Home Again!

We got home on my birthday (Happy Birthday to me!) and I have been a little lazy about updating the blog. I still have to put up pictures of the Death Cabin, Mt. Rushmore, Corn, The Kool-Aid Museum (yes, there really is one!) and stuff we did in Austin. If you're still following the journey, check back tonight or tomorrow morning and I'll have some new pictures up. I'm also in the process of getting all of the pictures up in a gallery (like anybody really cares about that besides me?!)




I did find out that blogging is a nice way of keeping in touch with people that I don't get to see that often, so even though I'm not doing anything exciting for the rest of the summer...because I spent all the money...I might keep it up. We'll see, my life is not exciting.

Wild, Wild West!

We took a whole day to spend in Cody WY. I can't imagine that there's much going on in Cody during the winter months sans tourists. Unfortunately, there is not Target in Cody. There is a Wal-mart, but it is weird and has a green outside. Try as they might to try to trick you into thinking that an interesting exterior means an interesting interior, it was still just a Wal-mart with all the regular Wal-mart things. Shannon would be thrilled. We stocked up on s'more supplies and picked up monogulars (you can surely figure that one out) for each of the kids for better viewing of wildlife.





We ate a late lunch at a Maxwell's that had all the requisite kid food. Corn dogs! as well as some remarkably good tea. Tea is terrible outside of the South. I ordered tea everywhere we went to try and figure out what was going wrong and I came to the conclusion that only Southern people can make iced tea. Must be genetic (all that inbreeding). Please just stop trying Western people! Your tea is terrible! The picture above was our favorite cowboy painting.




The Buffalo Bill Historical Center was one of the best museums we saw. It's really five museums in one. There is an art museum, a museum dedicated to the American West, a Natural Science museum, a firearms museum and an Indian/Native American/First Nations/Aboriginal Peoples museum. As a side note, in the West, the preferred term is Indian. When I was talking to the children about Indians, I used the phrase, "feathers, not dots" to help them know which Indians I was talking about. This is a terrible phase to teach your children, I would discourage you from ever saying such things. Especially in a crowd of "feathers not dots" Indians.





They call this museum the Smithsonian of the West with good reason. We could easily have spent another day here.





This picture is for Dana. This is a stuffed yellow-bellied Marmot. We saw some of these that were still un-stuffed running around along the side of the road. They look like giant! hamsters. We didn't see any marmots with mini skirts or fish net stockings, so I guess we didn't see the infamous Hoary Marmot.





There is a big debate raging in the West. It's the great "Tipi v. Teepee" question. Sometimes you see a tipi, and sometimes, it's a teepee. Personally, I can't tell them apart.





There were guns! Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of guns. More guns that anyone has a right to have collected in one place. Connor wanted to look at every gun. I wanted not to look at guns.




There were lots of stuffed things and dioramas. I've never seen so many life-sized dioramas. Creepy. See how good the kids were being? That's Connor in the middle.




So after a long day of learning all about cowboys, we figured that we cap off the day with a trip to the Rodeo! The Cody Stampede (or more appropriately the Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede, everything in Cody is the Buffalo Bill Cody this or that) is the longest running rodeo in the world. This year marks the 89th year that there has been a rodeo in Cody.




Take a good look at the picture above, do you notice anything weird about the little cow? Like that the little cow is supposed to be fenced in? Someone should tell the little cow.





We loved the stylish headgear that some of the cattle sported. I didn't know what these horn protector things were for, so I asked, "Hey, what are the horn-hats for?" Nobody around me knew because they were all stupid tourists too. The best we could come up with was that they somehow protect the little bulls horns. These were junior strength bulls.




Oh, boy! A tract! I haven't seen a proper tract since I left home. The one is entitled "The Last Ride" and is all about cowboys and Jesus and it wants me to go to cowboy church. I didn't go since I'm not of the cowboy denomination, but I appreciated their tract.





