Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Manitou Cliff Dwellings

On our return trip from Oklahoma we stopped at the Manitou Indian Cliff Dwellings in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This was a really cool history lesson about the Anasazi people and all the magnificent cliff dwellings they built. It was also really beautiful, both the dwellings and the scenery.

These cliff dwellings are actually reconstructions of the original, though they did use the original stone and built them in the same dimensions and layouts as the original which were located in Mesa Verde. This was done because of the looting and destruction going on. The nice thing about this being a reconstruction is that the stones were put back together with concrete mortar instead of the mud/clay mortar used by the Anasazi. Now people can walk and climb through the dwellings and not worry about the stones coming crashing down on top of anyone. That is nice.


Nikolas and Lukas had fun exploring this place and we didn't hear Nik say he was bored even once! Except for maybe in the gift shop.....




Hello Alex!

The boys loved being able to climb through all the openings and up the ladders.
This is a great place to teach the more hands-on learners some history.


This was a great reminder to me that there are so many places within a couple days of driving that will be fun and wonderful history lessons for my children. Not to mention for me!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Bishop's Castle, Colorado

One of our stops in Colorado was this huge castle built by ONE MAN. Yes, a single man has been building this by himself since 1969, block by block. His sons help with things like cutting stone and and such but the actual building is done by this one man; Jim Bishop. It happens to be just 6 miles from my cousins ranch in the Rocky Mountains and is located at over 9000 feet. Pretty amazing.

It's massive.
Kellie and I, along with Zach and Alex, came here about 7 years ago and it was cool to see how much it had progressed.

The main floor where they hold weddings at.

It's Big!
The boys thought it was pretty cool. It was a LOT disconcerting having them, especially Lukas, climbing through this castle as it is definitely not up to code on safety, and this coming from the mama who takes her 2 year olds rock climbing and let's them climb up high in trees and such. When Mr. Bishop gets done building for the day he just picks up his tools and heads down without so much as leaving any tape or barrier across the path that suddenly falls off into oblivion. Seriously, it's worse than it sounds. So the whole time Kellie, Alex and I were grabbing Luke's shirt collar so he wouldn't plummet off the side.

Spiral Staircases everywhere!

Kellie
As you can tell the staircases were super steep and pretty much all the railings were so wide apart that Lukas could easily fit through. Did I mention it was unsafe? Though the actual structure of the building is sound. I think.

The boys favorite part!

The GeoDome Tower
See how high I am? I'm in the tallest tower at 160 feet. And very short railings! Good thing I'm not afraid of heights, but I must confess: it is way scarier to be on a narrow ledge at 160 feet than it is to be at 1600 feet on the side of a cliff in Yosemite. It's amazing how much confidence I place in those climbing ropes!
Notice how there are only about 7 stone railings around the dome? You can still walk out there and around on that skinny balcony though! Hope a strong wind doesn't come by! Kellie went up into the very top of the dome, which feels somewhat wobbly, but I refrained as Alex and I had death grips on Nik and Luke.

Sitting very still so I could take a picture.
No glass in those openings!


Beautiful stained glass windows

The boys and I in the "Giant's Chair"

Cousins Alex and Lukas

Even though it is tall and scary if you have little children, it is definitely worth the visit if you are ever anywhere near Colorado Springs or Pueblo, Colorado.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Arches National Park

Our first fun tourist stop on the loooonnngg drive to Oklahoma was Arches National Park!
I have always wanted to go there and since we were driving "right by it" we decided to make it one of our stops.

Even with my poor picture taking skills some of the pictures turned out great as the colors of the rock against the blue sky made a beautiful shot.

Lukas with his cousin, Alexandra and Aunt Kellie
getting ready to hike to some arches.


Lukas was our enthusiastic hiker and with how much he was running and jumping along the way I'm sure he logged more miles than the rest of us.

North and South Window Arches



Thankfully Lukey lets me put a hat on him as he has inherited Mama's skin. Not burning easily, but freckling easily. He already has a tiny little patch growing on his nose and cheeks while Nikolas, who is twice as old, has not a single freckle to be found. Nik definitely has his daddy's skin.



Turret Arch

The only way I could get a picture with Nikolas was to hold him as he was Mr. Grumpy Pants the whole entire hike. We thought the boys would be ecstatic to get out of the car and run, but apparently this place didn't meet Nik's specifications for fun. He grudgingly hiked the whole thing while repeating, "This is boring, I don't want to be here. This is boring."
Children are simply unpredictable.




Lukas had enough enthusiasm for all of us!


It was beautiful, to say the least. One of these years I'm going to drag my family all over Utah to see all the beautiful national parks they have. We will, of course, be taking climbing gear on that trip:)

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Oooooklahoma Trip

My grandmother turned 90 years old this year! In honor of her birthday and the occasion, we headed off to Oklahoma to join in the festivities.

Me, Grandma & my Great Aunt Fae (who's 12 years younger)
My sister, Kellie, my niece, Alexandra, myself, Nikolas and Lukas drove to Oklahoma, which isn't anything too unbearable for Kellie, Alex and myself as we are all seasoned road trippers. The 2 and 4 year old, however, weren't terribly keen on driving long hours for 4 days straight each way. Considering, they did pretty well.

The long stretch of the panhandle,
"will it ever end?"
I kept thinking of "The Nothingness" from the "Neverending Story".


Good Morning!
Weirdo Child


Saw a lot of these


Grandma's neighbor's birthday present was giving her a ride home from her party on his motorcycle! Obviously, my grandmother is no ordinary ninety year old!
At least she wore a helmet,
unlike all the other crazy people in Oklahoma.


She did make it home safe, unfortunately, there wasn't anyone at her house to help her off like they helped her on so as the neighbor was holding the bike up she started to get off and FELL OFF! Just what a 90 year old needs. The neighbor then dropped his bike to help Grandma so then the bike fell, luckily in the other direction. No broken anything, amazingly!

That was just one of many events to help her remember her 90th as on her actual birthday a couple days before she was locked out of her house at 10:30pm in the pouring rain! Thankfully, the same neighbor with the motorcycle was able to get a window open and crawl in. She really does have crazy and funny things happen to her often and we are all just amazed that she is still in perfect health. She only just recently stopped driving and is finally considering moving into a retirement community. Until then, we'll continue to hear about her falling off ladders, getting stuck in the bathtub, slipping off the silk sheets and becoming wedged between her bed and the wall and various other disastrous events to most elderly but not to this one.

After just four days visiting Grandma, we packed our van and took off for home. We had a few cool stops that I will post pictures of next, but these three were of the actual driving part.

Nik and Aunt Kellie cleaning the windows as we could barely see after each day from all the moths, bugs, bees and butterflies splatting against our windshield.

Oh, and did I mention: Birds!
Whoever heard of a bird getting stuck in one's headlight?!

I'll admit. I was the one driving this round. We were watching this swarm of birds flying towards us and they all veered over the car, but not this little one. We were yelling, "Pull Up, Pull Up!", but apparently he didn't hear us. We did impress the gas station attendant, and I would think they have seen everything. We also drove the next 1000 miles home with little birdie as our head ornament. Kellie let Chad deal with the extraction:)

I think that is the last 4000 plus mile trip I'll be taking with the boys for at least another couple years. It would be nice if one of them could read!