The adventures of Aunt Nut Bread and Pickle Juice

Hey, We're in Arizona!

Details seem to be slowing me down so I'm going to try to be a little briefer, but that's not my strong suit.

From Carlsbad we headed to the Phoenix, AZ (Chandler, AZ) to see Dan's sister Kaitlin and her beau Brian. While there Lea and she came up with the names Aunt Nut Bread and Lea is Pickle Juice. I look forward to the further adventures of Nut Bread and Pickle Juice. Perhaps a hand drawn comic will come out of the visit.

We took half highway and half state road to get to Chandler. The view was amazing. I imagined the span of land between Texas and California coast to be big sand dunes with a mountain here and there. I have been amazed at all the plants in what is considered desert — cacti (I was corrected more than once that it was not cactus if there was more than one) — cacti of amazing shapes sizes and COLORS! purple prickly pear! And so many mountains, so many types of rocks. Some really beautiful sights.

When we got to Aunt Nut Bread's we saw more of Scottsdale and no Phoenix — I had been really ignorant of the geography of the west! Scottsdale has a really cute old town or shopping district with a great 1950's soda shop called the Sugar Bowl. Huge ice cream and a game arcade for Lea (with pinball for Dan & Brian). The next day we hit the Hula bar & grill for fancy cocktails and south pacific food. Not as much Tiki as we would have liked, but it was a fun stop.

The first day we all 5 adventured to do Lea's first Girl Scout letter boxing adventure which is like geo caching with ink and stamp. The one the girls chose had three spots in one park (we worked on one the next day and couldn't find it, I think a landmark had been removed from the park), but it was a nice time to walk around the park with parasols. Letter boxing was very fun and I can't wait to share it with Lea's troop.

Then to the Butterfly Wonderland with a 3-D movie, a butterfly hatching area where we could see all kinds of chrysalis and a greenhouse with thousands of butterflies. There was also the "Ant exhibit" so we had to take a picture of an aunt! Also a touch tank of stingrays,  and tanks of sharks and other fish.

The second day was spent at the Musical Instrument Museum, which was amazing. They had an audio system where you stood next to the instrument display and a video played of a sample of that style/culture and you could only hear what you were standing next to. Highlights included the hands on room where you could really play almost every kind of instrument, the calliope room where the lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival was being filmed and finding "bag pipes" in almost every European culture.

But I think what Lea liked best about Chandler was playing with Butters the dog and the fun voice Kaitlin and Brian use to speak for him. They let Lea exercise him by shining a laser up and down the stairs to get him to run. They also had a PS3 where Lea LOVED to play extreme ping pong and Dan enjoyed extreme bocce ball. That was fun for all.

A wonderful visit with wonderful family! We will be back for another visit soon.
Oh — I must mention that the first day we were there I hadn't been able to get hold of my mom and I was rather tense and worried that she was not answering any phone. Turns out she took a trip to Georgia to collect my grandfather as Margaret had taken a fall and had to be hospitalized and go to rehab so Grampy will be coming to Texas. Much worry for the best possible ending.

We're near Kaitlin's house! Next exit.

Lea on the road ready as we pass the "watch for falling rock" sign.

The giant silver french fry of Chandler, AZ and the start of Snowy's Letterboxing adventure

Lea found her first letterboxing treasure

Lea and one of three letterboxing treasures in the park in Chanlder

The Sugar Bowl before ordering. The Sugar Bowl has been featured in Family Circle cartoons and has been open since the 1950s

"Can I order dessert first?" Two pages of ice cream on the menu and one page of dinner/lunch.

Aunt Nutbread & Pickle Juice playing a frog game for tickets

Tickets! Earned enough for two Chinese finger traps and a parachute toy

Dusty Road sundae with a "dusting layer of malt powder"

Dan and Brian sharing, how sweet.

Aunt Nutbread had something to do with this!

