Albuquerque, New Mexico

Quote is from me to Asa when breaking the bad news about the banana bread he bought for breakfast. He is not a nut fan.

We all slept well at the Wigwams and started getting up around 7am. We stopped for gas and some quick gas station breakfast and coffee. We made it to Petrified Forest National Park and found out to complete their Junior Ranger Program you had to drive to the other end of the park, 26+ minutes away. We wanted to see the park anyway so away we went.

There were petroglyphs and pueblos here.

The main attraction is the petrified logs. There are hundreds of thousands of pieces of petrified wood here!

We went for a short walk but temps were already in the 90s. Nova skipped it all together and waited on a bench and Esme joined her pretty soon after.

The girls got their badges and we drove back up the park towards the entrance/exit.

We drove down a 4 mile road to see Blue Mesa which was a beautiful landscape with hills striped in red, blue, tan and white.

We stopped for some lunch at Navajo Frybread where a lady made each fry bread fresh to order. The guys had Navajo tacos, I had a cheese bread and we had some cinnamon sugar dessert frybreads too. Then we went next door for shopping and 99¢ ice cream.

Then we had a couple of hours left until we made it to our new campground. We got checked in a started setting up. It was hot but we weren’t in a hurry because we didn’t have anything else to do tonight. Then Nova got her hand caught in the hinge side of the camper door when it was being closed. The same thing happened earlier this week to Esme. Nova’s thumb was bruised and swollen and it hurt to move it so we decided to take her to urgent care to get an x-ray.

The wait was long and Nova was able to rest while we waited. Three hours in and we still hadn’t seen a doctor. It was starting to feel better and Nova predicted “I don’t think it’s broken.” After 4 hours we finally got the news that there was no break. Thank goodness!

She will need to wear a splint for a couple of days until we are sure there was no tendon damage. Once the swelling and pain go away and she can move it normally, she can ditch the splint.