Our next stop was Badlands National Park.

In the early 1900’s, French Canadian hunters called the area “les mauvais terres pour traverse” or “bad lands to travel through.”  It was named as such because the land was subject to extreme temperatures and lack of water and the terrain was exposed and rugged.

Of all of the places to which we traveled this summer, the Badlands was my absolute favorite by far.

Friends, it is a must-see in my book and truly bucket-list worthy.  I snapped a lot of pictures at this stop, so apologies in advance if it gets boring!

We hiked all around the Badlands.  There was lots to see.  Luckily, it wasn’t crowded and despite the arid conditions, the temperature was comfortable and on occasion even chilly.  I was thankful that we hit the park at such a good time because I have heard that the weather can be oppressively hot and downright miserable.  Hence the name.

We saw plenty of the rocky terrain.

The scenery was breath-taking.

In contrast to the rocky desert lands, there was also expanses of gorgeous prairie-lands with herds of big horn sheep and buffalo.

This picture I call “Four White Sheep Boo-tays.”

I suppose if I had to travel through the area on foot, with no access to water and no relief from the elements, I would think of these lands as “bad.”  But from my perspective, it was nothing short of spectacular.

The Sheffields peeled off and flew back home.  We down-sized to a smaller mini-van and continued on eastward to Custer, South Dakota where we managed to get several more stamps in our National Parks Passport.

First, we hit Mount Rushmore.

and got some great shots of the monument in the daytime and at night.

We also spent some time in Custer State Park, which I thought was a lot more fun and more interesting than Mount Rushmore.  There was wildlife-o-plenty.

Herds of buffalo…

…and they just mosied around like we weren’t even there.

At one point we were stopped on the road watching a large bull grazing.

He put his head down and crossed directly in front of our car.  Aaron thought he was about to ram us and he dived onto the floor boards screaming, “I don’t think any of this is a good idea!!”  The bull innocently walked to the other side of the road and kept on munching the grass.

There were mama buffalos with their calves.

This one reminds me of Ferdinand the Bull.

As we drove around, I kept thinking about that scene out of “Dances with Wolves” where the Native Americans and Kevin Costner’s character are learning how to say “buffalo” in each others language.

“Tatanka…” “Buff-a-lo…” as Kevin Costner puts his 2 fingers up to his head for horns and paws at the ground with his foot.  “Tatanka…” Buff-a-lo.”

We saw prarie dogs.

…Feral donkeys

and these pronghorn antelope.

With the departure of the Sheffields came a downward slide of the quality of our accommodations.  We significantly downgraded to a cabin at an RV park.  The cabin was really just a box with a roof and a bed, no kitchen (although there was a small refrigerator) and no bathroom, just a shower house down the road.  Coincidentally, the owner of the park was from Jacksonville, Florida.  What a small world it is!

Because it would afford us another stamp in the ole National Parks Passport, we took a 50 mile detour to visit the Devil’s Tower National Monument.  Some of you might recognize this rock formation as the one featured in the 1970’s Steven Spielberg movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

You can’t get to the top of the formation without doing actual rock climbing with ropes and all the gear, so we settled for a hike around it.  It was a worthwhile detour.

Our last stop with the Sheffields was Rock Mountain National Park.

We went for a 4-hour horseback ride.  I guess it wasn’t interesting enough for Aaron because he actually fell asleep in the saddle as he was riding.  He was several horses ahead of me and all I could see was him swaying to the steps of the horse, head drooping backwards while his body precariously leaned from side to side.  At first I thought he was just goofing around and then I realized he was snoozing.  I was surprised he didn’t fall off the horse altogether.

My horse’s name was Peaches…. and she was anything but.

I am a horseback riding novice and, although I’m a good sport about it, I’m not necessarily an enthusiast.  It’s something fun to do as a group, so I’m usually cautiously game.  The few times I have done it, I’ve enjoyed myself.  I have had one or two bad experiences, however, so it’s not something that I seek to do at every opportunity.

My horse Peaches was obviously well aware of my lack of horse sense and enthusiasm.  As Shane put it, “she owned me.”  She took the opportunity to be as stubborn and contrary as possible.  On a number of occasions she donkey kicked other horses that got too close to her.  I was holding on for dear life and she went where ever and whenever she very well pleased.  A renegade she was.  I was a little annoyed that our guides smugly remarked that she’s usually a really sweet horse.  Needless to say, I was glad to get off of her at the end of our ride and I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

We spent some time hiking and enjoying the scenery.

As we drove higher, we hit quite a bit of snow.  We also spotted some wildlife,

We passed this herd of reindeer (I think that’s what they were) as we were driving down the mountain. By the excitement in the van, you would have thought we had just spotted Big Foot himself.   The door to Shelly was literally wide open as we crept slowly by them.  Jen and I were hanging out of the side furiously snapping away on our cameras as if we were National Geographic photographers.

