Arizona Landscape

After 11 months of traveling around this country, I have learned not to trust my preconceived notions of a place. I am not sure what I expected of Arizona before we arrived but it certainly wasn’t this. This is a landscape of surprise. The sun that pours in early each morning doesn’t have a harsh quality as expected but rather the promise of something that can be mine if I get up early enough to beat the heat. As a tried and true despiser of heat, I am happy to oblige!

     Bridgeeta, (who is now being referred to as the desert queen), and I make coffee and come out to the patio that is cool and shady. The mourning doves are singing their song, as are at least four other kinds of birds I don’t recognize. As we sit down, all the birds seem to disappear and it is only upon patient waiting that the whole area comes alive again. Suddenly a whole group of birds with curved bills appear and began digging at the dry ground, scratching out some unseen delicious bug. A  family of five Gembler quail come walking out of the huge prickly pear cactus near us, their fancy curly cue looking like church bonnets from a century past. They too scratch and search through what seemed to be barren dry earth and come up with a mouthful of breakfast, all under the not so watchful eyes of the Desert Queen, who can’t be bothered to lunge unless they brazenly pass within a beardhair’s length. Something they quickly attempt to do, no fear here.

     Last night as we watched the stars a coyote crossed through the site following the calls of his family just off from the light of our camper. The lizards here are especially busy running to and fro at any given moment, much bigger than their Florida counterparts. It’s a busy place to be, here in the Arizona Desert.

     As we always do, the boys and I have been studying the local plant life as part of our curriculum and the junior badge program. We are able to give names to the plants that seemed so extraordinarily foreign upon our arrival.   

The Ocitillo in particular seemed alien and now we see it everywhere, in some cases as living fences and surrounding the graves up on BootHill in Tombstone.

The prickly pear grow massive, in many cases the size of a VW Bug. The tips sprout flowers, not tiny and delicate but fist sized and vibrant, the colors ranging from blush to yellow to bright orange. The plant life has found clever ways to adapt to the heat and lack of water. 
     The Palo Verde tree, hated by my in-laws as it makes a lovely but problematic carpet of yellow blossoms all over their yard to be tracked in by the kids, has evolved into a Jack-of-all-trades. It has a vibrant green bark that allows it to create it’s own food even when there isn’t enough water to sustain leaves. Even when times are tough, it finds a way to power on!


The barrel cactus here are sprouting a ring of bright yellow fruit when it isn’t plucked off by nocturnal ringtails. There are agave plants that rival their Prickly pear neighbors in size. 
     

But the king of all is clearly the Saguaro. A row of them at the entrance are twice as tall as our rig, pushing 30 feet. One has 13 arms, making it a contender in our arm counting contest. We know from our studies that the first arms don’t arrive until the plant is 75 and they can live to be 200 years old

I am in no hurry to leave this area but the daily heat, pushing into the 90’s even in April, is a stark reminder that this beauty comes with a price if you stick around long enough. This has been a very surprising trip into the desert. I didn’t anticipate the

abundance of life and beauty here. There are definitely rewards for sticking it out in this arid landscape.

Tucson Area

      The Hamilton's landed in Tucson Arizona for a couple weeks to spend time with my mom and party like rock stars at the Full Time Family Rally and the World's Best  Road School Rally. There were 50 adults and 80 kids that descended on this newly bought KOA and lets just say that the staff here was not ready for this many families. The retired people that loved this campground before it was a KOA were less than pleased about the fact that 80 kids took over the place. For those coming through this area the Lazy Days KOA is not a real kid friendly park as of yet. 

At the Full Time Family Rally we had a great gathering on Friday night called the Road School Roundup and a wonderful dinner play called Terror in Tucson that Jacob, Aiden and Laura all had parts in it. 

Nicholos Read

ADHD Aiden

Jumpin' Jacob

Red Eye Mitchell

Jacob was was the gun slinger Red Eye Mitchel, baddest hombre in the Arizona Territory. Aiden was the wealthy shop owner owner Nicholas Reede and Mommy was the town doctor and all were suspects in the murder of a wealthy land owner in town.Laura had a booth with ThirtyOne products and had the chance to meet some amazing people that were also vendors or that came through. I was able to spend time with a wonderful family that sells Doterra products, (www.mydoterra.com/shineessential).  They have me all oiled up and ready to go!!! We have already fought off migrane, allergies. an infected cut and a sprained wrist with their products! No Chemicals needed!
I also had a chance to meet with THE RoadTrip teacher! The actual Roadtrip teacher MaryBeth Goff has created amazing site based study guides. Teachers, you know that parent who pulls their child out for a week of school and wants you to provide all the work before they go? Never Again!!!! IF they are going to Niagra Falls, they can go online and download the study guide and create a fantastic lap book. Great learning pieces, fantastic content and fun too! She has dozens of locations ready for download. And, if you are teaching about a monument such as Mount Rushmore, MaryBeth Goff has done all the legwork for you! Make your life easier and CHECK THIS OUT!  http://www.roadtripteacher.com/. I also got a chance to join the RoadSchool Moms Radio Show, my first radio appearance, pertty cool. http://ultimateradioshow.com/sho-hosts/roadschoolmoms/

During our stay in Tucson we were able to witness a Red Lunar Eclipse and the moon was so bright coming up over the KOA. 

That was a fun viewing party! Especially the pumpkin Pie Moonshine! 

