Monday, July 5, 2010

West Trip: My Favorite Quotes

West trip...Best quotes

"Could you pass me an 'el Fudge'?"

-Luke asking for an E.L. Fudge (in Spanish?)


"I don't want to see any more stupid, beautiful nature."
-Lilly
(This is actually a quote from our Gatlinburg trip, but there were too many opportunities to bring it up again.)

"Not much of a _____________."
(insert scenic item such as mountain, waterfall, grizzly bear, etc..)
-This is a paraphrase we all used from one of Luke's famous quotes.

"It was scarier than a bison."

-Greg after entering the bathroom and seeing a gentleman with his pants at his knees "sponge-bathing."


"Shane, go ahead and take off your white t-shirt"

-Greg after I had already taken off my t-shirt.

Our Trip West...By the Numbers

Monday, July 5

West Trip...By the Numbers

Number of miles traveled roundtrip= 4,397
















Longest drive = 11-1/2 hrs. from Willmar, MN to home

Shortest drive = 6 hrs. from Mitchell, SD to Custer State Park

States traveled in = 8 (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin)

Cheapest gas bought = $2.64 (in Ohio)

Most expensive Gas = $3.19 (in Yellowstone)

Number of buffalo seen = 8 million? (estimate)

Number of times in a "bison jam" = 2

Other animals seen at least once = moose, grizzly bear, black bear, elk, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, fox, coyote, snake, marmot, prairie dog, weasel, ground squirrel, bald eagle, osprey, and others I'm probably forgetting.

Number of nights camped = 14

Number of nights in hotels = 5

Nights stayed with family = 2

Number of messages on answering machine when we got home = 17

Number of e-mails missed = 77

West Trip Day 21: The Drive home

Sunday, July 4

"Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes... or perhaps you don't want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away?"

-Clark Griswold

You would think there wouldn't be much to say about our 11 hour drive home. However, as it turned out, we had one last adventure in store. If you have read about our other drives you know that with a few exceptions (The Corn Palace and the giant Prairie Dog) we have skipped the cheesy roadside attractions such as the world's largest crow, bison, cow, pumpkin, green giant, etc... However, Rogan is a big fan of the Guinness Book of World Records. When we were in Hawaii, Rogan loved going through the World's Largest Maze at the Dole Plantation. We had an opportunity to see another largest in the world attraction on our journey home.


We had heard people talking about the World's Largest Ball of Twine that was just off the highway on the way home to Ohio. Now, Rogan was a little cynical at the assertion that the largest ball of twine was in Minnesota because he had done a state report on Kansas in 4th grade and learned they Cawker, Kansas claimed the largest ball of twine.



If you're not interested in the history of the largest ball of twine, then feel free to skip this paragraph, but actually its pretty interesting. It seems that two men, one in Minnesota and one in Kansas, were independently collecting a ball of twine as a personal passion.
From Wikipedia: "
Darwin, Minnesota is the home of a ball by Francis A. Johnson. It is 3 meters (12 ft) in diameter and weighs 4,900 kg (10,400 lbs). He started his obsession in March 1950 and wrapped four hours every day for 230 weeks. It is currently housed in a specially made gazebo across from the town park on Main Street.
Another ball was started in Cawker City, Kansas by Frank Stoeber. He saw Johnson's ball as a challenge and started his own. Stoeber had 1.6 million feet (490,000 m) of twine on his 11-foot diameter ball (3.4 m) when he died in 1974. Cawker City built an open-air gazebo over Stoeber's ball where every August a "Twine-a-thon" is held and more twine is added to the ball. As of 2006, the twine ball has reached 17,886 pounds (8,111 kg), a circumference of 40 feet (12 m), and a length of 7,801,766 feet (2,377,978 m). At a length of over 1,475 miles, it would reach as far as Boston, the Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico City, Vancouver, Hudson Bay, or Canada's Northwest Territories from Cawker City if it were unwound.

So there you have it, the Cawker, Kansas twine ball is currently the world's largest and heaviest ball of sisal twine while the Darwin, MN twine ball is the largest ball is the largest made by one person. I won't even get into controversies about balls of twine in other places made of other materials other than sisal, whatever that is. Nonetheless, Weird Al seems to give credit to the Darwin, MN effort as the greatest of all time.


