Arkansas Adventure

 3rd Quarter was very long and stressful for me, I didn't have much time at home or time to relax, so I requested that we stay home for Spring Break and relax... So we went to Arkansas instead.

The plan was to rent an RV and trail it to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to "camp" there for a few days. I was not thrilled with taking an 8-hour drive to Arkansas trailing an RV, which would slow us down, and then do whatever in Arkansas. We started our trip in the morning on Saturday, we knew our route, and we knew that we would have to make many stops for our gas mileage, which averaged around 10mpg. And because I'm getting older and learning to drive, I was tasked with filling up the car every time... I got a lot of practice. With all the stops and slow speeds, it took about 12 hours to get to the RV park, and even then, we still had to find the bathroom codes, and set up our RV took another hour. We could finally relax at about 10 PM, so we pretty much slept right away, so we could prepare for the bathhouses the next day.

A crawfish we found

We all slept in that day because our reservation wasn't until 2, so before we walked around the town and visited the watchtower on top of a hill. The tower was quite impressive, it had a bigger gift store than any other in the city, and it was about 150ft tall. You could take the elevator up to the top of the tower, or you could take the stairs. So of course I was with my Dad on the stairs. The climb wasn't that bad until we started running. The view at the top of the tower was magnificent, you could the city the whole landscape around Hot Springs and a nearby amusement park.

View from the top

The tower

After the tower, we headed to the bathhouses. On Main street, there is more than just one building with baths, but we headed to The Quapaw bathhouse because it was the only one where you could be in the pool with your family. But you had to be 14+, so we just said Alex was 14. We got our locker keys after a 30-minute wait and changed to in the baths. 4 pools were ranging in temperature between 93 degrees and 104 degrees. I could barely last in the hottest one, but I spent a lot of time in the cooler one. We ended up resting in the pools for about 2-and-a-half hours before leaving and going to the actual hot springs, which we could stick our hands in. We headed back to our RV late in the evening to play games, and sleep some more.

The hot springs

I was not looking forward to Monday. On Monday, we had to wake up early to drive an hour away to Crater of the Diamonds, to dig for diamonds, which meant mud, and sifting. Something you may not know about me is that I hate gold panning, and that is basically what we were going to do for 5 hours. I decided to find a place to sit and listen to my audiobook, which I listened to a lot that day. After bringing home a bucket of "promising" rocks, there was nothing of value. That day when we headed back, we tried to make a fire, which a family that has done a lot of camping, and two Eagle Scouts, could not get the fire to properly light. Our dinner on the fire somehow came out fine, but my Dad and I both said that we have never worked so hard for so little fire.

Crater of the Diamonds

The next day was offroading, which we all love (sarcasm). We drove out a good distance before making it to an unpaved road to the offroading site. It was at this point that my Dad decided I should drive his manual on a narrow unpaved road. A terrific idea. Despite never driving a stick before, I quickly got hang of the clutch and cruised down 6 miles to our destination. I would like to think I am a capable driver, and in fact, I am eligible to get my permit after passing the test, all I have to do is turn 15 and go to the DPA for verification. Anyway, we noticed while we were on the actual trails that we, in our big vehicle, were having a hard time fitting on the road, so we headed back and saw a sign that said ATV only. So that day didn't last. So we explored a nearby waterfall instead. On the trail there, I found a spot where I could climb a boulder, so I did. Then on that spot, I saw another, and another and another. I ended up climbing to the top of an 800 ft mountain, which was dumb because getting down was risky. Along the whole way, there were thorns all over to add to the problem. I eventually got down after about 30-45 minutes with my legs bleeding. But I got some good photos. We had lunch at the waterfall, and headed back to the city to explore, then fail at lighting a fire again.

Little waterfall

The aftermath of my climb

Pictures from the peak

The peak

Disregard the finger

Wednesday was our last full day, so we looked for something to do in the town, and found a local escape room place, our family loves to try escape rooms, and then see if the experience was any good. We were pleasantly surprised by the rooms, for we did two in a connected timeline, which meant we were in the same room. We thought that there couldn't be much more to do in the room, but we were surprised by the secret doors. After, we tried to make robots fight each other, but the contraption was broken.

We woke up early the next morning to make the long drive back, we weren't thrilled about the drive, but we were ready to get home. On the way home, we stopped in Texarkana, which is a town on the border of Texas and Arkansas, to take a picture with the famous post office that is split by the border, but we couldn't actually get to it, so we took a long-distance selfie. In total it took about 12 hours to get back home, in which we were grateful to get to our rooms and sleep in our own beds.

