The Prom Picture--at Last

It is with great apologies to all of my regular readers that I finally present you with the pictures you have been waiting for of Meagan at her prom. You can see the positively gorgeous dress in the photos . In the picture on the left, that is Meagan (in the orange dress) with her good friend Lucy (in white) The picture below is Meagan and her lucky date.

We did go to see the play at the Sydney Opera House which was magnificent. It was just so neat to see a performance in that place, and the play was very good as icing on the cake.

For our last night in Sydney we took Meagan on a harbor cruise dinner. It was great. The food was ok, not bad, but not gourmet dining, but the views and the entertainment were second to none. After the dinner they had a performance of two Opera singers--it was really the coolest thing. I am not really an opera fan, and this is purely out of ignorance. I have never seen an opera and I know very little about it. Now, I am going to have to change that. The three of us enjoyed the dramatic performance so much that now I want to go see a full scale opera.

Upon returning from Sydney, I opened my email and found out that I lost my job. This news was a mixed blessing. It was bad news because Charlie had lost his job the week before we left, so now we are both out of work. It was good news, because I am now forced to find something new and whatever that new job will be it is sure to be better than the last one. I will update this blog on how the job search turns out. Meanwhile, after all of that travelling I am very glad to be spending time at home.

This week our major project was to finally plant the garden. We now are the proud owners of a full scale vegetable garden. We have several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, an entire herb section (with basil, cilantro, dill, two kinds of parsley, oregano, sage, two kinds of chives etc...), cauliflower, broccoli and two varieties of lettuces. I can't wait to start harvesting. We also got six strawberry plants, but these need to go into special pots. We have the pots but these are not planted yet. If I have an opportunity I will post a picture of the garden.

For the Columbus day weekend we took the camper up to Williams and stayed Friday to Monday. It was really fun, but it was COLD (we are talking 27 degrees one night type of cold--not just Arizona whining cold). We took the kids to see the Sunset Crater Volcano http://www.nps.gov/sucr/ and Wupatki National Monuments http://www.nps.gov/wupa/ (click links for more information). They were awesome. These National Parks never cease to amaze me. And it is truly astounding how interesting the kids find them. All of the kids did the activities for Junior Ranger badges at Sunset Crater.

Tomorrow begins the weekend and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We will be gardening and hanging out in our backyard this weekend. We will also be finishing the Halloween decorations. Maybe I'll even have something to post about.

The Graduation

Wednesday Sept 26, 2007 7:30am

Last night was the graduation. There is something odd about attending a graduation where there are no caps and gowns, but that is the way they do it here. No pomp and circumstance either. But what there was in full measure was a heap of laughing, crying, excited, and anxious kids. They are thrilled to be finished with classes, and the formal is tonight—so there were spray-on tans all over the place, and almost every girl had her nails done. That is not too different than the US. However, the kids here have to wait about 5 weeks and they take their high school certificate exams. This is a standardized exam and the scores on it determine what sorts of university programs will be available for them to apply to. Think of it like the SAT.

Today we are attending the play at the Sydney Opera House. I think this is the one thing here that I am most excited to be doing. Seeing a performance at the Sydney Opera House is a once in a lifetime event. The play is called Don’s Party and it turns out it was apparently written about the neighborhood in which Meagan lives. I will report back tomorrow with a critique of the play.

After the play we are driving out to Meagan’s house to see her leave for the formal. She is wearing a gorgeous beaded flame orange column dress. I will definitely post a picture. I am so excited she is wearing orange, it is one of my favorite colors and she looks so fabulous in orange, she has the perfect skin tone for it, spray on tan or not.

Tuesday Sept. 25, 2007 2:45pm

G’day mates:

Today we walked a good portion of the Eastern Beaches Walk; it took most of the morning. The walkway connects Bondi Beach with several other beaches in this area. We stopped on Tamarama Beach (pictured on the left) for an iced tea (bottled, because absolutely no one actually brews iced tea here). While walking back toward Bondi our conversation turned to the subject of skin cancer in Australia. Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. Presumably this is due in part, to the fact that the actual hole in the ozone is over the southern hemisphere. A few years back the Aussies were able to make a good dent in the skin cancer rate by mandating that all school kids wear hats as part of their uniform. We got to see these hats on the kids who were visiting the aquarium yesterday as part of a school field trip. However we noticed another contributing factor to the skin cancer rate here that has nothing to do with the ozone hole. Take a look at the two pictures here and tell me what is missing compared to any beach or café that you can think of in America.

Unfortunately, readers, the pictures that were supposed to go here were corrupted somewhere between camera and computer. I apologise for this and I will attempt to retake the pictures and put them here. This being the situation, I will go ahead and tell you what was missing in the photos.

Umbrellas.

There is not a single solitary umbrella anywhere on Bondi today, and it is a really busy day at the beach (for a Tuesday anyway). In California and Florida, the two places with which I am most familiar you would never go to the beach without an umbrella. Never. I have not been to a beach without an umbrella since my Wildwood days. And let me tell you dear readers, that is going WAY back.

I also cannot think of any outdoor eating establishment that does not have some kind of shelter from the sun. That said, it is only fair that I tell you, most cafes here DO have a few umbrellas if you prefer the shade, but almost all of them have large sections of their patios in full sun. And the sunny seats are the premium seats.

Here are the culinary notes for the day, I ate “shrimp on the barbie” for lunch. It was very good, but I would prefer my shrimp not come with their heads still attached. No worries, you just pluck the heads clean off and you’re all set. It was a hell of a mess though let me tell you. Other culinary note: we entered McDonalds today to purchase a soda. (I will not eat McDs on this trip), they have a thing called a MacOz sandwich. In the picture it looked like a regular old burger. Not so. It comes with a slice of (are you sitting down?) beet root on it. Beet Root! Who would even thing of slapping a slice of beet root on a hamburger. Won’t be trying the MacOz, but who says McDonalds doesn’t cater to local tastes?

