New Mexico

We spent the night in Tucumcari, NM. The next day we went to Amarillo and got an oil change.  (When we lived in Oregon, we would always say that's what we did for fun: go in to town and get an oil change.)  I dropped Peter and the kids off at Walmart and I took the van in for an oil change, which took forever.  They were done LONG before I was.

Then we went to Bandelier National Monument.  We took the shuttle up to the park, and then walked around and saw the cliff dwellings.  There were little gnat things that really liked Elias's face, so it wasn't his favorite place.

Brita liked looking at the pottery pots along the way. 

The cliffs were crazy because they just had holes all over in them.  I thought it was neat to see where people lived.  They had a place down below, and places in the cliffs.

We saw lots and lots of rocks.  And some trees.

 

As always, it was super hot.  Elias turned very red. :)

Then we went through the rest of New Mexico and stayed the night in Farmington.  It was pretty crazy to be in just one state the entire day.  The scenery there was BEAUTIFUL!  So beautiful, in fact, that I totally missed a turn and had to back track a bit.  It wasn't too bad, though, because it was so pretty.

Sleeping in the hotel room.