Burts Across America

Home Again!

2008-07-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-06T12:57:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-07-02T06:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Tornado Alley!

2008-06-16T06:01:00.001-07:00

Sunday morning (afternoon!) we had to say goodbye to Uncle Larry. I tried to talk him into going to Dodge City with us, but he has a job and bills to pay and is probably a little tired of going and doing. I don't know what we're going to do without his encyclopedic knowledge of our surroundings. I guess we'll go back to "Hey, there's a big thing over there! I wonder what that does?"

I thought we have plenty of time to do and see in Tulsa, but there was so much that we didn't get to do. On the way out of town, we stopped and saw the Golden Driller. He is the largest free standing statue in the world. It's these kinds of little facts that we have Uncle Larry to thank for. It's a big honkin' thing. We missed the Center of the Universe, the Blue Whale in Catoosa, the Aquarium and the Zoo and the Gilcrease and so much more. The girls decided that we will come back to Tulsa. Of course, they also think that they have jobs lined up at Discoveryland!

Everybody was pretty tired and in a fighting mood. They were not so interested in seeing a big yellow dude. They wanted to take a nap. And fight.

So we set out across Oklahoma and into Kansas. There are many, many toll roads here and the tolls are super cheap. No $6 round trips across a three mile bridge! You can drive miles and miles and miles for $1.60. And that's a little strange in itself, who decided that $1.60 is a nice round number?

Kansas is a little bit of a surprise. I expected prairie, but I didn't expect to feel like I'd just driven out to Jay. That is what Kansas looks like; Jay, FL. Only bigger. I think my dad would love it up here. There are deer crossing signs everywhere, little creeks to fish in and little towns that probably haven't changed too much in the past 50 years.

I wish I had gotten more pictures in Kingman KS. I really could see Dad living here. It has such beautiful old buildings and brick streets and this little mini Statue of Liberty. There are lots of pick up trucks and tractors and it smells a little bit like cow poo.

Actually, a large portion of Kansas smelled like cow poo. We passed some HUGE industrial farms that smelled to high heaven. At one point Willa said, "It smells like Daddy pooped on a log and sent it down the river for us." It smelled like everybody's daddy pooped on a log and then put the log in our car. Super stinky!

I liked this little church because it was sitting right in front of what I can only guess it a grain silo complex. Without Uncle Larry, who knows? It could be sitting in front of a space station. I think the picture sums up what Kansas is all about, farming and faith.

We drove through Greensburg, KS on our way to Dodge City. I wanted to take more pictures, but that just didn't seem polite. I did get the picture above of the water tower. I have seen some storm damage in my life, but absolutely nothing can describe what Greensburg looks like even more than a year after the tornado that leveled it. These are some tenacious folks that have years of work ahead of them. If you get the chance, check out their town plan.

Next: More stinky cow towns and a very long drive.

Pigs Can Fly!

2008-06-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday we went down to Ada, OK for the 2nd annual Fly-in and BBQ Contest. Ada is about 2 1/2 hours south of Tulsa and it's just the kind of place that would have a fly-in and bbq contest. You can't really see the kids in the picture, they are in front of the fire truck, but they were so impressed with the size of this flag! that the told me I had to get a picture.

We decided to get the taster's kit that let you get a little sample of 10 of the competing teams food. There were a couple of other teams giving food away for free because they didn't want it to go to waste. We mostly tasted brisket, but there was a nibble of rib eye steak that was stellar, a rib that could have been better, and something that looked like sloppy joe. We did taste one bit of brisket! that was exceptional from the Woodsmoking team. Boy was that brisket ever good, no sauce required. We also had sno-cones.

This is a life flight helicopter. It will probably not be Belly's last time in one. She did go over to one of the guys who was there with the life flight team and tell him that she wants to be a nurse on an airplane when she grows up but she doesn't know how to fly a plane. "You need to show me how to fly this!" she demanded. They chuckled at her, but she was serious.

Connor pulled his head out of his rear end long enough to be interested in a giant military truck of some kind. Then he put his head back in his rear end and continued to be difficult. The girls were whiny, the sun was hot, the sky was blue and he was 12.

Boy did we ever make use of the port-o-potties! Willa spent so much time in one of them that Connor yelled, "Hey Doctor Poo, are you taking your Turdis to another Urinaverse or what?!" And I just cracked up laughing. So for the past couple of days Willa has been Dr. Poo. Hahahahaha....Turdis. That kid cracks me up.

