We're going to see a lot of cool stuff, find the best souvenirs, and eat lots of unhealthy stuff.
From actual road trip - tips: * make sure all the tools for changing a tire are in the car! * Bring Cheerios and get milk every day at hotel. Pour into clean coffee cup and have kids think that is quick breakfast. Take protein bars and granola bars for snacks in car. * Often there is no place to grab a decent lunch on the road. Buy some small breads at Walmart with cheese slices, peanut butter, butter, etc. Make sandwiches in morning for the road. * get small, hard-shelled cooler for in the car: fix daily with ice in zip-lock bags from hotel ice machine. Keep sparkling water and Gatorade cans chilled, as well as food for lunch. * Bring large crates of waters because hotel water often too hard and not drinkable. * Don’t bring too many toys to play. Activities are so tiring & fun that evenings with bit of TV and iPad are best way to relax. * bring card games to play during dinner in restaurants. * download all audio books for long drives and make sure you have a headsets that bluetooth connects to your phone, so kids can watch movie DVD in the back. * bring kitchen rolls and wipeys in the car for spills. * Make sure you arrive at your hotel to sleep at the latest at 8 PM. It will be tired from day of activities and you will be tired from driving anywhere between 3 to 6 hours. Arriving after 8pm makes everybody exhausted the next day. Better to start the next day off with 2 hour drive to the next fun activity than trying to paste those two hours to the end of the day.
5429 Del Roy Drive, Dallas, Texas
Today: 8 hours on the road, 231 miles. LEAVE AT 9AM
15901 North Fwy, Fort Worth, Texas, United States
First stop: Bucc'ees!! Find new lovies for the trip for Coco and Max. Coco got Chocolate (daddy) & Brownie (baby) and Max got Woof (mommy) & Doodles (baby). Buccee was wearing a mask!
No restaurant anymore. Just the museum. Free entrance. Museum was closed with no explanation. But we checked out the cool cars through the windows. Then off to lunch......which we couldn't find so we ate at a dingy gas station...hmmm hmmm hmmm KFC.
Small zoo, but really nicely put together. All indoor exhibits were closed and a lot of the animals were sleeping. But Dippin Dots and Giraffe feeding for $5 made it worth the while. Max got a snake souvenir and Coco got a small key chain fox lovie.
Honoring the life and legacy of the Women Air Force Service Pilots. Coco & Daddy were very impressed with this small, but very well kept museum. Really interesting history about women aviators. CocoMax made a donation from the money they saved up with their chores in the past 3 months. Max got a red T-shirt and Coco got an insulating water cup.
Dinner @ 8pm. (575) 234-9891. We never got here on time, so went straight to the hotel and ate snacks for dinner.
Carlsbad - Santa Fe: 7 hours on the road, 262 miles. Decent hotel, worth the money.
Due to COVID-19, they were allowing only 575 people in per day. It was first-come, first-serve so we go there 10 min after opening (8:10) and there was already a line of 100 people. We we assigned our entry time slot (12:30pm) at 8:40 and went to pay. When we got back to the entry point at 8:50 all tickets were sold out.
We went to do a small hike in the nearby beautiful nature, then back to hotel to relax. At 12:30 we entered the caverns by walking down over the course of 1.5 hours - it was spectacular! And great bc there were only 25 people in our group who we lost track of and therefore it felt as if we had the caverns all to ourselves. We loved it and had lunch 80 stories under the surface of sandwiches and Gatorade. Max got a miner's helmet and Coco got a coaster.
Roswell is pretty dingy. The museum was closed but (of course) the gift shop was open. We were in & out of the place in 15 min. Max got Weirdo (alien lovie) and Coco got an Area 51 Keep Out sign to make sure Max stays out of her room. Daddy got an alien Xmas ball.
We skipped this and zipped straight to Santa Fe (long drive).
Very nice hotel. Really nice and helpful concierge. We ordered pizza for in the hotel room and it was horrible. Daddy had to get Goldfish for Max for dinner. We slept in and in the morning had a beautiful breakfast in the town square.
Famous for its spiral staircase that seems to float in air. Coco did a great job reminding Daddy that we had to buy newspapers for mommy in each town. Coco got a minion key chain and Max got a turtle lovie. At this point, Max and Coco had expanded their lovie collection by 8 lovies in 4 days.
This was closed. We were quite sad about it bc it has great reviews. We quickly got Starbucks and a cooler for the LaCroix at Walmart and were back on the road to Durango mountains!
3354 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Coco found this place: it seemed to be a coldstone creamery, but turned out to be a cannabis dispensary. Nice job Coco!
This was a recommendation for breakfast from the hotel concierge, but we skipped it.
UNESCO World Heritage Site, 0.5 mile walk through ruins. Tour available. We skipped it bc we wanted to get to Durango early to have a nice dinner.
We couldn't find this place, so grabbed ice cream instead. Had a great dinner at the local Italian restaurant outside in the fresh mountain air!
400 East 2nd Avenue, Durango, Colorado, United States
Dinner at Michel's Crepes! Get up early: need to be at railroad at 8:30am. Durango - Kayenta: 3.5 hours on the road, 199 miles.
Fantastically beautiful ride through the mountains. After the train ride, we went to the museum - it was full of old cars and trains, great collection but stuffy and cramped. Coco got a night light and Max got a slingshot.
Hogan Circle, Durango, Colorado, United States
2 hour roundtrip excursion. We are booked in open car: cooler than enclosed car. Be there 8:30am. It's a 30 min drive (19 miles). Pre-paid 1 adult + 2 kids + parking. Cancellation up to 5 days in advance.
Driving Directions To Rockwood Station: Rockwood Station is located on County Road 200, 18 miles north of Durango. From Durango, travel north on US Highway 550 and look for signage directing you to turn right on County Road 200 where you will travel approximately 1 mile to Rockwood Station and adjacent parking area. If driving south from Silverton, turn left on CR 200 just south of the Tamarron/Glacier Club entrance.
There will be a stationary concession car located at Rockwood Station but there will not be a concession car on the train.
