Finally Something to Look Foward to!

Ryan and I decided before school starts for me on Monday that we would take some time off together from work. Well, that is where I am at right now...on a mini vacation with my sweetie. It definitely was something to look foward to all week long for me since work has been so unpredictable and for Ryan, since his boss is such a you know what. So, we are only about an hour and a half from Lubbock, but we were able to go see Palo Duro Canyon like we have been saying we were going to since we moved to Lubbock-three years ago! I went in May with Quala and Alli, which meant that this time I kinda played tour guide. It was a lot of fun. Ryan and I really enojoy hiking(when we both don't have bugs swarming us!). Today we didn't even hike a whole mile and we weren't climbing up a mountain at a steep elevation. Either way, I think we both wished that we lived closer to mountains or valleys that we could hike up. Really great exercise and So much to see!!

After we were done hiking and souvenier shopping Ryan wanted to go to another place he learned about in his Art class-Cadillac Ranch. So, we look up directions on the internet and we drove out there. All it is is old Cadillacs buried half way in the dirt, sticking straight up in the air. It really doesn't sound too great, but you are encouraged to bring paint and then paint anything you want on the cars. Funny as it sounds, it was a lot of fun! The wind almost knocked us over in both places today(excuse the hair) but it was tons of fun just relaxing and exploring new things together. Here are some pictures and I am sure Ryan will post somethng later too.

(by Ryan)

The following website gives the story about Cadillac Ranch. it's considered a modern public art piece, and people come from all over the world to dusty old Amarillo, Texas, just to see it and add to it.

http://www.libertysoftware.be/cml/cadillacranch/ranch/crabtr.htm

Ryan's famous pose:

Can you see the amazing canyon behind us? It is really hard to take a picture yourself and try to get a great background too.

Here is the view without us hogging the frame.

Just a pretty background:

Can you see Ryan in this picture? He is wearing a red shirt and kahkis shorts. I had to yell at him to come back because I thought I heard a rattlesnake! I guess it was just me being a pansy!

Now you see the "cave" from the outside or from the road...

Now you see it from the inside....

This is the Cadillac Ranch. I thought the cars might be kinda old and rusty since they have been there for so long, but the paint was so thick on them that you counldn't even see the lug nuts on the tires!!

I decided to get inside the car to paint something. Less likely that someone else will paint over it!

I figured that the cars would be pretty much multi-colored and no matter how dark you sprayed something on, it was not going to show. So, Ryan and I bought black paint to put a backdrop and then red to write ontop of black. It was a good idea since the most popular colors on the cars were red and black!!! Ryan did a really good job painting after all his experience painting racecars.

His finished product:

Ryan helped me stand on the top of the car to reach a place that was still blank.

Ryan didn't need my help climbing up his car to write on the top. Ryan was in a big climbing mood today...everything he saw he told me, "hmmmmm I wonder how I can get to the top of that!" I told him he must have that in common with John!

We had someone take our picture, thankfully. You actually get the whole view!