"I have you in my clutches now, Uncle Brian"

That is an Atlas Moth the largest moth. Butterfly Wonderland

Butterfly

So much to look at

"Hold still Uncle Brian, there is a butterfly on your hat, Oh I missed it!"

Butterfly Wonderland

Sting ray touch tank. Lea one of the only children following the rules! They fed the rays anchovies, I joked that Daddy might jump in the tank for anchovies!

Sharks! We got to see feeding. They put vitamins on a stick and made sure each one got their own vitamin.

Aunt Nutbread bought us butterflies to decorate our travel van! Making everything fancy and more fun!

Even herself!

Letterboxing number two, but no treasure. Just a hot walk in the park.

Searching for the elusive stump with the letterbox, never to be found.

Parasols!

Musical Instrument Museum activity room. Aunt Nutbread and Pickle Juice join the orchestra!

Maybe we overstayed our welcome? Sister and brother at it again!

Wacky faces at the Indonesian straw man display. Each display had a video and a sound that the earphones picked up as you were near the display, but you couldn't hear the other displays until you moved. Ingenious!

We checked out our friend's heritage, Serbia. Almost every European culture had a type of bagpipe from animal parts.

Lea and I looked at all her heritage spots: Sweden, Ireland and Portugal (though Lea kept getting confused and saying "I'm part Polish" "No, no, those are very different!"

Back to the action room after seeing how these Chinese bells were made.

Off to Hula for Pacific Island food and tasty cocktails!

Hula lunch in Scottsdale

Lea-mazing race: Carlsbad

One hole in the ground to another as Dan would say. He has called this the tour of holes in the ground… still to come Old Faithful. We started our trip on a Thursday and headed to New Mexico to stay in Whites City, NM. This is the town closest to Carlsbad cavern, closer even than Carlsbad, NM. We were surprised (ok I knew a few days before, but not much more) by our friends the Perge's who joined us on our first leg of the trip. I had not told Lea that they were meeting us there because we were excited enough without one of her best friends coming. I figured she’d wake up at 4 am and sit in the driveway with her suitcase on her lap bouncing up and down “can we leave yet, can we leave yet?” So I left a message saying I hadn’t told Lea. We got a call about half an hour into the drive and I let Lea’s friend tell Lea. Her face was priceless! Her mouth dropped like in the commercials where people have won Publisher’s Clearing House. She was so excited. So 8 hours later the excitement had turned a bit to agitation and boredom, but the payoff was a hotel with two watersides and a spray ground shaped like a pirate ship. Lea got a brother and sister to play with, I got an awesome mom to chat with and Dan got a little time to himself and didn’t have to stomach the waterside. The next morning we headed out bright and early to the caves. I will not even attempt to describe the beauty and wonder we have seen on the trip. Amazing feats of nature and time that pictures cannot capture so you’ll just see us standing in front of things. The first Lea-mazing race detour was a choice between the natural entrance (a hike) and the man made entrance (an elevator). Lea chose the natural entrance (with some help from her friend who was a bit afraid of elevators). We did not understand that when they said the natural entrance was a mile hike down steep inclines that it would actually be a mile hike down steep inclines. It was a switch back trail down 700 feet into the earth. It was long, but very fun. It was a good transition into the dark of the caves. We did the audio tour and talked to rangers so learned loads of things about Jim White, speleothems, bats, park ranger degrees and volunteer cave cleaners. THEN after the mile hike into the cave we did the regular mile and a half tour of “the big room” which had loads of formations - stalagmites, stalactites, soda straws and draperies.