Hey girls! Look at those cool airplanes flying around! Wow! Look at that! That plane is racing a car!

Not so interested in the airplanes. They were picking flowers for Uncle Larry! who was judging the contest. Apparently, he got to eat all kinds of super tasty BBQ and he got to bring home a little goody bag. The kids got into Uncle Larry's goody bag and took all his stuff. They ate his ribs and took his pens and pads of paper.

They did finally watch some airplanes flying around, but only because Belly was waiting for one of them to crash. "I saw this on television," she told Willa conspiratorially, "they go high, and then they fall and explode." Thankfully, she was disappointed.

Connor got some video footage of the airshow that I have to figure out how to embed in the blog. Uncle Larry says he knows how, and I'm sure Connor can figure it out. We'll see if we can get that up here in the next few days.

After we got back from the air show, we went to dinner at Hideaway Pizza! Super tasty! I wish we had one of these at home. I was glad to finally meet a real friend of Uncle Larry's (that's half of Doug in the photo above). Up until this point we've only met the neighbors, not any real 'friends' to speak of, and I was starting to get a complex. Are we really that bad? (Yes, yes we are!) We also went to Target and bought shoes because Willa's flip flops made her feet hurt.

Discoveryland!

2008-06-15T06:07:00.000-07:00

We have been preparing for the trip to Discoveryland by learning the songs in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The girls call it 'cowboy music' and sing with a fakey crazy accent that I can't even begin to describe. The weather had been iffy all day and I was afraid that they would cancel the show (our luck has been like that) but things went off without a hitch.

This is the Cattleman's Ranch Dinner. Uncle Larry says, "it's part of the experience!" It tastes exactly like you think it should. Mexicorn, pre-fab potato salad, pork & beans and a steak on a bun. I have to admit, the meat was nice and tender and had a good flavor to it. There is something to be said for Cowboy Leg.

This is Dudley. The man, not the horse. The ponies were tied to what looked like an old fashioned clothes line and they walked around in circles. The girls were thrilled and wanted to take the ponies home and put them in the back yard.

Both of the girls pitched a fit to ride the ponies. Actually, the both took turns pitching fits for whatever reason, I have no idea.

Here is a teepee we saw and thought of the nephews, some more of The Burts Who Stayed Home. I sure wish I had an alligator expert with me on this trip, you never know when you're going to need one. Oh, and a karate master, if only I had one of those!

Snow cones and seats in Row B. It doesn't get much better than that!

Uncle Larry has been to Discoveryland! before, and yet, he went along with us. Discoveryland! is actually a really neat idea. It's an outdoor theater with a Western theme. They only do two plays, Oklahoma! (go figure) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We saw the latter.

There was a Western Review before the show. There was singing of all the songs that you would expect and some can-can dancing. Annabelle wanted to know why the can-can dancers were doing that with their skirts. "It's a special kind of dance," I told her. "When I do that you get me in trouble," she noted. Yes, yes indeed.

The singers did a patriotic/post-911 thing where they were Proud to be an American. Annabelle said that they were 'crying inside' when they sang this song because of the looks on their faces. I was crying a little inside too.

Bless yore beautiful hide! The girls were mesmerized and sang along. This activity was definitely a winner. Connor didn't even bring the PSP, and he said he really enjoyed the show, too.

The cast was all wearing lots of clothing and while the weather was a relatively mild mid-70's, all I could think was that they looked hot. I mean, I didn't expect them to be in bikinis or anything, but they were wearing coats at one point and dancing and singing and I was just sure that somebody was going to keel over from heat exhaustion.

After the show they have a little meet & greet with the actors and the girls got to meet Meghan who played Millie, the lead female. They were star struck . Belly told Meghan that she was pretty and she loved her.

Belly also loved the actor who played Adam, the male lead, but he was not pretty. Willa told him that she wanted to sing and dance on the stage and he told them both that they could come work at Discoveryland when the got a little older. See you next summer!

Emergency!

2008-06-14T17:31:00.001-07:00

We had had a really busy week, so I thought that we would take it easy on Friday morning and then we could go do something fun around town. The weather was kind of yucky, so I thought the hotel's indoor pool would be a)inside and b)fun! And for a while, it was.

