First Stop- GRANDAD'S!

After a full day of finishing packing and cleaning the house for our housing inspection, we hit the road. It was about 5 pm by this point, so we knew we weren't going to make it far, but we made plans with Jeremy's dad who lives in Albuquerque, so we decided to drive until we were too tired to go any further.

 Turns out there's not a whole lot between Yuma and Albuquerque, especially if you're looking for a place to park your moving truck that is towing a car as well.  By the time we were ready to stop and found a place to stay, it was late and we were TIRED!  We made about a 4 hour dent in our 10 hour trip.

 And obviously not picky about the conditions.

Seriously.  When's the last time you saw one of these??

The next day, we got up and finished our trek to N.M., meeting Jeremy's dad at the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, a place Abby picked up a brochure for during our move TO Yuma.  This place is literally in the middle of nowhere and yet Abby found everything she could possibly need there.  She was so excited on the drive in that she could barely contain herself.

 You know that really is a LOW DOOR!

Better watch your head.  And neck.  And part of your back.

 Our pretty little Aussie tour guide volunteer walked us through the park on the designated walkways only, thank you very much!  She gave away a bag of dog treats on our little jaunt in an effort to get the wolves to the front of the pens.  Sometimes it was more successful than others.  They have both wolves and wolf-dog hybrids at the sanctuary.  I have always maintained that I would get eaten alive if I found a wolf in the wild because I would think it was a doggie and try to pet it.  I no longer believe that to be the case.  It rather quickly became rather easy to tell the difference between a wolf and even a high content wolf-dog.  The wolf-dog still has that dog part that wants to be near people, so they would come up to the front of the cage, where a lot (but not all) of the wolves were more wary and would hang to the back, peeking from around trees.  The wolves were especially concerned about Jeremy's dad.  At 6'4", he commands a quite the alpha presence.  The wolves also have legs which are more forward set and rotated closer together than a dog.  All wolves have yellow/amber eyes, so when you see one with brown, you know that it contains some dog in there somewhere.

 Abby can't wait to grow up and come back here.  She has already requested a trip to NM for her 18th birthday so she can volunteer with the wolves.

 Romeo, the red fox, also calls Wild Spirit his home.

After our group tour, Abby asked our guide if we could see Lucian.  He is a high content wolf dog who also happens to be a fellow Yuman!  He was sold to his original owner as a "Native American Indian Dog".  When his owner found a girlfriend, Lucians odd behaviors had them researching what was going on with him, when they realized that he was actually a wolf hybrid, so they decided to find him another place to stay due to his unpredictable behavior.  His pen was located in a portion of the sanctuary being remodeled, so we didn't see him on the regular tour.  After getting permission from her boss, she walked us back to him.  She told us that we actually had a better chance of seeing him up close because it was just Abby and I.  Jeremy's dad was staying behind at the gift shop and she knew that Lucian would be very intimidated by him and our experience would be better with just us "chicks".  :)  He came right up to the fence, like he had been waiting for Abby to visit with him all day.  Our guide happened to be one of his handlers, so she was able to get very close to him.  We obviously had to hang back and couldn't pet him, but Abby loved it anyway!  She has since used some of her babysitting money to sponsor Lucian and help to pay for some of his care and upkeep.

 After the wolf sanctuary, we drove into Albuquerque and went to the Sandia Peak Tramway.  You can read the fascinating history here.  The views were amazing. It took about 15 minutes to get to the top.

 Keep in mind those are great big trees on the ground.  You are so high up that they look like little plants.

 Ever since I was a little girl at Hershey Park riding the tram there, this has been my least favorite part.  There's just always this feeling that it might not hand the car over completely to the next set of ropes.  ;)

 Look how little the tram car is compared to the scenery.

 First clue that the little desert rats were heading AWAY from the desert.  It was so COLD up there!

(And before you lecture me, we were wearing our winter clothes!)  :D

The sunset from the top was pretty, but no Yuma sunset.  It's impossible to beat those.

After the tram, we went to one of Grandad's favorite pizza joints for dinner and then back to spend the evening at his place.  He had all kinds of goodies that he had collected for the kids from his various travels.  He loves science and history as much as the rest of my clan does.

 The next morning, it was time for us to split ways.  From here, the kids, pets and I headed north to visit my friend April, Grandma Lorraine, Uncle Eric and Cousin Michelle and her family.  Jeremy and his big yellow truck took a more southerly route to visit Rick Ropka and his family, Aunt Millie and Cousin Becky.  Despite being Mothers Day, we had an 11 hour drive ahead of us, so we left right after breakfast.

Daddy and his Dad!

Thanks for the great visit, Grandad!  We can't wait to see you again!