Albuquerque

We let the kids sleep in a little today although the boys' room was up at 7:00 for the free breakfast. Some of the girls, on the other hand, almost missed breakfast completely and they were serving until 10:30! After breakfast we slipped into our swimming suits and enjoyed the outdoor pool by ourselves for a couple of hours. The water was warm and the Dog Walker brought out all of his water toys for the kids to play with. We had several races swimming from one end of the pool to the other. When the sun finally peaked about noon and our secluded pool was no longer in the shade, we headed upstairs to change.

We loaded the kids in the van and hit the road. My sweetie found the Unser Racing Museum on one of the little cards in the hotel lobby and he was so excited to show it to the kids! It truly was a treasure. We only had to pay for the adults to get in, and it was amazing how many trophies and cars had been collected by the Unser family. The kids loved the interactive area and some of them even drove the simulator. My sweetie was fascinated by the racers and I was totally impressed by a mother who still supported her sons in such a dangerous sport even after losing one and a brother-in-law on the track.

After we left the museum we grabbed lunch from the cooler and headed for the Albuquerque LDS temple. It was on the way to our next destination, Santa Fe. When we arrived, we took some pictures by the fountain in the totally empty parking lot. Obviously the temple was closed for the 4th of July festivities. It took us about an hour after that to get to downtown Santa Fe. The architecture was wonderful, but most things were closed for the holiday so we just drove around for a while until we ended up at a Target in the suburbs. The kids loved buying a couple of games for the hotel room and we grabbed some hot dogs and chips for dinner. We have tried to be so careful with money on this trip! We have only eaten one meal out and that was at McDonalds last night.

We had originally planned to join the masses at the huge celebration at the Balloon Fiesta
Park, but the lines were so long we decided we would just pass. We did get fireworks and a concert last week for the Taylorsville Dayzz festival so we just drove on by the exit and headed for the hotel. (We did end up watching fireworks from our hotel room window, so that was a bonus.)

Is anyone looking at the camera?

When we got back to Albuquerque, I quickly cooked all the hot dogs in the microwave and cut up a watermelon we brought from Utah. After eating, the kids drifted back to their rooms to play the new games and I sat down to help the Dog Walker with a little homework. He is still reading to me from his Archaeology book while I am writing this post for you. My sweetie sacked out an hour ago.

Tomorrow we are heading for Phoenix. I have never been there before either. So far we haven't had extremely high temperatures but I am expecting them there. My sweetie has a silly digital thermometer and he is constantly pulling the trigger and announcing how hot the van is or the cement is or somebody's nose is... at least he's having fun.

Talk to you tomorrow from Phoenix.