That being said, we had to go see this thing. As we headed down Interstate 12 we came to the sign of the tiny town of Darwin, MN with a sign below that read "Twine Museum." Unfortunately, we blew right by Main Street as there was no sign and before we knew it, we were out of Darwin. I asked Jen to put the twine ball in the GPS so we wouldn't miss it again. We u-turned and headed back to Main St., but unfortunately it was a no left turn so we needed to pull a u-turn again.

I was aggravated that we had wasted time trying to find the largest ball of twine, but at this point it had become a quest, a quest for fun you might say. I looked ahead and saw a blacktopped driveway for what looked like a trucking company or something that had plenty of room for me to u-turn the camper. As I pulled in Jen advised me to take a right and take different simpler route, but I was sure I knew an easier way. I believed I had room to turn it around right there in the driveway. As I began turning I knew immediately we were in trouble. What had looked like a smooth blacktop from a distance was actually very dark, smooth mud. As the tires spun in the mud and we stopped moving forward, Jen beagan to panic. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" "Stay calm," I said heroically. "Let me try to back it up." The wheels of the pop up stuck firmly, and it began to jackknife instead.

"Oh, crap!" Now, I was worried. I stepped outside to survey the situation myself and immediately sank
down
an inch into thick mud. It had rained hard overnight and this was leftover dirt from a large pile that was stacked in the driveway. I decided that instead of trying to pull the camper while turning that I would try to pull it straight forward around the large pile of dirt where there was some grass and potential for traction.

"Here we go," I announced nervously as I hit the gas. The speedometer read about 40 mph, but we were only moving about 2 mph. But, we were moving. Mud was flying all around us in all directions. Clumps of mud landed on the windshield, on the top of the pop-up, and all over the sides of the van. When I reached the grass, I knew we were home free. I pulled the van to the edge of the driveway and breathed a sigh of relief. Jen hopped out and capture some pictures of our near disaster.

The top of the camper.


Where we were nearly stranded in mud.
Looks like plenty of room to turn around, right?

Meanwhile, I knocked the mud out of my shoes.

After all this, we were even more determined to see the largest ball of twine (made by 1 man). As we pulled out into the road, the van and camper clumpity-clumped and left a trail of mud for about half a mile. We finally arrived at our destination:

Ta-da!
Wasn't that worth it, kids?

After all that excitement, the other 10 and half hours of driving were pretty boring. We made it home about 8:30 that night. As much fun as we had on this trip, I have to say, it was great to be home.

Quest for Fun
Warning: Uses Profanity

Sunday, July 4, 2010

West Trip day 20: Karen & Carl's Wedding

Saturday, July 3

This day started out very casually. We slept in a little, watched some TV, and made it to the continental break fast around 10:00. After breakfast, the kids swam with their uncle DonL, and their cousins Rachel, and Ryan Cundy. Jen and I talked with Barry Cundy about their trip to Custer area that they were taking after the wedding. We shared some of our fun experiences and recommended a few things to them.


We decided to go out and a find local restaurant to eat lunch. We settled on a mexican joint on the main strip. The food was excellent and the decor was, well, very colorful.


Greeting you at the entrance of the restaurant was a wooden Mexican woman that for some reason had gigantic DDD sized breasts . Of course, Mikah noticed right away and wanted a picture by them.

Craig is using her jugs as an armrest, apparently.

From there we drove to a little park in town just to see what it had to offer. It had a lake, a beach, a frisbee golf course and a small playground where the kids played while the adults socialized. At some points the adults played, too. We were just killing a little time until we had to get ready for the wedding.


At around 2:30 we got back the hotel so we could get ready for the wedding. I opened the garment bag with our dress clothes that Norma had brought for us and pulled out our dress shirts. I started ironing Rogan's shirt while Jen showered and watched the World Cup on TV. I set Rogan's new ironed shirt on the bed when I was done. Soon after, Rogan came in to watch the soccer game and sat on the shirt making it wrinkled again. So, I ironed it again and then set to work on ironing my shirt. The wedding was at 4:00 and it was a little after 3:00.

Everyone was showered and dressed but me, but I knew it would only take 5 minutes for me to get into my suit and tie. Except there was one problem - my suit pants were not in the garment bag. I looked for them frantically for about 5 minutes and then started to think of a plan B. I had no other pants other than cargo shorts or dirty jeans from camping. I was either going to have to go very causal, very dirty, or get some pants, and quickly.

