Hi Everyone
Here is what has been happening on our American Adventure.
Sandra’s stepfather died just after Christmas. He had been sick for a while. Sandra went back to NZ for a short trip to support her mother and left Raymond in charge. It was the first time he had looked after the children for more than 2 nights by himself. He did a great job and they only ate out once. She managed to catch with some people and spend some quality time with her mother.
While there her brother’s girlfriend Anna had a dinner at the Theatre Royal. It was amazing night where we ate on the stage and there was an 18 piece band.
The picture shows Sandra’s mother, Sandra, Mark and Anna.
We managed to see some things around Colorado towards the end of the year. Autumn or Fall is a pretty time of year in the mountains. The aspens turn an amazing yellow as you can see from the photo. We also went to see the Molly Brown house. She was famous for helping to save people on the Titanic. The film called “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” staring Debbie Reynolds was about her and she was played by Kathy Bates in the 1997 “Titanic” movie. Her house is great example of a Victorian house in Denver.
I am not sure if we have mentioned there is a mountain pine beetle that is killing a lot of the pine trees though the Rocky Mountains. Large areas of the forest now have dead trees and it will take years before the forest regenerates. Part of the problem is that large areas were felled all at once and forest fires were not left to burn so a lot of the trees are older and so are easily killed by the beetle. This picture was taken near Lake Granby. Almost 100% of the pine trees in the picture have been killed by the beetle. Most of the green in the picture is from Aspen trees which are not affected by the beetle.
The male members of the family are still into boy scouts.
Michael has been helping out at Cub troop most of the school year and has had fun organising games.
Michael and Raymond have been enjoying camping in the winter and have been on several snow camps and some where the weather was pleasant. Both have had to get special clothing to wear as you can see.
The photos show Michael cooking a hot dog and keeping warm.
On one snow camp another scout troop built a ‘quinzee’ which is a hut made by piling snow into a heap then hollowing it out. It was quite spacious inside when we checked it out the next morning. The inside of the quinzee was surprisingly large with room for three adults to sleep.
Raymond has also been on snow shoeing trips up to 7.5 miles in length and at altitudes ranging from 10,300 to 12,000 feet.
Elizabeth is doing really well in 6th grade. She was on the Principal’s role for the first two trimesters gaining 6 A’s and 1 B the first trimester and all A’s the second. Michael has also done well in both trimesters but struggles with organization which has affected his marks. He was on the Counsellor’s role for the second trimester gaining mostly A’s. He has had some testing at school and has been placed in the TAG (talented and gifted) program. We are still finding out what this means. We have asked that Elizabeth also be tested.
They both enjoy playing the flute and have joined a school band. We have bought a second flute on eBay as they have been sharing up till now.
Another New Zealand family have settled in Colorado, Justin, Vania and Harley who is 22 months old. Elizabeth loves Harley and looks after her when they visit. Justin works in Trimble Survey and they have moved here permanently. We have been spending some holidays with them. We had Thanksgiving at our house. Sandra had fun making turkey decorations for the table. The sign on the turkey says “eat cheese”
Christmas Day was spent at Justin and Vania’s where we had lamb roast. Unfortunately it was Australian lamb. For dessert we had pavlova, a chocolate nut pie and Christmas pudding ice cream. Some other New Zealanders from Trimble were also there.
Sandra has enjoyed having someone to go shopping with and she and Vania are going to the Mall of America this month. The mall is in Minnesota, has 520 shops and is 4.2 million square feet (390180 m2). It takes days to go around it.
Travel News
Utah
Before Thanksgiving (November 2008) we headed to Utah again. We had gone there the same time the year before but this time we headed for the western side of the state. It is a state we really recommend because of the amazing landscapes. We tried to see as much as we could and managed to go to six National Parks or Monuments in 4 days.
The first park we headed to was Zion National Park and we spent a whole day driving around the park and going on beautiful walk a long a river at the head of the canyon.
The Three Patriarchs – Zion NP River Walk – Head of Zion Canyon
The next park, Cedar Peaks National Monument, we were very lucky to see as it snowed the day after we visited and the park was then closed for the winter. It is high up along the ridge of a mountain. The elements have eroded the rocks and the layers really stand out.