Our first outings in the Tucson area were to the Desert Museum and the Saguaro National Park. As hot and dry as these two areas are, they are remarkably beautiful with stunning views of the Arizona desert.  At the Desert Museum we were able to see the predatory bird exhibit where they had them fly over your head so you could get a real up-close look. There were coyotes, Javalinas, (which are not pigs), lizards, turtles and more. The kids also learned about the prehistoric times in Arizona as well as caves and rock formations in the state. This was a great learning park for the whole family.

      I am absolutely amazed by the stark beauty of this area! The way things have evolved and adapted to survive here is fascinating! This is the time of year to be here, it's in the high 70's and the flowers are blooming. It's gorgeous. We have seen an amazing variety of birds, including tiny quail that live all over here and run around with babies in tow. We have become acutely aware of the snakes in the area, giving any potential hiding areas a wide berth. We have learned to identify 6 main plant types in the area and have done a lot of learning about how plants use energy and create food. 

 The Saguaro National Park was a wonderful opportunity for our family to see this giant cactus along with all the other cacti in one area. The boys were able to earn another badge and certificate here and were able to show off all the parks they had been to.

Nana and Papa were able to join the family on another outing to the Sabina Canyon where we saw a little different landscape, including water that people hike up to and play in! It was a bit stagnant this time of year but I imagine a couple months ago it was really fun! We saw Saguaro Cacti that were close to 225 years old! It was fantastic! We saw Barrel Cactus, Ocotillo, Prickly Pear, Palo Verde and lots more. 

San Antonio

   

Thats a Big Star

After a couple more six hour road days and an overnight in another Camping World, we arrived in San Antonio at the KOA. I have to admit, Texans do everything much bigger. We were going to take our picture at the welcome sign but this sign was more of a Texas welcome to the Lone Star state.

Just a little guy

Thats a Big Turtle

Something else Laura and I never realized, Texas has swamps and gators! Ya! Gators in Texas! Now technically we should have known that since Texas shares a border with Louisiana but for someone like me who had not seen this area of the US, it was a shock. The welcome center coming into the state had a great little boardwalk where you could go out into the swamp and we actually saw gators, lots of turtles and a bunch of snakes, some poisonous and some not. The only thing I saw in that area that really freaked me out was a spider that had to be three inches across! Which happened to be running from one of the snakes which kept trying to grab it.

Since we arrived pretty early on Sunday I decided I wanted to get out and do a couple things in case work got in the way this week. We found the San Antonio Missions National Parks along with the Alamo and the River-Walk for our first day here.




There are four missions just minutes from downtown San Antonio. One has been almost completely restored so visitors can get a sense of what it was like during that time. The other three are more run down except for the churches which are all fully functional and operating to this day.








We were able to visit three of the four that day along with an aqueduct built at the same time between two of the missions. The boys were able to add another National Parks badge to their vests and learn a little history at the same time.

San Juan Mission

San Jose Mission

Espada Mission

Badge Time

     Next stop was the Alamo and it was not as great as I remembered from my first visit. To give a little back ground on that statement, most of you know that I served in the Army back in the 90's but you may not know that I spent my AIT here in San Antonio Texas at Fort Sam Houston. My parents came down for my graduation and our only liberty off base. While downtown we were able to see the Alamo, the bridge caverns and I believe a drive through safari park but I could be mistaken.










I know, I know, enough history! This trip to the Alamo was great because Jacob did his second grade report on Davy Crockett and he was able to see some of the things that he wrote about. He was pretty excited to see the guns and knives that were used. I think we are going to read about this period in time together so we are both up on our facts.

Dinner

Downtown

We ended the first day on the San Antonio River Walk where we had dinner at the Original mexican restaurant which happens to be across from the place where I had my first drink at the ripe old age of 20. I was on leave from Fort Sam Houston  and  they figured since I was old enough to die for my country I was old enough to have a drink or two. I wanted to end the day with a bang so I had one of those 32oz beers I remembered from my youth.

Oh That's a BEER

Another part of San Antonio that we loved, (Oh, now it's Laura by the way!) was the Witte Museum. This, again, was free do to our museums reciprocal pass. (PEOPLE, do yourself a favor, get your memberships up to date, we have seen so much cool stuff just through the reciprocal program!) The Witte had a great Texas history piece about dinos and vicaros but our favorite parts were the outside water garden and the space/android exhibit! A whole piece about how we travel in space, why we can't travel far in space, what androids do for us and the future of that industry. The kids also got great hands on practice with air pressure, wind resistance and the Archemedies Screw. We had just talked about the concept of moving water the day before so when they saw the Archemedies screw and the response was that akin to seeing a rock star I realized two things. 1.) They are really learning a lot, and retaining it as well. 2.) I am raising them to be nerds. We liked those pieces so much, we did it twice! And, I can't leave without telling you that Jacob got to see David Crocketts fiddle, he was an accomplished musician. Jacob was awestruck! He adores the big D.C. so this was really special.

 Laura and the kids went to the Japanese garden in San Antonio which was a nice little surprise in the middle of Texas.

Dining Room

Yum

The last stop for the Hamilton's in San Antonio was the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum. This place was a little over priced but was fun for me and the kids. There was a stuffed head for pretty much ever animal on the planet along with every fish. I was really interested in the Texas Ranger part of the museum and some of the other exhibits like the Bonnie and Clyde car.

Rattler Picture

Bonnie & Clyde Car

Scene from up top