4 Days - 6 States - 1,749 Miles

And it was all on a motorcycle!!!

T minus 2 days: Clean the bike. Must be nice and shiny for the big trip. We cleaned the bike on Wed. because it was the only time we had before we left on Fri. morning.

Day 1: Blanding, UT - Roswell, NM. 580 miles. I got off work @ 6am, we left @ 6:30am. (Who knew you could sleep on a motorcycle?) We were all bundled up, me in my snow pants and winter coat, Trent in his leather coat and new leather chaps that he got the day before. We stopped somewhere in NM for lunch, by then it was so HOT! We all peeled off some layers.

We went through Lincoln county, which is "Billy the Kid" country. There was a museum but we got there about 20 mins. after closing time. So we just walked around the little town and read the signs and looked through the windows of the buildings.

Trent, J.J. Bradford, John Imlay, Cole Holliday

If you've seen "Young Guns" or any other Billy the Kid movie, you'll recognize these names and places.

By the end of day 1 we were hot and tired and pretty sun burned. Trent was very sun burned. We stayed in Roswell, NM, alien capital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_Incident

I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of the alien museum and all the alien shops.

Day 2: Roswell, NM - Guymon, OK. 378 miles. We went through Fort Sumner. We went to a big Billy the Kid museum. There was so much stuff to see and read. Fort Sumner is where Billy the Kid is buried.

The head stone is all caged up because......

From Fort Sumner we went through Texas and ended up in Oklahoma.

This was my view for 4 days.....

...this was my view if I leaned to the side.

Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are flat and windy. Not much to look at, except for cows and big green fields.

This is one of the many feed lots we passed. Right when we crossed the border into TX, there were a couple HUGE feed lots. I am talking 1,000s and 1,000s of cows in pen after pen. It's was crazy and quite potent.

Not much scenery, but pretty at times.

Day 3: Guymon, OK - Walsenburg, CO. 425 miles. We made it to Dodge City, KS on day 3. One of our main destinations. An old western town that was at one time or another, home to Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Trent's relative, Doc Holliday.

Trent standing by an old jail cell.

Me standing in the Boot Hill cemetery.

To escape the heat, we took a break and a cold drink in the dance hall/saloon.

The boys were pretty excited about this dance hall girl.

They went to church and repented of their many sins.

Trent watching an old time "movie."

Trent thought this was funny. (The gift shop sold paper that was made from cow manure.)

After riding across the flats plains for 3 days we were glad to see this.....

Mountains!!

We got to our hotel and watched the news. There were tornado warnings in Kansas and baseball-sized hail in one of the towns we had just gone through. Yikes!

Day 4: Walsenburg, CO - Blanding, UT. 366 miles. We were excited to get back to the mountains, but the closer to the mountains we got, the colder it got. We went over Wolf Creek Pass (elv. 10,863 ft.). Brrrrrrr! It was bitter bitter cold. It was really pretty but hard to enjoy because it was so cold.This is on the way up to the summit of the pass, up on top there was a lot more snow and it was windy. Very cold!

Looking back at the mountains we just rode through.

We stopped in Pagosa Springs to warm up and eat some lunch. Lunch was good, but we never warmed up. I was chilled for a few days.

It was a fun trip. Lots of miles, lots of states, hot weather, cold weather. Good times. I was glad that Trent let me go on their "boys trip." I can't wait to hear where the next trip will be.

It's A Girl!!

Now that I have your attention......

It's a Girls' Trip!!!! That's right, our 3rd annual girls' trip. A few months ago me and my friends from high school (we always say high school, but we've actually been friends since elementary or before, so I'm going to say my elementary friends from now on) took a trip up to SLC for the weekend. We'd had it planned many many months beforehand and we all look forward to it. We got a couple big joining hotel rooms and had a big party. Well it was a party for us 30 year olds. We went to our usual dinner spot, Olive Garden. We hit the hot tub a couple times. We did a lot of shopping. We laughed and talked into the wee hours of the morning. We went to see a comedian, Brian Regan. It was a grand ole time. Can't wait till next year.

Lisa, Tamia, Cindy, Erin, Me and Heather

Waiting for the hot tub......

Got the hot tub.

Heather and I playing in the pool.

Testing out some new lipstick.....

Lovely (not so much)

We went to a beauty salon and got "beautified."

Lisa and I were the only ones that dared get "beautified." But everyone was there to support, of course.

Lisa was a brave little soul, not without tears, but she was brave. She said she will never get "beautified" again.

