We Did It! We Did It!

Okay I totally stole that from Dora, so you have to sing it to get the full effect. "We did it, we did it!" Devon and I hiked up Guadalupe Peak in Guadalupe National Park. Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at 8,749 feet. The hike was a lot of hard work, a lot of fun and I learned a few things in the process...

1. I never knew I was afraid of heights, but apparently above 8,000 ft. I get a little freaked out! 2. Rattlesnakes aren't so scary. 3. Field mice are kind of cute. 4. I really enjoy talking to my mom about something other than my kids. Don't get me wrong I love talking about my kids, but it seems most of the time that is all we talk about. 5. After almost 10 years of marriage I still really enjoy being with my wonderful husband and doing the crazy things that we love to do together!

6. Devon and I are who we are and see things the way we see them because we have grown together over the past ten years; shaping and molding each other into the people/couple we have become.

7. Climbing up Guadalupe Peak is probably one of the most physically challenging things I have ever accomplished, but it was also one of the best times of my life!

8. Climbing a mountain is very similar to childbirth (I know its crazy, but for me it was!)

9. Potted meat may have been yummy as a kid, but, YUCK, how do people eat that stuff?

10.Walking sticks were a GREAT invention!

Devon and I decided to hike Guadalupe Peak a few months ago (see previous post). I said I was going to workout and stop eating pizza with Ashlee. I didn't (thanks for your help with that Ash!). So, no I wasn't really in mountain climbing shape, but we put it on the calendar so, we had to do it. This is the itinerary I sent to Karen, Devon's step mom when I first asked them to keep our girls:

Sat (May 24)- Drive to Midland

Sun (May 25)- Leave for mountains in afternoon and spend night at bottom of mountains Mon (May26)- Hike up mountain, spend the night up top

Tue (May 27)- Hike down mountain, drive to Midland, drive back home

Well the trip went similar to the plans, but anyone who knows us knows things don't always go as planned. Devon came home on Friday night about 6:00 and I said, "Let's leave tonight. I'm ready to get out of here." Devon looked at me like I was crazy and said, "You want to?" Well of course I wanted to I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't want to. He wasn't too keen on the idea because we still had to pack and get ready to go and he was exhausted from a very long week. I thought this was a great idea because the girls could sleep and we could make it to San Angelo and about half of our drive would be over.

We ate and packed and around 10:00 he said, "You think we should leave tonight?" I don't know if he has always been so wishy washy when it comes to making up his mind or if he is getting worse with age, but it drives me crazy! You know? Either you want to leave tonight or you want to wait until tomorrow; just make a decision it's not rocket science! He doesn't like me to drive (a little bit of a control issue-wink, wink), so I was leaving the decision up to him. So, he says we are leaving and he starts getting his keys and stuff and then he says, "Should we go?" I told you he was wishy washy. He then decides we aren't going to go and starts to put his stuff down. So, I said okay girls lets go to bed, well it was about two hours past their bed time, so Lyric totally lost it at that point. She started crying and freaking out and then Story started crying! So Devon said, "Okay, get in the van we're leaving!" I guess you could say the girls made that decision for him.

We left the house about 10:30 and headed to San Angelo. We got there around 1:30 and found a decent hotel. We got in bed around 2:00 or so. The next morning we got up, had some McDonald's for breakfast and hit the road to Midland. I had put together these "Travel Bags" for the girls to keep them occupied on the way to Midland. They had stickers, paper, snacks and stuff like that. Lyric loved her Ariel stickers and they were so cute in their new shades! We got to Midland and hung out the rest of Saturday. We left for the mountains around noon on Sunday. Our first stop was HEB. We had to buy our food for the trip. We had decided we were going to eat quesadillas on Sunday night and breakfast tacos on Monday morning, but we didn't really know what we were going to eat on the mountain. We had to have something that didn't have to be cold or need to be cooked. We wondered around HEB for a while looking at different options. Devon decided he would get Spam for him.Yuck, I don't think I like Spam, especially not cold! Ah, but I remember eating potted meat as a child and it was good with Fritos, so I got a can of that. We also got snacks, water and we splurged and paid extra for the homemade tortillas (they were still hot, yummy). After leaving HEB we headed for Guadalupe Mountains. It was about a three hour drive.