Sydney Harbor

Tuesday, September 25, 2007 7:13am

Yesterday was our tour the harbor day. The first item on our agenda was to go get tickets to see a performance at the Sydney Opera house sometime this week. The concierge suggested we take the ferry to the opera house. We followed his advice and it was fabulous. You can buy a day ticket and you can take all of the ferries you want all day long. So we got a really nice tour by water of Circular Quay (that is the part of the harbor where the opera house is) and we also spent a good bit of time at Darling Harbor. So, back to the tickets, we are going to see a play called Don's Party Wednesday afternoon at 1pm. You can read about it here: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/whats_on/boxoffice/event_details.asp?EventID=2000&sm=1&ss=1 There were only about 6 seats left; we were lucky to get to see anything in there at all. After picking up our tickets we ate some lunch and hopped back on the ferry over to Darling Harbor.

At Darling Harbor we went to see the Sydney Aquarium. The sharks were very impressive, as was the saltwater crocodile on display. There was one tank however that impressed us more than anything else, and it was the jellyfish tank. There was one tank of jellyfish that were luminescent, they glowed when a dull light was shined through the water. So in this dark room you could see the glowing jelly fish swimming in their tank and it was very cool. We also saw the largest lobster I have ever seen in my life, it had to weigh—I’d guess—20 pounds or more, it was colossal.

So after all the sightseeing in the harbor we rode a city bus back to Bondi beach. We went to a private club called the Bondi Icebergs for dinner (they allow guests). Link: http://www.icebergs.com.au/ The food was mediocre but the view was incredible and worth going for. The Bondi Icebergs have two large Olympic size swimming pools that are filled naturally when the tide comes in. Yes you read that right. The tide literally washes into the pool and last night the water was particularly rough so it was quite a show. As the tide comes in, it blasts into the wall that is the side of the pool and the water just crashes violently over the side filling the pool. We asked the kid at the restaurant how they deal with all the sand that we figured must just fill up the bottom of the pool and he told us that the pool is completely drained once a day and when they drain it all the sand goes out with it. So they keep the thing clean by totally refilling it every day.

Today we are planning to just relax all day probably at the beach and then we are going to Meagan’s graduation tonight. I’m finally going to get these entries put up on the web. As well as the pictures.

The Exotic and the Backwards

Monday Sept. 24 7:02 am

Yesterday I was lamenting to myself that this place was not exotic enough considering how damned far away it is; yesterday things took a turn for the exotic. We started out the morning on the beach. (I talked about this yesterday and with the single bird eating a fish.) We had a beautiful walk along Bondi Beach and we noticed some odd things there on the ground. (Pictured here to the right.) I did not mention it yesterday because I was completely unaware of its significance. We noticed these blue things all over the sand. They were like inflated tiny balloons. We figured they were some kind of seaweed. Charlie was about to touch one, when I shouted at him “oh my god don’t touch it, it might be some kind of irritant!” Honest to God, I did not have any idea what this little thing was, but thank god I spoke when I did and also that Char took my advice. The damned things turned out to be Portuguese man-o-wars. I have read about these little nasties but I have never seen one. Apparently, people show up all the time in Sydney hospitals with stings and allergic reactions that shut their breathing down. We at least had the presence of mind to take a few pictures of the things. Turns out, even after they are dead, their stingers are in perfect working order for about two days.

On a more pleasant note, we went out to Meagan’s house in the afternoon and the three of us spent the afternoon at a place called the Koala Park. It is a very tiny zoo with only Australian animals and you get to pet most of them. So I had the totally cool experience of being able to pet a Koala and about 5 different kinds of kangaroos. And we had we had some very funny conversations with some tropical birds who said all kinds of things, and it was so weird because they say that parrots do not really understand what they are saying, but this one bird said to us as soon as we walked up to his cage, “do you have a cookie?” When we didn’t produce a cookie he said “bye bye.” Charlie kept talking to him and he came back over to us and he flipped up his head feathers and whistled at Charlie. It was really funny. We saw some odd porcupine-looking animals I had never heard of called echidnas. The totally strange thing about these little fellows is that their hind legs are on backwards! The claws on their hind legs actually face their tail! Also, for the first time ever, I got to see a peacock with his feathers fully extended. This did absolutely nothing to attract the attention of the female peacock, but you should have the seen the female humans in the park shouting and hollering for him when those feathers went up. Human males, take note.

We ended the day by going down to see the opera house by night. It was breathtaking. Under the opera house, along the water there is a bar with live music—all outside. It was totally packed with people. We ordered wine and beer and three of us sat and talked and caught up on all the family gossip. Turns out, Meagan has a boyfriend! We get to meet this guy later this week. No worries, all of Charlie’s shotguns are safely back in the US.

Longest Plane Ride of my Life

Sunday Sept. 23 2007 10:25am

We have been in this country roughly 24 hours now. Our flight was incredibly long and uncomfortable. We sat on the tarmac for close to three hours because of some technical difficulty with the plane. Because there were over 300 ,we could not deplane and it was very hot in there. When we finally landed and got to the customs check, the guy said in his Aussie accent “How was your flight?” and I replied “Long.” And he said, “well we’re not exactly next door are we? No worries, you’re here now and we hope you spend lots of money on your holiday.” That will not be a problem. The average cocktail runs $14.00.

I cannot help but make comparisons to that which I know well, the US and the other major trip I took a few years ago to London. For being as incredibly FAR AWAY we are from home, this place really isn’t too much different than home. All the same food is available plus the nasty vegemite which I actually ate this morning. To get the idea of what vegemite is like try to imagine this: an English muffin or bread with a thin coating of butter and then on top drop soy sauce. That is similar to what it tastes like. But other than the Vegemite, the food is pretty much comparable to whatever you could find the US. Lots of fish and chicken (more so than beef). In the neighborhood where we are staying we found a little lunch sort of place called Charcoal Charlie’s they have about 6 different varieties of chicken as well as these absolutely delicious scalloped potatoes. They do have supermarkets here, but they are not super in the American sense. They don’t sell everything all in one place. There are pharmacies, real butcher shops, bakeries and wine shops ect…but they seem co located, so you could get everything you need all at once but you’d have to go to maybe 4 or 5 stores. We hit a shopping mall yesterday, the stores are pretty much the same as what you’d see in the US or Europe, but the food court is another matter. You don’t find “fast food” and junk here in the mall food court (at least not in the mall we were in). We found a cool little Japanese place where Charlie got some sushi and I got some awesome shimp tempura thing and shrimp wrapped in rice paper that was so good.