We sat behind the weirdest! family at the rodeo. There was a mom and a dad, and two kids. When we took our seats, we did so very loudly. You see, it's outside, and it's a rodeo and there is loud music and lots of people and beer and things are loud. I promise, it wasn't just us this time. So these kids keep turning around and staring at us. Really staring. Like there was a contest that we didn't know about.





We were talking about stuff and looking at things and the kids just kept STARING at us. The family never talked to each other and when they didn't stand up for the national anthem (who doesn't stand up for the national anthem at a RODEO for goodness sake? That's just asking for a whoopin') it crossed my mind that they must be foreign. That satisfied me for a while because foreign people have a good excuse for being weird.





They turned out not to be foreign, just an American family having a bad time at the rodeo. They left before the bull riding. Weird. That's like, the main event. The best part of the night was that Belly and Willa got to go down into the arena and chase a baby cow with about 100 other kids. I always knew that Belly would be running with the bulls!

Lions & Geysers & Bears! Oh My!

It seems a little unfair to have to summarize the past 16 days in just a few posts, but that's what I'm going to try to do. I'll have to just hit the highlights for now because I've lost my journal. It's probably buried at the bottom of all the junk in my car. When I get a chance, I'll put up all the pictures in a Flickr gallery.




Having begun the trip with a petrified forest, we couldn't pass up Yellowstone's single petrified! tree. There is a fence around the petrified tree to keep it from running away. There used to be two of them, but visitors kept taking pieces home with them, so now there is only one.





We went to the north end of the park to the Albright Visitor's Center where there was a great animal exhibit. We watched all the educational movies that the park had to offer. At our first terrifying movie, we learned how the hot spot beneath Yellowstone could erupt at any minute. Belly was scared to death and wanted to leave the park IMMEDIATELY! It took all afternoon and a meeting with a very helpful park ranger to talk her into staying. I think we can scratch vulcanologist off her list of possible career choices.

We saw the Mammoth Restroom! It wasn't really all that big.

All of the thermal areas smell like farts. The children all thought it was great fun to say, "Did you hear that thermal feature?" every time they passed gas. We ate a lot of chili, so I heard that little gem a lot. Some of the thermal features are steam vents which smell particularly foul and Belly decided that stink vents was a more appropriate name. The picture above is at the Minerva Terrace. We walked up 2085 stairs to see a stinky hole in the ground. Everywhere you go in the thermal areas there are signs that tell you, "Don't go here, it stinks and you will die if you step off the boardwalk." They don't bother with hand rails. I kept the boo-boo box handy in case of death.




In Gardiner, MT we ate at Helen's Corral Drive-Inn, Home of the Hateful Hamburger. I don't know why they are hateful, but it might be because they are liars. We were tempted by the Buffalo Bacon Cheeseburgers that were HUGE! Then we were a little disappointed when it tasted exactly like a regular bacon cheeseburger, albeit a very large one. We decided that by adding the word "buffalo" you can charge another dollar for your hamburger. Connor thought that perhaps it wasn't the burger that was buffalo, perhaps is was "buffalo bacon" which also happened to taste exactly like regular bacon.





There were elk all over the place at the north end of the park. We learned that you can tell it is an elk by looking at the animal's rear end. Belly became an elk behind expert and can tell you the difference between a mule deer and an elk at 250 yards. The odd thing is that the elk look both ways before they cross the street. Of course, they also decide for no reason that they enjoy standing in the middle of the road for extended periods of time. We started calling this phenomenon an "animal jam." There was a sign about 5 feet away from me when I was taking this picture that said, "DANGER, do not approach the elk." I noticed this sign after I took the picture.




I made a whole lot of people angry taking the picture above. You see, my philosophy is that I'd rather have pictures with people in them rather than just a picture of the thing itself. This is the Roosevelt Arch and I wanted a picture of the kids standing in front of it. About 200 other people did not want to take pictures of my children, but I had stationed them there in front of it anyway. And then, because I was enjoying myself, I took a really long time taking the picture. I wonder how many other tourists have pictures of the kids in their vacation photos now?