This one is thinking, “what the heck….crazy humans…”

We actually pulled over for these shots.  I love the antlers on these guys and the field of wildflowers they are lying on.

And thus ended our trek through Colorado with the Sheffields.

It was a trip not without its mild irritations, small disappointments and disagreements, but it was full of belly laughs, good times and fantastic experiences.  The good news is that we all made it through with friendships solidly intact and we came away with life-long memories!  We loved it so much, we’re already planning a trip for next summer.  Utah here we come!!

From the dunes, we headed north to Colorado Springs. We weren’t daring enough to do the drive up, so we opted to take the train to Pike’s Peak.

The views from the 14,000 foot peak were stunning.

It was also quite chilly, but the sun was bright and the skies were clear.

On the way down we spotted some big horn sheep.  It’s amazing to me how much they blend into the rocks.

…and a marmot.  I’m ashamed to admit that before this trip, I didn’t know that a marmot is an actual animal and not just the name of a camping gear and outdoor wear company.  They’re pretty cute creatures.  They’re kind of a cross between a beaver and a groundhog.

It was nice to get into the warm train for our trip back down the mountain.

While we were in town, we took a tour of the United States Air Force Academy.  This is a picture of the outside of the chapel…

…and then the inside.  I love how the stained-glassed windows reflected in the sunlight.

We also stopped by the United States Olympic Team training center.  It was a state-of-the art facility.

Sadly, we didn’t get a chance to see many athletes training since most of them had already left for Rio.  We did see some para-Olympians, which was really neat as well as inspiring.

We wrapped up our visit to Colorado Springs with some rock climbing at the Garden of the Gods.

Our next stop was Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Of the time we spent with the Sheffields, this park was my favorite.  Not everyone in the group agreed, however.  For me, it was such a unique place.

The sand dunes were tremendous, like a mountain range themselves.  When we walked on them, I felt like I was somewhere like the Gobi Desert, with an unending landscape of arid sand.

But then you could look up above the dunes and see the green mountain ranges reaching in the background with snow-capped peaks.  It was an interesting contrast.  I could swear I was on the set of a Star Wars movie.

The kids rented some boards to sled down the dunes.

The boards were more fun in theory than in actual practice.  None of us were very good at riding them, except Benny.  I guess his light weight helped him glide down the dunes rather than crashing head over bum like the rest of us.  We did get a lot of laughs, though.

I would have liked to make the trek up to the very top of the dunes, but we ran out of water and the natives were getting restless again.

It was hot and dry.  The wind was whipping up thick clouds of dust.  The sand was omnipresent.  We looked like snickerdoodle cookies by the time we walked out of that place.

For weeks to come, we would be cleaning the sand out of our shoes, ears and nether-regions.

For my own benefit, I’m going to include some memories of our road trip that I find funny and I don’t want to forget about them.

From Mesa Verde, we continued on our way and drove up and down winding mountain roads to our next destination.

The natives were getting restless in the back and after about the 20th time of being asked when we were eating lunch, we decided to stop at a roadside park and take a break.  We quickly ate our snacks and sandwiches and made our way back to the van.

As we were walking, Jen’s youngest son, Benjamin, decided he wanted to run ahead of all of us.  Despite protests and warnings from the adults in the group, he kept running along the side of the highway beside some cars that were parked on the edge of the road.  At the exact moment he ran past the side door of a RV, the door swung open, hitting Benjamin and launching him into a ditch beside the road.  I was directly behind him and I threw my hand over my mouth so as to stifle my laughter.  He moaned a little bit, but got up, brushed himself off and didn’t make a fuss.  Aaron ran up to him and said, “Wow Benny that was good enough to be on America’s Funniest Home videos!”  When we knew Benny was OK, we all got a good laugh out of it.

Back aboard Shelly, we continued up the mountain.  Benjy suddenly noticed that an engine warning light had illuminated and the van was giving him a message “to pull over safely.”  The engine gauge was at maximum temperature, so Benjy pulled over.

Jen told Benjy to open the hood and see if he could see anything wrong.  For some reason, Benjy didn’t want to because he said all we needed to do was wait for the engine to cool down.  Besides none of us were mechanics and would never know what the problem was.

Jen and I kept chiding Benjy and finally he relented and opened the hood.

The three of us peered inside, but didn’t see anything wrong initially.  Then, I glanced over at the water tank and noticed that it was bone dry.  “It looks like we need some water,” said I.  “Hmmph, yeah I guess so,” said Benjy.  We take one of our bottles of water from the van and Benjy pours it into the empty water tank.

After a few seconds, smoke starts pouring out of the engine.  Jen yells to the kids in the car, “EVERYONE OUT!!!”  All the kids dashed out of the car and waited at a safe distance.  They were a bit afraid that the car might explode.

