Bragg Family South

Well, I'm taking a break from working on one of the bathrooms in our house, a task necessitated by poor engineering when our air conditioner was installed many years ago (more on that later)...  In the picture above, the kids look so overjoyed because they've been "reunited" with mom (Hope) after several days absence.  Recall that we we started this epic western journey, Hope had to remain in Arkansas a few days to finish up some things at work.  She flew out to meet us in Durango, Colorado, where I was to give a talk at a meeting the following day.  My meeting went well, according to the mule deer buck below who apparently was just content sauntering through the venue in the middle of the afternoon: While I was attending the meeting, Hope and the kids explored the Durango area, visiting museums and town and venturing south to Aztec Ruins National Monument, where they got to explore more prehistoric structures (below): I had earlier begged them to put of...

Prepare for a very much abridged travel log of our recently completed, 2+ week epic western voyage!  We (meaning the kids and I) left Monticello early on the first day of August to start this trip--Hope would join us later en route.  We drove hard the first day to make time, stopping only briefly for food, restroom breaks, and an occasional picture, such as the Great Plains overlook we found at one rest area in the panhandle of Texas (pictured above).  Our destination, about 800 miles later, was the small town of Tucumcari, New Mexico (for those of you familiar with the animated movie "Cars"; think Radiator Springs...).  We arrived early enough to visit a really cool if small dinosaur museum in Tucumcari: We pushed hard to get to the Rocky Mountains to start visiting some of the many national parks, monuments, forests, and historic sites we'd see on this trip.  The next morning, we made our first stop at Pecos National Historic Site, which protects a his...