The people all look the same as at home. The language of course is the same except for all the local accent things like “g’day” and “no worries.” The clothes are depressingly, the exact same crap you see in the US. No shortage of slightly overweight 40 year old women with jeans cut so low, that you have see nasty plumber situations every time they sit down. Just like home.

Our hotel is situated right on Bondi Beach. Our room overlooks the beach. The water is a gorgeous azure blue. One imagines that when it is calm it might look like the Caribbean water. But calm water is something I think Bondi Beach sees little of. This is a world renown surfing beach, and the swells can be huge. We were watching some surfers this morning who got tossed so high in the air by the waves we wondered if they would survive. It was incredible and unfortunately there was no way to get a picture of it.

Things here, for as similar as they are to home, as a bit off, but just slightly. Take the sports. We are sharing out hotel with a rugby team, called the Cowboys. They apparently lost their game yesterday and there was an epic “let’s drink our sorrows away” party that was going full swing at 7:30 this morning when we left our room to go get breakfast. And another thing that is just slightly off, on the beach we saw a bird eating a fish that washed up. Yes you read that correctly: A bird, one individual bird. In CA or NJ there would be 50 flying rats vying for the same fish, but here this one lucky little seagull got to enjoy a quiet breakfast until some obnoxious tourist disturbed him. (The picture above was taken from the balcony in our room.)

Trip to Australia

Hello all,



I have not posted to this blog since our family trip to the American wilderness this past summer. However we have another major trip and I am going to keep everyone updated on this blog. Tonight at 10:20pm Los Angeles time, Charlie and I board a plane for Sydney Australia. Meagan is graduating from high school and we are attending her graduation on the 25th. We will be gone for a week.



Paula will be watching the kids during the week, and on the weekend various family members will be watching the kids for us. We are thankful that all of them are willing to pitch in an make this trip possible for us.



I have never been this far away before, so it should be really exciting. We are staying at a nice hotel on Bondi Beach. It is only spring there, so it won't really be good beach weather, but we will at least be able to walk on the beach each day. We are looking forward to waking up late each day, having long leisurely meals, site seeing and shopping.

A week in Los Angeles

(I pulled the picture that appears to the right off the internet. This is Manhatten Beach which is about 2 miles from my hotel. Notice the ugly refinery right on the beach. )

On the heels of our vacation, which is probably as close as you can get to primeval wilderness in the lower 48, I had my first week on my new job, located in Los Angeles.

Wow.

The contrast is so striking in fact, that it is unsettling. I am still reading the books I purchased on my trip. So I spend my evenings reading Edward Abbey and during the day I have to walk past laser guided nuclear missiles to get a damned cup of coffee. I suppose there is no longer any denying that I am cog in the wheel of the military industrial complex. *sigh*

The good news is that I finally finished Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. It is such a great book. I must confess that I have a weakness for the likes of Abbey. His book The Monkey Wrench Gang is one of my all time favorites and it forever put a soft spot in my heart for environmentalists (which contrasts nicely with my day job.)

I've moved on to reading Cadillac Desert which is a book that deals with the history of the West with regards to water. Another fascinating (environmentally themed) book. One area that the book concentrates heavily on is the place where I will often find myself reading it, Los Angeles. Learning about the history of Los Angeles while I'm actually there is kind of a neat experience. I will admit that until picking up the book, I had no earthly idea who Mulholland was(of the famed Mulholland Dr.) I know now. Although as an Arizona resident I certainly know who John Wesley Powell is, but I didn't know much about his writings. This book devotes a whole chapter to Powell (and one to Mulholland). And if what the book says is true, Powell would probably be horrified to learn that "Lake" Powell was named in his honor. If there was ever a case of "ignorance is bliss" this is certainly it. This book will , like the last book, continually remind me of things I don't want to think about. I live in Phoenix, a city that is completely reliant on unreliable sources of water. Los Angeles is on similarly tenuous ground. I'm not even half way through the book yet, but I can see where the discussion is likely pointing; the confluence of continued agriculture, population growth and a good long hard drought could turn the entire west into a ghost town. I just hope I'm long gone before it happens. This book is confirming what I have been saying privately to friends and family since I have arrived in Phoenix: this desert, with it's snakes and scorpions, and 116 degree days is not fit for human habitation.

On that happy note I will leave off for today. I go back to work on Monday, only this week I will be working in Dallas. Hope you are having a fun summer!

Arches and Ancesteral Puebloans

I am writing this from the comfort of my kitchen in Phoenix. Two days ago we pulled into Moab, UT and checked out Arches National Park. Our orginal intention was to spend one day at Arches and one day at Canyonlands NP. That was not to be, because we found out that the town of Moab itself is filled with ancient Anasazi wrtings called petroglyphs and pictographs, and we really wanted to see these, so yesterday we spent the first half of the day back at Arches--where all 6 kids got Junior Ranger badges--and the second half of the day touring the town to see the ancient writings. One sad thing we noted all over town is that most of the ancient writings have been vandalized over the years and sadly, right next to a petroglyph that might be from 2000 BC, you have grafitti from some idiot who scratched their initials in back in '75. The picture you see here I took in the Arches Park right past the Wolfe Ranch. Because this one is in a protected National Park, it is in very good shape, and also, this particluar slab is not that old. These petroglyphs are from sometime after the Spaniards arrived in the area and reintroduced horses to the contient. (Notice the guy on his horse in the upper left corner.) This could have been put here anytime between 1200 AD and 1800 AD--there is no way to date it precicely--but they can use the content of the pictures to help them determine when it was put there (in this case the Indian on the horese.) Also different times, produced different styles of art.

