Armadillo… I mean Amarillo, TX and the last leg of the drive

We left Dallas Wednesday morning to go to Amarillo, affectionately referred to as Armadillo by Tracy. This would cut our drive back to Denver in half from Ft. Worth and allow us to get home Thursday night.  We weren't sure where we'd stay in Amarillo so on the way Tracy looked up campgrounds and hotels.  It started raining pretty heavily and there were tornadoes spotted in the area so we decided to stay in a hotel.  The storms were really bad that night so that was a very good move.  On the ride Arden took her position on the couch under a blanket watching the same shows over and over, Tracy took her position up front trying to ignore Davis, and Davis blabbed in our ear the whole time.  We got to Amarillo in the late afternoon and stayed at the Staybridge Suites.  They are dog friendly, had a two bedroom suite for us and had a place to park the RV.  When we arrived we were glad to find out they had free dinner and breakfast which made our lives a little easier.  It appeared that half of the guests were travelers like us and the other half were oil field workers that stayed all week long.

When we got there we swam with the kids for a while.  We had the pool to ourselves which was nice.  I swam with them while Tracy hung out on the deck chairs and caught up on words with friends and instagram.  There was a little basketball hoop so we shot hoops and went back and forth from the hot tub to the pool.  Dinner started at 5:30 so we got out and went inside to feast on bratwurst, fresh fruit, salad and a little beer for Mom and Dad.

Favorite part of the day:
Tracy - Arden keeps finding pennies everywhere we go
Arden - when we got to hotel and we were all safe
Davis - swimming and when Arden kissed me on the cheek (earlier they were having problems so I made them hug each other and kiss each other on the cheek)
Me - cuddling with all the kids in the RV this morning one last time and throwing change on the ground for the kids to find

After dinner the we all got cleaned up and put the kids to bed.  They watched TV in their room for a while and it took them a while to fall asleep.  I talked to my team at work today and it was good to reconnect having been very disconnected the last 6 weeks.  A little bit of anxiety of getting back to our normal lives has creeped in but I've done a good job of ignoring it and being present.  It's been a magical trip.  I'm very thankful we went.

Thursday morning we woke up and I was pretty anxious to get going.  We went down to eat the free breakfast and they had a self serve waffle station with a waffle iron that was in the shape of the state of Texas.  Tracy got the kids ready to go and I took Tucker for a walk and got the RV gassed up.  I mat them in front of the hotel and threw some change out of the RV for them to pick up.  It's hilarious they had no clue I had put it there.  I didn't put all the change they picked up on the ground for them, Arden really did find pennies a bunch of places, but it is funny they think there's dollars worth of change everywhere we stop.

We hit the road around 10 am.  Driving North from AMarillo to Trinidad, CO was very boring.  It started to look like CO again as you got further Northwest in Texas.  We ate in Des Moines, NM at a place called Sierra Grande Cafe which was awesome.  We started to get hungry and Tracy checked Trip Advisor and this restaurant got rave reviews.  It was connected to the only gas station and was the only restaurant in town.  It was surprising they had such good food.  Once we got past Des Moines and into Raton, NM it started looking a lot like Colorado.  Coming over Raton Pass there is a great view of the mountains that reminded me of how beautiful Colorado is.  The rest of the ride was uneventful.  Once we got through Colorado Springs I couldn't beleive how close were were to home.  30 miles became 20, 20 became 10 and before we knew it we were getting off I25 on Orchard Rd.

Once we got home before we left the RV we all sat around the couch and I tried to make a moment with the family discussing how lucky we were to be able to take this trip and how much I love them all.  I'm sure when the kids are older they'll laugh at Dad trying to make a moment with them while all they wanted to do was get out of the RV and go in the house and watch their iPads but it was important to me.  We had a family hug and started unpacking.

Favorite part of the day:
Davis - when he said "don't feed me like a baby, let Mom do it" (Arden tried to feed him like a baby and he scoffed at the thought of her doing but of course being the Mama's boy that he is instantly instructed her to let Mom feed him like a baby.  We all laughed)
Mom- when she gets to take a bath and go to sleep (1st time I remember favorite part of the day being in the future)
Arden - getting here safely and seeing Ruby (neighbor Sinclair's puppy), her fish and her friends
Dad - lunch at Sierra Grande in New Mexico