Pete and Shelley, The Bonus Plan: Red River, New Mexico 2010- Part 1

I LOVE vacation. I like being at home too, but I’m definitely not a home body. I never remember getting homesick as a child when I was away at church camp or spending the night at a friend’s house. I love to travel, Pete loves to travel (although not as much as I do), and now we get to travel with our kids.

So…..How could I possibly cover our second annual Red River vacation in just one post? I’ll start with “Part 1”……

First of all, my Grandpa has been coming to Red River since 1938! That’s a long, long, long time. They had to travel on a very rough dirt/rocky road over the top of the mountain. I’ve driven part of this road. It still exists, but is now graded with modern machinery and it’s still fairly rough. I couldn’t imagine what it was like back then. When my Grandparents had kids (my mom and my aunts), they also spent vacations at Red River. Still no paved road and still no indoor plumbing in the primitive cabins! Then, my parents continued the tradition. We of course travelled on the new, paved road into town and stayed in more “modern cabins”.

The last two years, we’ve stayed in the same cabins that I stayed in as a kid. There is a river running through the property, a playground, and a pond stocked with trout each week. Some of these cabins were built in the 1950’s.….maybe even before that. That was just my guess judging from the inscriptions on the wall (ie: “We Were Here, July 1950”).

This year, we spent lots of time hiking, fishing (we never really used bait), and loading up dump trucks with pine cones. Emery was like a mountain goat and Gavin did a really great job too. Ethan was just hanging out taking it all in!

Warning, picture overload. I just couldn’t pick my favorites.

Luckily, we were prepared for the rainy weather with the cute new raincoats from Uncle Robbie and Aunt Miranda!

So many pine cones, so little time…….

Taking a walk in the rain with Dad……

Just chillin’ on the couch……

Emery could actually cast her line all the way across the river! Next year maybe we’ll be brave enough to let her use a hook and bait!

Showing Grandpa how it’s done……

Getting ready for our first hike. I got this backpack for $25 from a friend in my twin’s club before we moved back from Indiana. We never used it with Gavin and Emery because we never went hiking with just one baby. :-) I’m so glad we kept it. Ethan loved it!

The trail took us right underneath several ski lifts. This is obviously one of the older lifts, but it is the type I remember riding on when I was little…..which is why I’m still petrified of ski lifts. :-)

Another day, another hike. Do you see the look on Emery’s face? We were jokingly calling this a bear cave and I guess she believed us. She was ready to high-tail it out of there before the bear came back!