Last night we drove from Moab all the way to Phoenix. It was past 4am when we finally arrived at home. Charlie cleaned out the camper this morning and as I type I am running one of what will amount to about 5 loads of laundry, and Charlie is taking the camper back to the place we rent to store it. I'm getting bleary eyed, so shortly I'm going to put Claire in for a nap.

I have lots of reflections on this vacation and over the coming weeks as I process it all mentally, I will post my thoughts--what I liked best and least, what I would do differently next time etc... I also purchased four books on subjects pertinent to the vacation, and I will respond to those books here as well.

Thank you to all of you who read this blog. It was fun reading your comments and emails. It was also fun posting to this blog, and recording what we were doing.

Bison and deer and bears, oh my!

July 11, 2007
I am typing this in the car as we travel east on I-70 through central Utah. It is extremely desolate here and I am beyond tired.
When I left off last time, we were in Cody Wyoming and as I mentioned in the last post, we were going into Yellowstone and camping two days in the park (as such, we had no cell phone service and definitely no wifi.) Yellowstone was incredible, and I was surprised that the kids were so completely fascinated by the place. The day we arrived, the first thing we did was go to see Old Faithful. The kids weren’t too keen on waiting around for the thing to blow, but once it went off they were pretty much speechless. It was amazing. The one thing that virtually everyone complained about in the geyser basin, however, was the incredibly awful sulfur smell. It was overpowering. And little did we realize at the time, but it was going to get worse. So we spent that whole first day just cruising around the Old Faithful area and seeing the other geysers and hot springs in the immediate area. We had the good fortune to see Castle Geyser go off, it spewed water for something near 30-45 minutes. It was amazing. We were across the basin from it , so unlike Old Faithful we were not right near it when it went off, but we had a great view of it nonetheless.
The next day we travelled along Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone River. We stopped to see some boiling mud pots and there was one called Dragon’s Mouth that literally reeked to the high heavens with sulfur. Joseph started to gag and Marianne announced to the whole world that this smelled so bad that it really wasn’t worth seeing. As we walked along the path to leave the boiling mud pots a bison was walking calmly through the parking lot and in between the cars. It got so close that I started backing up back toward the mud pots and he started heading in our direction, then he changed his mind and started back towards the parking lot; that was our opportunity to dash to our car. We have some incredible pictures of this guy up close. Next we passed through the Hayden Valley where I saw the largest number of Buffalo I have ever seen in my life; there had to be 75-100 mothers and babies in that valley. Some of them were right up next to the road so we got to see a baby buffalo right up close. Next we stopped to see the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River. The lower falls were breathtaking. They pour into a thing called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The walls of the canyon are filled with geothermal areas. So, right there in the walls there are geysers and hot springs. In the parking lot of one area near the river, a geyser sprang up right in the parking lot and they had to build a fence around it. So there you are in the parking lot parked next to a big sinkhole with boiling water in it.
We continued on and we saw a whole mess of people stopped on the side of the road. In Yellowstone traffic tie-ups are almost always caused by animal sightings; but the biggest traffic stoppers of them all are Grizzly Bears. As I mentioned in a previous post, in the old days (about 20 years ago) you would never see a Grizzly near the road. But in fact there were sightings the prior day of a mother and her 3 cubs, so everyone came back at dusk to see if she was out again. She was not there, so we continued on up to Tower falls and on the way we saw a black bear foraging around in the woods. There was a ranger right in front of him on the road to make sure no one harassed the bear. (Yes, people do harass the animals. Usually they are just trying to get a picture, but they start shouting at the animal to get them to turn toward the camera, and sometimes they do more than turn, they can and do charge sometimes and if that happens you are in bad situation.) So after arriving at Tower Falls, it was getting late in the day and we decided to go back toward where we saw the black bear to see if we could get a better look at him, but he was gone. However, as we approached the area where the Grizzlys had been the previous day, we got extremely lucky as a mother Grizzly and two cubs happened to be playing in the meadow. It was incredible. They were at a safe distance so the ranger wasn’t chasing people off. But there were two rangers trying to maintain order. There was a massive traffic tie up and virtually everyone was out of their cars with cameras and binoculars. It really was neat, and just as we got a really good look at her the ranger walked up to us and said that the mother with the three cubs—a different Grizzly family—was spotted up on the hill in front of us. We did not have the opportunity to see this other bear, but having seen the first one with her cubs was really a highlight of the entire trip.
I have had a good bit of time to contemplate this mother bear since the day I saw her. I am very clear on why I admire these animals so much. They spend all summer getting as fat as ursusly possible; so that they can sleep snuggled up next to their cubs for the entire winter! What could be better than that? I would love to spend my summer eating barbeque food and ice cream and then settle down come late September with my little kiddies and sleep until May.
After checking out of the campground in Yellowstone, we decided to return to Teton National Park and take our new canoe out. (Canoeing is not really safe in Yellowstone because the water temperature in all of the bodies of water is so cold; Yellowstone lake never goes above about 50 degrees.) We returned to String Lake and all of the kids got a chance to ride in the canoe, and go swimming. Meagan, Michael and Joseph finished the activities for their junior ranger badges, so we stopped in the visitor center for them to take their oath and get their badges. After that we got on the road and drove all the way to Provo Utah. Last night for the first time on this trip, we stayed in a hotel. The hot showers were awesome. So now we are on our way to Moab (which is where I will be when I finally have an opportunity to publish this post—we should have wifi there.)
Later today we are planning to check out Arches NP (as I type we are about 30 miles out) and Canyonlands tomorrow. I will post again and let you know how all of this goes. After that we are going to make a beeline for home.

Grand Teton and sneaking a peek at Yellowstone

I'm sorry I skipped a day of posting but I was so spent last night when we finally got to Cody, there was just no way I was booting up the PC. I hope you all understand. So now I have two days to catch you up on.

