Clayton Family Reunion 2010

After our slightly unexpected trip to CRS for Bryce, we finally got on the road about 6 hours later than we had planned. I was so not ready to leave as we pulled away from our home. It was 6 PM, we had just finished packing, and the house was a wreck. I dreaded coming home to it like that even before we left. John really wanted to get on the road and at least get a few hours of driving behind us, and when you have a 20 hour drive ahead of you, it is hard to argue with that logic, so we headed out. We were on our way to Monkey Island, OK. which is in the far northeast corner of Oklahoma. To get there we would go through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.

The first night we only made it to Holbrook. We stayed in a nasty motel and headed out again Saturday morning. The drive to Albuquerque was very familiar since we had just been on that route 2 weeks earlier while returning home from Colorado. After Albuquerque though, it was all new, which is always fun. Friday night we stopped in Amarillo, TX and stayed at the Holiday Inn there. It was wonderful! We got a fantastic deal on the room and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. They had a great pool which included a 1 foot deep kiddie pool. Annalise was so fun to watch as she walked around splashing and giggling. Unfortunately none of my pictures turned out, so I'll just have to remember the pictures in my head.

After a restful night of sleep, we got up and had breakfast at the free buffet which included, fruit, cereal, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, juice, and milk, among other things. If you are ever in Amarillo, I highly recommend you stay in the Holiday Inn!

Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying their breakfast. Annalise enjoyed walking around the restaurant chatting with the others who were there.






Then it was back into the van for our final stretch of the trip. This part of the trip included a few things like a stop at the Moo Cow Cafe in the Kickapoo Nation, discovering that the air in the back of the van was not working, and realizing that in Arizona the temp. was 76 degrees and in Oklahoma it was 95 degrees and humid.

The Moo Cow Cafe was pretty good. We stopped for lunch about 2:00 so we had the little place to ourselves. That was nice because the kids could run around a little without bothering anybody. The owner was very nice. When we are traveling, we like to eat at places that are a little unique to that area, and this one was just perfect for that.

I discovered the air while I was in the back helping kids. We had the air conditioning blowing full blast back there, but it still felt so hot. So I put my hand down right next to where the air was blowing and realized that it was warm air coming out. I had John turn it off and open some windows and it got a little bit better. Bad news about this that we found out when we got home, is that the air in the back is actually not air conditioning, but rather just that, air. And, to get air conditioning put into the back will cost us about 3-4 thousand dollars. Grrr! So, we will be fixing that as soon as we can. The van was obviously made for Idaho, not Arizona or Oklahoma.

Anyway, about 5 pm, we drove into the parking lot of the Worldmark resort in Grand Lake, OK. (monkey island). We were very happy to arrive. We were the last of the group to arrive, and as we drove in, we saw a van full of family that was heading to Walmart to buy groceries for the week. They invited me to go along, but I didn't have a list ready and I had no desire to get back into a car at this point. I knew that we had what we needed to get by until Monday, so I decided to stay and swim with my family instead.

This is a picture of the place that we stayed. It was very nice. It was a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom place with a living room, dining room, and kitchen. Our family shared it with John's brother Ben, his wife Shalyse, and their daughter. The rest of the family was down the hall sharing 3 other rooms just like this.


The place was great, except for the fact that it was NOT wheelchair friendly at all! We had this room because it was the only one that you could get to in a wheelchair without going up or down steps or very steep luggage ramps. However, in order to do that, you had to go through the grass and get in the back door that way. Not a big deal, but still a bit of a pain. Also, in order to get up to the area where the rest of the family was, we had to go up the ramps and a flight of stairs. Luckily there was always a couple of people around who could help us carry the wheelchair up the stairs. Also, the baby monitor that I brought so that I could go up and participate in the fun, grown-up (after kids are asleep) activities with the others, didn't reach that far, so I had to keep coming down to check on Bryce. Other than that, it was a nice place to stay and it was for sure a great place to see after many hours on the road!