Texas Gulf Beach

Ok, I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to expect at all. Other than South Padre Island and spring break mania, I had never heard of anyone going on a beach vacation on the Gulf in Texas. I was wondering what the reason was for that. Were there refineries on the beach? Were the oil rigs so close in that they seriously messed up the view to create an ugly beach? Why doesn't anyone come here?

Well, people do come here, they are just Texans. I don't happen to know a lot of Texans. And those that DO come here would surely be smart enough not to blab about this place to the entire world. But only a very small subset of the world reads my blog, so I'm not afraid to tell you about it. Just don't tell real estate developers.

We are at a place called Port Aransas. Known as Port A to the regulars. There is a gorgeous wide sandy beach,calm surf, and from our camper, we can see the water. This town has NO nasty high rise condos, just sand dunes, behind which are little beach cottages and a few condos that are low rise and not at all objectionable. There are no mansions on the beach. The restaurants are low key places that have signs that say things like: you catch it, we'll cook it! It is the sort of beach community average people could bring their kids to and eat in any restaurant. There are a good handful of bars too. There is some spring break activity here, but it is largely contained and there has been very little police activity associated with that. This is an island and you have to take a ferry to get to, and the one thing that is missing is over water type establishments, there are none that we've seen. But almost all of the restaurants have outdoor dining. There are no chains here except for ONE fast food place called Whataburger. Otherwise even the grocery store is an IGA... There are no chain "casual dining" establishements and it is just a welcome vacation from that whole scene. So I will take some more pictures today and I will post them.

Get out of my SWAMP!

11:35 am March 17, 2009 Oh wow, it’s St. Patrick’s Day.
Ok, ok, for the billionth time, I promise, I won’t mess with Texas! Good god almighty, these signs are everywhere. I figure they post them every 10 or 20 miles and when you are crossing the home of our illustrious former president you go about 700 + miles so I figure I’ve been told about 70 times not to mess with Texas, but they only tell you one time what exactly they mean by that. When you cross the border into Texas, you get the requisite “Don’t mess with Texas” sign but with a translation below it for those non-Texans among us, that says “Please don’t litter.” So ok, I won’t.
I might actually get internet access and be able to post today from the lovely Corpus Christi Lake KOA campground. I have lost count of the number of times we have yelled at each other…”all of you fairy tale creatures, GET OUT OF MY SWAMP!”
And a swamp it is. But getting here from the desert to the swamp was the interesting part. Yesterday morning we had a relaxing morning in Whites City New Mexico. I made pancakes for breakfast, a pot of coffee and started a loaf of bread in the bread machine and did a load of laundry. (We do more before 9 am than most people….ok, ok, I’ll shut up!) Then we packed up and got on the road. We intended to use the bread for sandwiches that afternoon, but realized we had no bread knife with us and therefore no way to slice the bread. Believe it or not, we stopped at a Wal-Mart along the way and they did not have a bread knife (obviously not a supercenter). So we carried on, and had the interesting and frightening experience of having the car battery die at a rest area. Luckily the guys parked in front of us happened to have jumper cables and a good disposition. We decided to get as close to the coast as possible and to make an obnoxiously long story short, we made it as far as Corpus Christi Lake (we are about an hour from the coast). When we arrived at 5 am this morning (no joke) we parked the camper and it began to rain. Sure, you’re thinking, so what? Well, first of all, we’ve never had this camper in the rain (we have never come this far East in the camper…) so we had no idea if it was actually waterproof. We woke up dry, so now we know. However, for the sake of demonstration, imagine that you are in a giant Campbell’s soup can, trying to sleep and a hail of beebees keeps falling on the can. That gives you a close approximation of what it sounded like. But it was 5 am and it was clean, dry and legal. I was happy. Then it happened. It started as a faint rumble and got louder. It wasn’t like we hadn’t seen the train tracks, we had driven right over them on the way in, but when we parked we had no idea that we were about 20 yards from the tracks. And oh my god, you want to talk LOUD…as the foghorn thing blared several times Charlie raced to the back of the camper to calm any panicked kids if they woke up.
And there you have it, proof positive that you can INDEED drive a freight train through the kids bedrooms and they won’t wake up.