At the Brian Regan show......it was fun and funny.

(I didn't realize that we were matching nerds with our nerdy glasses till I saw this picture. Glad I wasn't the only one.) ; ) The comedy show was fun, but I guess it wasn't fun enough to keep everyone awake. It was in the afternoon, in a nice, warm, dark theater, after going all day and staying up till the wee hours of the morning.....some of us just couldn't keep our eyes open. Well I did, but Heather didn't, Lisa didn't, Cindy didn't....did Tamia? Erin and I had some head bobs, but never fully fell asleep. Anyways, I thought it was funny, the comedian and the sleepers.

Well that's it for this year. Can't wait till our 4th annual girls' trip!!! Love you gals!!!!

Garth Brooks in Las Vegas!

Trent is such a sweetheart. He got me Garth Brooks tickets for my birthday. It only took us about 5 hours on line, waiting and waiting and waiting. And several phone calls that never went through. But we finally got connected and Trent got some tickets for April 11th. I was so excited when he told me, then I remembered that his sister was getting married on the 10th. I wondered if he even thought about that when he was booking the tickets......he didn't. But it all worked out. We left right after the wedding and stayed in St. George, then got up the next morning and went to Vegas! It was awesome! We stayed at the Excalibur, the concert was at the Wynn. It was so cool to see Garth live,again! (I went to his concert about 17 years ago) He sounded so good. It was very casual, he looked like he had just come from a construction site, work boots, hoodie, baseball cap. It was just him and his guitar. Except when Miss Yearwood (that's what Garth called her) joined him on stage. It was awesome. I loved it!!!

The next morning before we left for home, we went to a Titanic exhibit. It was pretty cool. They had it set up like you were walking through a ship and there were all sorts of things that have been recovered from the wreck site over the years. Lots of dishes, some clothes, jewelry, shoes, parts of the ship. There was a HUGE piece of the ship, it weighs about 15 tons. No pictures though : (

We weren't supposed to take phones or cameras into the concert, so we didn't, but when we got there, lots of people had cameras and were snapping away. I wished I had my camera.......this is the only picture we got of Garth.

Here we are at our castle.

In the lobby at the Wynn. (Trent's not big on smiling.)

Me and Elvis

SURPRISE!

Happy Birthday to my sister Michele!!!! That's right, it was her 40th birthday. You would never know it would you? She got 40 black balloons, a few bouquets of flowers, some new cowboy boots, but her best present was a surprise visit from her mom and dad and ALL her siblings and spouses. Michael knew she would love it, so we all made our way up to SLC for a quick weekend. We all met at our meeting place, then were going to go to Payton's baseball game, where Michele was going to be. We were just about to head to the baseball game in our 5 distinguishable cars when Michael calls and says that Michele is leaving the game to go home for a minute....she will be driving RIGHT BY US in our 5 distinguishable cars. We quickly drive to a big parking lot across the street to "hide." David, in his big distinguishable truck, was last to cross the street and just as he was about to do so, Michele drives right in front of him......wheew, she didn't see him. So when she passes, we all drive to the baseball game. We park our 5 distinguishable cars in the corner, hopefully she won't notice. We go and find Michael, cheer on Payton, embarrass him and wait for Michele to come back.......

Here we all are....cheering.....waiting.......

Here she comes!!!!!! (Look how happy Michael is)

WHAT?!? She was so confused, happy, surprised, emotional....

Michele said when she drove up, she saw a big (beautiful) bald head sitting in the stands and thought, "hey, that looks like Trent." But she didn't think anything more of it. She was also surprised to see Mom and Dad, they had been staying at her house that whole week, but they "left" on Friday. They actually just went up the road a few miles and stayed with Uncle Jim and Aunt Kay. They met us on Sat. and went to the baseball game with us.

We went to dinner @ the Texas Road House.

Yum!

"Attention Texas Road House!!! We have Michele here and she's turning 40. Let's all give her a nice loud YEE HAW!"

Back in the saddle again...............It was Keith's birthday the next day. The big 70!

Then we went BoWLiNg! (for Kathryn)

Some of us were good.....

......some of us were not so good.

Some of us needed lots of help.......

Some of us tore it up........

Some of us were more interested in other things.......

......... and I tore it up in skeet ball!

It was a quick, up & back trip. Trent and I had to drive back to Blanding early Sunday morning so I could work a 16 hour shift. It was totally worth it though. We had so much fun!! Happy Birthday to Michele, the best oldest sister I've ever had!!!! Lots of love!!!!!