Red River Vacation

So, last week hubby and I set out with a convoy of 7 vehicles to Red River, NM for a family reunion/camping trio.  I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to this much at all, in fact, I was dreading it a bit.

Not because I don't enjoy his family (because I do they are MY family too and I LOVE them), but because camping to me with the kids is a chore.  It's been YEARS since I've camped without little ones and had to change diapers, worry about meals for them in the outdoors, them eating dirt and grass, etc...also ten hours in the car with four kids was not my idea of a picnic.

Surprisingly, this was one of the best vacations I've ever had with my kids.  I had such a great time.  First of all I didn't realize how gorgeous Red River was.  I knew I'd be in mountains, but I hadn't really wrapped my mind around that concept.  Right as we hit the mountains and the 70 degree weather, it started to sink in.

Also I didn't realize how much fun it would be driving with a convoy of cars.  We all had walkie talkies (yeah, a bit old school, but better than cell phones for this type of situation.)  We each had code names, Donut, Glacier, Bomber, Elders, Beamer, Rancher and then us Scrooge.  (My cousin Treasure tried to name us Oompa Loompa because of a recent unfortunate incident that I had with the self tanner, but that is for another blog post...).

We had quite a bit of amusement with these walkie talkies, joking with each other along the way, for example we discussed that here is a water tower that Aunt Kathryn probably backed into with her car (her and I both have a knack for backing into things with our vehicles).

Getting there truly WAS half the fun.  That night at our campsite we saw deer (thankfully no bears) walking close by.  I was totally amazed to just see them so close to our campsite!  We also had hot dogs with the family and made banana boats back at our campsite.

The next day we got up and decided (well my HUSBAND decided for me) that we would go on the chairlift.  I don't know how he convinces me to do these things, but part of me is glad that he does.  I'm TERRIFIED of heights, so me going on a chairlift is not as relaxing of a trip as some may think.  The trip up wasn't too bad, it was the trip down that had me in a panic attack.  It was when the chairlift would stop and sway in the wind that I started to cry a bit.  I did however manage to calm down enough to get a few shots, because it was truly an amazing view.


Here I am blissfully unaware of how frightening the trip down will be.

This is about when I started to panic.

I had to admit even in my panic stricken state, that it was amazing.

That afternoon we went on a jeep ride up into the mountains.  We saw even more amazing views.  I totally loved it.

This was the first stop we made in the jeep.  Breathtaking isn't it?

This lake we had to really work to get to.  It was this very narrow road up a pretty rocky path.  Took us a while to get there, but as you can see it was totally worth it.  A lake hidden up in the mountains.  It made me stop and think that if God made this earth so beautiful, what is heaven gonna be like?  Amazing.  Simply amazing.

We debated on wether or not to go to the peak, because time was ticking on our rental.  We went ahead and decided to head that way, and once again, it was totally worth it.

We headed back to camp that night covered in dust from the jeep trip, and cleaned up for a progressive dinner.  That I'll admit wasn't my favorite part of the trip (toting Lucy up and down the hills from one place to another was a bit rough while my husband cooked the main course for about 50 people), and I was exhausted from the long day we had all ready had.  Plus I had to get both my kids showers that night to clean all the dust off of them.  My day started about 6am and didn't end until 10pm, and that is a LONG day when you are camping outdoors.

The next day we went into town and let the kids ride go carts and spend a little of their allowance on some fun things.  We had a blast.

This made me nauseous just looking at it.

We got back to camp just before it started to rain.  Ended up spending a couple hours in our tent while it blew over.  I started to get a bit of cabin fever and stress that it would rain all evening, but thankfully it didn't.  As good of a time as I had, I was ready to go home.  The kids were starting to wear on me a bit.  That night we had smores with the kids and jiffy pop on the campfire.  It was a lot of fun.

It really WAS a great trip.  I had a lot of fun with our family and we got to do a lot of neat things.  I will carry with me some great memories from this trip!

To see a full slideshow of our photos from our trip you can click here.