I Had a Great Vacation…In Spite of Everything [PHOTOS]

I just got back from a family vacation in New Mexico. We took my mom, who's in her eighties, because her older sister and younger brother live out there and nobody's getting any younger, right?

I went out there many times as a kid and I love it.

The weather is perfect. Even when it rains, you don't feel humidity.

And you can't beat the scenery.

That was a shot from our trip up Saddle Mountain. (Ultimately we couldn't get to the top because of a closed road.) And THIS is where Geronimo and his warriors fended off a group of soldiers in the late 1800s, probably the 1880s.

And this is a really cool cave that's been in Catron County for something like 700 years, or something. We visited the cave on the way up Saddle Mountain.

When I was a young, we'd spend a lot of time in the Gila Wilderness and that's just what we did again last week.

By the way, the Gila Wilderness is just north of Silver City, where a rock formation known as the Kneeling Nun rises above the Santa Rita Copper Mine, a huge employer in the area.

Plus, we made a stop in Roswell, New Mexico, where they milk that alien thing for ALL THAT IT IS WORTH, I'm telling you.

Now, the trip wasn't without its mishaps. I guess you have to take the bad with the good...like, for example, a speeding ticket I picked up as a "souvenir" in Magdalena, New Mexico.

Then there was that time I fell off a pickup truck and donated some shin skin as a friendly gesture.

And, finally, on the way home, there was that bizarre little occurrence when a car in front of me on Interstate 44 in Oklahoma City ran over some kind of pipe (didn't look heavy at all) and sent it flying into the grill of my rental van creating a sweet little hole in the radiator AND creating the need for a 24-hour stay in Chandler, Oklahoma.

I had a good time...and some weird times. As my dad would've said, "Well, they'll make for good stories."