I literally ran down the hall to the main desk and asked if they had somewhere close by that I could get dress pants. They recommended good old Walmart which was only about 8 minutes away. It was about 3:10 by this time and I needed to leave the hotel by 3:30 to get to the wedding on time - but this was my only option. I buzzed down the road with the camper behind me and arrived at Wallyworld in no time.


As I turned right into the parking lot I heard a loud "KA-THUNK!" followed soon after by a "Glug! Glug! Glug!" I knew right away what it was. We had stacked the coolers in the back 2 high and they had been kept upright by our bags of clothes which were now in our hotel room. I stopped right where I was, jumped out, and turned the cooler upright. By this time, however, most of the damage was done. The ice water from the cooler had dumped into the back of the van. But frankly, at this point, I was in too much of a hurry to care.

So, I ran into the store where a Walmart greeter welcomed me with a smile. "Welcome to Walmart." I yelled, "Menswear!" and she pointed in the general direction of the store and zoomed by her.

"Welcome to Wallmart!"

I rushed over to menswear and scanned for some khakis in my pant size and found them. I grabbed some undershirts as well because I had accidentally brought my white MCS trucking volleyball shirt instead of an undershirt. Luckily I found an empty checkout line. I was in and out of the store with dresspants, and 2 undershirts for just $21 in total less than 3 minutes. As I passed by the greeter, she gave me an approving "thumbs up" sign as I scooted out the exits.


I hurried back to the hotel where some people were waiting in the parking lot for me with the engine running. I ran into my room, partially dressed, and then ran out to finish dressing in the car. We made it to the wedding with a little time to spare so we snapped some pictures before being seated.

Rogan looking dapper and me in my new "Walmart pants."

The kids both looked really nice.


The entire wedding and reception was outdoors. It was an unusually hot and muggy day for Minnesota, but it was nonetheless beautiful. Both the Karen and Carl looked great and were very happy. They had memorized their vows which I thought was cool and brave of them.

That evening everyone enjoyed a terrific catered meal and danced the night away on the dance floor. Jim, the father of the bride, was particularly festive. We left the party around 10:30 and went back to the hotel. This was our last full day of vacation. Tomorrow we'd make the long drive home.

Friday, July 2, 2010

West Trip Day 19: Travel day to Minnesota

Friday, July 2, 2010

Today was another travel day. We loaded up the van and hit the road after a nice continental breakfast. We were heading to Wilmar (pronounced like Wilmer), Minnesota. On the way we passed through Fargo, North Dakota of movie fame.

We also passed by another "largest" roadside attraction - the largest crow.
We arrived at the Comfort Inn in Wilmar around 3:00, checked in, and waited for the other family members to arrive. The Parsons were already there, Norma and Linda arrived around 3:30, and Craig, Christine, Tess, and Leah all arrived later that evening.

Karen and Carl had kindly arranged a cruise boat on Green Lake for everyone to mingle and see the area a bit. Minnesota is, as they say, the land of 10,000 lakes.

The boat ride was a lot of fun. The kids (and Jen) enjoyed the nacho station that had a machine that made that had freshly melted nacho cheese. Mmmmm. We had skipped lunch to make the boat on time so we were hungry, and this tasted great.

Afterward we had terrific dinner at Carl and Karen's house. Craig and family had arrived by this time so we all got some quality time with my new niece, Leah.

Cute, isn't she?

After the dinner, we went back to the hotel to relax and swim a little. Another fun day, but our days of vacation are drawing to an end.

West Trip Day 18: Travel Day to North Dakota

Thursday, July 1

Overnight it rained which made our packing up a little more time consuming. I got up early (around 7:00) and started toweling off the camper while Jen packed the inside. The Halls were packing up to go too so we tried to help them dry, take down and bag up their tents. We were taking a lot of their gear with us since there wasn't room to take everything with them on the train.

The plan was to eat on the road so we could get an earlier start. We had the camper hooked up and ready to go around 8:45. We said our good-byes to the Halls and wished them well on the rest of their trip to Salt Lake City. (Greg e-mailed us when he got there that they had converted to Mormonism, he had added several wives, and they had joined the choir.)


There's plenty of me to go around, ladies!

We were sad to leave Yellowstone but didn't feel like our vacation was done quite yet. We had about a 10 hour drive to Bismarck, ND. The GPS took us through the north entrance of Yellowstone through Mammoth Springs. The northern part of Yellowstone is actually in Montana. We almost missed the very small sign that read "Entering Montana. We had to do a very rushed "We are in Montana Right Now!" cheer.

