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I’ve been to Nashville, for that matter I’ve been to Memphis too. Both places I said I’d go back to and spend more time there. I’ve seen a Friday night performance of the Grand Ole Opry, which was by the way absolutely grand. I stayed at a very nice hotel a mere few blocks from the Gaylord Opry Land Hotel and the Grand Ole Opry itself. I wandered around the Garylord hotel and sat at a rotating bar before walking over to the where the Opry takes place. No longer in the Ryman Auditorium (although they do have the center piece of the stage from the orginial Ryman in the new one) the Grand Old Opry is still a lot like it was in the 1930′s. I have to think that playing the Opry for most musicians is still something they get nervous about, even if it’s just a little bit and even if they says it’s excitement not nerves.  Spending less than 24hrs there in Nashville I would’ve never imagined where I was could have flooded at all, non the less a staggering two feet above the stage. Submersing the six foot circle of original oak stage from the Ryman where legends like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline stood and sang and a vast majority of the seats in the auditorium.  Devastating if you ask me. Not to mention the damage to the rest of Nashville itself.

The flooding, which has NEVER happened in Nashville to this level got hardly any news time and was mentioned in almost a passing fashion. Sure I understand we have a much bigger ecological issue on our hands and hundreds of thousands of peoples livelihoods will be affected (thanks BP)… but I think that the people of Nashville have reacted and acted with such class, neighbors helping each other without a second thought. Self reliant and determined, Nashville just proves itself to be a great city. Even if you’re not a country music fan, this is part of our history, the history of America, that if you ask me is news worthy.

Photo Credit: Jeff Roberson, AP

The area in the back right hand corner is parking lot, the largest building is the Opry auditorium itself.

Yeah this post is about four weeks overdue but here it is…. The boys and I decided a bit last minute to head down to the coast, this was going to be the only weekend we could until May since each Saturday is full of soccer and baseball. I think Big C was excited to have a queit house to himself. We thought about leaving Thursday after the boys got out of school but forgot that Z had baseball that night so we ended up heading out Friday morning. For the past few years every time we head to the coast on Easter weekend it has either rained or been really cold. It rained on more than half of our drive down and I was really starting to wonder just how insane I was.  The weather cleared by the time we arrived and although it was a tad windy it was not too cold (until the sun went down). My younger brother, his wife, and my too cute nephew Super A were there as well and Friday we purchased seafood goodies from Beacon 44 (used to be Raby’s) like crab stuffed shrimp and crab stuffed jalapenos for a big dinner.

This time of year the big huge drum are running past Coast Guard point in Port O’Connor and if you’ve never caught a fish as big as your six year old it’s something else. It’s all catch and release and this year Z Man actually helped reel one in. These guys are monsters and masters of using the currents to help fight. We did some other bay fishing without much luck and spent a bit of time over at Sunday Beach which was deserted. The water was too cold to swim in much to the boys dismay but we walked across to the beach side and collected pockets full of shells.

We did catch a nice flounder at the dock (and by we I mean me) and Z man managed to wrangle a “robber fish” or sheep head all on his own. Both boys have gotten really good at casting their own lines out and actually being patient enough to do a little fishing. We had another little toot doing some of his own fishing too. Even some unauthorized swimming on his part.

An overdose of cute in his own right. We also made the 50 minute trip back into my hometown on Saturday to celebrate my nieces’ 4th birthday at the local skate rink. The same one I grew up hanging out at and not a thing had changed minus paying $3 for roller blades. Z Man desperately wanted to skate (I think he watched too much ice skating on the Olympics because his idea of skating wasn’t quite right) but only ended up with a sore “bum”. CaseyJ wanted absolutely no part of it after he had the skates on for .005 seconds. I tried on a pair and rolled around for a bit busting my butt only once while trying to video my nephew giving my youngest brother quite the laugh. By the time the weekend was over I had dug silly putty out of CaseyJ’s ears (he tried to make his own headphones) and iced Z Man’s hand because he decided to see if Grandma’s stove was still hot (it WAS!) but in all the boys and I had a lot of fun on our weekend!!

Last week was spring break for the boys. We did not have any big travel plans or really any plans at all for the week. We are taking our big travel vacation this July hopefully (more on that as we plan it out). The boys were asking if we were going to go anywhere so I decided to jump on the internet and look for some hotel deals in San Antonio. We wanted a hotel with an indoor pool so the boys could go swimming without becoming popsicles. I found a really good deal on Expedia for the Drury Plaza on the Riverwalk – a King Suite (aka separate sleeping area and bed for mom and dad) for under $135. The hotel also had a hot food buffet from 5:30pm until 7pm and each adult gets a drink card for three “adult” drinks a night, and hot breakfast bar in the morning. The money we saved on dinner and breakfast certainly made up for the little higher price we paid for the room.

