Tourism by Detours - Capulin Volcano, NM

Now that I've managed to recover most of the vacation photos lost during the unfortunate home invasion and electronics theft, I'm able to pick back up with some of the "off the beaten path" stops along the cross country trip. There are a few things I'll need to dig up other people's photos for, since not everything was recovered, but there's enough to get started.

We're big fans of exploring. Simply going to someplace and back may be fine for some folks, but not this family. We like to scour maps and read the state guides picked up at welcome centers to find interesting stuff along the way. Sometimes, it takes just a roadside marker to pull us off course. When we headed out for the Summer 2009 Road Trip, we had a few specific destinations firmly set:

• The Gateway Arch in St. Louis
• Grandma's house in Alma, NE
• Grandpa's house, Garden of the Gods, and Pike's Peak in Colorado Springs, CO
• Capulin Volcano, NM

That last destination was a roadside marker which screamed interesting stuff during the last trip home from Colorado. We saw the marker for Capulin Volcano just before dusk on a very chilly evening in late December. There was no time to stop then, but it did go down on the mental checklist for our next trip.

This time, we planned for the Volcano and built an extra day or two into the drive home along a southern route (CO-NM-TX-LA-MS-AL-GA).

From Sangres.com:

Capulin Volcano is the cone of a volcano that was last active about 56,000 to 62,000 years ago. This volcano represents the last stage of a great period of volcanism that had begun about 7 million years earlier. Evidence of this activity can be seen in the scores of nearby volcanic hills and peaks. The largest of these is Sierra Grande, an extinct volcano rising some 2,200 feet above the surrounding plain, about 10 miles to the southeast. To the northwest of Capulin are a number of mesas that are capped with lava, the three largest of which are Barela, Raton and Johnson Mesas.

Lava erupted in four flows, each separated by long periods of inactivity. The last series of eruptions created Capulin Volcano, whose conical form rises more than 1,000 feet above its base to 8,182 feet above sea level. The mountain consists chiefly of loose cinders, ash and other rock debris. These materials were spewed out by successive eruptions and fell back on the vent, piling up to form the conical mound. The lava, though, flowed mostly from a boca (spanish for mouth) on the lower west side of the cinder cone.

Sounds pretty darn cool, especially if you have boys who like rocks and a girl who likes to carry a camera. Plus, in keeping with the current fun on a budget that is so important, $5 gets you a pass for the whole family. The pass is good for seven days, but even if you're only using it for one day, it's a heck of a deal for a family of five.

If you wonder whether a location on our official trip plan should really count as a detour, not only was this destination inspired by a roadside marker, we had to wait on two separate occasions along the two lane highway for cows to clear the road. Any travel that can be delayed by livestock automatically counts on my detour destination list. Now...

'Too windy, but really cool' is how the kids would describe it now, but the hike around the rim of the crater and into the center was actually filled with many exclamations of wonder.

• Swarming ladybugs
• Scrub trees that were completely engulfed in silk and blue caterpillars.
• Rounding the top of the crater rim to be smacked by the wind so hard you swayed on your feet.
• The bench with hole and scorch marks from lightning strikes at the top of the rim trail.
• Time Stains (Lichen) - discussion about this tied back into what we'd learned about which colors are edible on the trip up to Pike's Peak.
• The many lizards, too fast to be caught on camera, and
  
• Finding so much color & life, smack in the middle of an ancient volcano in the desert.

Vacation Photos: This year's "awkward" shot

Every year there's one shot taken, usually by the children, that must be immediately deleted. Usually taken at an upward angle. Up the nose, just right for creating a triple or quadruple chin. Mid choke on a bite of food, while in the process of getting up from table, so as to get a photo with the perfect storm combo of closed eyes, open mouth... and a view straight down the bathing suit top. It's always the worst shot of the trip, and it generally seems to be my luck to be dead center.

