The Great Szerminski Adventure

       I’ve just done two blog posts about Universal Studios, and I am happy to move on to something much more recent. I think Mama and Daddy do a great job choosing surprises, because this is... what, my third, fourth blog post on a surprise? I liked this surprise even more than hobbit houses! Actually, I wish I could live I a place like the one we stayed in.        We drove through Taos, New Mexico, where our surprise was located. Earlier that day we had been to Tent Rocks, an interesting rock formation, and been on a nice hike. Everybody was the kind of tired you are when you’ve just had a long drive, and we were glad that we would get to sleep in beds that night. (Miriam and I at least knew that much about the surprise.)        Miriam and I weren’t concentrating on the view outside when we arrived in the place we were staying- we were playing a game in which we made weird faces at each other and tried not to laugh. ...

The girls are planning to write about our last couple of days in New Mexico, and there are other things that have happened since then that the kids want to write about, but Rick and I are going to attempt to fill in some of the blanks...not all of them, of course - there is not enough space or time to tell you about every beautiful hike, sunrise, or funny moment - but here are a couple of highlights from Colorado! Our first day in Colorado (April 5) was spent in Mesa Verde National Park. The drive up to the mesa was fantastic and we were glad to find out that most of the sites were accessible even though it is not the high season. We visited a remarkable number of ruins dating from about 550 - 1300 CE. These included pit houses and pueblos on the top of the mesa, as well as a number of magnificent cliff dwellings (there are 600 or so in total, and we saw around 10). Some of the dwellings were home to 100 or more people and consisted of numerous rooms linked by passages and ladde...

I will take this opportunity to apologize for the long blog dry spell! We have had little or no cell service in the last couple of weeks (in the mountains of Colorado and through much of southeastern Utah) and less access to wifi than we would have wished for. We’ve had just enough signal to stay in (minimal!) touch with our families and do things like pay bills and check urgent emails and phone messages. As a result, you can expect a flurry of posts in the next day or so. The girls are planning to write about our last couple of days in New Mexico, and there are other things that have happened since then that the kids want to write about, but Rick and I are going to attempt to fill in some of the blanks...not all of them, of course - there is not enough space or time to tell you about every beautiful hike, sunrise, or funny moment - but here are a couple of highlights from Colorado Our first day in Colorado (April 5) was spent in Mesa Verde National Park. The drive up to the ...

We visited the following two unique and incredible places that both featured sand: Monahans Sandhills State Park in Texas White Sands National Monument in New Mexico We camped overnight at Monahans - more on that surprise adventure later. Monahans provides snow sleds or discs to rent which we did for Lucy and Miriam. They also provide wax for you to wax your sled with and to feel a bit like Sparky in Christmas Vacation. Below you can see pics of sliding in the sand! Admittedly, when we had first arrived it was dry and the sledding wasn’t very fast. Then we noted that a big bad cloud was moving in. Sure enough a vicious storm passed through which also included hail and a beautiful rainbow after. Each campsite comes with a permanent roof shelter and so our family sat under it to enjoy the storm. Sliding on the wet sand was much faster! Even after the storm passed the strong wind it had brought with it remained. Earlier (before the storm) we had sat in the sand and chatted with an ...