Texas Versus Snow

 If you didn't know, Texas was just kicked to it's knees because of 20 degree temperatures and half-a-foot of snow. We didn't have school for a week, almost everyone had burst pipe, the power kept going out because people tried to keep their houses at 80 degrees, senators fled to Cancun, it was a disaster. I wasn't opposed to the full week break with time in the snow and on the Oculus and video games. However the snow actually burst our pipes and started flooding our garage, so we had to shut off the water for a bit until Dad handymanned it and put a temporary fix on it. We never lost power fortunately, but it was always chill in our house. We had fun with our new Oculus Quest 2 and various games, but the snow melted on Friday, and as I'm typing this it is 70 degrees outside, so our true winter break is over and we're back in school for 2 more weeks until spring break. 

Icicles 

Snow!

Along with all this winter in Texas, I've been learning to drive, which is both scary and fun, I'm trying to be a good driver so when I turn 15 I can get my permit pretty quickly. My parents say I'm a pretty good driver, but we'll see in the future.

Old Friends

 Despite 2020 finally being over, and Biden doing a better job with the vaccine rollout, life is still stressful. It's just day in and day out of school and other responsibilities and feels like that there will never be an end. So just a little break was nice.

Last Saturday I met up with some old friends at Hunters Mill Park, and we as the group hadn't seen all of us together since before Covid, which feels like forever ago. We had lots of fun trying out bike trails, climbing trees, catching up on each other since Covid, and overall being really dumb at the park. But it was nice to have just a few hours of fun before school just started again.

Trees

Overall strange

Our Holiday, Far, Far Away Part 2

 The start of Boxing Day was easy and relaxing, we all had fun with our new gifts and played games. But that day we were also going to be flying to our second part of the trip, a stay in Kuna to see family one more time before we possibly leave for Japan. Unfortunately, our mother couldn't come, because she was already so exhausted from the traveling we did before. We didn't need to be at the airport until 5, because our flight leaves at 7:20. Despite how massive Denver Airport is, it was actually pretty uncrowded for the holiday break, we got through security smoothly and made our way to our flight, we couldn't pick up any snacks at the USO though. Our flight ended up getting delayed about 45 minutes, for some unknown airport reasons. But when we finally took off and flew away, it was so nice to feel the ambiance of an airplane again, and see the rolling mountains from high above.

We came late enough to see the bronco's eyes lit up

On the train to get to our gate

Boarding

It took us about 2 hours to land in Boise (a much smaller airport) and reclaim our luggage, actually fairly quickly, and get picked up by our Uncle Charles, whose house we would also be staying at for our time in Boise and Kuna. We had fun at Uncle Charles’ house and we were able to catch up after a long time, but we actually spent most of our time at The Compound. To be able to understand the nicknames for the households, you need some backstory. The Foutzes and Newtons both live in the same household (for now) and that house is where everyone hangs out for games and fun, so we call it The Compound. The grandparents, Nana-Dee and Papa Jon live in their own house (with help) and don't allow many visitors, because it is small and quaint, so it is called The Cottage. And finally, there is the house we slept at for our time there, it's a distance away from The Compound and Cottage, so it's an area to get away from the chaos from The Compound, so it's called The Sanctuary. Now you're all caught up on the information of households.

Why does this make me laugh?

We had a lot of fun at The Compound with cousins and other relatives. We played lots of games including video games, card games, board games, and VR games. We had a full round table at the compound. We all have the little age groups we hang out in and do stuff together. We even get to mingle with our newer younger cousins.

There were so many cats

Games!

Philosophical conversation with my cousin

We had our own adventures, including walking on a frozen pool and trekking 1 and-a-half-miles to a Little Caesars in 10-degree weather. But we also spent time with our grandparents in the cottage, so we could catch up, and listen to stories.

Nana-Dee

Papa Jon

One more time

After our fun in Idaho, we had to eventually head back. On New Year's Eve, we went to the airport early in the morning to get on our flights back. We first had an hour-and-a-half flight to Oakland, and the way there was beautiful, because it was cloudy in Idaho, and sunrise, so when we rose above the clouds, the sun was just barely rising. We waited in Oakland for about 2 hours before we actually flew away to Denver, I actually snapped a photo of The Golden Gate Bridge.

Golden Gate

Windmill Farm

Sierra Nevada

When we got back, we were pretty tired from our flights, so we all took a nap to prepare for New Years' and my Grandmother's birthday. We celebrated her birthday and new years at the same time, but when we were watching the ball drop, we actually couldn't because a commercial played through it, which was a little frustrating. But it was finally 2021, 2020 is long gone now.

