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.
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. 🙂
March 23rd, I went to a national park. I did a junior ranger booklet. Then we went to a talk given by a ranger. He was nice. He talked about bats and the cactus-thingy. He show us a dead bat and a knife made out of a rock and an animal horn. The ranger told us there was a guy, long ago, and he saw a black cloud. He went to discover where it came from and he realized they were bats and he found the cave.
We hiked down into the cave. I felt sort of like a bat going down into the cave. The cave opening was very cool. There were loop-de-loops down through the cave.
Going down into Carlsbad Caverns
There was a big room in the cave. It was very big and the path was twisty. We went in a circle around the big room. We went to part of the big room called Fairyland. It was very small. There was a big stone in the big room. My mom told me it looks like a fat cat and my dad said it looks like a guy. I thought it looks like a rock.
At the City Museum it was really fun. I felt so great when we got there and I thought it was just going to be papers that you have to read, but it actually wasn’t. It was really cool. There was a ten story slide, but I was too scared to go. So I went down a two story slide with my dad. It went straight all the way to the bottom. There were a lot of spinning things along the slide and you could spin them as you go. It was very very very fun. In a flash I was all the way down. Then I went again.
Halfway Down a Two-Story Slide
We went up stairs and we watched a circus. It was very fun.
There was a big room on the first floor of the museum. There was a big whale. It was a slide and full of tunnels for little people like me and it was very big. There were so many tunnels in the big room. Some were small and some were big. Some were like climbing up tree branches. At the top was a scary part, squeezed between the ceiling and a big wood barrel. I felt like my shoe was going to fall off, and then I finally crossed it. There was a big tank of turtles and big fish in the big room.
My favorite part of the City Museum was the cave. There were lots of holes. I loved going down in the tunnels. I think the cave was made for little people.
March 10th was my dad’s birthday. I was with my granddad, grandmom, my mom, dad, Greta, Stella, and Ellie. We went to Butt Rubb BBQ in Lexington, KY. It was really nice. We did not know that we were going to go to a restaurant with such a funny name. We went there because we wanted some burgoo. My grandfather told us that it was squirrel soup. He is always really funny. I got a BBQ sandwich.
Ice Cream at the Pie Kitchen
Then we went to the Pie Kitchen in Louisville. It took a long time to get there and I took a little snooze. Ellie fell asleep, too. Once we got there I whispered in her ear, “Pie Kitchen.” She woke up and then I got birthday party ice cream. We all sat down at the table and ate our ice cream. It was really fun. Then we went to Grandmom and Granddad’s and went to bed. And now my story is all told.
Yesterday was my first day of school in Iowa. My school is in New Albin, Iowa. We have to take a bus to get there and get back at the end of the day. Me and Ellie’s friend, Nell, takes us to the bus in the morning and the afternoon. Sometimes we might get confused and get on the wrong bus. That’s why she helps us on the first two days.
Lansing and New Albin are towns on the Mississippi River. The river is frozen right now and our camper is winterized since it is so cold and there is lots of snow.
The Frozen Mississippi River
I got to buy lunch in the cafeteria at school. I have never bought lunch before. The lunch is better than the lunch in Atlanta. The lunch in Atlanta was like hot dogs and fries, but the school lunch here is better than hot dogs and french fries at my old school because hot dogs and french fries are bad for you. We have lettuce and french salad dressing and we have hamburger thingys that were kind of like hamburgers but they were not hamburgers. At our Iowa school we get to go for seconds.
I met a friend named Regan. My teacher is very very nice. She lets us get up and get a tissue if we want or do something else. We do some work that is just right for me.
On Thursday (today) school was delayed because it was really foggy outside.
Lots of Fog on the River Today
I was sort of glad that school was delayed so we would have half a day, so soon it would be lunch time. I like lunch time.
We’ll probably be up in Lansing for a couple of weeks, so we will be posting some photos and other things from past vacations and adventures.
So, speaking of us being up in Iowa, we had lots of fun sledding this past winter, December 2010. This is a video of Ana sledding in her cute little blue sled.
We thought it was pretty dang funny when it happened.
There may be more sledding videos coming, so keep your eye out! 🙂
We went on a bike ride in the bayou and we were going to the post office in Ocean Springs. We did not find the post office.
Me on top of the Biloxi Bay Bridge
Then we rode further to the Biloxi Bay Bridge. It was very tall and scary. I thought I was going to fall off the bridge but there was a ramp so no one could fall off the bridge. I made it up the hill without stopping. We stopped at the top of the bridge. I saw the water. And then we went down. We did not go all the way across the bridge to Biloxi because we did not want to go back up the hill for no reason. Because it was so tiring. My legs hurt once I went up the hill.
Monday night, we slept at a campsite in Eufaula, Alabama. The campground was very easy to tell where our camper was. Greta was the one that knew the way around the campground that we slept in and never got lost. Some dogs were chasing us when we rode our bikes by them. That was scary. A wiener dog got loose and started following me. I crashed into Stella and fell down and the dog caught up. It came over to me and then it ran off, over by our camper.
One time Stella went into the bathroom and there was a wasp. It was on the floor. So she went into another stall. The next day she met up with the wasp again.
The next day we rode our bikes into town.
Big White House
Then we stopped at a big white house that looks like the white house that the president lives in.
Yummy BBQ Place
We rode to a BBQ place for lunch. The BBQ was so good I felt like I could get 100 of those BBQ sandwiches.
Then we biked down the hill back to the campground. I was scared of the big trucks. I ran into a pole on a bridge. I also crashed into Stella at the bottom of the hill. Mama taught me how to go across the train tracks without turning your handlebars, because if you turn your handlebars you might get stuck and a train might come and run you over. And then we arrived at the campsite, and then we got in the camper and drove away. We are going to Florida.
We travelled to a campsite but it was closed, so we looked for a Walmart on the way to where we were going and we found one and we slept there. Â It was in Columbus, GA. Â It was very hard to sleep because there were cars going by on the highway and lights were turned on all night in the parking lot.
We slept in a parking lot
My sisters got to see the deer, but I didn’t because I was in the back at the table in the RV. Â My sister Stella told me they were just finished crossing the road. Â She said there were a lot, probably fifteen or more deer.
