Free Lemonade

It was warm and sunny today; the boys wanted to do a lemonade stand. We had fun in the kitchen (added a bit of fresh lime to the mix) and wound up with a tasty gallon. In the past, I've made the kids consider material costs and a proper pricing model. Cyclists always drink free at our stands, though, and we typically have lots of them passing our house on the weekend.

Today I told them every one drinks free. Then I sweetened the deal by offering to donate 50 cents to their favorite charity (an African orphanage) for every cup they gave away. Seems like a simple business plan, eh?

They really worked it hard; in addition to the painted sign, they ran up and down the side walk yelling, "Free Lemonade" to every one who passed. Over the course of 2 hours - with a bike, car, or runner passing every few minutes - they were able to give away only 4 cups of lemonade. Some of the responses included, "Yeah Right! But I bet you want a donation!", "Sorry kids, I don't have any money right now.", and "Yeah right! What's the catch?"

We just thought it would be a nice thing to do. I think we'll try again sometime soon!

Mike

The Final Tally

(The kids enjoyed Aunt Elizabeth's Lite Bright...)

We're still crunching the numbers, but here are a few stats for the trip:

• Duration: 4 weeks
• Distance Traveled (including excursions): 7,500 miles
• Fuel Economy: 18.4MPG
• Average Driving Speed: 48.4 MPH
• Max Speed: 87.4 MPH
  
• States Visited: 19
• National Parks/Monuments Visited: 12
  
• Geocaches Found: 36
  
• Animals Killed (wih car): 4 
  
• Repairs: 4 (less than $300 total)
  
• Hours stopped on Route 70 in MD (flipped tanker) on our way home: 3.5

Mike

ps - 3 hours working our way through and around Chicago on a Friday afternoon + 3 hours stopped on Route 70 - less than an hour from home - really did us in.  About 22 straight hours in the car and we missed the Ilchester bike race.  :(

Coming Home

We love visiting family in Minnesota. Every one we know from this neck of the woods seems especially friendly, and our kids a ton of fun with there midwestern cousins. We left Yellowstone a day early (at the kids' urging) to make sure we had time to see every one, but we would have preferred even more time.
Olympic fever seems to be everywhere, and it's been fun watching bits and pieces of the competition. The majority of our trip has been TV/Internet-free. We're thinking about hitting a sports pub on the way home so we dont' miss the Friday night action. :)
We've got 1100 miles between us and home. At this point in a vacation, I'm usually lamenting the trip home. In this case, however, I think we're ready to return. My coworkers assume me things are in good shape at the office (although at least one of them is an avid poker player...) The kids have a week before school starts, and Madi's favorite horses probably have a nicker or two waiting for her.
We're thinking about hitting Maine and the North East next year if any wants to join in. :)

Mike

New Ulm - Some R&R

To mix things up a little bit, I found a wonderful little B&B in new Ulm, MN. The Bohemian owner educated us on a bit of the region's ethnic and art history. We also enjoyed 3 big rooms and two whirlpool tub-appointed bathrooms. A great night's sleep and wonderful breakfast topped it all off.

Casey was happy to play with the owner's 1 year-old (I think she misses her baby cousin!) The kids were also eager to watch Olympic swimming and gymnastics, so they shared a pizza at the B&B while Madi and I hit the local steak/brew pub. (The kids had a cell phone with them, and we were only a couple blocks away...) My $14 'George's Steak' handily beat out Madi's $19 New York Strip. Chivalrously, I shared some of mine with her. If you're ever in New Ulm, stop by George's and enjoy some Shell's Firebrick Ale.

In other news, an ominous 'knock' sound is emanating from the van when we come to a stop. A quick stop at a local mechanic confirmed that the suspension, steering, and brakes are in one piece, but we'll have to look into when we get home. After 6000+ miles - including a good deal of engine braking through the mountains - I suspect something might have come loose. I don't know what the long-term effects of engine braking with a front-wheel drive vehicle are.