So two nights ago we didn't make it to Cody as I explained in the prior post--you know the whole Marianne shrieking, deer in the road, mom on the phone situation. Let's not revisit it. So we woke up outside of Grand Teton National Park, camped along the Snake River. The river is just gorgeous, and being the mother of a pile of kids growing up the desert, it was a real treat for them just to go rock hopping and throwing stones in the river. The place was amazing.

I had very little idea of what to expect from Grand Teton National Park. Holy mackerel! The pictures will never do this place justice. I know they say that Yellowstone is the crown jewel of the national park system, but the sheer beauty of Teton really gives Yellowstone a run for its money in the crown jewel department. We entered the park just after the noon hour and everyone was starving. So we ate lunch at a park concession--unlike any other--we ate buffalo burgers inside a teepee. For real. We drove through the park and it was fairly crowded. So the more popular spots (like Jenny Lake) had no parking for our rig. No matter. We ended up at a spot called String Lake and for most of the kids this was their very first time swimming in a naturally occurring lake. And it was a glacial pond no less. But since it was a fairly small body of water, the water was plenty warm enough for swimming even though, as you'll notice in the pictures, there is still a hefty bit of SNOW on Grand Teton. Although he has not said it, I think this was Mike's favorite part of the trip so far. Once we finished hanging out at String Lake, it was time to head to Cody. Well...

Cody was further than we thought. You see, we hadn't counted on having to travel 30 MPH through Yellowstone. (In order to get from Teton out to Cody, you actually have to enter Yellowstone on the South side and exit on the East side.) So we didn't end up in Cody until about 11pm. The drive through Yellowstone was not without it's own special excitement. Halfway through, there were 5 bison on the side of the road. All of the cars were at a halt to take pictures and see them. One of them was literally 10 feet or so from my door. So I, like a good tourist, roll down my window for a picture, and as soon as the flash went off the beast huffed and slammed his hoof down. The pictures didn't come out, and I wasn't too keen on hanging around and seeing if he would charge. So that was the end of that. The drive through the park in the dark was treacherous. I don't look forward to doing that again. The road out to the East entrance is really desolate, and there are bear warnings everywhere. I kept thinking, "crap this is all we need, a Grizzly Bear in the pitch dark out in the wilderness." I have visited Yellowstone twice before in the late 80s and early 90s. Back then, there we bears, of course, but your likelihood of seeing a Grizzly outside of the back country was really low. Their population must have increased, because now there are whole areas closed because mother grizzlies are living there with their cubs. And Charlie actually spoke to a woman who had seen a mother grizzly and three cubs crossing a road in Teton. Back in the early 90s a grizzly on the park road was practically unheard of.

A thing that I want to mention that is positively striking. I was in Yellowstone last time, maybe a year or two after the huge fire and huge portions of the park were black, but with verdant grass and flowers on the burned forest floor. Now, 20 years later the new trees are growing up in place of the old, but the sticks from the old trees are still there. It is amazing to me, now, just how large of an area it was that burned; you can drive for miles and miles and there are literally millions of dead trees, and the things are still standing. I've put a picture of what it looks like.

So today we woke up in Cody and went for pancake breakfast at the campground. You can't beat it; $2 all you can eat. Our big activities of the day were going swimming, playing in the playground, getting "provisions" down at the local Wal-Mart (Big W to you Aussie folks who are reading) and last but not least, going horseback riding outside of Cody. All of the kids, save Claire, had their own horse. Claire rode with Charlie and would you believe it, she actually fell asleep on the horse! ON the horse. I was amazed. We would have liked to have made it to Cody Rodeo, but we were all just too tired. So we made a giant fire, cooked up some chicken, corn on the cob and baked potatoes. It was a great dinner. Then as I worked on this blog entry, Charlie and the kids made s'mores.

One final note. We made a new family purchase today. You can see a photo of it here. The new item is on top of our car in this picture. We are planning to go back to that lake in Teton on the way back out of here and use it. Then we intend to use it on some of the ponds in Northern Arizona on weekend trips.

So tomorrow we leave Cody and we are going to tour Yellowstone for real. We going to see Old Faithful, which the kids are really anxious to see and we'll probably go up to Mammoth Hot Springs as well (since on two prior trips I never went out there). The only problem with Yellowstone is its size. The park is so gigantic, you could really make it your life's ambition to get to know the place and we, unfortunately, have only a few days. There are a couple hundred miles of park roads and countless hiking trails, lakes, mountains, canyons, geysers and sulfuric smelling hot pools. We got to see a few vents on the way in and when the kids saw them and the boiling water and steam coming out, it finally sunk in that this is a giant active volcano. And they kept asking "why does it smell like that?" Just the earth passing a little gas...whaddaya gonna do?

On that note I'll sign off. We are camping in Yellowstone tomorrow night and I will probably not have Internet access, let's rephrase that. I will not have Internet access, so I will probably not be able to post again until after we leave the park. Take care, and pray that we see no Grizzly mamas, and that we don't inadvertently piss off another bison. And of course, we don't want any geologic events on a scale larger than Old Faithful.

We finally arrive in Wyoming!