Not this year. In sorting through the images restored from the deleted memory card, I've managed to recover most of the vacation photos which disappeared when the laptop was stolen. And, in the tradition of shots taken of mom at awkward angles, highlighting my least favorite attributes, here is this year's shot. It was taken at Garden of the Gods, while DD and I were scrambling to get a better look at some of the holes in the rock. Higher up, beyond where we climbed, the birds fly in and out of the many holes in swooshing waves, looping around and back into the nests. There were many parts of the trip which were wonderful, but the mini-adventure with my daughter was definitely a highlight.

I'm going to treasure this photo, expecting next year's crop to be back to normal.

Tourism by Detours

I have a view of vacations which is not always popular with my children. Ask kids where they want to go, and you're bound to get a list of theme parks. Or the kid-themed cruises. Ask my kids, and you'll get some of the same answers. Tough, I say. (Fortunately, I'm backed up on this one.)

I remember going to amusement parks as a kid, but they're sort of a hazy blur. The childhood vacation memories which stuck with me are of digging my toes into the sand along a creek bed. Putting worms on fishing hooks. Toasting marshmallows over the campfire and burning my tongue when I pulled them off the skewers with my teeth. Pouring over maps. Cheeseburgers in diners. Racing to finish a book before we reached our destination, so I'd get a brand new book for the drive back home.

Hoping to instill a sense of adventure in the kids, we don't do theme park vacations. We'll go to Six Flags here in Atlanta, and will bend to a birthday trip request for Sea World or even Universal - which is very affordable when it's just the birthday kid and a parent. But vacations are for getting out and doing something we can't do at home. Spending a week in the mountains of North Carolina on the river, with tubing, hiking and horseback riding. Camping in New Hampshire and swimming (some diving) in the icy waters of Lake Winnipesaukee. Renting a house and spending a couple of weeks exploring (and doing nothing) around Apalachicola Bay.

While we like to go someplace and stay there, the journey is a big part of it. We've seen some truly beautiful sights on the long drives, from a sunset while crossing the Washington Bridge in NY to miles of migrating butterflies in Florida. The long drives usually involve a little bit of time off the interstates, too, giving us plenty of opportunities for detours.

Carlsbad Caverns was one of those detours. A look at the New Mexico map on the way back to Santa Fe from Capulin Volcano - yes, an off-the-beaten path destination on it's own - sparked a discussion of how close we were to Carlsbad. By close, I mean 5-6 hours out of the way, but what's that in the middle of 1,500-1,800 mile trek?

The drive to get to Carlsbad was all highway, and part of it was on the Historic Route 66, which made for some cool "ghost town" driving, and an amazing sunset to our right after we turned south. Drove through Roswell, NM after dark, which gave the children great entertainment... alien head street lamps and a UFO shaped McDonalds. (My photos are missing, so this image is from the livejournal of a fellow named brennando).

And Carlsbad was probably one of the favorite road trip stops of my life. It was wonderful to be sucked into the enchantment with the kids, and to have conversations about not just the science and history of the geological monument, but to weave the fairies and greek gods from our trip audiobooks into the conversation during the miles long walk through the caverns.

The photos from the camera may have been lost, but here's a few of the images taken on the iPhone.



Oh... even the food in the cafeteria by the gift shop was delish. I expected high prices like you find at most tourist stops, but the meals were worth it. They had the typical beef hot dogs you'd expect, but we got bean or chicken burritos in tortillas made with organic flour and FRESH green chili sauce, a spicy pulled pork which is far better than from my favorite mexican spot at home, and a grilled chicken salad on locally grown mixed greens. (No, didn't eat all of those things. I had the burrito, but was sharing across the table.)

Home again!

Took a detour on the way home from Colorado. Spent time in New Mexico and Texas, and took some extra time to wander an hour - or four - off the interstates.

I'm working through the mountain of laundry, restocking the pantry & fridge, and organizing photos. Will begin posting some of our "off the beaten path" gems (to borrow a segment from Slamdunk) in another day or two, along with regular topics. There's the best rootbeer float of my life, delicious BBQ, stunning scenery, cattle roadblocks... and more.