It was fun until Belly smashed her chin into the side of the pool and sliced her chin open. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but there was lots of blood. It was a pretty deep cut, so I decided to take her to the doctor and have it checked out just to be on the safe side. So instead of doing something fun like the Oklahoma Aquarium or the Gilcrease Museum we went to MedNOW! doc-in-a- box.

I decided on the Urgent Care center because I really didn't think it warranted the emergency room, I figured it would be cheaper, and I asked the desk clerk what she thought. (Now who's the crazy lady with the skin rash?) I'm not used to doing this kind of stuff without Randy and not having any back-up is a pain.

Not only did I have to keep Belly from screaming her head off about how her chin hurt...which made her chin hurt...which made her scream at me that her chin hurt, but I had to keep the other two from stabbing each other with needles from the sharps container. And they would have too.

The doctor told us that they don't really do stitches on little children's faces, so a couple of steri-strips and a good cleaning were all that were needed. All fixed!

The bad news: she has to stay out of the water until the steri-strips come off in four or five days. No more pool. I think there was more crying about that than there was about the actual injury.

Oooooooklahoma!

2008-06-13T21:59:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are the pictures from Oral Roberts University! The first time I saw the Statue of Liberty I thought, "Wow, that's really not as big as I thought it would be." When I saw this sculpture of The Praying Hands, I thought, "Wow! That thing is HUGE!" What you might not be able to tell from the picture is that you can see where the artist included details like hair on the arms and veins on the backs of the hands. It is an incredible sculpture.

Uncle Larry introduces us as his "thundering herd!" I don't think he knows quite what to make of us. He went all out and gave us the $5 tour of the entire town. The kids tell everyone that Uncle Larry introduces us to that they have driven ONE THOUSAND MILES and that they are from Florida and that they are on vacation and that they like ice cream and that they got to swim in the pool and that they are going to swim in another pool soon. And Uncle Larry's friends smile politely and back slowly away.

ORU is a spectacular example of mid-twentieth century architecture. The buildings! all look like they came out of one of those cartoons with flying cars. They are pointy and shiny and look like the future did in 1965. You really expect to see boys with skinny black pants and ties, girls with skirts and black cat's eye glasses and lots of crisp white short sleeve shirts. On the day we were there, everyone was mysteriously absent. We did not see one single ORU student. They must have been hiding from the heathens.

In the late 1970's God commanded Oral Roberts to build this building. It is the City of Faith Medical and Research Building. And He said, "Make it all cool, like it's from the future." Actually, it wasn't God who told Oral Roberts to build it, it was a 640 foot Jesus. I guess when 640-foot Jesus tells you to do something, you just do it. The prayer tower that I didn't get a picture of is exactly 640 feet tall. You don't have to tell Oral Roberts twice.

This is the Keystone Dam. This was a side trip that Doris thought that we would enjoy. We had no business being here, but we stopped and took a picture of the dam anyway. The children enjoyed getting to say the word 'dam' without getting in trouble.

We camped at Salt Creek North Recreation Area. It is on the Cimmaron arm of Keystone lake. There has been so much rain this year that most of the campground is either underwater! or will soon be underwater.

There were rocks to climb on and sticks to poke each other with. There was a little boy to play with! named Daulton that Belly decided to call Justin. "Daulton is not a name," she told him.

See! We did camp! Here is our set up for our single night of camping. After checking the weather report and learning that a severe line of thunderstorms was coming through, I made the executive decision to relocate to the Comfort Inn. It is always windy here, like being at the beach, but everywhere you go. They take their severe weather alerts seriously. I was even able to talk my way into a refund at the campground. "But I have three little children!"

While we were camping, we met our neighbor Mary who had been living in a tent and traveling around since March. She asked me to look at a spot on her leg and see if I might know what it was. It looked like a nasty case of poison ivy...or possibly scabies...I'm not a doctor! She invited me to touch her leg, which I politely declined and offered her some cortisone cream instead. To keep. No really, I can get more.

See the tree in the middle of the lake in the picture above? That is Loop A of the campground. The ranger told us that he has lived in New Mannford all his life (Old Mannford is now under the Keystone Lake) and he has never seen the lake so high.

Uncle Larry lives in the nice part of town. In a building with a door man and an indoor pool. Mike the security man is now our new best friend and knows all about us. Mike showed the children how to use the life-saving hook at the pool! Uncle Larry's neighbors have lots and lots of money. I parked my crusty old Grand Caravan between a Jaguar and a BMW. Other than Uncle Larry's GMC truck, I don't think there was another American car on the lot. Or one that cost less than a house.