The hotel and our room was beautiful! The Drury Plaza is in the old Alamo Bank building which they remodeled and turned into the hotel. The outdoor heated pool is on the 22nd floor and the indoor pool is in the San Fernando building on the 9th floor. Each pool has hot tubs by them and patios with great views. The food was great as was the service throughout our stay. Our room was one of the best I’ve ever stayed in. Large, spacious, comfy beds and pillows. Boys said the pullout was comfortable, two nice LCD in each sleeping area, desk with wifi access for work and a balcony with a great view!

The only odd thing was the slightly long/confusing walk to our room. It was in the other half of the hotel so we took the elevator to the 6th floor then walked a bit to another elevator to get to the 14th floor. Location was prime – we walked out of the hotel and onto the Riverwalk. Mall was within a mile of our hotel and plenty of eating and drinking establishments with .2 miles.

Valet parking is $18/night but there are other parking areas that are close, however the pricing for those is about the same amount. Next time we do a small minication to San Antonio we will certainly be back at the Drury Plaza!

We headed into downtown Durango early in the morning in search of some breakfast before our train ride. We ended up at a most unusual place for breakfast – a pub and brewery called Carver’s. Turned out to be a pretty good breakfast (the french toast was quite good) at a reasonable price. We arrived at the train depot in time to get our tickets and take a few photos before boarding the train. The car directly behind ours is the open air gondola which you can sit out on if you’d like, then behind that is the concession car and at the very back is the first class car. The conductor came in and gave us a brief rundown and explained some of the whistle signals before we left the station. I had neglected to think about how a narrow gauge railway would sway back and forth. It actually reminded me of being on a boat and I found it in no way nauseating. They did however suggest you hold on when walking back and forth.

It did take us about 45 minutes to get out of the “town” area. During the winter season the train only goes halfway to Silverton because as the train climbs into the mountain the passages get quite narrow and their is still enough snow to have a chance of avalanches. We pass frozen lakes, snow covered hills, close cut rock passes and narrow passes with a long drop at the edge. Grandma kept leaning to left thinking that would make the train not fall over the edge. Silly Grandma. At about three quarters of the way there the train stopped to refill it’s water tank with about 3500 gallons of water that comes from a ground water fed storage area.

After we pass through the Cascade Canyon area we picked up a bit of speed and were really chugging along. This part of the track runs along the Animas River which is an interesting color of blue-green. We get to the midway point and the train does some tricky cool maneuver and backs up so that we are facing the right direction for our return trip. They have a covered pavillion area with a large fire going where most folks have their lunch. The boys took the opportunity to play in the snow (this snow was still somewhat fresh).

I laughed about them selling alcoholic drinks on the train becuase some folks were having quite a hard time making it down the aisle without being under the influence. Casey J spent most of the return trip with his head laying on the window sill which led to him having a slighty sooty face (they actually recommend you were sunglasses while on the gondola car to protect your eyes from the soot coming out of the steam stack). Z Man had entirely too much apple cider and suffered a sugar high but made a new friend whom he shared his seat with on the way back. A lot of folks fell asleep but it was quite an enjoyable and relaxing ride back.

After arriving back at the depot we decided to see what else there was to do around downtown. We ended up at the Saloon in the Strater Hotel where the boys had some lemonade and snacked on pretzels. The ladies went and did a little shopping while the guys hung out at the saloon. Zach enjoyed the pretty lady who kept refilling his lemonade but it sure did make him go to the bathroom a lot – I think about six times. I found some snow boots for the boys and we did some other small souvenir shopping before heading back to the cabin.

I really enjoyed the train and would definitely do it again! Check out more on the Durango Silverton train here. And see all of my photos from that day here.

I have nothing but good things to say about each La Quinta hotel we stayed at along our route. All were very clean and very well priced. The boys loved the super bounciness of thier beds and their large swimming pool type bathtubs. Their double beds however are a bit small for my tastes. I like to sleep on my side with a knee thrown out to the side, I also like a little bit of distance between my face and my other half’s face. I like his face I really do but him breathing on me in the middle of the night is odd and disturbing to my beauty sleep. So being the smart folks we were we tried to share a bed with one of the boys. I got Z Man and Big C got the Little C. It was way worse than having the Big C snore in my ear and breathe on my face. He was a worm, put his feet all over me, stole the covers, smacked me once in the head, and talked in his sleep. “That was a good choice” to be exact, that’s what he said out loud and clear in his sleep. I was begging for 6:30am to roll around on that digital clock.

We had a nice sit down breakfast at Cracker Barrell in Albuquerque with G & G Alebis on Sunday morning, day three of our trip, which also happened to be Grandma’s birthday. She hit double nickels, or 55 but doesn’t look a day over say 48. I love ya mom. Our road miles actually weren’t too bad, it was only about four or so hours to Durango and we had a planned stop at the Aztec National Ruins in Aztec, NM.  Aztec was 183 miles from Albuquerque and the scenery changes were amazing here (I was doing the driving this leg so no through the minivan window photos) and at one point we crossed the Contenintal Divide at 7,000 feet. It was a long stretch of road with not much on it, mostly Indian land with a dot or two of a casino.

