Loony to Lordsburg

We decided to celebrate Veteran's Day by going to the Botanic gardens. Bekah vividly remembered going there last year to take family pictures and playing in the leaves - an experience she apparently loved. She was a little disappointed to find only wet, un-raked leaves this time but countered her disappointment by saying we'd have to return next weekend. Jacob put in a request for "crunchy leaves" next time. Beau was there for the miniature train and didn't care at all about leaves. I was actually there to just pass the time until meeting up with Emilee and her boyfriend Chip who were up for a quick visit to tighten her braces, among other things. We had a fun, eventful family lunch that certainly brightened my day.
On Friday Rus convinced the whole family to play hookey. He wrote Bekah a note and invited her to miss school and go camping instead. She is reading well but her comprehension needs some work - it took some explaining before she realized she got to miss school.
We loaded up the pop up trailer and the Man Van and we were headed south by 10am. You know you've got kids when "first thing in the morning" turns into 10am, and "light packing" means three kids, a dog, two leap pads, a large cooler and a small plug-in cooler, a camera bag, two suitcases, five winter coats and five sweaters, a motorcycle helmet and boots (that didn't get used), the "big" diaper bag, and three backpacks filled with toys for each child. Oh and two parents, three bags of m&ms and a large Dr. Pepper for Rus.
Our camping destination was Lordsburg, NM. Rus's parents are building a house there and Rus thought he could help his Dad out for a day while the kids and I got some fresh air.
We stopped on the way down at Fort Cummings, a crumbling old fort on the road between Hatch and Deming. We had fun checking out the ruins and an old spring house that was built in the 1800s. To be truthful, Beau had fun collecting rocks and holding them in his shirt; Jacob had fun walking around the old rocks but was really envious of a big stick that Bekah found; Bekah was obsessed with keeping the bottom of an old glass bottle that she believed the Indians left there. I was just happy to walk around because my butt was sore from riding in the car. Rus loved checking out the ruins.We made it to Lordsburg around 4pm and visited/walked around Roger and Louise's house that is all framed up with the electrical currently being added. It's really neat construction because it's made out of rastra - a concrete foam block that is stabilized with rebar and concrete. There are no load bearing walls inside, which I found really interesting and appealing. The interior walls have metal studs and the floor will be a glazed concrete in all the rooms except the bedrooms which will have carpet. The south side of the house has five(?) HUGE windows that will - as Emilee pointed out - make it the perfect home for a cat as there are plenty of sunny places to nap in.
Just southeast of the house is a huge shop/shed made of metal. This is where we camped. Rus backed the pop up into the shop through a roll-up door. We used the electrical from the shop to power our pop up and used the water hook ups to fill up the tank in the pop up. This was a whole new kind of camping. The best thing about it was there was no light filtering in on us in the morning and so the kids slept until 7am. The worst part was that it was COLD - it got down under 20 degrees that night. Brrr. I HATE being cold. I went to bed with the kids at 8:30 because I was so cold and there was nothing else to do!
The next day I went for a run while Rus made breakfast and fed the kids. Six miles in one hour. The only impressive thing about that is that I actually went for a run. Tyler, Amy and I are doing a 10K turkey trot on Thanksgiving day in Mesa and so I've been running a few miles everyday and six miles on Saturdays. Colonel is my running buddy. I've had better - usually my running buddies don't pee on every bush they pass and make me carry a doggy bag just in case. Blech.
While Rus worked on installing conduit and screwing in (up?) outlet boxes, the kids and I built an adobe-ish fort. Bekah and I did the big rocks, Jacob pointed out other rocks for us to use, and Beau added the small rocks. It's amazing it got this tall at all.
Yes, Beau is still wearing his jammies, with a face to shame any mother. Jacob's hair had so much dirt in it his grandma told him it would turn to mud in the shower. I saw Bekah sliding upside-down down a hill and just cringed imagining the knots I'd have to comb out of her hair. But we did have a good time. It turned out that Rus's parents were only planning on being there till about noon, so we packed up and headed back home after having lunch at McDonalds with Roger, Louise, and Emilee who had driven over to see the progress.
It was a quick trip but a nice retreat. As always Rus and I got to talk a lot on the drive while the kids played and yelled and cried. I have a terrific best friend, even if he is a bit loony and loves long drives on deserted roads.