Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Summer 2009 travel itinerary (Not set in concrete!!)

This is the planned itinerary for our Colorado trip this summer. Most everything in this itinerary is subject to change. Once we arrive in an area we learn about interesting places to visit which we hadn't thought about, or knew about before we got there. So we change our plans on the fly.

Some RV'ers idea of perfect trip is having camping reservations for every place they visit and every day of their trip. Others, like us, are about the total opposite. We almost never make reservations because are we never sure where we will be on a specific date. The times we may make reservations are on major holidays, like Fouth of July, or Labor Day weekends. Campgrounds and RV Parks generally fill up on these holidays.

Al always does a lot of internet research to decide what to see and what to do in the area we have decided to visit. The result of that research is the general plan for this summer.

First off, we plan on leaving San Antonio, June 14th and should take about 5 days to reach the mountains NW of Colorado Springs, near the town of Woodland Park.

Map of route from San Antonio to Woodland Park, about 900 miles.

A map of the area of we plan on staying in until shortly after July 4th. All the black triangles are National Forest campgrounds.

After July 4th we plan on heading to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). We will probably spend 2-3 weeks in the RMNP area. Part of our stay will be on the east side of the park and the remainder on the west side of the park. Most likely in the area of Grand Lake and Granby Lake.

Link to RMNP web site:
http://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm

Link to Map of RMNP:
http://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/upload/detailedmap.pdf

The RMNP newspaper has lots of good info about the park.
http://www.nps.gov/romo/parknews/newspaper.htm

Most, if not all the National Parks have a similar newspaper.

From the latter part of of July to mid August we plan on moving to the White Mountain National Forest area west of RNMP, east of Meeker, south of Hwy 40 and north of IH70.


From mid August to mid September we will probably be in the area south of IH70 and north of Hwy 50.


From mid September though the first few days of October we plan on being in the high mountains around Crested Butte, Colorado.

We are hoping that the quaking aspen trees will be well into their fall colors before we start back to San Antonio.


The above picture is from Len's Travels Blog:
http://www.mytripjournal.com/travel-397854-ohio-pass-road-fall-colors-moab-time-beautiful


Go to Len's blog for a lot more pictures of the fall colors.

We are going to take Ehren to the Folklife Festival, Saturday, June 13th. I'll post a quick update with pictures on our way to Colorado. We plan on leaving for Colorado, Sunday, June 14th.

Until later.

Al & Sharon.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Fall, Winter and Spring with Family in Texas

September 12, 2008, after our wonderful 5 ½ month trip to the Northeast US and the Canadian Atlantic Provences of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, we arrived at Sarita’s house in Lewisville for a three week visit. We get to park in Sarita’s back yard and use her electric free of charge. We do pay for our parking place by completing a list of “Mommy Do’s” and “Daddy Do’s” We had a nice visit and accomplished most of the “Do’s”.



On to San Antonio in time for Nate’s first birthday!



The remainder of the post is mostly pictures of the boys taken during our stay the last few months.



Nate’s birthday:


Daddy helping Nate open his presents


Enough of this opening presents, I want to go play!


Nate is ready to tear into his cake. See the two hands holding him back!


A special cake had been made just for Nate so he could use his hands to eat it “all by himself”



On to Holloween:


The boys went Trick or Treating as the Mario and Wario video game characters


Nate as Mario(sorry about the grainy picture)


And Ehren as Wario




And then there was Christmas:




Followed by Easter:


Nate found an Easter egg


Ehren takes a break from finding Easter eggs to open one and eat the candy inside.



Several times the boys (and Mom & Dad) came to the RV Park we stayed at and we all swam in the pool.



Ehren, Sarita & Nate


A little horseplay between Al & Brett in the pool


Ehren taking a big jump to Daddy


Daddy throwing Ehren to Grandpa


Nate jumped to Mommy



And a few more pictures:


I just finished a good peanut butter sandwich



Four years old going on fourteen!!



Am I cool or what!!




Is this a good looking family or what! And that is an unbiased opinion!!



That's it for now. We leave for the high country in Colorado, June 13th or 14th.

Until later.

Al & Sharon