A Family Trip to Colorado

We’ve enjoyed the past six weeks or so at home, watching our garden grow and enjoying some of the best weather the Northwest has to offer. Now it’s a time for a family trip to the remote Colorado ranch which Kathy’s family owns along with two other families. Kathy and Brian posted about our September 2022 stay here.

Our son is enjoying Europe, and couldn’t make it, and most of our grandchildren have summer jobs. However, our two daughters, their husbands, and our three youngest grandchildren make up our merry party of nine.

We left our house yesterday morning after proving how much luggage a Subaru Outback can hold behind the second seat, including a food-filled cooler.

We all met up at SEA, checked the large items, and made our way through a very busy airport, boarding an Alaska flight to Albuquerque.

It was a pleasant flight, and our family got to experience a go-around, an aborted landing in which the pilot suddenly stepped on the gas and climbed fairly steeply just as we were about to touch down.

That always gets our attention. A few minutes later he calmly explained that he was avoiding wind shear, which can be “mischievous” in his words. Our second landing was firm but steady.

We picked up our rental cars, a Nissan Armada and Subaru Ascent, checked in at an airport Hampton Inn, and enjoyed a sociable dinner at a nearby Chili’s in the food desert that surrounds ABQ.

This morning we’ll stock up with provisions at Costco, and then embark on the four-hour trek across northern New Mexico to southern Colorado. We’ll try to tune in a Navajo Nation radio station along the way, so our grandchildren can hear that mysterious language that the famous “code talkers” used to outwit the Japanese in World War II.

It’s another fascinating part of the US to experience, and we’re looking forward to the day.