Sunday, March 15 9:03 pm

I write to you tonight from Whites City, New Mexico. Since my last post where I told about this trip, we have had a major change of plans. We were originally going to head north up to all the places listed in the last post, however a major weather system moved in that was going to derail our plans because the temperatures in Southern Utah were going to be unusually cold. I have no desire to freeze us to death so back to the drawing board I went. I spent Friday while the kids were in school researching where we could go that would not be so cold. The only drivable answer that was not below the Mexican border was, naturally, Texas. So we headed out Friday night and made it to an area near Chirracahua National Monument. We spent Saturday morning exploring the monument, which was really remote and very neat. There are very cool rock formations too look at and we got to see a deer. However when we got to the top of the peak, it began to SNOW on us…so much for my warm spring break! That afternoon after exploring the monument we were off toward Texas. We ate dinner in El Paso (don’t even ask, I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say we made a huge error in choice of food; we had the idiocy to choose something other than Mexican when were so close to Mexico we could spit there…) The kids were fascinated by being so close to the border and they got a good lesson in current events when we explained the Tale of Two Cities thing going on between El Paso and Juarez.

After dinner we headed out of El Paso on a small two lane Texas Road where were stopped not once, but twice by law enforcement wondering if we were transporting illegals in the camper. Do I LOOK like a coyote to you with my 5 kids and my family truckster??? It was a long interesting night and even though we were not transporting illegals we did in fact camp illegally two nights out of two. (This is another issue about which I should probably skip the details and simply say we were too tired to drive anymore and it was better to just stop and sleep; it just so happens that we happen to drive with a small house on the back of the car…)

We have had the usual obnoxious car antics that would drive lesser parents to drop their kids off on the Salt Flats and let the javalinas sort them out, thankfully it seems that, although we don’t think of ourselves as patient people we’ve never once actually thrown a kid to the wild animals. This trip is no different and everyone is still occupying their seat in the car. W

So we are headed to the Padre Island National Seashore on the Gulf of Mexico. Today we spent the day with another bad food experience, and then wandering the Carlsbad Caverns. They caverns are totally amazing, but I will tell you what…this place is seriously remote. We are really far from civilization. Very few businesses in the town of Carlsbad were open today; it’s Sunday. It is off season to be fair, but you know us city people we want our goods and services. Walmart was open for just our kind.

Here we go again!

All of my regular readers will be thrilled to know that since we have no money, but we do have an abundance of time, we have decided to travel with the kids this spring for spring break. This will be another camping adventure to a bunch of national parks, and if any of the previous trips provide any type of example, this blog should get more interesting with each passing day.

With the advent of my Facebook account, I realize there might be some new readers here who have no idea what this is about. If you have some spare time, and the unemployed among us have tons, I encourage you to go backward in this blog and read about some of our previous year's adventures. Traveling with 5 small children in an SUV pulling a camper is a recipe for fun, frustration and hilarity to those who are only reading about it.

Once again, we only talked about this for the first time about a week ago, so our plans are vague at best. We have 10 days to work with and I want to focus on the places that are too blasted hot in the summer to enjoy even a little bit. So on my list is Zion National Park, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef (for the biggies) and Canyon de Chelly, and Petrified Forest NP. Who knows where we'll end up, but we will be heading in the direction of the four corners with an emphasis on the Southern Utah region. I love Southern Utah, if I was Momon I would move there, but I'm not so here I'll stay in Phoenix.

I started the kids on packing their plastic boxes today (those of you who've been down this path before know about this...) Each kid gets one box to fill with their stuff. They have a checklist I give them with what to pack and I do laundry almost every night so everyone has fresh stuff to change into in the morning. Basically, everyone brings one cold weather outfit, one warm weather outfit and pjs, socks and undies and two pairs of shoes. In the summer we also bring swinsuits, but we are not bringing them this time of year. Also everyone is required (when I have the wearwithall to enforce it) to wear a hat.

I checked the temperatures in Zion two days ago and it is in the 40s at night and between the 60s and 70s during the day. That is perfect weather for hiking and just hanging out. I am hoping we do not encounter snow.