2021!

But the next day we decided to make the 14-hour journey back in one day. We packed up and left early in the morning, and made few stops till we finally made it back to San Antonio.

It was nice coming back t home, but it was also combined with a feeling of unwanted, because we had school starting up again, in just a few days.

Our Holiday Far, Far Away Part 1

 After a year of struggles and trials, our family was ready for vacation immediately at the start of winter break, so we can get away and have some fun. Because our trip is so layered I have split the post into 2 parts. Here are the stats, 4810 miles total 2716 miles on an airplane, 2094 miles in a car. 5 hours and 45 minutes on a plane, 1 hour and 30 minutes of delay, 30 minutes in security, 38 hours in the car, about 2 hours at stops, and too many snacks devoured.

Start of the long ride

We started our trip with a hefty car ride, split into two days. We took 8 hours to get to Amarillo, Texas, and there we took a detour to the Cadillac Ranch, where you're able to spray paint the cars endlessly. we all painted something on the cars and were able to see actually graffiti artists do their thing. We also had dinner at The Big Texan, where they have a challenge if you eat a 72 oz. steak in under an hour, you get the meal free. We didn't attempt it, we instead ordered normal-sized food.

Very yellow wouldn't you say

Who knew that T-rex loves churros?

If you know what this symbol is, you're reading the right books.

On our second day of driving it was a shorter drive to Colorado Springs, but we ended up making a detour in the middle of it at Capulin National Monument, which was an extinct volcano you could drive to the rim of, and hike down the cone. It was at this point we were far enough from Texas where we could actually see and play with snow. It was an interesting experience to hike down into the cone of a volcano, in a jacket and shorts.

It's quite the view 7.000 feet above the ground

In the heart of the volcano

We then made the rest of the way to Colorado Springs, so we could revisit an old friend of ours and our old home. We stopped at our house first and saw the old scenery we used to see every day and our dead plants, which had been butchered by the new homeowners. It was a nostalgic experience to see Colorado again, it just felt like home. We then drove to The Gray's home so we could stop by and have some fun. Recently, Aidan had been in an ATV accident and crushed his pelvis. He was told he couldn't walk again for a while, but when we got there he was up and moving, he even wrestled with us! We played games and talked for a while, but all good things must come to an end, and we had to go up to Denver, so we could settle in at our Grandma's place, and reconnect after a long time.

Oh how I missed you Pikes Peak

You have to be serious first

Then weird out

We stayed until Boxing Day at our grandma's place playing games and watching movies, but of course, our favorite day was Christmas, but we'll get to that.

We arrived on The 22nd late at night, but my Dad and I still had to pick up our ski rentals for skiing the next day. And The 23rd was an eventful day indeed. The plan was to wake up really early, so we could make it to the resort when it opens at 8. It was supposed to take an hour-and-a-half, so we left at 6 in the morning to be safe. We would have to have left at 3:30 to actually make it on time. It took four-and-a-half hours to get there because mixed with very bad traffic, negative temperatures, closed and icy roads, and Colorado drivers equals a long wait. We finally made it at 11 after helping some family out of a snowbank, and Dad's tiny bladder, we could finally put our gear on and attempt to ski. Boy was it cold though, in fact, it was negative 3 and below the whole time, but mixed with the winds, it supposedly felt like negative 30 and below. Us Texans weren't ready for that, because almost as soon as we stepped outside, despite all the layers we had on, we started to freeze. And I did not know how to ski apparently, I even created my own garage sale in the process. We ended up skiing for an hour before our digits started freezing, so unfortunately we left way early, and it took us 5 hours to get back. In fact, we spent more time in the car that day than we did on the first day of driving. 9-and-a-half hours in the car, for one hour of skiing. My Mom's blog has more details on what the rest of them did the whole day because I really don't know.

We ended up getting there, then having lunch in the parking lot

The condensation on the balaclavas froze making them stiff for the time we skied

Christmas Eve was a chillax day, Dad and I were pretty tired from the previous day, so all we did is play some Jackbox games, and watch the new movie Greenland, which kinda freaked Alex out. But we went to bed anticipating Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas morning, the first thing we did is open our presents. I ended up getting a lot of socks and candy along with a game I wanted. After presents, we had our delicious cinnamon rolls and I was surprised by my Uncle Kevin who wanted to give me his Apple Watch because it didn't find much use for it. I was very grateful, because I had always wanted an Apple Watch, and I had lots of fun customizing it to my heart's content. That day we also walked to a nearby park and played before the altitude got to us, and packed our bags for Part 2.