We left this one out......

Here is a video of the kids playing with some clever masks they made.

Trestle Trail

Since the kids and I got rained out a few days ago, Nana and I wanted to complete this trail. It is a tough bugger.
We finally got there and shared the roost with a St Bernard who was two years old and Patchie tried to snip at him.

Beautiful scenery.....









Finally we reached the end of the trail.....

Aww The kids left

After a busy two weeks of hilltop activity the kids went home to P'ville. We are missing their presence around the cabin in these first few days on our own again.

We arrived at the airport at 1400, plenty early for the 1545 flight. We were checked in by 1415 and told the flight was delayed till 1630. :-(

We decided to go to a nearby PPP to while away some time.

Nana tried to sneak a lick of Anna's ice-cream



Patches in the bag











Before we left Nana packed some snacks for the a/c ride


Here we are waiting to board


Airplane taxiing out





Take off...

Rained Out........Almost

For the kids last full day here in Cool Country we thought a nice hike down the Train Trestle Track was on.

We started out and walked to the trail head which is minutes from our rental. Grandad thought he knew better than the signs posted on the track so we took what was supposed to be a shortcut that turned out to be a big loop back to the trail head! Oh well, we started again and found the trail to be a beauty. About 1/2 mile down we heard a monster thunder roll and examined the sky and decided to press on. Only for a few more minutes for the sky was very threatening and the thunder rolls attention getting, so we decided to hurry home.






Then after lunch and two hours of lazing around we decided to go play tennis. Col and I biked the 3/4 mile and Anna and Nana walked. We played for about 2o minutes before the heavens opened and we were soaked. loathe to leave the fun we hesitated just a little to long to pack up and leave. By the time I shuttled everyone home on the bike we were sodden.

But, a great dinner of queso and chips and tacos, followed by the hot tub made our last day here together memorable.

We will miss the kids after they leave. This place will seem too quiet. We are thankful we got them for two full weeks.
We have two more weeks up here in Cloudcroft. I am going to rest up.

Here we go a-spelunking

We went spelunking.....















It was a great day today. After omelettes (Fr. sp.) for breakfast we took long ride through beautiful scenery and we went to Carlsbad N.M.


The kids were great on the trip because we had CDs to watch. They were totally blown away with the caves.




After we got home the kids had nachos for dinner ("Grandad, you make the best nachos"), we were preparing our dinner as they sang this lovely????? melody about telephones.

The World Famous El Paso Zoo and The Cross-eyed Moose

The kids got up really early yesterday and drove 2 hours to the zoo in El Paso. They met with a new friend Nathan and had a few hours of fun looking at the animals and then went once more to Peter Piper Pizza. They have visited three of the 12 PPPs in ELP!

Here's Col eating breakfast before the trip....




Colin, Anna and Nathan on a tiger...


.
Giraffes doing a sexy dance...




And the sea lion show....



The Cross-eyed Moose is where we enjoyed Sunday morning breakfast.

Col ate a monster breakfast. Anna mimicked the moose.








Colin explained how you should pick up a crawdaddy......

Osha Trail Revisited, this time with Grandkids

We have enjoyed this hike many times over the years we spent living in El Paso.

Today we packed a picnic lunch and headed out of town. The trail is a mere 2 minutes drive from the village!

The kids loved it and there were zero complaints and very few yarls. The only low point was when someone dropped half her BBQ sandwich onto the dirty trail. We used the 5 second rule and wiped off the muddy side. Nah, just kidding,

Here it is in pictures and video.

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast this morning was well received. Not only did we have good food but the meal was celebrated by two separate Sonic Booms. Of course, this time we knew what the noise and shake was all about.

Here is a vid of the kids enjoying the meal. We are going on a hike this morning. The route is yet to be decided; we may revisit Osha or we may go to Sunspot where there is an observatory.





And after breakfast the kids played for a while.....



Then we went on our picnic lunch trail walk to Sunspot N.M. -where there are lots of telescopes- but as you will see we got rained/hailed out. But it was fun.

Horseback Riding Adventures

We drove to Ruidoso to Grindstone Stables. On the way we felt and heard a big 'boom-boom' on the side/roof of the car. "What was that?"
Nana said. "Dunno, I didn't see anything" said I........
Turns out that 15 mins later when we arrived at the stables they were talking about the sonic boom which we too had experienced.

Anyway we all got fitted out for horses and went up the mountain about 500 feet by a lake and we saw a deer who was apparently guarding her fawn from a coyote. We saw her on guard and got the rest of the story from the lead cowboy. He reported it back to Kevin 30 mins later so I guess it was true....

Here are the pics and the vids....

Day Two----IMAX and Space Museum, plus Hot Tub

We went 'downtown' to thriving Alamogordo where there is an IMAX theater and the Space Museum. We rushed thru the 4 floors of the museum because we had reserved two hours of for scheduled shows at the IMAX and wanted to be on time .
Here are some snaps of the museum.












The IMAX was really good with the first hour explaining our position and status in the universe, then the second hour was a terrific account of the troubles encountered with the Hubble telescope after it was launched in 1990 and the arduous task of making repairs using large lenses not unlike contact lenses to repair the faulty mirror.