Thursday, January 7, 2016

No White Christmas

This year, we skipped having a white Christmas to spend the holiday in Arizona. We had a wonderful time relaxing and spending time with family and friends at the SKP park in Benson. Just how good a time? Well, for starters, it turns out that when your Gigi knows Santa and Mrs. Claus, they make special house calls the night before his big delivery day. I think that the moment that they walked
There are how many miles are left?!?
in the door, the Little Girl forgave us for the long drive to get there.

The drive there was pretty intense. We drove there in only two days. We were smarter on the way home and split it into three days with preplanned stops at pet friendly hotels. They were still
long days, but it kept our passengers much less vocal of their displeasure at being cooped up for so long. 

We opted for spending most of our time playing board games, reading, art projects, sleeping in, dancing and relaxing instead of a lot of sight seeing. However, there were a few important ones on our "must see" list...lunch down in Tombstone and the Christmas lights at a neighborhood in Tuscon renowned for its elaborate displays. (It was intense and deserves its own post which I may or may not get around to doing....let's be frank. I sometimes do not get everything posted.)

So just how do the Sheffers relax? Here is a quick glance at the numbers:
  • 1,600+ miles travelled both there and back.
  • 9 states including 7 new ones added to the Little Girl's list of "places visited" (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona). 
  • 3 additions to the roadside buffet along the highway. 1 rabbit, 1 possum, and 1 road runner. Random side note: we realized that the bird in the cartoons is not actually a roadrunner. It is really more of an ostrich or emu.
  • 40 MPH...the speed that we managed to reach on the pass between White Sands and Las Cruces. Our little 4 cylinder engine just could not hang with the big boys
  • 18 days away from home
  • 1 very happy family!