The day started out with a bang. While packing up to get us and our rig out of Provo Utah, Claire decided to dump an entire soda onto our bed. So rather than leave we had to run a load of laundry. I was none too happy about this. But we did eventually get on the road and once in Wyoming we stopped at Fossil Buttes National Monument where we got to see the fossilized fish and tropical plants from what was once a gigantic lake--now a dry dusty nothing. It was really cool though, and I'm proud to report that Meagan became a National Park Senior Ranger and Mike, Joseph, Marianne and Christopher all became Junior Rangers. This entailed them doing a bunch of learning activities at the visitor center and then having a demonstration with the ranger who showed them how to excavate a fossil and finally taking an oath to protect our national parks, never litter in the parks, never feed or chase animals etc. After which each of them was given a Park Ranger badge. After all of that we got on the road again and realized we would never make it to Cody tonight, so instead we are camping in Grand Teton. This switch of campgrounds was not without incident however. We were in the Bridger National Forest when we realized we weren't going to make it to Cody. So naturally there was no cell phone service and I needed to make a reservation at a new campground and cancel the old reservation. Finally we get to an area where there is a cell tower and I start calling the campground. At the exact moment that I finished saying to the clerk "Do you have a site available for tonight?" Marianne lets our a blood curdling howl from the back seat. I say "hold on" to the girl on the phone and at the precise moment that Charlie turns around to see what the heck is going on in the back, a deer runs into the street at which time I start yelling "DEER! Hit the breaks!" All the while Marianne still screaming and the poor girl from the campground on the phone. Some days, I could go without all of the excitement y'know. The good news is that we did not hit the deer. The bad news is Claire had bitten Marianne on the hand. When Charlie pulled over and got back there and she said to Claire "why did you bite Marianne?" She replied, "I'n know" which means I don't know. Marianne is fine, but I'm sure it hurt. And the I can't imagine what the poor person on the phone was thinking with all of this going on while she was on the line. Well the day is over and tomorrow we head out for Grand Teton National Park, then on to Cody KOA and Yellowstone.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

The Nature of Vacation & the State of Utah

Today all we did was drive. We took US Route 89 through Utah along the Sevier River. It was a very scenic drive. There are a few things worth noting about Utah. This state is not like other states. First of all there are things missing (or very short supply) here that you find easily in other states in the union. Those things are:

-Taverns or bars (not that we are going to any, of course. Could you imagine? People would be calling the cops: "some nutcase just walked in here with 6 kids, can someone please DO something about it?")
-Coffee shops
-Daycares
-Synagogues
-Catholic Churches

You can probably find these things in the big cities (like Salt Lake) but in rural Utah they are pretty much not on the landscape.

Another thing worth noting is the physical appearance of the place. Everything here is very neat and orderly, downright spiffy. In the East, down on their luck farmers usually let their properties go to hell; there are ususally old cars from each decade starting in the '60s gracing the lawn, old appliances outside and swings from kids that one guesses left decades ago to raise their own families; the places can look really shabby. Not so in Utah. Here everything is neat and clean; even the most humble trailer has manicured lawns, potted flowers and a fresh coat of paint. Not a single appliance on a lawn did I see. All of the buildings, even the old ones, are well kept. Some of the farms have really beautiful huge houses, and with the cows out to pasture as they always seem to be, the whole scene is just gorgeous.

We watched the fireworks at Brigham Young University tonight. It was really cool--as fireworks always are. And again I can't help but notice what is missing. Here we are in Provo/Orem Utah; we watched the firworks on campus of a major university (BYU is a big school) and not one campus bar did we see. I noticed only one house with Greek letters. It's like the university town twilight zone. What do these kids do one wonders. Considering the number of small children running out and about, the answer isn't exactly a mystery. Which leads to a funny little story that happened at dinner. We went into one of those all you can eat places with the kids for dinner. The girl who was the cashier saw our party of 8 come in and when all the kids ran to the restroom to wash their hands she said "I grew up in a family of 11, and our house was only 2,300 square feet." I told her that while I only grew up in a family of 7 I totally understood what she went through. I did not tell her how small my childhood home was, but she continued her story. She said "my parents finally bought a 6000 sq ft house and 5 of us are already out of the house. It's just wrong." I said, "I hear ya sister."

The other topic of thinking while on this long drive through Utah is what exactly constitutes a vacation? Please post your comments on this issue. Those of you who know me well know that my idea of a vacation means doing absolutely nothing. Walking from my beachfront hotel to the sand is as strenous as I want to get. When I take a dip in the ocean, you cannot call it a "swim" as no actual swimming takes place; I don't move a muscle; I float. I don't go get drinks; I order them brought to me. My sisters can attest that all of this is true. So you may wonder what the hell I'm doing on THIS vacation where it took the planning of an army general to figure out how much driving on each day, and making sure we had a place to park the rig each night etc... Not to mention HIKING and packing a 4 year old out of a canyon on my back to get him back to the car before he passed out from the heat. In my mind a vacation means leaving behind your daily activities, and as I'm sure most mothers will agree, if you are still doing daily laundery, slinging peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and bowls of Cookie Crisp for breakfast, then you are doing all the same stuff you would at home just in a different location; and that therefore is not a vacation. I will allow that there are different kinds of vacations: adventure vacations; family vacations, relaxation vacations; foreign destination vacations etc... but how would you classify what I'm doing now? Family vacation sure, but is it really a vacation? I'll let you decide!

I hope your Fourth was fun! Tomorrow we make our way to Wyoming. It will be another day of driving, but this is where the fun really starts!

Take care, and thanks for reading.

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

July 3, 2007

I am so exhausted. We started out the day with the kids playing at the campground. There are teepees here that the kids were able to play in, so they took my camera and Marianne filmed a movie staring Joseph and Claire. I'm assuming it was a western since it took place in the teepee.

We left around noon and went over to Bryce Canyon National Park. We took the kids part of the way DOWN the Canyon. We did not just stick to the paved trails, but actually descended a good bit. There was a park ranger hanging out on the first switchback and she warned us that coming up is five times harder than going down, she told us not to go too far or we'd have to carry the little ones out and it wouldn't be any fun in the full sun. (That park ranger took this picture you see of all of us.) We followed her advice and went only a short way. It was worth it though. I've never seen anything like this place in my life. We have 165 pictures just from today. It was just amazing. The kids did fine. Mike is at the perfect age for this sort of vacation. Chris on the other hand did alot of "Mom, I'm so tired; I'm so hot; do we have to keep walking?" Much to his credit, whining aside, he made it back up the canyon without having to be carried. Claire did great as well, but she has it easy riding around on Charlie's back. We all got a bit of a sunburn today, because we were out for so long. We saw SO many animals: pronghorns, mule deer, wild turkeys, chipmunks, squirrels, western blue birds, and I think that is it.

