Phase #4

 The trip started like this, all packed in, two kids, (Which was sad to not have 4) and one dog, more than all the necessary things, including and not limited to a great spirit of adventure! We set out bright and early with a rough idea of things we wanted to see along the way, but a very loose time frame as was Dan's request.

 We very quickly made a stop about 3 hours away to wash puke off the car. It turns out that you can get car sick from playing video games as well as reading in the car. Eyes up on the road. Let's go.

 A stop at the lava tubes to hike a little bit and stretch our legs in Malpais, New Mexico.
They were super cool. Not just to look at, but in temperature. It was nice to get out and see something especially something as refreshing as a hike in some cool temps.

 

 



 We stayed the night in Albuquerque, and happened to stumble on a church festival. It was celebrating 318 years of existence in this town and it was fun. Cute gazebo out side the church with banners and a band. Carnival rides were the highlight for the kids, we also enjoyed some funnel cake and it was a lovely evening to walk from our hotel to the celebrations. We noticed unlike AZ the temperatures dropped to a lovely and bearable evening in New Mexico.

The next day's stop was at a soda pop shop.

The add boasted of this 9 ft pop bottle sculpture that has a light show at night and over 160 flavors of pop. It was fun looking through some of the crazy flavors and picking out a few for the road. The craziest flavor we got was maple with chocolate covered bacon. It mostly tasted like a maple cream soda with a little salty after taste.

We visited the cutest little museum. "Tinker Town" full of hand carved dolls and set up in little scene's. Old time western town or circus scene's.
Kitchy little sayings and signs. Soda pop bottle walls and strange things collected from all over the world. I highly recommend this stop if driving through 40 E !

Our stop in Texas was short and just for a massive burger for dinner. But Paige and Seth did note the stereotype of Texas things being "BIG" and all of the people saying "Ya 'all" was in fact a fact.

 

Then we saw a lot of this. Some more of this, and a little more of this as it got cooler and rainier and greener. Paige mentioned that the earth wastes a lot of water we could have used in the desert.

 

We landed in Ft. Leavenworth at about 7 pm and were happy to be out of the car but not looking forward to phase 5 at all. Phase 3 and 4 were a lot of fun!