Lea got a mining helmet that would come in handy on the rest of the trip as a head lamp in the tent. She also wears it when we travel through the mountains and the sign says “beware falling rocks.” No one was afraid of the elevator after our almost 3 mile, 5 hour hike through the chilly caves. They were just anxious to get back to the pool.Some rough weather threatened to ruin a few of our plans, but it passed through very quickly and we timed everything just right to make it to the bat show at 7:30. The kids learned all about the Mexican Free Tail bats (Marcíelago cota libre Mexican) at Carlsbad, but also, thanks to Ranger Virginia they learned truths about vampire bats, fruit bats and bats that fish. So before we left in the morning the kids bounced on the bed playing each kind of bat. Good to see some information sunk in! The bat program however was a bit disappointing because it was talked up like there would be a black cloud of bats, but instead it was a really long wait for hundreds of bats to come out see mingling in groups of tens so it was not the spectacle I expected, but very glad we got to see it. The spectacle was actually a double rainbow that appeared over the entrance of the cave after a very short rain just before the bat program.  Glad we had company on the first leg. It set a wonderful tone to the fun trip.

Lea opening her Lea-mazing race clue

At the entrance to the caves

Our exploration party near the end of the cave tour

An attempt at a group selfie

 

 Our exploration party on their way down the natural entrance.

Learning about bats in the cave. Later that night we sat at the mouth of the cave waiting for them to emerge. They did not eat enough bugs for us. The girls got gnats in their eyes and were a bit unhappy, though they weathered it well.

 

Some happy girls, being a bit concerned by the steep hike down the entrance and worried by looking over the edge at the switchback trail that dropped 8 stories. From the bottom of the switchback we continued the rest of the way into the deep cavern through "twilight" or dimly lit grand corridor of the cave entrance.

 

Our brave adventurers!

 

Neal family adventurers.

 

Lea in an "indentation" or "alcove" — I used that word to describe shallow caves where explorers or animals might seek shelter from the sun or rain and the kids latched on to the word indentation the rest of the day.

  

 Funny chairs at the restaurant. Not "a" restaurant in town, "THE" restaurant in town.

 

Walking back from THE restaurant so they could SWIM!!

Lea-mazing race

We're off on the Lea-mazing race! Dan prepared route info for every leg of our journey so that Lea could help navigate. He created Detours for many of our stops — Those are a choice between two actions. He made "woot makahs" - a play on Phil from the Amazing Race's New Zealand accent and the way he says route marker. The woot markahs mean we have to stop what we're doing and take a family photo. On the real amazing race they have road blocks which one team member does. The Neals have "road rocks" where we collect a special rock that we will then deliver graveside to Dan V. Neal in Kansas on our last stop before we head home. See, it is because of him that we thought of the trip as well as are able to take the trip. If you've talked to us for very long in the last year, you've heard the story but we must tell it here.


You see ,my father in law Dan V. always said when he retired he was going to pack up his dog in the car and travel the country. He retired and never took his trip. Less than two years after retirment he died. We miss him greatly and wish to honor him with our trip. We must not put off what we wish to do, but do them when we can. It worked out that we can, so we did. 

Here is the before photo of our family. I should have taken a before photo of our packed van also. Dan did an amazing job organizing the van. Repacking every time we stop will be a test of his organization. Here we're happy to hit the road.

Summer adventure 2014

So if you've talked to Dan or I in the last year and a half you know what we are about to embark upon. We leave tomorrow and after a year and a half of talking about it I don't know that I thought it would actually come. We're about to head west and explore the United States. I'm so excited that I am practially vibrating. It is very hard to finish my last day at work, though I feel confident everything will be fine until I get back. Once I get back we have an entirely different story! 

 But for now. We'll tell this story... 

Fairfield Lake Camping April 26

2014 St. Patricks Day parade

Quote of the week 3-18-14

While reading "Emma" by Jane Austen together at night, Lea and I were talking about the differences between then and now. I said they didn't have air conditioning or heaters, they had horse and carriage instead of cars and were happy to have a sheep skin blanket in this chapter to keep the warm. They certainly couldn't imagine a woman sitting reading a book on a little electronic device (which I was doing), especially since they didn't have electricity. Lea said "if they wanted to read a book they just went and got one." "And read by candle light," I said. "Or by the fire," she added. "And if they didn't like the book, they threw it into the fire!"