There is a very American kind of tourism that happens at Yellowstone. The whole place is set up so that you never really have to get out of your car. You can just drive around, stop in the middle of the road and take pictures. There are a large number of people who do just that. What they don't know is that you have to get out of your car and walk to most of the really good stuff. I left my camera battery in the car the day that we walked to the Morning Glory Pool, so I don't have a picture. It's interesting to note that most of the people we met along the 2 mile or so hike were foreigners and wanted me to take their picture. Then they offered to take my picture, but my camera battery was in the car! Americans do not volunteer to take your picture.




We visited Old Faithful (or Old Fateful, if you're Belly) twice. What they don't tell you about Old Faithful is that there are several preliminary spurts before the big event. When the first couple of bursts only went up about 20 feet, Connor got irritated. "We drove 2800 miles to see this?!?! This is highly overrated!" When it finally did erupt, I was relieved. I would have hated to drive 2800 miles for 20 feet of spurting water. During the second trip to Old Fateful, Connor got separated from me and the girls. The girls freaked out, but Connor did exactly what he was supposed to do and went and found the Visitor's Center. We found him in less than 5 minutes thanks to Ranger Sam and Connor's level head. See, he is a smart kid!





Belly was afraid that she wouldn't get to see the eruption with all the tall people standing in her way. Connor was afraid he wouldn't get to see the eruption with the small person sitting on his head.




All three of the kids earned their Junior Ranger patch, but Willa was the first. Being a Junior Ranger apparently entails having to tell everyone at Yellowstone that you are a Junior Ranger. I didn't do the program myself, so I didn't pay attention to the details. Belly took her Junior Ranger duties quite seriously and told everyone not to get too close to the buffalo because, "Many visitors have been gourded by buffalo, don't use your flash or you will make them angry!" She never really did understand how someone becomes gourded (gored) but it scared her.




Belly made this face everywhere we went and said, "Oh my gosh!" She also used the word stupendous several times. She also had a good time looking for cantalopes and elfs (antelope and elk).




This was the second time was saw bears in the park. Unlike some of the other retards on vacation, we DID NOT get out of our car to try to take pictures of the grizzly bear mama and her cubs. I was terrified that Belly would open the door and let the bears in. She wanted to take the bears back to our tent and let them 'snuggle her' and she would tell them, "Just be careful of the air mattress!" and they would keep her warm at night. I kept my foot on the accelerator just in case.

I've just found out that Hastings, NE (where we are now) is the birthplace of Kool-Aid and there is a museum. So we are going to go do that and then we're off to Oklahoma again. I'll try to update again tonight!

Nature's Majesty!

Just thought I'd post some quick pictures of the scenery without all the silly commentary. Enjoy! If you want silly commentary, scroll down to the previous post!

Yellowstone! Part One!

So did you just totally miss us or what? I don't have a whole lot of time tonight, but I'm finally back in the real world (Hastings, NE!) where there is cell phone service and internets, so I'm just going to do my best and throw up some pictures. At least it's not pictures of throw up, right? Because you all know that when you go on vacation with Willa the throwing up is going to happen sooner or later.




So when was the last time I updated? I'm going to say Cheyenne. If there was something in between, it wasn't important anyway. So after we stopped to resupply at our favorite survival! gear store, we headed off to Meeteetse (Mee-tee-see) for our first night of camping Wyoming style. And by Wyoming style, I mean in somebody's back yard in the cold, but I'll get to that later.




Annabelle has taken to wishing for everything. She has even learned to hold her mouth right. Personally, I'm all for the wishing. It beats screaming any day.





We drove up through the Wind River Valley and got our first real taste of the West. We stopped at a playground that was also a mini-campground right next to the Wind River.





At this point the kids were really getting into the Western theme. At some point in the trip, Annabelle started saying, "Darn-dang-it!" when things didn't go her way. She's got that whole Southern accent going along with it, too. Darn-dang-it, Y'all!