I looked back into the engine to see if I could find the source of the smoke.  I noticed a hose that appeared to be disconnected.  I pointed to it and say to Benjy, “Shouldn’t this be connected to the engine?”  Benjy says, “hmmm, yeah probably.”  He reaches into the steaming engine, grabs the hot hose and immediately yelps with pain.  “Ouch that’s hot!”

We quickly deduced that the hose had come loose and the water had completely drained from the water tank.  We needed to re-hook the hose if we were going to keep the water in the tank, thus preventing the engine from overheating.  It’s a good thing I studied finance in undergrad and not engineering like someone else in our group.

How are we going to do that when the hose is molten hot?  We all scratched our heads.  I said, “we need a pot holder of some sort.”  That’s when I removed my shoe and took off my sock and handed it to him.  “Here, put this on your hand.”  Whatdaya know?  It worked!

Benjy hooked up the hose and poured more water in the tank.  The water held, but we really needed some antifreeze to keep the engine from overheating.  Fortuitously, we had pulled over just past an enormous RV park.  Not far from us was a man with a truck who was fixing a sign for the park.

Benjy approached him and asked him if he worked at the RV park.  The man said, “oh you mean the family resort village?”  OK, yeah, that place over there.  Benjy and the man chatted for awhile.  To make a long story longer, we got some antifreeze and were back in business.

As an aside, Jen’s husband, Shane, and other son, Luke, had to catch up with us on the trip because Luke’s baseball team had unexpectedly made the playoffs.  Their plan was to meet us after Mesa Verde.  While we were in our predicament, we were communicating with Shane who was enroute to meet up with us.  We were only 20 miles from our destination for the night and Shane was only 10 miles ahead of us.  He had turned around and was on his way to come get us.

Once Benjy got the hose rigged and it looked like it was going to hold, he just wanted to go for it and head straight away to our destination for the night.  Shane had other ideas, however, and wanted us to pull over so he could check Benjy’s handy work.  Shane had stopped and was waiting for us on the side of the road.

We blew right past him, lights flashing, horn blaring and me hanging out the window shouting that we’re going for it.  Shane stood there with his mouth agape and Luke was in the back of the car waving at us as we flew past.  Everyone in the van was roaring with laughter.  Shane, on the other hand, was not at all amused.  It reminded me of a scene out of the Muppet Show where Shane was Kermit the Frog being heckled by Gonzo’s chickens and the 2 old men in back of the theater.

I don’t know why I find this memory so funny, but it sticks out in my mind.  I think it was the sound of all of us guffawing in unison that makes me chuckle.  I also can’t get the look on Shane’s face out of my mind.  It was like: what in the !@#$% are you doing??!!!

So we made it OK to our Airbnb rental which was a farm.  It had this gorgeous view and also had…

…LLAMAS!!!

I wanna a llama as a pet now.  They were just so sweet looking and seemed so curious and interested in us.  The owner told us that despite their harmless looks, they are quite fierce.  Thanks to them, the farm has no problems with deer, wolves, foxes or other predators.

It was chilly enough for us to build a fire and make s’mores.

Shane had calmed down by this time and was getting into the vacay mode.

All was forgiven.

With Benjy in the driver seat, me sitting shotgun, Jen in the jump seat directly behind me and the kids stuffed somewhere in the way back, we drove to our next stop, Mesa Verde.  Although the destinations on our itinerary were definitely noteworthy, I’d have to say the journey in our traveling van is now what sticks out most in my mind.  We named the van “Sheldon” or “Shelly” because it wasn’t necessarily the hippest means of transportation and the man at the helm, despite his occupation of a pilot, wasn’t necessarily Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Here’s all of us in front of Shelly.

We had 80’s tunes blasting on the radio and although we were singing badly out of tune we surprisingly still knew all of the lyrics to each song. There was G&R, Prince, Madonna, Journey, Twisted Sister and AC/DC, to name a few.  It was our version of carpool karaoke, completely devoid of any celebrity status, but equally as hilarious (at least in our own minds).

There was a lot of groaning, eye-rolling and feigning of asphyxiation going on with the younger occupants.  The adults, however, remained steadfast in holding the con.  We pressed on and refused to  succumb to the likes of Taylor Swift and One Direction.  Muwahahahahahhahaha!

We headed south towards Cortez, Colorado to our next stop, Mesa Verde National Park.

What a stark contrast the desert mesas were to the lush black canyons we had seen just the day before.

We managed to sneak in some educational material by learning about the Pueblo Indians who lived in the canyons and built cliff dwellings during the 13th century.

