sledding place on the dunes, and when we found one, Ana was very eager to try sledding down the dunes after me. Here is a picture we took of her starting off:

Sledding on the Dunes

After sledding for awhile, we got tired of having sand-filled shoes and we decided to take a barefoot hike. It felt amazing to have the wind blowing on my face and to feel the cold sand on my feet. At one point my parents tried to take a picture of just them, but I snuck in behind them. Can you see me? Look close in the picture below:

See me back there? Hahaha!

After sledding, we went back to the visitor center and met a really nice ranger named Kathy. We was really nice and she seemed to know a lot about the park. She taught us so much and she was kind.

The White Sands national monument was really fun and neat. I enjoyed it almost as much as Carlsbad Caverns! 🙂

Thursday, March 24, we drove to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, prepared for a day of fun.

Well, at least Dad was; I really wasn’t too excited about it. But that all changed when Jean and Dad returned from the visitor center with sleds. And guess what they said? They said we were going sledding on the sand dunes. I brightened up a bit after that.

We all went into the visitor center to get our junior ranger packets. We worked on those and then drove about eight miles into the dunes. We found a place to park where dunes surrounded us, and spotted a tall, steep dune that looked perfect for sledding. We hauled our sleds up the dune, and I realized how hard it is to walk up the sand. If I stepped up two feet, my foot would slide down one. We finally made it to the top.

Greta was the first to sled, so she would make a good path for the rest of us. Sledding was really fun for me, and I went pretty fast, but Ellie, on her first try, spun around backwards and flipped over in the sand. I thought she would chicken out and stop sledding, but surprisingly she kept sledding.

We got tons of sand in our shoes and it was really uncomfortable. We only went on our sleds a couple more times before we abandoned them and went on a long hike, barefoot. We took the compass that one of Dad’s friends gave us for our trip. I spotted a huge dune, and I was sure it was the biggest, but when I made it up to the top, I looked around and discovered I was very wrong. From the top of this one, it looked like all the others were bigger, but I also felt amazing. I spread my arms as the wind whipped my hair back. I was having an awesome time until sand got in my eyes and it stung REAL BAD. It was still fun, though.

Greta and Ana catching up to Me and Ellie on top of a huge dune

When we decided our hike was over, we tried to follow our compass back to the RV. But, we got way off. We made it back to the road we had driven in on, but the RV wasn’t there. Dad asked Ellie and Ana to be scouts, to climb the dune to our left, and see if the RV was on the other side. If the RV wasn’t there, they would come back; if it was, they were supposed to jump up and wave their arms in the air. They came back. And, I started to worry. We all walked over the dune to our right. It wasn’t there, either. So, we continued down the other side, and Ellie and Ana climbed the next dune. No RV in sight. So, we went down to the winding road and followed it back the other way. Four dunes later, Ellie climbed to the top of the next. I waited for her to come back again, but also, I somehow knew this would be when she spotted it. I stared up at her in anticipation as she peaked over the top of the dune and, suddenly, she jumped up and down and swung her arms over her head! I was so excited that I ran up the dune myself, and sprinted down the other side.

We made it back to the visitor center. We finished up our junior ranger packets and turned them in. We had a great time at White Sands National Monument. 🙂

Family, dunes, and the surrounding mountains.

Just a couple more notes:

Along the road to Carlsbad, we stopped for lunch in a very nice little town in SE New Mexico called Artesia. It was striking because there were bronze and iron statues at almost every intersection in the center of the town; of cowboys, horses, cattle, oil workers… It is always fun to stumble upon cool towns as we travel, but Artesia came with a nice surprise: The following day, my Mom mentioned that my Grandfather, Carson, lived with his family in Artesia as a young man.

Carlsbad Caverns was fantastic, unlike any cave I have ever visited. The initial descent was incredible, falling from the natural entrance all the way down to the Big Room hundreds of feet below. The Big Room reminded me of the unending caverns in Arabian fables packed full of gold and jewels, where every turn yields a new treasure to take your breath away. Unfortunately, we missed the bats’ grand exit from the cave at dusk–too early in the Spring for them–so that will have to be our excuse to come back to visit the Caverns again some day.