Tech Note - Here's how we've handled geocaching, photos, navigation, reservations, and blogging during the trip. A PowerBook G4 talking PPP over Bluetooth via Blackberry provides Internet access in all but the most remote areas (and canyons). We download pictures from a Pansonic Lumix FX35 camera to the Mac via an SDHC reader. Since I'm not willing to risk losing a month's worth of photos, we run backups with rsync to Madi's iPod ever couple days. A simple, one-line script ensures than any new or modified files from my home directory are copied to a data partition on the iPod. iPhoto and QuicktimePro are used to crop and compress photos and videos before we upload them to Blogger, since I have no desire to empirically determine the upload time for the full-size 10Mpixel image files. For geocache updates, 'pocket queries' are downloaded from geocaching.com and uploaded to the Garmins via USB; this enables the GPS units to know where the geocaches are in each new town. The Sienna's 3 12v ports are in constant use charging the various gadgets. Madi wields all this tech geekery handilly, and it's really come in handy for our seat-of-the-pants trip planning.

Onward to Wyzatta, MN!
Mike

South Dakota is Longggg

Some times I have to pull over and navigate...

when my navigator is busy. :)

On the highway, I find I can draft the double-tankers at 85MPH. At one point, I was behind a tanker that was drafting a double gravel truck. I put the van into neutral and coasted at 85MPH. When we're in the open, 75 is a comfy speed for the engine and tranny. (That's transmission, Keith - not what you're thinking...) The trip average so far is 18.5MPG.

Devils Tower was sweet. We watched two climbers work their way up a chimney on the West (the climber had both feet braced against opposite sides of a 5' wide gap). Would have needed a 300+mm lens to capture that shot, so we just enjoyed the show via binoculars. See if you can find the climber (and his partner) in the picture. :)


Mt Rushmore underwhelmed most of us; it seems bigger in pictures than it does in real life. Since I'm philosophically opposed to posting a picture of something I'm sure all of my friends have already seen, here's a picture of us instead. I should mention to my dad that they've really redone the place since we were there. Badlands National Park, on the other hand, really surprised us. We would definitely go back there again with our bikes and try some back country camping as well. Our evening was almost spoiled by a fancy motorhome that rolled in late with its generator running, but the owner wisely decided to respect the wishes of the 40 or so other campers enjoying the quiet South Dakota sunset. On the way out, we visited a Minuteman Missile Silo that we happened upon. That's something I always wanted to see, but our kids have trouble understanding the idea that we used to live in fear of big bombs.

Just rolled into Minnesota! We'll be spending time with family for the next couple days.

Mike

Heading East

Hi! This is Alec. I'm writing today.

This is what today looks like in the car. BUT I'm not playing my DS. Because of that, I witnessed my dad killing his fourth animal victim. A bird. He has killed 3 birds and 1 squirrel. Daddy says wildlife 0-daddy 4. In Yellowstone today we got stuck in a buffalo jam. It's just like a traffic jam but it's caused by buffaloes and tourists.

Madi here-now the first picture is correct as Alec has given up typing and is playing his DS. At least typed something on the blog. :-)

I think Wyoming has longer flatter roads than Kansas, but much more scenic. In fact, it's our favorite state so far and y'all might have to come here to see us one day. It's simply gorgeous, down to earth people, geocaches, and many many horses. Oh, and coffee, lots of coffee. I'm happy.

So, yesterday we drove towards Beartooth Pass. It was out the NE entrance to Yellowstone and up 212 towards Red Lodge. We slept in our clothes for the next day and woke up at 5:15 am to have coffee and got on the road by 5:45. We got some neat pictures, many more in our minds as we simply don't have the equipment/aren't good enough with the camera to capture what we see. We got to see some stunning elk with gigantic racks and many many buffalo. We got a video of a buffalo rolling. If you haven't heard buffalo, they make some weird noises. Grunting/growling/gurgling. I walked out toward some and scared the carp out of my kin as one of the bulls decided to stand his ground. I knew to keep my distance. He was just checking me out. He's not used to blondes I guess. ;-) Ben also saw the elusive and much desired bear. We think it was a young grizzly but aren't 100% on that. He was very excited and far from exasperated. The animals left on my bucket list are mountain goats and moose, and not the chocolate kind.


