Snapshots: The Magic Carpet Ride

And by "magic carpet," I mean "our gigantic van." Or something. 

Whatever. I like this song and thought of it as I was writing a title, so there you go.

And here we go, on a photo timeline of our roadtrip to and from Tucson. Whee!

Although the drive to Tucson can be done in one long day, it's much more bearable with children to split it up over two days. We left around 8 a.m. on Thursday and drove the majority of the way the first day, stopping in the mountains in the Gila National Forest outside of Silver City.

There were lots of trees and a little stream nearby. Even a pit toilet. 

Listen, I take when I can get when I'm on a family roadtrip.

In all seriousness, it was a very nice campsite.

Because I am a high-maintenance princess, I insisted that A. bring the tent. He doesn't bother with such frippery when he goes camping with the kids, but after our raccoon adventure a couple of years ago, I vowed that never again would I sleep under the stars unless it was the direst of circumstances. 

We did have one not-too-close neighbor--a guy who has spent the last five years riding his bicycle around and was on his way to work at a Renaissance Festival in Colorado--but he was nice and didn't seem to mind the occassional visits from the dogs.

The dogs are on high alert at all times, but particularly at night when they're camping with us. They spent the night patrolling the perimeter of our campsite and barking at whatever they heard or smelled. Unfortunately, this included a skunk that came to visit the stream at about 3 a.m. I'm sure it would have just wandered away without bothering us, but Jasper took it upon himself to chase it away. With the predictable result.

He was a bit, um, fragrant for the rest of the trip.

With the two dog crates in the back of the van, we actually didn't have much room in the cargo area in back for the camping gear. We have a car-top carrier, though, so A. used that for the sleeping bags and so on. Of course, the car-top carrier is really meant to be used on an actual car with a reachable top, not our giant van.

This meant that every day, A. had to climb up on top of the van to re-pack the carrier.

This is a peak Dad on a Family Roadtrip moment, right here.

We still had a few hours to drive before we got to Tucson, so we stopped once in Bowie, Arizona, for a break. 

The village playground was . . . spartan.

The playground was also adjacent to a chainlink fence surrounding a house at which lived two HUGE bulldogs. Which we discovered when we let our dogs out of their crates and the bulldogs launched themselves at the fence. 

There then followed a frantic few minutes of A. throwing our dogs back in the van and me throwing our kids back in the van so we could find somewhere to eat lunch that wouldn't result in a dog fight.

We did go to the school playground, but it was so hot, the kids played for about ten minutes and then we got back in the car and they ate their lunch while we drove.

The house I rented on Airbnb was very, very nice.

A bit more luxurious than our previous night's lodging.

The house was on the east side of Tucson, in an area of larger properties, many with horses. This house was on fifteen acres, which included a path that leads to a large wash. I took the dogs on a walk to the wash every morning.

The path led through an old mesquite forest, and it was really cool. Literally cool, too--only around 60 degrees at dawn, even on days that got to 112 degrees.

Well, technically before dawn--around 5 a.m.

There was a walled-in backyard where I would sit and have my coffee after walking the dogs.

Coffee time with dogs.

During the day, when we were gone at the gathering for my brother-in-law's celebration of life, the dogs were put in their crates in the air-conditioned house. It was over 110 degrees every day we were there. Too hot for them to be outside that much during the middle of the day.

I placed the crates so they couldn't see each other. Odin was a little bit anxious during the trip, which manifested in snarling at his brother.

It was, in short, the perfect house for our family. Only about 20 minutes from the places we needed to go, but rural enough that it was relaxing for us country mice.

We had to check out on Sunday morning at 10 a.m., and we spent the morning with the members of A.'s family that live in Tucson, so it was a late start to our drive. We were planning on stopping earlier in the day to set up camp, but we ran into some terrible weather at that point in the day. It was hot and windy, dusty (or smoky--couldn't tell), with ominous clouds near the mountains. So we kept driving until we were out of it.

Unfortunately, that meant we drove until just after the sun had set. We camped on Bureau of Land Management land just a few hours from home, in the middle of the range. (Ranchers can lease BLM land, but anyone can camp on it.) We were just a few miles from the main road, but it was very quiet and pretty nice out there. 

No skunks, either.

We made it home by 9:30 the next morning. Everyone was very ready to be out of the car by then and very happy to be home.

And there you have it! Our trip, snapshotted.