Montana was a very pretty state to drive through. It is hard to describe it in a way that makes it sound different than Wyoming or South Dakota, yet somehow it was different - different rock formations, different colors, different roads, different speed limits (75 mph). Most of the land looked like it was for farming and ranches.

I can see why the dinosaurs liked it here.

The other interesting thing I noticed about Montana was that a large percentage of the men there wore large moustaches. And I mean, large as in they could be extras for an old cowboy movie. I mean large as in Tom Selleck would say, "Whoa, that's a big moustache!"


Now, that's a man's moustache.

While McDonalds was only 70 miles away from our campground, because of a slowpoke in front of me I couldn't pass, I had to haul a$$ just to make it there at 10:31. Even though it was a minute late, we were still able to order breakfast. Even though my sample was small, the people seemed very friendly in Montana.

We drove through Montana and on into Noth Dakota. North Dakota was less mountainous, but a lot like South Dakota. North Dakota seemed interested in creating some of its own roadside attractions as we passed the World's Largest Holstein Cow and the World's Largest Bison on the way.

No, we didn't stop to take this picture.

We didn't stop for this picture either. Notice its the same couple. (Thank you google image search!)

We arrived at the Ramada in Bismarck, ND around 8:00 PM. We had lost an hour with the time change in the middle of the state and hadn't eaten, so we were starving. We ordered a pizza while the kids watched AFV. Then we all showered and got ready for bed. The showers felt great since it had been a couple days. I blogged while Jen and the kids slept. We had one more chunk of driving tomorrow to get to Karen and Carl's wedding in Minnesota.

West Trip Day 17: Jen's B-Day & Rim Hike

Wednesday, June 30


Today was Jen’s 38th birthday. I felt a little bad that we wouldn’t be able to do anything truly special to celebrate. Both Beth and I gave her a card at breakfast.


Our activity of the day was a 5 mile hike around the upper and lower falls on a section of the South Rim Trail of the Yellowstone River. This is the same area we visited the other day, but on the other side of the river. Today’s hike was going to give us a better look into the falls and then take us through a hot springs area, and then loop back around to the parking lot.



We drove to Chitenden Bridge to begin the hike and started on a trail that followed the edge of the Yellowstone River valley. This kind of hiking always makes Beth nervous so we warned the kids about staying on the trail because the drop-offs plummeted hundreds of feet straight down with no guard rails of any kind. Every corner gave a spectacular view of the river valley and the falls.


There was almost always a rainbow to be seen when the sun peeked out.

Jen wanted to hike an area called Uncle Tom’s point. This was a staircase was 328 steps down into the valley which provided a great view of the falls.. Before you started there was a sign warning you of the difficulty of the stairway and the expressions of the people coming back up verified this.


The view at the bottom didn't disappoint. It was the best view of the Lower Falls. A large rainbow shone off of the mist from the falls.


The way down was not too difficult, but the way up was a serious quad and lung burner.


When we all reached the top, we all took a much needed rest. I was a little worried that we had used so much energy in the early part of our hike.



The next section of the hike led to Artist’s Point which was very active with tourists. This point was one chosen by a famous artist named Thomas Moran whose painting from this point is in the Smithsonian. His work was so well received in its time that it was said that it had a significant influence on Roosevelt’s decision to make Yellowstone a National Park. It was easy to see why he chose this point.




I also finally understood why they called this area Yellowstone. This canyon had a lot of examples of very colorful rock, especially the unusual yellow rock in the background.


We took a short snack and drink break before taking on the major part of the hike. Ground squirrels scurried around us looking for a free snack.



As we continued on the trail, the crowds of tourist disappeared and it became us and the backcountry of Yellowstone. We hiked by some older German sisters that wore vests with names of places all over the world they had visited together. An early part of the hike took us through a hot springs area. The kids pinched their noses at the sulfurous smells. The area gave me the feel of what the end of the world might look like, lacking any life.



At one point we reached Lilly Pad Lake. Lilly said this was the best lake in the world. She claimed it was much better than Jenny Lake. Next we reached Clear Lake which looked tempting to take a dip in, but the bubbling gases in the center told you that it was not safe. The reason this lake was so clear was because of the high temperature and acidity that kills most everything.

The German ladies caught up to us and I noticed that one of them had scrapes on her cheek. She confessed that she had fallen because she wasn't watching where she was stepping. She assured me that she was fine, so we hiked on.

