To Colorado via New Mexico

We took the long way to Colorado! Since we spent lots of time in the car on this trip, we were very thankful for the rented mini-van. It even had Wifi! 

We left on Thursday afternoon and were very thankful to arrive at White's City Cavern Inn late at night. Grant woke up really early on Friday morning to go stand in line and get tickets for Carlsbad Cavern's because he heard they were selling out really quickly each day. After Grant drove 9 hours the day before, I was very thankful he was willing to get up and get the tickets! Grant came back to the hotel to get us, and we packed up, had a light breakfast and headed to the caves. It was a wonderful time to visit the caverns because they were letting so few people in, that it felt like we had the place to ourselves! We took our time and enjoyed the walk down and walking through both big loops in the caverns. 

We did drive a few miles out of the way for this picture. He has his own city!

After the caverns, we drove through Roswell. Nothing much was open so it was a bit of a let-down, but we got some fun alien pics.

After we left Roswell, we realized we had just enough time to make it to Santa Fe for dinner. We called Tia and she was up for a last-minute get together! We met at Gabriel's Mexican Food and we got a great spot on the patio. We were worried we might not be able to have dinner together because as we drove into Santa Fe there was a HUGE rainstorm and restaurants are only serving outside. But, the rain stopped right as we drove up to Gabriel's. It was wonderful to see Tia!

After dinner, I wanted to stay in Santa Fe, but Grant wanted to drive a bit more. After about an hour and a half, we starting looking for a hotel and EVERYTHING was booked. It was so crazy. We were worried we weren't going to find a place to stay. We made it almost to Raton, NM and it was about 2am in the morning and Grant started stopping at hotels and I asked if they had any rooms. A nice lady told me that the Motel 6 usually had a few rooms and they DID. I have never been so thankful for a Motel 6 in my life. We were actually about to get two adjoining rooms. They were about the size of a closet, but they worked and we were all so tired. Grant and Ranger slept in one room and Cadie, Colton and I slept in the other. We all slept great after our super full day.

On Sunday, we didn't have set plans so we took our time. We drove over the border to Colorado and got brunch at a cute local place. We checked into the Super 8 and then it started really storming. We went across the street to the Big Red Western Wear and went on a shopping spree! Cadie got boots and an adorable dress to wear on Western night. I got some hiking boots, Ranger got a pearl-snap shirt, and we all had fun! Grant got us a dinner reservation at a small, local Italian food place where the waiters sing. It was a fun, but silly experience and the food was not great. Since we were still hungry, we went back to the brunch diner and got some home-cooking and dessert!