We drove 110 miles total from our campsite and wound up stopping at the Clay Butte fire tower. What a beautiful setting. It was between the Beartooth, Gallatin and Absorok (sp?) mountain ranges. The fire tower is no longer in service, it's a public service spot that keeps track of wildlife and has volunteers man it to give info to tourists and hikers like us. We hiked to a pile of snow there and threw snow at each other. Then drove back to the campsite. It was an unintended 12-hour day. My bad. But enjoyable.

And we ended the car trip with the buffalo jam. The piece de resistance was the ginormous buffalo walking down the road playing chicken with the dually in front of us. Then he moved to the opposing lane and walked right along with the cars as you'll see in the video. We were cracking up. He was the biggest buffalo we had seen. Just struttin' his stuff.

We are currently driving through a canyon in the Bighorn National Forest. There's whitewater to our left and this is simply gorgeous. Wow!! Mike wondered how we were going to get through the mountains. WOW!! Wish you were here!!! Man do I love Wyoming!! Whoa, switchback... what a view!

And we finally had chicken soup for dinner. With biscuits cooked in a pan on the stove. The hail storm helped with our appetites for soup.

On to the Dakotas...
Madi

Exasperated in Yellowstone

Time for some seriously touristy stuff. Yellowstone. :) We've pushed our 6 year-old's legs to the limit, but 3 or 4 miles is about all the can take, so any sweet back country stuff isn't in the cards. In fact, long hikes and a few other things have left him feeling exasperated. The kids are doing a bit of homework during the trip, and that's one of the new words he's learned - here, just listen to him...



Now Alec keeps telling his brother not to exasperate. :)


We enjoyed a variety of geothermal treats today - or bubbly ground water farts, as the kids call them. I got a face full of sulfur flavored steam, and their description isn't far off. The colors were nice, though. If you look carefully at this pic, you'll see our shadows as we look for the bottom of one of the may springs we hiked around today. We waited patiently for Grand Geiser to do it's thing, but it wasn't to be.

The local grocery store sells this stuff, so we'll have to give it a go this evening. For now, however, it's 60 miles of driving (each way) for an urgent grocery run... :( I'm just not prepared to deal with 'wet' cushions in the camper... The good news is that we'll get to see West Yellowstone, which wasn't originally in our plan. We can also say we've been to Montana now!

Mike

Grand Teton, small world

Wow, have we been remiss in our blogging. Never fear, Madi here, I'll catch you up. Sitting in traffic yet again. How we can be in wild Wyoming, the least populated state in the country and sit in traffic every single day, and more than once a day, is beyond me. But I'm on vacation so where do I have to be?

So, where were we? Oh wait, that's what I'm supposed to tell you. Let me see...


After we left Red Canyon and Bryce, we hit the highway hard and Drove to Dinosaur National Park in Utah. That was one long drive, about 250 miles or so. On the way we stopped at the Prehistoric museum in some Utah town and searched without success for a geocache under the velociraptor. Guess he ate it. Oh, and that's where we saw the Got Poop on the porta potties. Casey and Alec had to think about that one. Too funny!

Then we pedaled to the metal to the dino park to look for real bones. It was hotter than Hades up there. We touched all the bones we could before taking the bus up to the top of the trail to search for real fossils and bones. We hopped out of the air conditioned bus into the arid 115 degree desert to begin our search. Our skin immediately turned bright red and we all drank all of our water by the end of our 3/4 mile hike. We did see some prehistoric clam fossils, some small dino bones and some ancient petroglyphs mingled with some 2005 petroglyphs probably left by hominids, subspecies idiot. Sigh. We missed the huge dino bones labeled with white arrows probably because we were suffering from heat stroke. I think you need a geology degree to find those. We all agreed that this was the least exciting part of our trip so far, and the furthest drive for the least reward.

