...morning three, and the 24 hours.

This is the day I have been looking forward to all my fall. I have skipped the mall and peppermint pedicures for this very day. Yes, this day was very important and I clued the kids, they packed and we were ready in family record time.

Our biggest dilemma was whether to take Route 66 and get there early, or a detour and go to the ice caves. We chose annoyingly touristy 66, I of course was planning on stopping at every historical marker, every landmark, every cool thing that marked a nearly dead history. Oh and look an Albertson's they have great donuts. (of course I notice the Albertson's but miss the mega church we ended up wanting to go to).

So, annoying landmark number one the Rio Puerco Bridge, thank God it was closed, it was barely a lane wide, but we took pictures anyway, and also realized that it might be incredible annoying to stop at every thing, so aside from road side rock shops that was it. I'm so ADD.

In no time we were in Gallup, I will guestimate that it's about 10 miles long and one
mile wide. Surviving solely off of idiots like us, and the scenery was awesome. What was annoyingly absent. Lots and lots of signs regarding the balloon rally. This is supposedly the second largest balloon rally in the WORLD. We assumed there was no mention of it in ABQ because they host the largest, but figured as we neared the site, we'd be inundated with ads. Nope. No signs, nothing on the radio.

So we find the BEST WESTERN, we go to check in, nobody, but there was a sign instructing us to ring bell for service. Guess what? NO BELL. I offered a friendly "Hello?" and was abruptly greeted with "it's not 3", fine, but where exactly is the festival being held? "Canceled, No Balloons last night, everybody gone, lots of people canceled." AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH "you come back at 3". I'm so ticked, I'm am not one who wants a lot, but this is something that I wanted to see.

So, we go to the aforementioned website. You remember websites from 1995. Name. Rank. Serial Number. Basically a date and two phone numbers, first one had no clue, she "wasn't really who you need to talk to". Then why is your number on the website? The second number assured us there would still be plenty to do, even without balloons, there was a Native American market, and Native American dancers, and a parade and this was their 27th year and it would be cool......hindsight would have us leave immediately and head to Arizona, but no, I wanted to see if the weather would clear, maybe the other stuff would be fun.

NOPE. The market, two vendors charging white tourist prices on ebay items. Ok some of them were Native Americanish, but I can buy plastic Christmas ornaments with reindeer in them lots of places. I got a tshirt and hubby got some fry bread. While we waited for the dancing to begin we contemplated our "no smoking" room. It could only be classified as such because it was not currently smoldering. But they masked it rather nicely with dead flower scented freshener.

Ok, dancing, but first a lot of history. The following is in no way anything other than a description of this woman, it is not making fun of her race, only her. "my name is (we'll call her Pat), I've been doing this for twenty five years, when I first started this twenty five years ago I remember so much, and you will hear a retelling of every moment of the last twenty five years while I cut into the time the dancers have. First there is something about two and four, and two is half of four,and if it were four it would be twice as long as two. My nephew here started doing this when he could barely walk, now he does it every day. And he dances to the beat. You'll notice how all of our dancers dance to the beat, I remember when our other dancers would come with their moms when their mom's would dance, they too danced with the beat. And don't let me get started with the drummers, sometimes the girls can be around the drum, sometimes the boys only, it depends on what tribe they are from, or what tribe they are visiting or the color of the sunset, but they do a good job just like the boys. OK, let's dance, but before we do, sometimes you can join, other times you can't join. If you can join I will tell you, if you cannot join I will also tell you, sometimes you have to be asked, but I will tell you whether it's a dance that you need to be asked or whether you can just join. OK, so this first dance is a traditional Indian dance and these are the people who are dancing and here is a little history of each and every dancer dancing this, how they know each other, how I know their mom, their dad, oh and by the way, we have some tall girls and some short girls and the tall girls have a tall father, that's why they are tall. WILL YOU JUST FREAKIN LET THEM DANCE. I'D LEAVE BUT IT WOULD BE RUDE, SO I'LL JUST PLAY TETRIS ON MY PHONE. But do you think at any point in the whole thing any official person speculated on the weather? NO. They've got guys on Everest who can put people on the summit at the perfect weather moment after 45 days of planning and plotting weather, but no one can tell me if it looks good for Sunday? You people are idiots.

So, that part of the nightmare over, we head back to the pool. You'll be surprised to hear that the chemicals were off and they were eating my leg. But let's not let this ruin a perfectly good vacation. Out of the pool and into the shower. So, you know on scary movies where the wall bleed? There was a brown yuckiness running down the wall. OOOOOHHHHHH. And there were only four towels, which were already wet from swimming. My darling hubby went to get some more from the desk, I'd called earlier, but hadn't gotten them. This request was insane. Extra towels. Pool towels, what are these you speak of? So they had to go room to room to get more. I'm hungry.

Hubby wanted to go to Pizza Hut. He usually doesn't, but wanted a salad bar. So, we get there, no salad bar. Would we like to order, no thanks but we'll take a pitcher of Pepsi, oh we don't do pitchers. Pizza Hut always does pitchers, ok some of us will take Mountain Dew, some of us will take Pepsi. We don't have Mountain Dew. Or orange, only off brand Root Beer, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper. Isn't Dr. Pepper made by Coke? Just get our drinks while we figure out our order. We go the drinks, but no order. No order, no order. So hubby goes and asks. Oh yeah. So, we'll take this, this and that. Big boy orders cinistix. We got 400, still waiting for pizza. We end up finally getting 3/4 of our order, and an offer for a salad to tide daughter over until her pizza arrives. What there was no salad. Now there is salad. Apparently the look on hubby's face drew me out of my eight hour funk. Service was horrible, and we weren't much better, but I tipped him well so he'd feel bad about spitting in our food.

So, to bed, at least there was an Albertson's and I could get yummy donuts in the morning. But I couldn't, there was no bakery. The final added hotel surprise??? The doors do not actually lock. As I was checking out the Amtrak rumbled by, I really wanted to be on that train, I supposed I could be home in 8 hours had I made that train. And before this day can't get any worse, I start getting texted from my friend who is watching the babies. My agency wants to come and get the kids, because CPS never verified that she was a certified respite provider and they never issued her a certificate, and she told them she had never had a certificate, but CPS always brought over kids, but my agency didn't know my friend, and apparently didn't trust that I would leave three kids (whom I REALLY want to adopt, but the state can't get their act together,) in a safe place. Yes, I just left them with someone I don't know, so argue back and forth back and forth with the agency. Do we head to Arizona and continue our vacation or do we head back to ABQ so that I can fly back? We head to Arizona, hoping for the best. I can't believe that anyone would believe that I would leave my kids in a place where they weren't safe. I also can't believe that they expect me to accept the fact that they would place my kids in a certified home, but only until we got back. I don't want my kids some place that I don't know, with people that I don't know for one second, let alone three days. Somewhere in the painted desert I finally get it all figured out. Seems they need me to cooperate just as much as I need them to cooperate. I finally can get back to some fun.