Uncle Larry presented the girls with a giant box full of their great-grandmother's jewelery. Most of the stuff has to be 50 years old at least. Most of it is gigantic and plastic! and the girls were in heaven. See them sporting their antique clips-on's?

Uncle Larry is trying to kill us. Or he's a witch and wants to fatten us all up so that he can eat us later. We have eaten more food in the past two days than anyone has any right to. The night we got in we ate at Albert G's BBQ. If you are ever in Tulsa, eat the brisket and the beans. Oh, the beans! are just the best. For lunch Thursday we went to some little hole in the wall takey-outy asia-land type place. I'll have to find out the name. Willa had 'yummy noodles' which were yummy. Belly had chicken nuggets (she is on a Chicken Nuggets Across America Tour at this point) and Connor and I split an order of Tika Masala. MMMMMMmmmmm. Tika Masala.

Then last night for dinner we went for sushi! at Asahi. And tempura. And teriyaki. Willa ordered the yellow tail, Belly ordered the calamari, and Connor had the tempura and teriyaki combo plate. I ate what they didn't and was still stuffed. Here's a neat little fact about Tulsa: there is no sweet tea in restaurants, only unsweetened. The building above is the Boston Avenue Methodist Church.

This is the University Club Tower that was the first building in the United States to be designed by a computer! It is also the tallest residential building in all of Oklahoma.

We went and saw the swans! at swan lake. There were also ducks and a sign that told us to pick up our dog poop. We didn't have any dog poop. There was a pair of eyeglasses just stuck in a fence here. Weird.

And, of course, we went to Super Target! Which is super cool and has all plastic future-buggies. Tulsa is very big on the future.

Tomorrow I'll put up the pictures of going to the doctor in Tulsa and of our visit to DISCOVERYLAND!

Queens! and Vikings!

2008-06-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

Right now this very minute, I'm in a hotel room in Tulsa. But wait a minute...aren't we supposed to be camping? Yes, we are supposed to be camping. More on that later. I will put up pictures of Tulsa tomorrow (yes ladies and gentlemen, we DID go to Oral Roberts University and we saw us some big ol' prayin' hands!) For those of you who don't know, Randy has developed a companion blog if you want to find out what he's up to.

Have we only been on the road for four days? Holy cow. Doris and I are friends again and she has been indispensable since I rolled back the update that I did in Memphis. I think she's happier too, we have significantly fewer exit ramp excursions. She did get a little squirrelly when we drove through Poteau (pronounced Poe-dough) because they were doing crazy road work, but once we got past the herd of goats! running down the shoulder of the highway everything was okay.

Because we got in to Queen Wilhelmina State Park so late, we stayed in the lodge. The Lodge! at Queen Wilhelmina is beautiful on the outside. Then you go inside and it looks like your Great Aunt Nancy's house did in 1983. Floral, floral, floral. Not exactly what I expected, but I guess Queen Wilhelmina was an old lady and decorated like one. There are bears! in the lobby.

I was a little disappointed that we didn't have a view of the valley when we got up in the morning. It was cloudy...or foggy...I don't know. It was like being IN a cloud. No view but we also didn't have to wake up in a tent in all that moisture either. So maybe Doris is looking out for us after all. And there was a windmill!

Hiking unfamiliar trails in the fog is not recommended. Hiking unfamiliar trails in the fog with three children should be illegal. I told them that it was illegal to hike in the fog so that I could weasel my way out of doing just that. Annabelle + Hiking + Fog + Mountain = Helicopter Ride to Emergency Room.

No children, sit on this super fun old swing! Super fun! Damp and cold and cloudy and windy. We drove through Hot Springs on the way and bought gas and saw that they have a roller coaster. It was decided that if Hot Springs, Arkansas can have a roller coaster, then every other town in America is also perfectly capable of having a roller coaster. Other towns are just lazy.

That's Annabelle in front of the revolving door! at the rear entrance to the lodge. She must have gone around two dozen times before she figured out what was going on. I stood in the lobby going, "Okay, just jump out....NOW!... NOW!... NOW!... Jump out...NOW! Okay...NOW! Okay, stop. Wait, go. Okay, when I say stop, you just stop. STOP!... STOP! ...STOP! ...STOP!" I'm thinking about having one installed when I get home.

