Florida

 

We flew to Florida for a few days to celebrate Austin and Jaycent's High School graduations.  Austin is heading to Orlando to become a plastic surgeon.  He  did the Aice program out of Cambridge and got a scholarship for a 4 year university in Florida.  Jaycent is still undecided but leaning towards chef right now.

All ready for graduation.  The graduation was held at the Daytona Beach convention center because there were over 300 graduates. 

We went out to eat at the Italian restaurant that Jaycent works at.  He helped prepare our food.  The meatballs were huge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

The gang, including Poppy.  Sage wanted to take Poppy everywhere.  

We rented an Airbnb a few miles from Amanda's house that had a pool.  Sage and Evi loved playing in the pool.

It's rare you see Scott just relaxing!

The night time swimming was fun with the lights.

Beach days are always fun. We headed to Flagler beach closest to our Airbnb for an evening adventure. We spent a lot of time at this beach when we lived in Daytona. I love the evening sun.

Her hair is always so curly in Florida.

Evening sunshine

Always on the lookout for ants. 

We went to Matanzas Inlet which had really nice soft, white sand.  It was the perfect beach day minus the kids seeing a shark pop up near them when they were out jumping in the waves.

The perfect shady spot for Bama.

Austin took us to one of his favorite beaches with cool rock formations called Crescent Beach. 

Exploring the Southwest

 For Spring break this year we decided on a car trip out to the Southwest.  It was a very serendipitous trip filled with so many happy adventures. 

We stayed in a cute adobe within walking distance of downtown.  

Our first stop was Meow Wolf.  Meow Wolf is a 20,000 sq ft immersive art exhibit and play space.  The House of Eternal Return tells the story of a family that disappeared.  You walk through the house to solve the mystery.  The house looks normal from the outside but everything is a portal to a different, artistic world.

In one of the bedrooms the bookcase leads to another world.

Walk into downtown and the ice chest takes you somewhere else.

This dark room has laser strings that are a harp and play music.

Another fun room with art everywhere.

We all climbed into the dryer to another world.

Can you see Scott, Avery and Alia in there?

The kitchen was so much fun with the fridge leading to another place and each of the cabinets hinted of other worlds.

Clues on the fridge opened up a locked box in a different place.

Cartoon world.

Someone is watching you.

So many things to look at.  This room appeared after walking out of the RV.

This room had so many cool things screwed into the walls and ceilings and epoxy-ed onto the floor.  The entire floor was bottle caps in neat patterns.

Santa Fe is a great city which is easy to explore on foot.  We ate our way through the city eating African, Japanese, New Mexican, French and a chocolate shop.

We enjoyed walking on Canyon road which has over a hundred galleries and boutiques in a half mile stretch. 

I love the architecture in Santa Fe.

The oldest house in Santa Fe.  Records and tree samples place the house around 1740-67. 

San Miguel Church known as the oldest church in the USA.  It was built by Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico in 1610.

The Loretto Chapel was established in 1853 to educate the girls in the area.  The Sisters of Loretto had the same French architect as the St Francis Cathedral Basilica. The gothic style architecture and stained glass windows were beautiful.  

The stained glass windows came from Paris.

The staircase to the choir loft is an engineering miracle.  It has two complete 360 degree turns with no center pole for support.  The carpenter that built the stairs came with only a hammer and a carpenter's square.  There are only wood dowels holding it all together.

We enjoyed a few hours at Ten Thousand Waves Japanese Spa.  We had our own private courtyard with a hot tub, cold plunge and sauna. 

Dogs were allowed there and ours enjoyed the sun.

We drove to Bandelier National Monument which is about an hour from Santa Fe.  Pueblo people lived in these cliffs from 1150 to 1550.  The area had a super volcano erupt around 60,000 years ago and the people were able to carve homes in the volcanic tuff.   

On another day we drove to Los Alamos and stopped by the Bradbury Science museum.  This was the area that the atomic bombs were created and tested.  The museum had a lot of hands on interactive exhibits that trace the history of the Manhattan project, show the labs current and historical projects for defense and technology.  Alia is standing by a replica of Fat Man.  I was surprised by the sheer size of it.

On the way home we had a few hours to explore Moab UT.  On a walk, we stumbled upon Harmony Park that has a lot of musical instruments.

We stopped at the Food truck area for dinner.

We ended up walking on one of the many trails through the city.