This being Mormon country, (my brother in law Joe would love it here) things close up early. Restaurants all close at 9:30 which is before the sun sets for crying out loud. We really had to get our act together to make it to dinner on time. And things don't come cheap in the National Parks. Anyway here are a few pictures of our day. Tommorow we set off for Provo Utah. We will be spending the night near the Utah Lake. We will be just south of the Great Salt Lake.

My feet hurt and I need a shower. Otherwise all is good on the Western Front. To answer my dear old friend Marty's question: yes, you would be hard pressed to find a good nail salon out here. I'm definately going in for a foot massage when this whole adventure is over!

Hope your fourth is fab, and you see some great fireworks!

Antelope Canyon, Navajo Nation (No passport required)

This was such an event filled day. It was just amazing. We set out from Flagstaff around 11:30. We headed north on Highway 89. It is not everyday that you go somewhere you've never been, and that is especially true for me since I have visited all of the lower 48 states at some point. But today was different, we did not get on a single interstate all day; and we travelled through parts of AZ and UT that I've never visited.

We went through the Navajo Nation and we stopped and hiked down Antelope Canyon. It is not a far hike, but it is extremely narrow and steep in parts. I have never seen anything like this place in my life. I took these two pictures of the inside of the canyon. It was not easy getting all of the kids down this canyon and Charlie had Claire on his back. There were stairs at the end of the canyon to get back out, but once up to the surface again, you have to hike, in full sun, to your car. This was by far and away the worst part. It was about 110 degrees and by the time we got back to the car, Meagan was carrying Marianne and I was carrying Chris. Charlie was still carrying Claire and Mike and Joseph kept saying they were going to faint. We all survived.

Next we went to see Glen Canyon Dam. This was really cool. I am tired however, of hearing "Hoover DAMN! Are we still in New York?!" Which for some bizarre reason the kids kept shouting in the car. Two issues here. #1) it was not Hoover Dam, it was Glen Canyon, and #2) Needless to say New York is not on the agenda for this trip. But hey why pass up an opportunity to shout foul language in a confined space, and why not bitch about NY? Whatever. Kids...

We finally pulled in to our campground at about 10:30. We are staying in Ruby's Inn Utah right at the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park. The park shuttle stops right outside of the campground, and we will spend tomorrow exploring the area.

Note: current temperature is 50 degrees and I'm typing this in my COAT!

Flagstaff, AZ

July 1
Written at the Flagstaff KOA, Flagstaff Arizona 10:52pm

We finally got on the road at just before 5pm. Claire slept the whole way. What a blessed relief from the heat this is. It can’t be more than maybe 72 or 73 degrees out. It is dry though. So dry, in fact, that there are not open flames of any kind allowed (because of the high danger of wild fire.) So that meant our plans of barbequing dinner were off. So instead we ate hot dogs and beans.
This campground has very narrow campsites, so we are pretty close to the folks on either side. As I was making dinner I was thinking to myself, the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Hiltons of the world have never had a vacation like this. This is a vacation for people with friends in low places. The kids are having a blast so that makes it worth it. I’m anxious to keep truckin’. It has been so long since I have been to Wyoming and I’m really excited about going back. Wyoming is definitely one of my favorite states in the union; topped only perhaps by Florida. I would say my top 5 list of the contiguous 48 (having never been to Alaska and Hawaii yet) would include—but maybe not in this order:
· Florida
· Wyoming
· Montana
· Vermont
· New York
Well time to chill. Hope your weekend was great. Until next post…

Getting Packed up

Don't ever let it be said that I, Tina Cipolla, am unorganized. I'm not. The proof appears over to the left of this text. This was my packing method for the camper. Each kid got his or her own plastic box for their belongings for this trip. Notice, if you will, that each box contains a label with each kid's name on it no less. Ok, ok, enough patting myself on the back. Charlie had some input for this idea.



We are leaving tomorrow. I spent today cleaning out the fridge, packing everyone's stuff, and getting myself ready to fly out to to CA for the new job that starts on the Monday after we return. Charlie picked up Meagan at the airport and we will be off tomorrow.



I'm getting very excited for this trip. It has been over 110 degrees all week in Phoenix and the heat is just oppressive. The temperatures are just ridiculous this time of year.



I think the kids are excited. They don't really know what to expect from this vacation. They are used to going to the beach for a week, and they are having a hard time picturing these national parks we keep telling them are so great. Michael had his last guitar lesson today before the trip and Roger, his teacher, asked where we were headed and when we told him Yellowstone, he told Mike that he saw a show on the Discovery Channel about Yellowstone that said the park sits atop the world's largest and most dangerous volcano. This got Mike's attention and as Roger went out the door, Mike asked "Mom, is that really true?" I didn't want to scare him, but I already knew this little factoid, so I told him, "yes it is true". Followed up, of course, with the statistical unlikelihood that it would go off while we were there. Truth be told, if it did go off, not much on this continent would be safe. But no sense dwelling on that unlikely scenario. To read about this Discovery Channel show go here: http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/supervolcano/under/under.html



I can't wait to escape the heat. Our first stop tomorrow will be in Flagstaff where we will spend the day just chillin'. I will add another post then. Here is a picture of the camper, in case you haven't seen it.

Vacation schedule is set!

I finally sat down today and called all of the campgrounds and made our reservations for our trip. Here is our schedule:

Sun. Jul. 1: Phoenix to Flaggstaff. One night in Flaggstaff. http://www.flagstaffkoa.com/
Mon. Jul 2: Flaggstaff to Bryce Canyon Utah. http://www.brycecanyoncampgrounds.com/
Tues. Jul 3: Touring Bryce Canyon National Park http://www.nps.gov/brca/
Wed. Jul 4: Bryce Canyon to Provo Utah. http://www.eastbayrvpark.com/
Thurs. Jul 5: Provo thru Grand Teton and up to Cody Wyoming. http://www.koa.com/where/wy/50106/index.htm
Fri. Jul 6: Touring Yellwstone National Park http://www.nps.gov/yell/
Sat. Jul 7: Touring Grand Teton National Park http://www.nps.gov/grte/
Sun. Jul 8: Cody to Bear Lake, Idaho Utah http://koa.com/where/ut/44101/president.htm
Mon. Jul 9: Touring the Bear Lake area http://www.bearlake.com/index2.cfm
Tues. Jul 10: Bear Lake to Moab Utah http://www.moabkoa.com/
Wed. Jul 11: Touring Arches National Park http://www.nps.gov/arch/index.htm
Thurs. Jul 12: Moab to Flaggstaff http://www.nps.gov/grca/
Fri. Jul 13: Flaggstaff to Phoenix

This trip is going to be long, but it is going to be so much fun! I bought a new pair of Merrell hiking boots last week and I intend to wear them daily. We are going to look for one of those hiking backpacks for Claire. If anyone knows a source, I'd love to hear it.