Two overlook views of Cedar Peaks National Monument
The next day saw us at Bryce National Park which is also along a ridge. Raymond made the family go down a path into the canyon where we got some amazing views. Sandra moaned all the way up the 500 feet climb back up. She doesn’t like walking up hills.
Walking amongst the HooDoos in Bryce Canyon NP Bryce Canyon NP overlook
On the way back to Superior we called into Capital Reef National Park. The rocks here as well as being red have layers of green caused by iron oxidising. It was interesting also for a settlement there where orchards had been set up.
The photos don’t really show how different and amazing the parks in Utah are. Most have wonderful shades of red rock that the elements have carved into unique shapes.
Part of Capitol Reef NP
Texas
Just after Christmas we headed down south to Texas stopping in the south of New Mexico on the way down. For Christmas the children got a portable DVD player each which made the trip more enjoyable for them. Texas is very big and it took us two days to get home.
We stayed the first night at Roswell which is famous for Aliens which were present in the town as you can see from the photos below. There was a whole section of Wal-Mart devoted to alien souvenirs and an interesting vending machine. From what we saw even aliens celebrate Christmas!
The reason we were in New Mexico was to see Carlsbad Caverns National Park. In the caves acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America. The nation's deepest limestone cave at 1,567 feet (478 m), Carlsbad Caverns is also its fourth-longest. It has one of the world's largest underground chambers (nearly ten acres) with parts of the cavern over 400 feet high and countless formations within it.
We spent most of a day down in the caverns seeing the amazing rock formations. Unfortunately our photographs don’t capture them very well. At the mouth of the caves at sunset in summer thousands of bats come out to feed. Unfortunately we missed that.
The second national park we visited was Big Bend NP which is on the Mexican border. The photo above on the right has the Rio Grande River at the base of the hills and going through the canyon which forms this part of the border. There is a problem with illegal Mexicans getting across here and there are check points some distance back from the border to catch them. We were very lucky to have our passports when we were stopped!
The other picture shows a butte in the park.
The hotel that we stayed at near the Big Bend had an interesting machine that made Texas shaped waffles.
We spent New Years in San Antonio and saw fireworks from our hotel. While there we visited some Spanish missions and the famous Alamo. The Alamo was very busy as it was New Years Day but the city was dead. A 24 hr McDonalds was shut!
We went from San Antonio to Dallas stopping in Austin to visit the State Capital Building. It was the first Capital building we have been in and we were very impressed with the architecture. There was a painting of George W Bush who was the governor and also one of his father.
We stayed in Dallas for two nights. We went to the centre of the city where JFK was shot. If you look closely to the right of Michael’s shoulder you can see a white cross on the road marking the spot. The other picture is of the JFK memorial which we didn’t really like as it was so plain. There was no information about him and only his name on the black raised stone in the middle of it.
While in Dallas we went to the Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse which serves BBQ meats. BBQ here is smoked and NZ BBQ is called grilling in the US. It was an appropriate place to go as it was a couple of days after Sandra’s stepfathers funeral whose nickname was Sonny. He would have approved of it as it sold meat, potato and veg. He disliked rice and pasta. Raymond’s plate, far left, had seven different meats on it.
One thing that did impress us in Texas and especially in Dallas was the motorway intersections which were very complicated.
Before our trip to Texas we bought a GPS car navigation unit which was helpful once we got used to the instructions. It did take us to one or two places that weren’t there but over all it saved time and we would recommend using one when travelling here. It talks to us in an English accent.
In our travels so far we have been to 14 states (one we just drove through) and 26 National Parks or Monuments. The parks and monuments are similar but the parks have more restrictions on what you can do in them and they have to go through congress before being declared National Parks. The National Monuments just have to be recommended by a president.
We are trying to make the most of our time here and have just visited New York which will be in the next newsletter. The night that school finishes for the school year we are off to England for 24 days. It will be great to catch up with friends there and show Michael where he was born in Northampton. At the moment we are learning about English history and architecture. There are lots of places we would like to visit here but are running out of time. Friends here are impressed and jealous at all we have seen so far.
We will be back in New Zealand in January which is a little scary. We will have to get the children enrolled in schools, buy a new house and sort out the stuff we have in storage.
I am sorry this newsletter is so long and has taken so long to write but we hope you enjoy it.
Love Sandra, Raymond, Michael and Elizabeth