Oh well, upward and onward. We went into Vernal, Utah (gotta love that name) to find dinner. Casey was thrilled as we found the 4th book in the Stephanie Meyer's series and bought it. Neat cause Ms. Meyer's is Mormon and we actually bought it in a Mormon book shop. The Cobblerock Brewery unfortunately didn't have their liquor license yet so there was no beer with dinner, but it was still yummy. And there was a geocache right next to it. We tried to find a hotel that night but everyone in Rock Springs, Wyoming was booked so we stayed at the KOA, got up early and left for the Grand Teton National Park.

The Tetons are beautiful. Jackson Hole, or Jackson as it apparently wants to be known as now is very touristy. I hear everyone runs into at least one person they know out there, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We camped in Colter Bay which is about 30 miles north of Jackson and right on Jackson Lake. We walked down to the lake from the campground and the kids and Mike swam in the lake in the shadow of the Tetons. What a gorgeous setting. Simply stunning. The next day we went in to town and did a little of the touristy thing. Spent too much money, signed up for a whitewater rafting trip and had lunch. On the way back to our campsite we went to Shadow Mountain as per our friends in CO and took the minivan 4-wheeling. Oddly enough, there was a geocache up there so we left a "Dick Cheney Skis in Jeans" sticker there for you Sean. Got a cool magnet of the Tetons naming each mountain in exchange.

Note - this is a draft from www.snakeriverphotos.net; unfortunately, they don't sell digital images for download - only physical packages of 5. Since they took only one passable photo of us, I'll have to work out some kind of fair compensation with them once we get home...

Today we went white water rafting, not floating but white water. Granted, it is summer and the water is a little low, but much higher than last year. The youngest they'll take is 6 so we just got in under the wire. 4 of us loved it, I mean loved it. The 6 year old, well, he survived it and finished the ride in the front of the boat on the rapids so I think he did just fine. He says he won't do it again but I don't believe him. We have to find the pic the photo company took at the "Big Cahuna". It should be awesome! Also met a nice family from the Netherlands. Actually they are from California now. They also had 3 kids, a girl and 2 boys. Neat people.

We had just gotten back into Jackson and were walking back to the car when someone started honking and waving to someone. I was looking around to see who they were waving at. It was us!!!! Guess who we saw???!!! Adam Driscoll and Tracy are in Jackson for the weekend and drove right by us on one of the main streets. UNBELIEVABLE! Alec says that's the most random thing that's ever happened to him. So we got a pic to show you all. Mike bequeathed Adam his vacation hat now that we are out of the really hot weather (hopefully). It looks smashing on Adam imo. Adam and Tracy (forgive me if I'm not spelling your name right Tracy, please?) were looking for a trail to go for a run on so we sent them off to Shadow Mountain but told them to avoid the buffalo. Hope you guys have a great weekend and a safe trip home.

So, now we are in Yellowstone and almost to Grant Village where we actually have reservations for once. Ha, can you imagine? The kids are still singing Hawk Nelson. " Come on if you're feeling, if you're feeling allright..." I'm just hoping we don't have to eat chicken noodle soup for dinner.

Bryce is Beauuuuutiful

The extended W family will recognize some of our recent activities - a chuck wagon dinner, family horseback riding, and hat purchasing. :) We spent two days at Bryce Canyon after leaving Zion. I've included a couple pics, but it's hard to capture either Zion or Bryce with a camera. (The 25mm Leica lens on my new point-n-shoot is fun, but it distorts the corners - bad news for my subjects who happen to have their faces in the corner of my pics...)



Ben was scared he would have to dance with one of the cowgirls at the chuckwagon dinner, so he hid in a parta-john. Madi picked up roping with some help from a real-life cowboy after the show. I kept trying to rope Ben as he ran around the corral, but I was afraid I'd noose either his neck or ankles. Casey and Alec rode around on couple friendly horses.


The horseback ride through Bryce was great fun, but a couple of us were walking funny after 2 hours in the saddle. We did a few hikes in the canyon as well. 560+ feet of switchbacks to the base of the slot canyons. it was cool and surreal.