The Pueblo Indians built their homes in the cliffs, not for safety as initially thought, but because interestingly, they had better access to water beneath the mesas then on top of them.  The dwellings were also constructed in such a way that they provided exceptional shelter from the elements.  The thick stone construction enabled them to maintain the temperature inside the walls around 50 degrees Fahrenheit year-round which protected them from the frigid cold during the winters and the intense desert heat during the summers.

We had to climb up this 35 foot ladder to access one of the dwellings; it was not for the faint of heart!

The architecture  was quite impressive and has obviously lasted for centuries.

We also could not resist a detour to the Four Corners Monument, where Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico meet.  We took the obligatory being in 4 different states at one time pictures:

And the one with each of us standing together in 4 different states:

Pretty cool, huh?

After we left Unkey, we met up with our dear friends, the Sheffields.  I have been friends with Jen since the first few days of our freshman year at the University of Florida.

When she started school, Jen knew absolutely no one at the University of Florida.  I knew a few people from my high school.  Even so, both of us were like deer stuck in headlights being away from home and on our own for the first time in our lives.

Jen and I met during sorority rush.  She had gotten to know another girl, Kristi, who happened to be in the same rush group as me.  Kristi lived on the same floor as Jen and she introduced us one night as we all were walking back from a rush party.  On pledge day, Jen and I showed up at the same sorority.  Since she didn’t know anyone else, we naturally gravitated to one another.  We became buddies from then on.

As we embarked on our first professional jobs following graduation, we were roommates.  After we both got married, we bought homes that were right around the corner from each other.  We went to the same church; our kids have grown up together and our husbands are close friends as well.  Looking back on it all, it seems the Lord brought Jen and me together that hot August night in Gainesville, Florida to be lifelong friends.

One of the toughest things I had to do when we moved to Hong Kong was leave my bestie behind.  A friendship like ours, however, transcends space and time and we still remain close despite the distance.  So we decided months ago to meet up and travel together to see some of the national parks in Colorado.  We have vacationed together before, but never for this long and never road-tripping in a van with us and our families crammed inside.  Regardless of how it all turned out, we knew the trip would be, if nothing else, memorable.

From Breckenridge, we headed southwest to our first stop, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

We took a boat tour on the Gunnison River.

We did some hiking in and around the canyon.

The weather wasn’t too cooperative, but the views were spectacular nonetheless.

The best part of all was the time spent with friends.

The second part of our summer was spent in the western region of the U.S.  We stopped in Frisco, Colorado (near Breckenridge) to visit Benjy’s brother (“Unkey”) and his lovely wife Donna.

Andy took us to the Continental Divide first thing upon our arrival.

Unkey and Donna are avid hikers, so we immediately set off on our first hike.  All of us, however, failed to take into account the fact that Benjy, the kids and I had just gone from sea level to an altitude of over 9,000 feet.  We started off on our hike and I nearly blacked out after only three steps.  I consider myself to be in decent shape, but that altitude knocked me on my bum!   I was out of breath and wheezing like a chain-smoker with a 3-pack-a-day habit.  Our hike was more like a saunter up the mountain and was at a snail’s pace.  The upside was that we had more time to enjoy the spectacular views.

The temperature was so much cooler and drier–a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of Florida and Hong Kong.

In addition to hiking we took a 16-mile bike ride.   Thankfully, our ride was all downhill.

For 2 nights we rented a “little cabin in the woods.”

Much to Unkey’s disappointment, it was more like “glamping” than camping.  The place had a refrigerator, gas stove, oven and sauna.

We finally adjusted to the altitude and started enjoying the hikes more.

In some areas, there was still a lot of snow on the ground.

But the scenery was majestic.

…and the company, marvelous.

I’m way behind on my blog posts.  We just got back from our summer trip to the U.S. after spending over 2 months back west.  It’s always great to visit family and spend time with our American friends, but I have to admit that I am relieved to be home in Hong Kong in my own bed and back into a regular routine.

We did some serious road-tripping while we were there.  So, in order to stay relevant I’m going to fast forward to share our summer adventures and then I’ll go back later to blog about our trips last spring.  I never really intended this to be a travel blog when I started out, but I suppose it has evolved into mostly that.  Traveling is definitely one of the major blessings we enjoy from homeschooling since we aren’t really tied down by conventional school schedules.

We started our summer visiting family and friends in Florida.  We visited my dad (Lolo and his wife, Lola Sonia) in Pensacola…

and Benjy’s mom and her husband, Rob…

We got to hang out with my Tita Luz and my cousin Maya along with her beautiful twin girls…

We played on the beach…

…and hung out with my mom, who managed to talk one of her friends into driving her all the way from Jacksonville to Pensacola.

Aaron did some fishing with Lolo (of course)….

They did quite well.

The kids also spent a week at camp Cedar Cliff in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina.

They had a blast!

Aaron got to hang out for a week with 4 of his best buds from Jacksonville.

And Webley made some new gal pals.

It was an awesome way to start the summer.