We hiked through a grassy meadow and came to a split in the trail with no marking. Luckily Beth's hiking book told us to take the fork to the left.

As we hiked over a hill we saw several bison grazing to the left and right of the trail ahead of us.

We had no choice put to go between them. As we did the bison to our left continued moving toward us. The adults nervously encouraged everyone to hike a bit faster to get by them. I asked Mikah for her hiking stick so I would have something to defend us.


Whew! We made it past them.


Finally, we hiked up to another ridge and discovered more bison. This time the bison were laying ON the hiking trail. This time we were going to have to go around them or otherwise turn around and do the hike the other way. The adults and kids hiked quickly and silently so as not to disturb these large and unpredictable animals. We had been warned many times about the speed (30 mph) and size of these animals (1 ton). They are the largest land mammal in North America and can run three times the speed of an Olympic sprinter. I didn't even mess around taking pictures this time. I held one of the aluminum hiking sticks in my hand and tried hard to think what I would do if one came at us. I just wanted to keep everyone safe and was glad when we were past them.

In case you doubt the danger of buffalo.

As we reached safety, we could again see the German ladies on the same path and walking straight down it toward the bison! When the first bison rose to subtly tell the ladies to get off his path, they smartly veered off the trail as we did. The bison still stood and stared them down until they were out their range.

As we hiked further, two dads and about 10 boys hiked toward us in the opposite direction. One of the dad was pushing a double stroller. Their t-shirts were all blue with something like "The Millers 2010 Reunion...Doin' It Together" I warned them of the bison ahead, but they continued on. About 5 minutes later in the parking lot, I saw that the group had returned. Good choice. I didn't want the Millers to be gored together.

This was an awesome way to end our last full day in Yellowstone!


West Trip Day 16: Mammoth Springs loop

Tuesday, June 29


The plan for today was to take the northern loop of Yellowstone Park. We began by driving west to Norris and then north to Mammoth Springs. As we approached Mammoth (so named for the giant hot springs there, traffic slowed down. We soon saw why. Elk were roaming aimlessly across the road and were hanging out in shady spots all over town.



The Mammoth Springs were lined with boardwalks that took you to each of its features. Today was extremely hot, even though the thermometer only read about 86ยบ. There were many people walking around with umbrellas to keep the sun off of them. At altitude it is much easier to get a sunburn so we had to slather with lotion ourselves to prevent this. This wasn't something we were looking forward to do since taking showers were a luxury in Yellowstone.



The springs in Mammoth were large, but not particularly interesting. The water seemed to be flowing less than usual so it looked more like unusual rock structures. Because of that and the heat, we decided to take a lunch break and continue on the loop.


All of the picnic tables in Mammoth were taken so we decided to drive on until we found a picnic spot. On the drive we saw a lot of huge elk, some very close to the road.



On the way we discovered a petrified tree. I didn't know this, but this particular tree is a redwood tree that turned to stone during the last eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano 640,000 years ago. Redwood, of course, is native to California, not Wyoming. After being covered in volcanic ash, the ash minerals filled all of the pores of the tree and fossilized it, making it hard as a rock. At one point there had been three trees like this here, but souvenir hunters had chipped down the other two.



We continued on and stopped at the campground and restaurant at Tower, but it was packed so we just decided to head back home and eat. We ate lunch and then Greg watched the kids while Jen, Beth and I did laundry. While we were gone, Greg "watched" the kids. By this, I mean he took a nap on the picnic table. The boys played a lot of Pokemon on their DS while the girls did Stoga (Yoga on a stone) and see-sawed on a large fallen tree.



That evening we drove the road through Lamar Valley which many had told us was thick with wildlife. We saw bison, elk, fox, and a black bear and a grizzly through binoculars.


Try not to drop the camera out the window!


On the way back we were caught in a “bison jam” for about 15 minutes. As we finally made it through some people who had pulled off ahead of us clapped and cheered for us.



Because of the delay, we were leaving a little later than we had hoped to. I was concerned about driving home through some very curvy mountain road in the dark. In the twilight, we spotted a bear in the woods to the right of the road. We stopped to get a picture, but it was a little too dark. This was the best we could do.


As the sun began to set, a storm moved in and provided us with a spectacular lightning show. We arrived at the campground around 10:00 just before the rain came. We went to sleep that night to the sound of rain once again.