Vacation!

Amy and the girls flew home. The ride up was so indescribably awful for everyone that driving five hours in the wrong direction to drop them off at the airport seemed beyond reasonable. Sadly, their flight was delayed so much I almost beat them back to the house and 138 innocent individuals got a solid taste of Nipples lung capacity. But....

Totally worth it.

We were not only able to carry the twins up their first peak, but my mom, a woman who gets scared of heights on her tiptoes, somehow braved actual hand and foot scrambling at more than 12,000 feet and made her first summit. That picture alone justified the ride in our rolling scream machine.

We also hiked and biked and rafted and ate and did other things that brochures advised us to do. Nixie headbanged to old time bluegrass, Ripples touched fingers with anyone who came within ten feet. Both of them realized that everywhere we went the rocks were all out of order and spent hours carefully rearranging riverbeds and trailsides.

Now we're home, where you have to work and lock your doors and everything melts by noon. For summer they should change the sign at the border as you cross into Texas so instead of 'Welcome' it just says 'Are You Sure About This?'