On the Road Again!

So, after 3 weeks of preparation which included three births and one week of cough/fever sickness of death, we are ON THE ROAD AGAIN! We added some new preparations this time around...

5 hours of special food preparations for my crazy, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, meat-free body & getting up super early (5:30am) with everything ready to go and just getting in the car to go!

I loved getting up early, and I actually drove for 4.5 hours!! This also means that we rolled into camp around 4p instead of 10p. I am trying to convince everyone that we should keep up this habit for the entire trip. Now, if you don't know Steve very well, this is a big thing to ask of him since he will naturally sleep in until 11 am. I'll let you know how it goes!

Our theme today was "Steve." One of the first songs we heard was "Macho Man" (Steve really wished he had a mustache at that point), and then we saw five "Steve" businesses..Steve's Drive-thru Beer, Wine & Liquor, Steve's Meat Market, Stephen's Real Estate, Steffen's Flowers, & Steve's Cattleyard!We camped in Palo Duro Canyon State Park outside of Amarillo, Texas. It didn't take long for us to hit unchartered territory leaving Austin since none of us have travelled very far past Llano.Our personal intentions set for this trip:Me-to be happy, open and grateful for the rare opportunity to see the maternal side of my extended famlly.Steve-to enjoy quality time with the family & experience new, amazing places.Samuel-to see things that he'll never see again (reference to Willie's "On the Road Again"), to go to 10 National Parks, have fun in Port Angeles, & to have lots of fun sitting in the car.Maya-to not get into any more fights with random people & to have a fun time.Why would Maya say, "not get into any more fights with random people"? Well, I'm glad you asked! After having camp set up for a few hours yesterday, we were in the middle of making dinner when a crazy grandmother pulled up and demanded we leave our campsite because she was assigned to our site. Why would she do this? Well, we had been assigned to site 17, but when we pulled up to site 17, there were about 15 people there day camping and eating their picnic. Since the park was not very crowded, we just chose another site with plans to tell the office later. Well, of all the sites assigned to the ONE other person registering that night, they were assigned the site we "squatted" in! The grandma was so furious and rude that our adrenaline started flowing, especially when her thug teenage grandsons got out of the truck literally warming up their knuckles!! (As a side note, as I write this "Insane in the Brain" is playing on the radio...very appropriate!) Once we realized that crazy grandma was not into cooperating with us or going to calmly just pick another one of the 23 sites available, Steve left to talk to a park ranger. Crazy grandma then started unhooking our camper!! Steve gave her the evil eye and said, "You do NOT want to start touching my property!" While Steve was at park HQ, they continued to argue with me until I said, "We are going to eat dinner now. Would you like a black bean burger?" Maya was crying by this point, and I had to take some deep breaths. Finally, Steve returned with the Park Police. The officer calmly asked her to pick another site, and she gladly said, "OK." WTF? It was quite an event for our first night of vacation, but what a great memory that we can laugh about now!

Anyways, Palo Duro Canyon was nice and incredibly hot! Steve and the kids did a little hike while I napped. In the evening, we watched the live musical drama, Texas, staged in the canyon. The kids loved it because there were live horses in the show and lots of pyrotechnics. Steve & I thought the dancing numbers (actually, the entire show) was way over the top.Needless to say, we all slept really well!

Day 1...528 miles from Austin to Palo Duro Canyon State Park