We got to the mountains and got our campsite for the night. We unloaded a few things to save our site and decided to drive around a while and do some exploring. We went back to the visitor's center and looked around a while. Devon bought a walking stick and we found a puzzle postcard for the girls. When we went up to pay the girl checking us out asked Devon if he wanted to purchase a medallion for his walking stick. We had never seen these before, but we both decided to get one. It is a little medal plate that says Guadalupe Mountain National Park and it comes with little nails to nail it to your walking stick. This is the first hike we have used our walking sticks on, but we plan to do many more, so we will have lots of medallions. Typing this now makes me think that is something old people would have, but we think it is cool, we are in our 30's, I guess we are getting pretty old!We drove to the Butterfield Stage Ruins just down the road. It was kind of neat. Then we drove over to Frijole Ranch. This was really cool! You could see the ranch house, an old school house for the eight children that lived in the area and a spring house. The spring house was the coolest thing. It was a little building that was covering a natural spring. You could hear the water running out of it like a small water fall. We also read about how the ranch got its name, after the diet of the people of the time, frijoles... for all you gringos out there that means beans. After visiting Frijole Ranch we headed back to set up camp for the night.

Devon started getting the tent out of the van and I was just looking around our campsite. I spotted a lizard on a tree and commented on how I hope this was the only wildlife we would see at our campsite. Last summer we camped at the Davis Mountains and were attacked by skunks. I kept looking around exploring the campsite. I like snakes, so I was looking around to see if I might catch a glimpse of one. Let me explain a little, I like snakes when they are in the distance and preferably crawling away from me. I also like them to not have a rattle on the end of their tail.

So, I am standing in the spot where Devon is going to put the tent and I see a snake a few feet away. I get really excited and think, 'There's a snake!' I watch it slither over a rock and I see the rattle. I immediately freak out and start yelling for Devon to come over. I said, "I saw a snake and it was a rattlesnake!" He asks where and I start pointing to where I saw it, but it was gone. So we keep looking in the bushes and we see him curled up on a rock, catching some sun. Well, I like snakes, but this guy could kill us. I said, "We can't camp here, we have to move. We have to pick another campsite!" Devon starts laughing and says, "Look around Christy, do you think this is the only rattlesnake out here? You just happened to see this one." Well, that made sense, but still the snake just kept looking at me! I finally got over the initial shock and came to my senses. I know snakes are as scared of me as I am of them and they don't want to hurt me, so I kept an eye on our little friend while Devon set the tent up. He eventually slithered off the rock and we got a look at him all stretched out. He was about four feet long. When the sun started going down he slithered away. It was actually a very cool experience. I have never seen a rattlesnake in real life.

This is the tent before we set it up and Mr. Snake is on a rock right by that fence post. A little close for comfort, don't ya think?

Devon got the tent set up without being eaten. It was really funny because we are used to camping with the kids and things take so much longer when you have them there to help and to make sure they aren't being eaten by a rattlesnake. We got the tent set up and then we we were like, "Now what?" We decided to play some cards. Devon and I aren't real card sharks, our favorite game to play is "War". I played this as a kid where each player turns over a card and the high card wins. Devon's version of this games is much more fun than mine! Each player lays down four cards face up. You then have to cover the matching cards as fast as you can trying to get rid of your cards. When there are no longer any matching cards you have to pick those cards up and add them to your pile and play goes on until one person is out of cards. I love this game! One, because it is very fast paced and just a lot of fun, but also because I am much better than Devon is at it. I don't know how many games we played, but he only one one.

While we were playing cards we could see a thunderstorm brewing in the distance. We decided not to make our quesadillas in case the storm came. Instead, we had cold tortillas (glad we bought the homemade ones), salsa, queso, avocado and chips. It was a yummy supper!