Willa decided the cowboy hat was an okay accessory, but cowboy boots are tacky. Willa? Tacky? I had no idea that she even knew what that meant.





Meeteetse! We stayed at the Oasis Motel & RV Park in the tent camping area. The tent camping area is the back yard of the motel. So is the RV camping area. They have a little playground and the girls made friends immediately. One of our neighbors gave us some fresh local trout for dinner. None of these neighbors wanted to show us their rashes, so we really liked it here. The staff was very friendly and for $11 you get to live right next to your very own fake cowboy town! You see the dilapidated looking building in the picture above? It's just a facade, no building... just ambiance.




Yeah, that looks safe. While we were getting ready for dinner, two gigantic deer of some kind loped through our campsite. The kids chased after them only to be disappointed at how fast deer can hop away. The next morning when we got up, we had a bunny friend just outside our tent. It was like spending the night in a Disney film. Did I mention that Wyoming is cold in June? Really, really cold. Like winter time cold. I was not prepared for summer in Wyoming to be 35 degrees at night. That's just wrong. Connor said, "Somebody forgot to give Wyoming the memo about summer."





See what a great place this was? They had a really nice washer and dryer for me to wash my cell phone in. Which is exactly I did. So as an added vacation bonus, I got to go to the Verizon store in Cody and buy myself a new one. Is that a great souvenir or what?




So after we stopped and bought a new cell phone, we drove about an hour and a half and finally made it to Yellowstone! where I promptly lost all cell phone service for the next two weeks. There are literally two places in Yellowstone that you could use your cell phone and you had to put on your tinfoil hat and pray to the cell phone gods to get any kind of reception even then. I should have just waited and let my stupid phone dry out.





As we drove into Yellowstone, Belly started singing, "Country road, take me home, to the place, I beeee-long, West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country road." I didn't even know that she knew that song! So I asked her why she had never sung it before. She told me, "I've been saving it for a snowy mountain." If I wasn't prepared for 35 degrees at night, I certainly wasn't prepared for snow. In June. What is wrong with this place? It was really darn-dang cold. We had to drive all the way back into Cody to get another sleeping bag because we were FREEZING!




See that on the ground behind Belly? That's snow at our campground. It didn't help that it was so wet that I couldn't make a campfire to save my life. Mostly I sent smoke signals and made things smell terrible.




This is our first campsite in Canyon Village. Canyon Village has the smaller campsites, but the best showers. For all four of us to shower cost $9.75. I tried to cheap out and just do sponge baths, but it was COLD and I decided that $10 a day is a small price to pay to be warm for half an hour. What you don't see in the picture above is the huge pile of snow on the other side of my car. Of course, I got a terrible cold and lost my voice for two days. Happy vacation!

Tomorrow morning before I get back on the road, I'll try to get up highlights of Old Faithful, The Buffalo Bill Museum and The Cody Rodeo.

Cow Town to Cow Town & The World's Largest Prarie Dog Town!

We woke up under cloudy skies in Dodge City. We didn't have a great start to the day, see the thing in Annabelle's hand? It's an ice pack. She got her hand closed in the door of the car. So we saw some of the sights around Dodge and then the kids decided that they just wanted to get in the car and go. Fine by me! I've always wanted to get the Hell out of Dodge and now I have. Check!





We drove by the Boot Hill Museum! and there wasn't much going on, so we decided to skip it. This is a cowboy sculpture near the museum. We saw a bunny here!





This is the inscription at the base of the statue. The dentist! who modeled for the statue was apparently somebody, because not only does it mention him on the bottom plaque, it mentions him on a smaller plaque directly above the larger one. We don't know who the cowboy is or who said the little saying, but we know who modeled for the statue!





Oh how we miss Uncle Larry! Old McDonald's just isn't the same. There weren't many choices to be made, it was either this or gas station snacks. I just had a gigantic diet coke and ate the kids leftovers.

