A Ghost Town

One thing we wanted to see on our trip out west was a ghost town! 

A ghost town is defined as "an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, or war. The term is sometimes used to refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods which are still populated, but significantly less so than in years past", according to wikipedia.  

On our way from Nevada to Arizona, we saw that there was a ghost town called Oatman that was sort of along the route we had planned to take.  Oatman used to be a mining town and now has less than 100 people who live there- oh and MULES!

They have a small main street with a saloon, general store, a few souvenir shops a place to dress in wild west clothes and take your picture and a place to purchase mule food.  The road to get to Oatman was so long, twisty and windy that my brother, the driver, was forbidden even one drink from the saloon! So, we went in the gift shops to purchase the required souvenir t-shirts and then bought mule food.  The food was little squares of hay, and as soon as the mules saw us buy the food, they chased my daughter through the gift shops and all the way out of the town trying to get the hay from her.  Basically, it was worth the drive just to watch her run from the mules!

The trip of a lifetime!

If you were wondering where I have been, I have been away on vacation for a week.  I had the trip of a lifetime!  There are a few funny things that I noticed about going on vacation while I was away, though.  

1)  Approximately half of my vacation time is usually spent digging around in my suitcase for things that I just put in there! 
2)  The more people you go with, the more ruckus you have trying to get somewhere.  Sometimes it is like trying to herd cats to organize everyone.
3)  I never pack enough and I always forget at least one thing.
4)  It always feels like I am gone twice as long as I was.
5)  You need a vacation to recover from your vacation.  I don't know how people can go back to work the very next morning after returning from a vacation- I am usually exhausted!
6)  My neighborhood and house always look different when I come home- either smaller or bigger!

The Art of Packing

Packing is a mystery to me!
I think that there are two kinds of people in the world; those who can pack, and those who cannot.
I wish I could be one of those people who can either just throw everything in a suitcase and go, OR  one of those people who are able to have everything neatly arranged in the suitcase with nothing missing, but sadly, I am neither.
When I am packing, the first thing I do is to start putting things into the suitcase.  Then, I usually realize that about half of the things I want to take with me are in the dirty clothes baskets and have to stop and wash clothes (surf internet, facebook, etc...) dry the clothes (check twitter, blog, etc...) and then finally fold the clothes (take nap, read book).  I then pick up where I left off, throwing outfits into the suitcase.  Next I look at the mountain of clothes and decide that I could never get the mountain of clothes in there to zip shut.  So, next I purge.  I go through and take about half of it back out again.   

 When I finally think I have it all together and we get where I am going I always realize two things: 1) I have forgotten something important- like a phone or camera charger or underwear (maybe aliens came and took it back out of the suitcase while I was "doing laundry".  2) I only need to reach inside to take one thing out and the suitcase becomes a giant mess again.  What happened to my neatly folded clothes?!  It's a mystery!

This solves the mystery of why my luggage is always so heavy!!!