As we do more planning, I will continue to update the blog.

Have a great weekend!

Vacaton planning and backyard landscaping

If you have been reading this blog since its inception (all 4 posts ago) you know that my initial idea for starting this was to report on our upcoming vacation during which we planned to go to Alaska with our kids. Well, when we realized just how much time we'd be spending in the car, we decided this was not the year for that trip. So instead we are now thinking that we will head up to the Wyoming/Montana area and take a trip through Yellowstone. The upside is that this is a do-able vacation for us. The downside is I spent so much time figuring out Alaska that now our vacation is two weeks out and I have no planning done for Yellowstone. So that is on this week's out-of-work-SAP-trainer agenda. Now if only I could find that blasted atlas...

In other news, the backyard landscaping project is well underway. For those of you who don't know, we own a new house. We got a quote from a landscaping company to do the front and back and we told the guy we wanted this most basic package. Are you ready? $17,000. Yes, sevenTEEN-thousand dollars. This guy was smoking something when he put the numbers together. So we are doing the project ourselves. I should say, my husband is doing the project himself, because thus far I have been worthless as far as moving the whole thing forward. Various male relatives have helped out with trenching and laying PVC sprinkler pipe. And they have my sympathy working in Phoenix in June on a landscaping job. For those of you unfamiliar with desert landscaping projects, you have lay an entire irrigation system under the soil for things like grass, trees and shrubs. A ditch-witch is required to do the digging, because the ground is like concrete. I'm planning to take some pictures of this project, and when I have time to research and figure it out, I will post one or two of them here.

I hope the rest of your weekend is fun, relaxing and peaceful,
Tina

The Presentation and the Job Search

Hello all. I found someone interested in working on the conference presentation with me, which is great. The downside is, he is in India. So I don't know that we will ever be able to present the thing together, but we are charging forward nonetheless and I suppose the worst case scenario is that that we can each present it on our own in locations that work for us. We joked that we could present it in places that are equally difficult for us to get to, and I said, OK, we'll limit ourselves to Europe, and the Arun suggested that instead we present the thing while on safari in Africa. Needless to say neither of these things are going to happen, but as Arun said, it is fun to dream.

So moving on to reality. Fact is, I don't have a job right now. I'm working hard on this situation though. I'm applying to jobs on a regular basis now. I'm also using my LinkedIn network to make contacts everyday. Something will happen eventually; it always does. Whenever I get down about looking for a job, I think of all of the incompetent people I have worked with over the years and tell myself, "if that idiot could get a job..." That always reminds me that things will be fine.

So in the meantime, if you know anyone looking for a very competent SAP Training Developer or garden variety instructional designer, let me know.

Have a great weekend!

Conference Idea

Today's thought for the day is that I have an idea for a conference presentation. I want to develop a presentation on the use of LinkedIn for use at professional conferences. I am hoping to find a collaborator. I put a question out on LinkedIn today looking for a collaborator and as of yet, I haven't found a volunteer.

My idea is to put together something that would introduce professionals to the use of LinkedIn and give some ideas on how to maximize its potential in the shortest period of time each day.

I'm on the job market right now, and the kids are out of school. This is a recipe for disaster. I better find a job fast. Alternatively, I can work on this conference presentation idea, so that the screaming and fighting doesn't drive me mad. For those of you who don't know this little factoid: my kids ages are 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. Nuff said.

MOSCOW

One of the things I would like to do in this blog is post my thoughts on the books I read. I hope that this will open up discussion on the books if anyone who happens by has also read those books.

Right now I am in the middle of two books The World is Flat by Friedman and Wikinomics. Anyone familiar with these books will know that they are related.

Wikinomics is about the world of collaboration via technology. The World is Flat is broader in scope is details why the the world is now a level (flat) playing field economically. The World is Flat covers how collaboration is one of numerous "flatteners," but Wikinomics really takes a deeper dive into the whole massively open source collaborative online world (MOSCOW). I just coined that acronym right now. Remember you saw that term here first! Anyway when I'm finished reading these two titles, I'll respond to each on this blog.

Side note: I got my first eyeglass prescription this past week. My new glasses are very funky. I only need them for reading. Actually, if I look through them to see something far away, my vision is totally distorted. I love the idea that they give you the prescription and you can just keep buying cool frames whenever you see a pair you like. I think glasses could be the ultimate fashion accessory, but for now, I only need them when I'm reading. As soon as I figure out how to post a picture I will do so.


Hope you're having a great day!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello and welcome to my blog.

My main motive for starting this blog in the first place was that my family was planning a trip to Alaska this summer and I was going to keep a weblog so that family and friends could read about out trip. We decided that Alaska is to far to travel from Phoenix with 6 kids and a camper. (Technically, our rig is known as a "travel trailer." I hate the word "trailer." I don't even want to think of myself as a weekend resident of a trailer, so I have renamed the thing a "camper." The kids always look at me cockeyed with a what-are-you-talking-about look on their face when I say this. They never fail to follow up every reference to the camper with "do you mean the trailer?" I'm losing the battle.

So whatever you want to call it, camper or trailer, we now own it, and in it we will take a two week trip this summer with the kids. As of yet we do not really know where we are going. We do, however know when we are going. We are planning to leave Phoenix somewhere around the first of July. Keep an eye on this blog for further entries.