The picture above is the back side of the mountain! that we stayed on. I wasn't driving off the road trying to take a picture. I stopped and parked because I am careful. Well that, but also the children were screaming and I'm trying out Shannon's new method of stopping and getting out of the car when the kids are screaming. I figured I'd just take a picture while I was at it.

We drove along the Talimena Scenic Drive for a while, then we went to Heavener, OK. For a long time we were the only ones on the road. The kids were good but they have a little mini panic attack! anytime Doris would give us directions. "Don't listen to her mama! We'll get lost!" They calmed down when we made it to Heavener.

We went to see the Ancient Viking Runestone! in Heavener. Runestones are all over the place in this part of the country. They want you to believe that Vikings were writing their names on the rocks in Oklahoma 1000 years ago. Clever marketing ploy? If you look very, very closely at the picture below you can see the rune markings that say something to the effect of, “Copyright 1012” I wasn't really paying attention, I was trying to keep Annabelle from falling off of a cliff.

This has been a regular festival! of erosion. Everywhere you go in, there it is, erosion. The children saw this sign detailing the wonders of erosion and told me I had to get a picture. When they are famous geologists they will look back on this trip fondly. You never know, I might have the next Flaxman Charles John Spurrell on my hands. (A famous geologist. Now you name one!)

EROSION!

Now you might think that you're looking at erosion in this picture, but not so. Wilhelmina was telling me that her shoes make her feet "less grippy" and in order for her to climb the stairs, she needs just her feet. Her feet are "more grippy!" I made her wear shoes. I am mean.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get some Tulsa pictures up as we go on our quest to eat all the food there is in Tulsa in four days.

Adventure!

2008-06-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

It really is the exclamation point that makes all the difference. We have had exciting adventures! in the last 48 hours. Here is a short list of the exciting! things that we have done so far:

There was this weird Jesus picture on the side of the road in Alabama just north of Mobile. What is most disturbing! is that the thing behind the display is a soccer goal. And the fact that it's just plain disturbing. Connor dubbed this Emo Jesus.

There were petrified logs! We learned about erosion. Notice how thrilled the children are to be learning about erosion!

We thought that the petrified log! in this picture (not the tree that's still alive and just standing there like it's trying to make a point) looked a bit like a fish.

There were deer! on the side of the road. I was driving and didn't get a picture of so who really knows, I could totally be lying. There was also cherry vanilla ice cream!

There was a swimming pool! at the airport Holiday Inn in Southaven MS. There were also chicken nuggets!

Because we are classy we only choose the best. God bless TripAdvisor!

There was a monorail! at Mud Island. Surprisingly inexpensive and way more fun than the name would imply.

There was a trip to Target! for batteries.

And then, there was Doris. Doris is a Garmin Streetpilot and she spent the day getting us lost in Arkansas. Now let me be the first to say that I really love this thing, and yesterday she worked like a champ. Today however, I considered chucking her down the side of a mountain, but reconsidered because I couldn't get back to wherever I had come from without her.

Doris likes to take crazy turns and never tells you the appropriate exit to take when there are many to choose from. Doris says, "Turn left in .4 miles" but there are 37 different exits all in the same area and she's just telling you to turn left. So you do, and of course, it's the wrong left. So you have to loop-de-loo around and find the real left you were supposed to take.

Connor decided that Doris has an affinity for exit ramps. Then there is The Road That Does Not Exist where Doris says, "Turn left" and you really WANT to turn left, but there is only the shoulder of the road or some trees. No road. And you think, "well, maybe this thing knows something that I don't," so you consider turning left just for a moment and then you contemplate throwing it out the window.

Then you call the place where you're supposed to be going and you say, "Doris is on the fritz. Please tell me where you are in relation to me. I am located at 34.587153, -94.124811." This just makes you sound like a crazy person. They don't want to tell you how to find them, especially when the person on the other line can clearly hear children wailing in the background about being lost and screaming at you to please not throw Doris out the window.

The nice person on the other end of the phone says, "I'm at shhhhhhhh-two-shhhhhhhh," and then you loose cell service.

So you drive some more and call back. By this time the children are hysterical and you can't hear what the very patient person on the other end of the phone is saying. You threaten to throw them out the window. Then you remember that you are having fun!