Until then*, here's a snapshot from Pike's Peak. We rode the Cog Railway up to the summit. Went from sunny summer to big old snowbanks in an hour. (iPhone photo, as I'm still sorting the images from the two cameras.)


*To be honest, I'm stalling. Haven't been on a run since the GOTG 10 mile over a week ago. It's been almost three weeks away from the bikes. I'm relying on the 15 year old and the Xbox 360 to keep the younger two busy tomorrow morning, while I go for a two hour ride. Love the children, but need the mental health break.
Will take them swimming or out for a hike after lunch, lest anyone think I'm letting them become complete couch potatoes.

Still on the road, but off the interstates

Now that the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile race is finished, I'm taking some time to save all the photos stored and cameras & iPhone. We're in Colorado for another day or two, then head south into New Mexico before turning east toward home.

We spent a few days in Nebraska and Kansas, without spending a single moment on the interstate. It is lovely country this time of year. Green as far as the eye can see. Much better than our last long visit, in the middle of winter, during heavy snow & wind.

Sunset in Kansas on Monday night (Photos by DD)



Alma, Nebraska - running out the extra energy at park across the street from grandparent's house:

Alma is a wonderful little town. Many people ride bikes to get around, because everything is close and the roads are safe. Kids riding bicycles and walking everywhere. Children swarming over the playground equipment before going to the summer programs at the library. It was wonderful to see whole families walking to the park. It's not something you see in Atlanta. Families at the park, yes. But that's after they've loaded up in the SUV/minivan and driven there.

The multi-use lakeside path which runs the whole length of town made the perfect place to get in some maintenance miles while we were there. Plus, the start was only a block from the house, so no cars were involved in getting there.


Great visit with grandparents and great-grandparents. If not for the upcoming race, we might have stayed another day or two. As it is, we're looking forward to going back out next summer. (And I'm looking forward to leaving the three children with Grandma & Grandpa for a week. But that's next year.)

We're at the other grandparents' now, and are spending a few days doing many touristy type things.

On the road

We're three - or is it four? - days into our cross country trek. The kids are doing great. The drive has been lovely, even when the weather hasn't been so great. Driving with the three of them by myself is not anywhere near as bad as I'd feared. The DVD player isn't going full-time, and there have been long stretches where there isn't a single video game in play. Audiobooks and a license plate spotting app on the iPhone (Spotters) have kept kids far more entertained than I'd imagined.

We're up to 32 states, including one of the two we never thought we'd see. When we were climbing out of the van at the Riverfront parking in Saint Louis the other morning, what should pull up in the opposite space but a suburban with Alaska plates. That was number 20, I think. We hit 25 states before crossing into Kansas, which meant it was time to stop at DQ for blizzards. Next milestone is 40 states, which we'll probably hit by the time we get into Denver.

I have no idea what's going on in the world, but I can discuss in detail the little details which make Artemis Fowl an amazingly fantastic and super cool evil kid genius, along with his progression to amazingly fantastic and super cool not-exactly-evil kid genius. We're listening our way through the first three books of the series, since they were bedtime reading a few years ago. Books four & five were more recent, so we'll be able to skip forward after this to the latest in the series, The Time Paradox.

There's a lot of photos stored on the cards of the two cameras the kids are using to document the trip. Shots from Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas - but I'm just not quite up to getting out all the cables and chargers tonight. These are a few of the shots from the iPhone. I'm on the Dell, so the photos are as-is...

Heading through Tennessee, somewhere north of Nashville. The kid who's a fan of big construction projects and anything to do with cars and motoring loved driving all the miles on roads cut through the rock.

Heading over to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The kids had seen photos, and had heard about it when I read The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson jumps out of the Arch during a fiery battle with a monster from Greek mythology), but the size of the actual thing outdid the image they'd built in their heads. It's been about 30 years since the last time I'd been up in the arch, so it was fun to go as an adult.