Third time's the charm

I just realized I've only posted a couple of times this month. I'm sure you're devastated. A huge issue at work combined with a road trip to the Grand Canyon means less of me and more relaxing for you.

But your break is over.

Allow me to regale you with our Griswalds-esque vacation. Luckily no animals (that we know of) were injured during this road trip nor were children. Here's what we did:

We headed to Tulsa on a dark and stormy Friday night. We didn't get there until 2 a.m., which kinda sucked, but we got there.

The next day, we headed from Tulsa to Albuquerque. Did you know that on the way from St. Louis to Albuquerque you will get an opportunity to see not only the largest rocking chair in the world but also the American Banjo Museum? I'll bet you didn't!

Anyway, we got to Albuquerque. I love this town. We stayed in a condo we found on VRBO and it was wonderful, cheaper than a hotel and we had three bedrooms and a kitchen. During the full day we had there, we went to Old Town, Sandia Peak (where we got engaged), Petroglyph National Monument, the Aquarium (shockingly awesome) and the Botanical Gardens (coolest enchanted gardens ever).

And then, then came the drive to the Grand Canyon. There was a TON to see on the way, but we only managed to get to the Petrified Forest. It was beautiful and very stark. Funny enough, there is a scuba diving hole in the middle of the desert between Albuquerque and Flagstaff. In fact, there were a LOT of unexpected findings in the desert, like the Indian buffet/diesel/truck stop we ran into outside of Tucumcari, ice volcanoes and museums in pretty much every town we went to.

We spent a full day at the Grand Canyon, which was absolutely amazing. Then we drove back to Albuquerque, seeing the world's largest, best-preserved crater along the way. Once in Albuquerque, we went to the National Museum of Nuclear Science (which is awesome, but hard to take for 4 hours), then to the kids' museum, Explora.

Then we drove home. All in all, it was an awesome vacation, from what we did to the random arguments we got into with our kids. Witness Ragsy's first threat to run away from home. He decided that since I wouldn't let him throw planes in the hotel he was going to run away. But to do so, apparently my job was to drive him from Albuquerque to St. Louis, then drive all the way back to the Grand Canyon once he'd gotten his wallet.

We talked about it for way too long, during which I allowed myself to get backed into a logical corner. By an 8 year old. Dammit. Oh, well - if he's smarter than I am, I've done my job, right??