The ruins were very cool, they are called the Aztec National Ruins but it’s a misnomer since they were actually built by the Pueblo Indians. Z Man added to his Jr. Ranger badges here by answering a few important questions the Rangers asked. The doorways of the ruins were so small that I really think the Indians must have actually been very short in stature, maybe my size or smaller. Must have been a hard working folk though and seriously resourceful. The Kivas were very interesting, especially the main Kiva that they reconstructed. A very spiritual feeling building.

When we were leaving Aztec Big C pulled over and took some photos of the Animas river under the highway bridge. He has a great story of how he, his brother, and his dad survived a few day rafting trip down the Animas from Durango and by the time they reached Aztec they were dishevled and starving and climbed out of the river here and sat in a corner of and A&W restaurant while thier dad called their mom to come pick them up.

We drove into downtown Durango early afternoon and scouted our way to the place we were staying. It was a little concerning at first but we finally found the main house where we met the lady who owned the farm (her husband had passed away last year and it was just her running things now) she was sitting on her back porch shooting prairie dogs. What was really funny was that she kept saying she couldn’t see so good to shoot. Her property stretched down to the Animas River itself and was a very nice place. The house was very nice also minus the low water pressure. The boys were thrilled with the 3 foot pile of snow in front of the house and spent the afternoon (minus our trip to the grocery store) playing there. They were able to reuse their saucers from White Sands with some success.

We barely had phone coverage here though and absolutely no internet connectivity which made things nice but harder to check in. We had a nice dinner at the house that night and hit the sack after making a lunch to take with us on our train trip.

Those boys who had been awake since 4:30am the morning before and went to bed late the night before were awake and bouncy in our hotel room by 6:30am on Saturday morning. We decided on a quick breakfast of Whataburger taquitos before turning north towards New Mexico. We had show Casey J how to look at the mile markers so he would know how many more miles we had to go the day before and so they were able to count down to mile marker one on I-10 before we entered New Mexico. We explained what the “big wall” next to the river was as we left El Paso and a short 45 minutes later we were in Las Cruces, NM and into Mesilla, NM. I saw the first sign in front of a restaurant that said “New Mexican” food here and then saw about 4 others as we traveled through the state.

The town of Mesilla is built around the San Albino Church. One of my most favorite doorways is located here. It’s just a simple door in the wall that leads to a courtyard. Right behind the door on the other side is a small altar and shrine to the original owner of the building.We arrived here early before a lot of other tourists and before some of the shops were open so we just walked around the town. Big C and I really enjoy this quaint little town for some reason. The boys left happy with their rubber band guns from the Billy the Kid store.

Out of Las Cruces we headed back east for a bit towards Alamagordo, NM were White Sands National Park is located. Not much out that way except military bases and then you come upon the giant white sand dunes which look like clouds sitting on the ground as you approach from the highway. The process in which the earth creates the gypsum dunes is quite interesting. The gypsum sand isn’t like beach sand, it’s soft and smooth and cool. We checked out the park center and found out the sale/rent plastic snow saucers with pieces of wax for you to slide down the dunes. We bought two. Drove out and found some nice size dunes and the boys went up and down, up and down. They could’ve played out there all day long. We had a picnic lunch and let the boys play barefoot on the dunes a bit longer before heading out.

From Alamagordo we turned north towards Carrizozo which is just outside the Valley of Fires State Park (not to be confused with the Valley of Fire in Nevada). This particular highway was two lane and the speed limit was only 55mph. Of course it was my turn to drive and those 6o some odd miles took forever! The geogprahy changed almost instantly and we were surrounded by large giant black rocks and formation. The Valley of Fires State Park is like some of the other parks in New Mexico where you pay by honor system and then enter the park. There were a lot of campers here but it was relatively quiet. We found the scenic overview, posed for a few pictures, and decided to begin making our way towards Albuquerque. The park had by far the cleanest bathrooms of the trip. Seriously.

We made a left turn heading west, passed through San Antonio, New Mexico before finding the major highway and getting back on our northward trek. We had seen some storm clouds to the north as we were driving and then we were in that storm. The winds were howling! I was glad Big C had punched his man card and was doing all the driving. It was a good storm. We got into Albuquerque around 6:30pm or so and found Grandpa and Grandma had already made it to the hotel. We all went out for dinner and then hit the hay. The beds were a bit small so we decided to try to sleep with one of the boys. I got Zach and that was NOT a good idea. He wiggled and kicked and I can honestly say I was greatful when 6am rolled around!