Snowboarding in Sipapu and lunch in Santa Fe

Ready for powder

Sipapu has to be the cheapest snow you can find. Total cost per day for a hotel room and ski passes for three people on a week day (before Dec 18) – wait for it US$66! Yes that’s right $22 a person. It is not a big resort but has just enough to keep Rob happy and to challenge Fiona and Symi. If you book a hotel room for the night it is $44 for up to four people and you get one lift ticket free. Symi as a fifth grader snowboards free every day and Fiona pays $22 for a lift ticket. They do a lot of snow making here and pride themselves on being the first to open and the last to close. It is a family run resort and all the staff are very friendly saying hello and giving Symi snowboarding tips. As you can imagine we were out on the snow within an hour of arriving.

Lego in the hotel room - bit warmer than the RV

Just like riding a bike for Rob

As we had all snowboarded at the beginning of the year the first day on the snow went well. Fiona and Symi stayed on the beginner slope for the first few hours but very soon we were all up on the lifts and testing our skills. On the third day, feeling they had their snowboarding legs back, Fiona and Symi decided to invest in a lesson for an hour. The instructor was excellent and we certainly felt it helped our snowboarding. Symi is so fast on the traverses now that Fiona loses sight of her very quickly. Rob started the week lapping Fiona and Symi down the main slope in two runs, but has now estimated it would take him 8 runs to catch us when we are at our fastest. Rob as usual got back up to speed very quickly and continued to improve daily. He does put in many more runs than Fiona although he is in danger of being equaled by Symi who has boundless energy.

On day five we had to move back into the RV for a couple of nights as the hotel was booked for the weekend. With the rumour circulating that powder was on the way from a storm in the west we booked the hotel again for Sunday night as the resort has no water available for RVs and we were feeling the need for a shower. Fiona hit the wall late Friday morning and started making mistakes due to tiredness. No such problem for Rob or Symi. After a long lunch break and some food Fiona headed back in the afternoon to find that things were no better. Time for a rest day on Saturday. As it turned out the powder forecast was strengthening so Symi and Rob decided to join her. Out with the slow cooker – beef in red wine for dinner, and onto the computer to write up three blogs in one day as we were a bit behind (too many hours in the snowboarding office).

By 5pm Saturday evening the snow started coming down!

Yeti foot prints?

Luckily Rob's bike is inside!

Sunday dawned with a lot of powder on the ground. We had waxed the snowboards the day before and were lined up at the lifts at 9am. We got to the top and there it was - the longed for powder. Rob was away and down the hill with very little adjustment. Symi was just a little slower and Fiona was down and buried in the powder with the memories flooding back about just how tiring powder is. Finally we all got it worked out and we had a fantastic day. Symi mastered the 360 by the end of the day and then next day helped Fiona remember how to do them. Sleep came very easily that night.

Symi doing 360's

We then had one more day on the snow. We only lasted the morning as to be honest we were all done in. Even Rob gave up before the end of the day. We had a fantastic week.

We had advertised the RV but unfortunately the wifi reception at the resort was non-existent for us with our hotspot and the resort wifi was extremely slow and only seemed to work first thing in the morning. We had a few people interested but nothing serious. It is hard to imagine that in a few weeks we will be home and no longer living in an RV.

We hit the road for Arizona with a stop in Santa Fe for lunch and a wander around. We felt we had to have Mexican for lunch and managed to find a recommended diner which we enjoyed. After a wander around the town we headed off towards Arizona. While we were in Santa Fe we connected to the Wifi to find we had lots of interest in the RV - Yay. We also found out that the Washingtons (the Australian family we met in Moab) were going to be in Sedona for Christmas. Symi was very happy with this news.

Santa Fe for Lunch

The snow followed us!

Albuquerque

Our first night in New Mexico was spent at a casino. That’s not like the Wallers! Well it is if there is a $20 powered site and an US$11.99 (half price for children) steak buffet. We were celebrating the end of Simone’s school year. We were all happy to get to the end and quite pleased with ourselves that we managed to complete all the work on time.

Symi happy have found Trinity

Next morning we drove to Albuquerque to meet up with Joanna, Chris and Trinity who we met in in Sedona. They had kindly asked us to stay for a couple of days at their house. After a bit of work levelling the RV on the sloping street we were plugged into power and Rob was ready to head off mountain bike riding with Chris. Symi had to wait a couple of hours for Trinity to get home from school but luckily for her Joanna very kindly played on the Wii with her while Fiona sent off the last of the school work to her teacher.

That evening we went out for Mexican which was great – a lot less cheese than you sometimes find. The girls were very happy to find out that all children get complimentary chocolate mousse. Feeling very full we drove into the centre of Albuquerque to see the famous river of lights. Every year the botanical garden puts in what must be thousands – if not millions of lights – and decorates a huge area. We would estimate it took more that 90 minutes to walk around it once. That evening Symi enjoyed a sleepover with Trinity leaving Rob and Fiona to sleep alone in the RV for the first time all year.

bit cold

On Saturday the boys did some more riding while the rest of us went for a walk in a nearby canyon which we all enjoyed. Unfortunately while Rob and Chris were riding, Chris’s car was broken into. There was very little in the car to steal – an empty bag, a t-shirt and a shirt. Sadly the clothes were Rob’s and he is still mourning the loss of his Whoops T-shirt from Bend in Oregon and his “Montana Man” shirt which he loved. All very pointless and expensive with an insurance excess of $500 for Chris and Joanna. In the evening after dinner we helped decorate the family Christmas tree which was lovely as our RV Christmas tree which was lovingly drawn and cut out by Symi certainly could not support any decorations! We do however have a homemade advent calendar and Christmas stocking which we hope will get some use.

Sunday saw Fiona doing some last minute cooking to stock the freezer before our planned week of snowboarding. Rob managed to sneak in one last ride before we headed north to Sipapu. Due to our late start we did not make it all the way that night but found a roadside RV park to stay. Next morning set off to Sipapu early for a longer than expected and very undulating drive through the high desert.

Next up Snowboarding.