So what did you think of lunch! girls?

You might not realize that this was a planned side trip because I never did update my google calendar. Best laid plans and all. Prairie Dog town is a small building just off the interstate. You go in through the building and pay your admission ($21 for the family) and then you walk out the back side of the building into a field that is full of holes. The prairie dogs pop up and down in the holes like whack-a-mole. It's funny just to watch them.





The lady at the admissions desk gave us some crunched up dog biscuits to feed the animals. Connor is trying to coax two prairie dogs out of their holes with his dog biscuit. "They do know that they're not really dogs, right?" Connor said. From the looks of the place, maybe they really didn't know.

What do you know! The dog biscuit worked!

We petted the goats and a mini donkey! and some cows. We chased prairie dogs...and then we got to the good stuff...




Notice that this is a 'Green Mutant' and it is not green, it is just some kind of brownish chicken! or something. Are they trying to pass this off as a mutant prairie dog? Is it some kind of mutant chicken? Notice the cinder blocks on the top of the cage to keep the Green Mutant Chicken from getting out.





Belly named all the baby animals and wanted to take them home because they all loved her and wanted to come home with her. She had a very hard time understanding why we couldn't have a prairie dog as a pet. "But they have toooo maaaannnnyyyyy." I have drawn the line. Prairie dog is over the line. Baby cow is over the line. So is baby turkey, baby prairie dog ("Nooooooo, not the big ones, just a baaaaaabbbbyyy one!"), badger and any kind of mutant bird.





See! I went to Prairie Dog Town. This is not a new hairstyle, it was very windy and smelled like poo. Most of Kansas really does smell like poo.





For some reason, the Prairie Dog Town had both a five- and six-legged cow. What's up with the mutants folks? These animals are very friendly and exceedingly creepy. The six-legged cow is the brown one, the five-legged cow is the black one. They just hang out together in their own separate corral. I guess the other cows were picking on them. Just so you know, they do not appear to be able to control the extra appendages.

Business in the front...

Abomination in the back.

This one has the extra leg hanging off of her neck. She was not nearly as friendly as the brown one. Stupid stuck up mutant cow.





They had quite a collection of animals at Prairie Dog Town. There were the prairie dogs, and the farm animals, but there were also badgers, fox and a whole menagerie of various birds. Oh, I totally forgot about the rattlesnakes! There are also rattlesnakes.





Get the boo-boo box! After saying, "Watch out for the holes!" about 568 times, Belly fell in a hole and lost her shoe. There is a prairie dog in the hole with her shoe and she was not willing to give up a brand new shoe. (I hate to admit this, but I was terrified when I was fishing out that shoe. All I could think of was the killer rabbit at the Cave of Caerbannog...He's got huge, sharp pointed teeth... He can leap about... Look at the bones! Which was silly because there were no bones at the prairie dog town.) She also scraped her ankle and required a band-aid. Another. Band. Aid.





We did see some signs that made us laugh. We saw the one above just after we crossed into Colorado from Nebraska. It reminded me of an old joke that Dad used to do about puppies and Cajuns or something. I'm terrible with jokes. But we laughed about this sign for miles and miles. CR PP?

This place is also in Colorado and I'm not sure what goes on in this building.

This is a wind farm just south of Cheyenne. Look along the top of the ridge and you can see the gigantic windmills. Willa was starving and she was angry that there were no towns. I told her to close her eyes really and wish really hard for a town and then one would appear. It only took about a minute of wishing before we crossed over the ridge and into Cheyenne. I told her to open her eyes! Her wish had come true! She opened her eyes and told me that I must be magic. Belly opened her eyes too and started to cry. "My wish didn't come true! I was wishing for a glass of milk!" I told her that she wasn't holding her mouth right and that she should try again. For the next 5 miles (to the hotel) she tried to get her mouth right and like magic! as soon as we got to the hotel, she got a glass of milk. I'm a regular miracle worker.