Northern New Mexico

We left behind Texas' hot desert sand dunes and 7 hours later,
snow welcomed us to the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico! What a surprise! 

This one was taken a few days later after the snow had melted and a rainbow appeared.

We planned to stay 5 nights at Cochiti Lake since it's a good location to explore both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. We just happened to pick a site near The Wander Bus, a converted Ohio school bus which houses a fulltime RVing family with three boys. (photos by Our Wandering Family)

They completely redesigned the entire bus on their own and it is ah-mazing! 

You instantly forget that it's a bus once you step foot inside.

We ended up spending lots of time together at the campground, hiking the national parks, and enjoying dinners in town. They even met up with us in Las Vegas a couple weeks later.

I was excited to realize I might have a chance of seeing rosy finches as they come to the feeders in the  Sandia mountains during the winter. Once we reached the top I sat and waited and was finally rewarded with beautiful views of Albuquerque and all THREE species of rosy finches! This was especially cool since they have usually left the area by now and the very next day the feeders were going to be removed!

 Our Wander Bus friends accompanied us to the Explora Science Museum where we all learned thru running experiments and trying new things.

This was our favorite part. Here we designed houses, cars and spaceships, then scanned them into a machine which turned them into 3D objects on the big screen. The spaceships delivered the houses to their spots and dropped the cars onto the track where they would continue driving along.

Another day we went with them to explore Petroglyph National Monument. We spent time hiking thru Piedras Marcadas Canyon and searching for all the images carved into the rock. Archeologists believe most of these were carved 400 to 700 years ago and some may be 2,000 to 3,000 years old.

We found multiple grinding stones where they would crush corn or other items against the flat rock.

As the city has grown, it's been crawling ever so much closer to these precious areas which hold so much important historical significance. However, without protection, builders had begun building right up to the petroglyphs while thieves chiseled and removed them. Restrictions have since been put in place so hopefully this area will remain preserved for future generations to see them for themselves.

Five new Petroglyph NP Junior Rangers!

Journey was disappointed when we told her we were leaving on Easter. She wanted to plan an Easter egg hunt for the other kids. We ended up staying an extra night so they could enjoy their hunt and we could all spend a bit more time with our friends. Inside their eggs were color-changing lizards, puzzle pieces, jelly beans and mustaches!

Later I watched in excitement as an RV pulled in right between us and our friends. I had seen it posted in our Fulltime Families Facebook page about a year ago. It took all my patience to wait til they had settled in a bit before walking over and introducing myself. They built their RV from the trailer frame up for their family of four plus a small horse (ok, he's really a great dane, and he's amazing)! Check out "Learning the Long Way" here.

That night while the dads and kids had a Star Wars movie night in the Wander Bus, the moms enjoyed a quiet evening watching "Mom's Night Out" in our RV. We all had a great time.