While we were eating we heard something in the bushes. At first, I thought it was Mr. Snake back to visit us, but it turned out to be a couple of field mice. I hate rats! I would have rather it been the rattler than a rat, but Devon convinced me that field mice are much different than rats and in the end I thought they were kind of cute.

The storm never came, thank goodness! It started to get dark, so we decided to walk down to the bathroom and then go to bed for the night. When we returned to our campsite, there stood a skunk! Luckily, he was as scared of us as we were of him and he ran away when we walked up. He was definitely not a close relative of the skunks at the Davis Mountains because they were not afraid of people and would walk right up to you!

So we get in the tent and attempt to zip the door for the night. The zipper breaks... that's right we just saw a skunk and there was a rattlesnake a few feet from our tent this afternoon, but now the tent won't zip! We were eventually able to get it most of the way up, but the top part hung open for any small critter to climb through. Luckily, we had no guests for the night, but from 2:00 on we thought every sound we heard was something trying to climb through the door!

We got up around six and made breakfast tacos. After packing up the campsite we were ready to hit the trail about 8:00. Our plan was to stay the night on the mountain, so we had our packs full of everything we would need. My pack weighed about 30 pounds. We didn't actually weigh it, but I know it weighed more than Story. Devon had the tent, so his was even heavier.Devon loves to take pictures with his subject looking directly at the sun:-)

We started up the trail and I was immediately regretting not going to the gym! We took our first small break about five minutes into the hike! We were panting pretty much from the beginning. I know this hike would have been much easier without our pack (easier, but not easy). The trail had lots of stairs and it helped me to estimate how many stairs there were and then count them as I went up. I would say 1,2,3,4--2,2,3,4--3,2,3,4 and so on. I was thinking about being in labor as we climbed all of those stairs. When I had the girls I would count in my head and say, "I will push for a count of ten", and then as I was pushing I would think, "you can go to twelve or fifteen"... it is total a mental thing. Funny how the mind works!

The views were gorgeous along the trail! We saw a lizard on the way up. We enjoyed looking at him and were hopeful that would be the only reptile we would see! I thought it was kind of weird how we were pretty much in the desert, but mixed in with the dirt and rocks you would see beautiful patches of flowers. We struggled quite a bit on the way up, but we kept going and going and going...

On the way up we periodically took pictures of the parking lot below. It was pretty amazing to see it keep getting smaller!Yeah, that is the parking lot below. We estimate this to be about half way up.

We stopped to eat at what we thought was the half way point. That is another thing that makes this hike challenging; you never know how far you have come or more importantly how much farther you have to go!

I had an orange and a bag of cereal. Devon had beef jerkey and some trail mix. There were some beautiful views from the spot we were having lunch!It was very interesting because all morning we had been in a desert like atmosphere, but after turning the corner it turned into more forest like surroundings.

I have never been so happy to see a sign in my whole life! This was where we left the trail for our campsite. If you look closely at this sign you wiil notice it just says Guadalupe Peak Campsite with an arrow. Well, I don't know about you, but that makes me think it is just ahead... NOT! We kept walking and walking and freaking walking. I was ready to just pitch the tent in a spot just off of the trail. I mean, come on-- do we really need a campsite? Finally we arrived at the campsites. There were five to choose from. We had to hike around to find all five of the sites, but eventually we decided on one. We laid out our sleeping bags, had a snack and got some much needed rest! I wanted to take my shoes off SO bad, but we still had to hike to the peak and I knew if I took my shoes off they were not going to be going back on my feet. I really don't think I could have made it to the peak in my flip flops!

After resting for about an hour Devon set the tent up and we headed back to the trail to hike up to the peak. There was a point on the trail where it seemed like you have come to an end there are just rocks in front of you, but you have to climb over the rocks to continue on the trail. When you get over the rocks you can see for miles and miles and it looks like you have landed on Mars! That is where I lost it! I really did freak out, I felt like we had entered another galaxy or like we were the last people on Earth! It was wild, luckily there were a couple of people who had been to the peak and were coming back down. When I saw them I kind of came back to Earth. CRAZY!!!

