Are we lost yet?

Since it's Spring Break and Bret hasn't had school, we decided we would take advantage of his time off and go sight seeing with some friends of ours on Thursday.  We looked up a few places and then decided to go to Jemez Springs.  It's a cute little town with some Native American Indian ruins and hot springs.  The kids love to swim and so we thought it would be a fun little adventure.  Little did we know that it would be a lot more than we anticipated.

Our first stop was the city ruins of Jemez Springs.  It's amazing to see sneak peeks into the past.  As we passed through the museums and read our guidebook of the ruins, I got a small sense of what the natives endured.  And while the Spaniards brang them crops and food which were new to them, I thought to myself "at what cost?"  It seemed as if they forced their way of life, their Catholic religion, and everything else they could into their culture.   There was this HUGE Catholic church the Spaniards had the natives build which almost just seemed out of place.  The history is very interesting to learn about and we all had fun walking through the remnants of the old city. 

Next we got some info on some of the different hot spring locations and decided to stop at the closest one to us first--McCaughley Spings.  On our way there we hit Soda Falls.  It was pretty cool, but smelled a little sulfuric.

Once we made it to the Battleship Rock stop (this huge rock that almost looked like a battleship), we got everyone out to head on our 2 mile hike to the hot springs.  I had Avery strapped on me in the Bjorn, Gavin walked some of the way and was also carried on Bret's shoulders, Ashlyn walked a little over 3/4 of the way, and both Bret and I had bags on our backs.  Cami and Zane also had their little dog Rufus with them.  Needless to say, a big group with lots to carry and take care of.  The trail started off fine, but we quickly noticed the trail was not well maintaned and the terrain was quite rough.  The higher we got, the more we began to wonder if we were going the right way.  The trail wasn't very clearly marked and lots of little trails seemed to wander off in all sorts of directions.  After over an hour, the trail almost seemed to come to a stop.  Huge trees were laying in front of us and we thought there was no way we hadn't reached our 2 mile hike.  Oh and everyone was exhausted!  (Trust me carrying a 20 pound baby is not easy in that terrain!)  Sadly, we thought it wasn't worth it to continue on without knowing we would get there soon and so we headed back down the mountain.  Later I found this picture on the internet of what we missed out on:

I also read some info about the hike and it sounded like a lot of other people had the same problems.  One person said it was a little further past those trees.  How much that "little" is--I don't know.  All I know was by the time we got down to the beginning again, everyone was EXHAUSTED!!  The relaxing bath would have been nice!  *SIGH*

Our small hike turned into almost a 3 hour ordeal and by the time we got back to the car--it was way past lunch time.  We found this funny little Los Ojos Saloon & Diner to eat at.  Nothing spectacular, but the boys enjoyed watching the BYU game on the television during our meal.  After that the kids (and the hubbies) were done for the day and we decided to head back home.

Cami and I would have loved to explore a little more--maybe even do some shopping, but we are thinking maybe we'll plan a girls trip and do a spa or something next time, which they had lots of.

Lastly, on our way out of town I insisted we stop at this little Catholic church I had seen on our way in because it had these cool bright blue doors.  Talk about a photo opp!  They turned out pretty cute!

The car ride back home was pretty fun as well.  We found Gavin playing with Ashlyn's Barbies she had brought, and Ashlyn singing Justin Beiber almost the whole way home.  Bret and I were blasting the iPod, chewing gum, and basking in the cool AC--mostly all of which we did to keep ourselves awake on the drive. 

*Funny after story- Bret plopped on the bed and fell fast asleep as soon as we got home.  Apparently so did Zane.  Both Cami and I met up later and went to our Zumba class--that's right a workout after a workout!!  Just proves how strong we women are!