September with Grandma and Grandpa - Nick

9/21/17

Yesterday we started driving in the morning after breakfast. We drove for about 1:30 minutes, and dropped our camper in a parking lot. We went to Walmart and got some stuff for the truck called DEF. then we drove to the airport and picked up my Mom, Grandma and Grandpa. It was really good to see them and I’m excited to spend time with them. I missed them a lot. Next we drove back to the camper and hooked up. We drove for a while and stopped for dinner. We stopped at Applebee’s. I got fish and chips. After dinner we drove till 11:00 at night. We dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at their hotel. Then we got a campsite really close to their hotel.

9/22/17

Sandboarding at the Great Sand Dunes

Yesterday we ate breakfast and then picked up my Grandma and Grandpa. We went sledding down the Great Sand Dunes. I actually went sandboarding. It was really fun. You went really fast. If you wanted to go extra fast you had to wax the bottom of your board. There was a big valley we found where the grownups could sit out of the wind and the hills were nice and steep for sledding and sandboarding. We did that until lunch time and came home and had lunch.

This kite requires two hands to fly.
It was so windy that Dad had to hold
Nick so the kite didn't pull him across the sand!

Swimming at the hotel pool.
Dad isn't a very good swimmer...

Then we came back to the dunes to fly our kites because it was really windy. We flew kites for a while and then went to the Visitor’s Center to look around. Then we came back to the camper and put our swim suits on. We went swimming for a little while in Grandma and Grandpa’s pool in the hotel. After that we came back to the camper and ate dinner. Next we opened birthday presents. Even though it was closest to Andi’s birthday, I got a few presents early because it is hard to get presents to us. The things I got were two books. One was about a dog who saves a human and the other was a Nat Geo. I also got a math game called 24 that they play at Addison in fifth grade that looked really fun. Those were all from Nana and Granddad. I got a monocular that came with a case. It was really nice. You could adjust the focus and the amount it magnifies. It will be really nice for looking at animals. That was from Grandma and Grandpa. The last thing was a big motor that goes on your bike that practically turns it into a motorcycle. Since it was expensive it was from Uncle Ryan and Chelsea and Aunt Lisa. Finally after presents, we went to an astronomy program. We got to look at Saturn through a telescope and we saw a big presentation.

9/23/17

Yesterday we started driving to our next campsite in Mesa Verde. It was a four hour drive. We stopped at lunch time at a gas station for lunch. Then we kept driving. When we got to our campsite we set up the camper and then went to the Mesa Verde Visitor Center. Mesa Verde is a huge area where Indian people lived a long time ago. We looked around at the Visitor’s Center for a while. Then we dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at their hotel to put all their stuff away. Then we all went to a restaurant and got dinner.

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde
Where the Anasazi people lived

Today we got Grandma and Grandpa and went to a breakfast place for breakfast. It was really bad. Next we went on a tour called the Cliff Palace Tour. It was a tour of a big bunch of buildings built by Indians. They built them under the cliff to protect them from weather. We saw a lot of houses and kivas. Kivas were deep pits dug into the ground with a stone roof. There was a fire pit in the middle of all of them, and they were used as gathering rooms in the winter because they stayed warm. After that tour, we dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at a museum while we did a tour that was really hard. It had small tunnels and ladders. Stuff like that. That tour went right through a big group of buildings. They were really cool. There were a lot of kivas. The buildings were kind of the same as on the other tour, but we were really close to them on this tour. We got to climb a 36 foot vertical ladder and crawl through an 18 inch wide tunnel. After the tour we did a drive (with Grandma and Grandpa) where you could see more old buildings from a distance. Next we came back to the camper, ate dinner, watched a movie, and then dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at their hotel.

9/26/17

Grandma and Grandpa at Four Corners

Two days ago we left our campsite in Mesa Verde. It was a 5 hour drive to our next site. On the way we stopped at Four Corners, which is a place where four square corners of four states meet and you can be in four states at once. We finished our drive after that. When we got to our campsite we set up camp. Then we dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at their cabin to put their bags away. Next we all came back to the camper and had dinner. We also watched some football and Dad and I played football. After that Andi and I slept over at Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin. It was really fun.

Yesterday we woke up at Grandma and Grandpa’s hotel. We came back to the camper and got going. We were going to Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon is an area with really cool rock formations. We went to a few lookouts with really pretty views. There were some really cool rock formations. Tall skinny spires of rock with huge boulders teetering on top of them, all sorts of stuff like that. We also did a short hike to a cave called Mossy Cave. On that hike we also saw a water fall. Next we came home and had dinner and I played football with Dad.

Bryce Canyon with hoodoos (rock formations)

9/27/17

Nick was a model for the Ranger's talk

Yesterday we picked my grandparents up from their cabin and started driving to our next site. It was only an hour and a half drive. When we got to our site we made lunch. Then we went to a Ranger program about the Grand Canyon. (We are in the Grand Canyon.) The Ranger program was all right. Next we went to a lookout point. It looked over the Grand Canyon. It was really pretty. We are on the North Rim so we were looking at the South Rim. The rock was a really pretty shade of red. We couldn’t quite see the Colorado River. We came home, had dinner and hung out for a while.

Grand Canyon - North Rim view

9/28/17

Yesterday we ate breakfast at the lodge café. I got pancakes. They were really good. Next we went to a bunch of lookout points. We could see the Colorado River from a lot of them. It was really pretty. We were a mile above the river. To get to one of the lookout points you had to walk across a natural bridge. From that lookout you had almost a 360 degree view of the canyon and river. All the rock was really red. It was a dark shade of red. There was also a strip of orange. After all the lookout points, we did a short hike into one of the side canyons. We were actually in the canyon. We put our handprints on the canyon wall by putting our hands in mud and then on the wall. We went back to the car and as soon as we shut the last door, it started hailing. We came back to the camper and Andi, Grandma, Grandpa and I played Bean Boozeled. Next we ate out for dinner. Then we said good bye to Grandma and Grandpa and went to bed.

9/30/17

Two days ago we drove into Las Vegas. It was a really long drive. When we got there Dad noticed something funny about the way the trailer was driving so we took it into a shop and sure enough something was wrong with it. Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Andi and I all got lunch at Arby’s while Dad talked to the guy at the shop. After lunch we picked Dad up at the shop and decided to get another room in Grandma and Grandpa’s hotel. After we dropped our bags off at the hotel we went to Hoover Dam, but everything was closed so all we got to do was walk across it, but it was still fun. We came back to the hotel and Andi and I went swimming with Grandma in the pool. We had a great time. When we got back to the room we ordered pizza and watched the Packer game. They beat the Bears 35-14. Finally we all went to bed.

Yesterday in the morning, Andi, Mom, and I went swimming in the pool in the morning. We had a lot of fun. We had to push Mom into the pool because she wanted to stay in the hot tub. Then Grandma and Grandpa came down to the pool and we said good bye. Their flight was leaving. We had a great time with them and I am going to miss them a lot. Dad drove them to the airport and we kept swimming. When Dad got back we went out for lunch and then drove to Valley of Fire State Park. It was a long drive. We looked at the Visitor’s Center for a little while but then we had to go pick up the camper. After we got the camper we found a site and spent the night there.