The peak was pretty awesome, you had a 360 degree view. It seemed like you could see for forever and ever. I took tons of batteries for my camera because I wanted to be sure we didn't run out, but we left our packs to hike to the peak and my batteries were back in the pack! So, this picture is of me while Devon was trying to set the camera up to take a picture of the both of us and the camera died. We spent a while up at the peak and we signed the log book and then headed back down to the campsite. When we got back to camp we were both starving, so we ate our "supper". It was awful! We were beat down and hungry. We needed real food. The Spam and potted meat just weren't going to do the trick!

We sat there for a while after eating (still hungry) and Devon said, "What time is it?" It was 4:30. He said, "You know, we still have time to hike down." I was thinking, 'Is he serious?' Then I looked over at him and I knew we were probably going to be hiking down that night. We decided it would make the next day much easier if we didn't have to hike down the mountain before getting the girls and heading back home. We also didn't think we would get much sleep with the broken zipper on the tent door, so we packed it up and headed down! It took us about 2 hours to make it to the bottom. We were exhausted!

Our plan was to head to Pecos, eat a good meal, find a nice hotel, get a hot shower, lay on the bed, watch some TV and then get a good night sleep before heading to Midland to get the girls the next day. Well, let me just tell you that isn't what happened! Devon and I have a list of towns that we will never be stopping at again... Pecos is now on the list!

When we finished the hike I was joking that we were going to go to Pecos and have Salt Grass. I really could have used a huge steak! But for those of you who have never been to Pecos let me just tell you know... there is no Salt Grass within hundreds of miles of Pecos. So, we decided we would order a pizza, find the hotel and be set. We were not quite to the town yet and I decided to call ahead to Pizza Hut and see what time they close. They closed at 10:00, we weren't going to be in Pecos until a few minutes after ten. First problem, what were we going to eat? We decided we would find a hotel and ask the clerk where we might find some food after 10:00 on a Monday night.

We thought we had seen a new hotel when we were heading out the day before, so we drove around Pecos looking for the new hotel. We finally found it. Devon went in to get the room and I waited in the car. A few minutes later he comes to my car window and says, "They are having problems with their hot water heater, so we may or may not have hot water. Do you want to stay here? The room is only $65.oo" Can someone please explain to me what I was thinking? I really must have left some of my brain on the mountain! I don't take cold showers, I would rather be dirty for a week than take a cold shower! I said, "Okay." Okay, okay... why would I say okay? I really wanted and really needed a shower! You could feel the dust and dirt on my skin from the hike and I said OKAY! Seriously, I think I was on crack! Actually, I think it was the fact that it was a new hotel that made me say okay. I was thinking at least it is new and will be nice inside. WRONG!!!

First, we had to go and get food. The only thing open in Pecos after 10:00 on a Monday is AllSups, the conveinence store. So, we got fried burritos. I actually really like fried burritos and only get to eat them when we go to west Texas, so that part wasn't too terribly bad. It was no Salt Grass, but it could have been worse.

We took our fried burritos up to our "new" room at the hotel. When we walked in the lobby it was hot. I knew right off there was going to be a problem. What kind of new hotel has no AC in the lobby and problems with the hot water heater? We open the door to our room and right off you could tell we are not at a new hotel. They had done lots of work on a really old hotel, but that didn't make it new! They repainted and redid the floors, but they didn't replace the 150 year old bathtub. It was pretty gross overall, but we were just too tired to leave! We sat on the beds to eat our fried burritos. I tried to turn on the TV, but apparently a JVC remote won't work on a Magnavox TV. After getting up to manually turn on the TV I ate my fried burrito. I then went into the bathroom to try the hot water. You are never going to believe this... it didn't work! Are you shocked? Of course you aren't and to tell you the truth I wasn't either! That tub was pretty gross, so at least I didn't have to get in it. Needless to say I didn't get a very good night sleep since I was filthy!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We woke up the next morning drove to Midland to get the girls and then drove back home. Hiking the mountain was a great experence and I really enjoyed the time with Devon! I wouldn't have changed anything about the trip, well maybe the whole Pecos hotel experience, but other than that it was awesome!