This picture is for my mom; I think it would be a good puzzle. See if you can spot the Indian Head penny...

Mike

ps - One more puzzle pic - some plants at Bryce...



Comments from Madi
The kids and I thought the chuckwagon dinner was one of the most fun things we've done. It was a blast. And my husband neglected to tell you that I actually am 100% in my roping from the ground. It's roping from the horse that I need to work on... he he! And they let me ride back on a horse instead of in the chuck wagon, the same one I scared with roping non-ability.

Bryce was amazing. We camped in Red Canyon just a few miles from Bryce(and not touristy at all) on a tip from our French Friends we met near the Grand Canyon. It was gorgeous as well. And I was so proud of my family for riding like champs on the trail ride. Up and down steep hills and twisty turns and through water. They are awesome. Ben wants to do it again.

And the "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" pic is for my mom. I'll print it for her when I get home. We started that in the Vatican museum when I was 16 with my brother and sister. It now continues... and is appropriate in my mind anyway.

We miss you all. Julie, I can't believe Kate is finally walking. Yay!!

Meg-you go girl! You are awesome and kicking butt at Navy. We love the pic of you and your company (?) laughing while supposedly drilling in cammy's. Too funny. We are so proud of you.

Stacey-we miss you guys too. Thanks for getting the stuff from the swim team for us and we'll be back soon.


(Mel/Chris - This is 'Thor's Hammer'!)

To the rest of you-thanks for reading, we miss you all, but are loving seeing this big beautiful country. We are counting our blessings every day!

Love,

Madi

Zion

Another one night stop. After a super hot day, we drove to town for some Mexican food and beer. We headed up to the canyon for sunset. Family gets to sleep in, temps are cooler, but you get the sweet colors between 6:30 and 7:30 pm. The boys wear 'bear bells' so we - and the beers, mountain lions, etc. - know where they are. On the advice of my friend Curt, I bring up the rear and we keep the little ones mid-line.

Hiking in Zion is rocky, but not like back East. The whole park seems to me made of huge, flowing rock. The path we took had steps carved into it and was rated moderate. Some of the trails have pretty big drop-offs - a bit more than we're prepared to tackle with the kids.

Mike

ps - Madi says I'm being too terse, so we may need to spruce up future posts with her thoughts as well. :)

Last night in Arizona

A lot of people rent RV's out here, and I'm not sure they're comfortable driving them. We arrived a bit late to sunrise at the GC last night, thanks to an especially slow RV'er. It was still spectacular, and every one out on the trail spontaneously shushed as a thick blanket of deep oranges and reds blanketed the canyon. The quiet was almost as spectacular as the colors.



We left early for Zion and it got HOT again. Luckilly, we chose a camp site (first come first serve) that sits near a cool stream/river. It saved the day! We spent a bunch of time sitting and playing in the very cool water before cooking up a quick lunch and heading into town to do some laundry.

We'll look for a good spot to watch sunset here in Zion and head up to Bryce tomorrow. (It's not too fun hanging around a campsite all day with temps over 100F...)

Mike

ps - I forgot to mention that we met a group of 32 college-age youth who are 7 weeks into a 9 week cross-country bike ride. They're doing non-profit work along the way, and reminded me a lot of AFC. It was great to talk to them even though we really miss our bikes! We also spent a night with a cool family from Paris. We taught them rumicube.

On the Edge

We've seen lots of folks with expensive camera/video gear on this trip, but the key to capturing truly magic panoramas - the warm light that occurs in early morning and late dusk - conflicts a bit with the schedule of a relaxing vacation. After a couple brutal hot/bright hikes on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, we're planning to watch sunset this evening - and grab some sweet pics. This one was taken at the heat of the day on the North Rim of the GC. You'll note, of course, the intense shadows, blown out sky, and wash out canyon colors. Okay, maybe you won't, but I do. :)


The truck pic is for a couple of my bro's back home; we find the minivan+popup combo to work really well, but this looks wayyy cooler.



Can't wait for sunrise at the GC!

Mike