...and ended up in Elephant Butte

Nov 30 -  ... so after waking up in Pecos, we headed to the nearest automotive repair shop, Sam's Auto Body. The owner, Sam Whittington, took care of the problem for us, then showed us around his place. He took special pride in his pontoon, telling us about fishing on Val Kilmer's property (he even had one of Kilmer's quads in his shop for repairs), and asking if he could keep Ben around to go hunting. On his advice, we got some breakfast at Rivera's, where his daughter works, and went to see the Pueblo ruins at Pecos National Park:

It was very cold with the wind, so we didn't stay very long outside. We went back to the museum & looked at the artifacts while the oldest 3 kids completed a workbook to receive a Junior Park Ranger pin.  Afterwards, we hit the I-25 (aka as the Santa Fe Trail on the section we were on). Most of the housing in Santa Fe has some form of adobe feature on it, or is completely finished in adobe - really quite lovely.

Dec 1 - Really only stayed in Santa Fe long enough to go to the library & catch up on emails, then we were off to Albuquerque.

Dec 2 - Our headlights had gone off again,  so we went to  repair shop that could diagnose the root of the problem, which was a burn out switch. while it was being replaced, we walked to the Petroglyph Monument National Park, where the kids earned another junior park ranger badge & pin.

Dec 3 - found a good library in the Alamosa county of Albuquerque that I used to make the last post - there was a skate/bmx park nearby, so we didn't see too much of Ben all day ;)

Dec 4 - on the way to look for a bicycle shop, we brushed against a tree that was just about down & it popped off part of something on our roof (can't remember what it was, but nothing important & Dan was able to put it back on), as well as ripped it right out of the ground. this happened near an Emu farm, so the kids went over to take a look at them while the repair was being made. Later when shopping a rep for a fundraiser sold us a coupon book for discount meals at Denny's, so no supper for me to cook tonight :D