“You are only as prepared as the amount of snacks you take”
-Sam Parks
Hands down this is the best travel advice ever! You can laugh at anything on a full stomach but little things become big things if you are hungry and big things become bigger things. We have been back and forth on what we need to take on our trip and what we don’t, but one thing that we have always agreed on is making sure we have enough snacks!
After thinking, researching, planning, packing and then re-packing we finally settled on what we were bringing. For a whole year. And then we fretted and worried about whether it was enough and decided that we are not going anywhere so remote that we will not be able to pick up toothpaste. Or whatever it was we forgot. As long as we have lots of snacks we will be ok, you can laugh at anything on a full stomach, but tempers tend to run short on an empty stomach. So we packed up our snacks and set out on our adventure.
Our first stop was Oklahoma City for some grilling and watching basketball with Nick’s wonderful family- a great start to what will surely be an epic trip! We had an incredibly relaxing week watching Thunder games, grilling and experimenting with reese’s s’mores with Debbi, Nathan and Makenzie. We “dropped some lines” and went shootin’ as well. We even went on a quest to find a live armadillo, however despite out best efforts we saw neither hide, nor hair!
Next, we ventured to Fort Worth to hang out with David and Jenny and meet Josey! We ate pizza, played tetris and listened to BSB with them. It was so great to spend some quality time with them, see pictures from their travels and hear about their travel adventures. And, of course it was so nice to meet Miss Josephine! After going on a tour of Martin House on Saturday afternoon we went back to Dallas to see Nathan, Ken, Kelly and Clark again. We enjoyed dinner with the slowest service ever on a great patio near Nathan’s apartment. Sunday morning we got up early, enjoyed a continental breakfast and set off with our tent and all of our belongings towards Santa Fe.
We spent a few (rainy and chilly) days camping and taking in art and green chili in Santa Fe, a city that will always have a special place in my heart. My family spent Christmas/New Year’s there every year. From dumpster diving for Christmas Trees, to laughing at Theresa, choreographing dances and playing hackey sack in the Plaza, Santa Fe has some of my favorite memories and has always been a special place to me. I was very excited to get to show Nick one of my favorite places and we had a great time exploring the city. We stopped at an art fair off the plaza, saw many beautiful churches and perused the art along the Palace of the Governors and on Canyon Road.
We camped overnight in Taos, where we hiked and visited the Earthships. We picked up some local beer from Taos Mesa Brewery and watched the Thunder game on Nick’s phone in the laundry room at the campground and enjoyed our tasty beer!
Our final leg of our stateside tour was in Denver. My mom came in while we were there, and it was so wonderful to get to see her before we left. We also got to see Matthew before he went off to visit Cole in Tennessee. We had a tasty Tex-Mex dinner and a farewell lunch with Aunt Pant and Uncle Fred (Ashley and Sam as well!). All in all we had almost a week of just hanging out with my family, catching up, joking and chatting and making “All-American Meals.”
So now, here we sit in a hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale anxiously and excitedly awaiting the next leg of trip (and don’t worry, we have plenty of snacks!!)
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