The rest of Texas

After New Braunfels, our next stop was the Grand Canyon.  That meant a lot of driving through the desert.  And a lot of stop over RV parks.  Our first was in Texas Hill Country right off the highway.  You had to check in at the Econo Lodge.  We laughed when we saw it, but the kids ended up having a great time playing in the dust, and we saw a lot of spectacular sights on their little nature walk.

Judah got out the binoculars to check out the local wildlife.  I saw a scorpion in the bathroom, so there was definitely wildlife to look for.

Checking the sky...

After all of that driving,we needed to shake out, so we had a dance party to the Ting Tings in the dead grass. 

Mark needed to do some more work on the engine (it is running fine now, btw) so I took the kids into "town" to keep them out of the way.  We found the local fire station and took a picture.  Doesn't he look excited about it?

The next day we checked out the facilities.  They were the creepiest thing I have ever seen.  You could totally film a horror movie in there.

Right?...

After being creeped out by the shower, we went on a nature walk.  It was so beautiful!  We saw deer turtles, and lots of ants. 

"Look mom, ants!"

The trail led to a river. 

Judah found some rocks for Lala.  Unfortunately they would have been a bit too pricey to send to the WB, but we did keep one to use as a door stop (which Sayer now uses to chuck across the RV). 

 
Then we hit the road again.

We stop at a lot of McDonalds, which is funny because at one time I vowed not to let my kids eat McDonalds.  We usually just get an ice cream cone, but that's probably made with beef fat, too.  They are great, though, because they have playlands and wi-fi, so the kids can play while I work.  Plus, they can make friends.

Like I've said before, living in a small space means that you have to clean up a lot more often.  Judah is all about that. He decided we needed to steam vac, but first he had to read the instructions.  Apparently, they were riveting. 

The next night we stayed in West Texas.  The RV park was nice, for being in the middle of a deserted town in the middle of the desert.  There was an abandoned train that Judah got to hang out on and wi-fi for me to work on.  There are not a lot of pictures for a few days because my students turned in their final papers and I had to grade, grade, grade and didn't leave the RV much.

Here is little Bean. The sweetest, fattest little angel, ever. In pictures, anyways.  In reality this child is a TERROR.  He heckles the dogs, dumps over their water, destroys everything Judah is trying to do, punches the computer, tears pages out of my Atlas, chucks things around the RV, pulls on the lamps until they come out of the wall, tries to release the parking break when we stop, screws with the switches and dials.  He is a terror.  I can't remember if this is a Saywer thing, or if this is just what 14 months feels like.  I almost let him run off with a pack of wild dogs here, but then who would I nurse to sleep 15 times a night?

Here we are driving through El Paso.  On the left you could see Mexico and the border fence.  It was pretty exciting.  Even more exciting, though, for me, was coming to the end of our Texas journey.  I was ready for a change. Minutes from this picture we were in New Mexico!