Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Graduations & Vacation Part 1

Just got back from a 10-day, 3000+ mile road trip to attend my niece and my daughters graduations in Utah, to visit family and feast upon the beauty of a few National Parks and other sights along the way. It. Was. Amazing!  The entire trip was amazing!

My poor hubby really deserved a break from work.  He has been working between 50 and 70 hours a week every week since we moved here last October.  The funny thing is that the majority of those hours are spent on the road driving for his job with FedEx.  So I guess he really didn't get a break from driving, just from work.  Poor guy!  I planned this vacation not thinking that he may just want to get there by air instead of by motor vehicle.  In my defense, he was the one that suggested our visits to the National Parks as he had never been there.  So I planned our road trip with that in mind. It's all good!  We had a blast!

Day 1 we drove to Albuquerque where we stayed the night after about 11 hours in the car.

Day 2 we left Albuquerque with our sight set on Moab, Utah.  Along the way we entered a town called Aztec, New Mexico where we saw a sign for Aztec Ruins National Monument and because we both love historical places, we knew we had to stop.  I am so glad we did!  Check out these photos....



These are over 900 years old!





He is much taller than the doors into these rooms








Makes me wonder... how small were these people back then?


It is interesting to get a glimpse of how they lived


Kiva - The place for religious ceremonies.  
I wish the photo could have shown all the intricate details

This woman was painting a portrait of the place
So I just had to get a photo

It was a really fun place to visit and learn the history of the Pueblo people and how they lived. 

After our stop here we grabbed some lunch and continued on to Moab, Utah where we stayed the night and for the goal of visiting Arches National Park.  Even though I have lived in Utah most of my life, this is one place I have never visited.  I will share our visit to Arches in Part 2 so look for that coming up.  But let me just say that Moab is such an amazing place to visit.  We could have spent days there if we had time.  There are so many places to visit, things to do, things to see and experience.  Next time, I will plan at least 3 or 4 days just to do a few of the things we would have liked to do.  Next time!  



4 comments:

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

Looks like such an amazing trip!
I haven't been down to that end of Utah ever.

Sounds like fun. You BOTH deserve this trip!

claire said...

Glad that you were able to come and visit. Those were some really nice pictures of the ruins, glad that you stopped to see them. Hope that you can come again soon. Love you two.

Valerie said...

Wow, I didn't even know those were there. We will have to do that sometime on one of our road trips. It looks like a really cool place to see.

Sandra's Creations said...

I Have been to these ruins before. It has been so long I almost forgot until I saw your pictures. Thanks for sharing.