Camping at Red River

So Friday the 17th, after our fun visit to the Biopark at Albuquerque, we drove north up through Taos (which is a really cute little place) and finally arrived in the early evening at our campsite in Carson National Forest.  We got a beautiful campsite right on the river, which of course attracted the kids like moths to a flame. So within a few minutes we had several children with wet shoes and cold feet. But it didn't slow them down any.

 While "Uncle Bobo" and his helpers put up the tents, "Aunt Mimi" put together the tin foil dinners.  One of the things I love about my sister, Cami is that she doesn't do anything halfway. The dinners for the kids were chicken, potatoes and carrots.  But for us adults, we had shrimp, couscous, spinach and a mango/avacado salsa to put over it.  It was heavenly!  But as I was sitting there, enjoying such a wonderful treat, I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that her dinners were so good, but very "uncamping" like to me.  I mean, usually when we camp, it's hot dogs.

 Naturally, after dinner there were s'mores and much fun around the campfire including "spooky" stories (which Gideon insisted everyone tell at least one of.)

 

It gets pretty cold up at 8500 feet at night, so it was only in the mid-thirties as far as temperatures go, but we had plenty of good sleeping bags and blankets, so we were fine.  The kids did pretty well, but I think Cami and I were too excited about the run the next morning, so we didn't sleep particularly well, but it wasn't too bad.  In the morning we enjoyed pancakes for breakfast and broke camp.  Fortunately the race didn't start until 9am, so we had time to get up and help feed and dress kids and before we left.

The town of Red River, is a really cute little ski area and the race started right on Main street.  Then it ran up into the village and back down.  So you climbed from a starting point of 8750 feet up to 9420 and back down again.

 It was a breathtaking run.  Both literally and figuratively.  The scenery was gorgeous (as you'll see from the photos I had to stop and take.)  And running a race at twice the elevation where I live was tough, I won't lie.  I had to stop and walk more than a few times just to catch my breath and my lungs felt like they were on fire.  Still, it was absolutely worth it for the views and to say that I'm tough enough to have run a half marathon at that elevation.  And Jacob had all the kids in the car and was able to follow the course so they could stop and cheer for us every few miles.  It's always fun to know that my kids are there cheering for me.

After the race, we changed clothes at a little burger place where we treated the kids to an ice cream cone, and then headed back down.  We stopped in Taos at a darling little place called Orlando's which served really excellent "New Mexican" food.  (Kind of a twist on traditional Mexican food, take out the rice and add green chiles to everything.)  But it was really great, and we were able to let the kids play for a while at a park.  Then we made the long drive back to Cami & Jacob's house.  Sunday was our "rest" day.  After church we pretty much just chilled out around the house and did a thousand loads of laundry to get the campfire smell out of everything.  The kids are just having tons of fun with their cousins and will be very sad to leave in a few days.