Charlie gets home from his ski trip tomorrow and I'm hoping to have the kids stuff all organized by the time he gets here so he can walk in the door, get the keys and go pick up the camper. Then we can plug it in and make sure the propane tanks are good and get the fridge working. Then Friday when the kids are at school, we will pack up the everything and leave as soon as the kids get home from school.

So by now you have probably asked yourself, "who is taking care of the chickens? God please tell me they did not even think about bringing the chickens!" I'm glad you are so concerned about their welfare! Of course we're not bringing them! Our 12 year old niece graciously agreed to watch them for a sum of money that is affordable even to us unemployed slackers. Thank you Courtney!!

Here are links to some of the places we are planning to try to hit.
Canyon de Chelly National Monument
Petrified Forest National Park
Zion National Park
Capitol Reef National Park
Canyonlands National Park

If we actually get out of Phoenix on Friday (just because this is our plan, does not mean it will actually happen) we might spend the first night here:
Sunset Crater National Monument
I have no idea actually if their campground is open this time of year, I suppose I should go to that link myself and look that up, eh? Otherwise, there is a KOA not too far from there that is year round.

What's next?

We are home now. Despite two of us (Mike and I) getting seriously sick on the trip, we had a wonderful time when all was said and done. We had long lengths of time in the car to talk about what trips we want to take in the future. I have all of our trip goals sorted in my head in terms of short term, medium term and long term goals.

In the short term (like maybe next summer?) we are planning to go to Cascade National Park, and Ranier National Park and points in between in the Pacific Northwest. We also would like to spend some time in the fall when the weather cools off in Southern Utah in the parks there. I would like very much to go back to Zion. Canyonlands and Capital Reef are definately in my sights and a return trip through Bryce Canyon and Arches would be awesome. In the medium term we would like to go to the Smoky Mountain National Park. In the longer term we have Alaska--we would like to take a whole summer for that. And in the distant long term I want to hike in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. This goal however, is the farthest away for a number of reasons. #1 I don't want to take the kids into the Bob. I think it is way to dangerous for children. #2 I need to get past my fear of large predators before I will be able to do it. The Bob is home to way to many bears and large cats for me to feel comfortable with a backcountry trip there.

You can read more about the Bob Marshall Wilderness here: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/flathead/wilderness/bmwcomplex.shtml

I hope you have enjoyed reading the trip blog this year. It was a lot of fun writing it.

Fruita, Colorado

Wednesday August 6, 2008 about 11pm

Tonight’s post is coming to you from Fruita, Colorado. We can all give a hearty thank you to the King Family, whoever they are, for having a highly convenient unsecured network that I can hop on. (Post script: this network did not work for posting which is why this is being posted so late.)
As was the plan in the last post, we did spend the day hanging out at Townsend/Canyon Ferry Lake in Townsend MT. The wind died down and we put the canoe in the water. The kids also did some fishing but nobody actually caught anything. It was a very fun day for all of us. After leaving Townsend, we headed down to Yellowstone.
We camped the night in Yellowstone right across from Mammoth Hot Springs. In the morning we ate breakfast across from the old Fort Yellowstone Buildings at a picnic table. After breakfast we headed over to Mammoth and to our shock, there was almost no water. We learned from someone on the trail that there had been an earthquake this past winter and the passage for the water is now blocked. The springs are not totally dry, but they are pretty close to totally dry. Minerva Terrace, which is the big attraction at Mammoth is dry and the terrace has completely bleached out from sitting dry in the sun. They park people say that it is not unusual for water to come and go in the springs, but my personal thought is that if it is being blocked, wouldn’t that mean pressure is building up somewhere under there? I would not think that building pressure in a live volcanic caldera is a good idea. Not that anyone can actually do anything about it, but it kind of makes you uneasy walking in an area where logic dictates that incredible pressure is building up beneath you.
After leaving Mammoth we headed out to Norris Geyser Basin—another area we had not seen previously. It was totally amazing. We also went swimming in one of the rivers we came across with a shallow kid-friendly swimming area. Lastly we went to see Old Faithful, which never fails to amaze—80,000 gallons of boiling water shooting up over the course of 4 minutes. Old Faithful, true to its name, has to be the most reliable geyser on earth; it went off within about 2 minutes of the time it was predicted for.
Oddly we saw almost no wildlife in Yellowstone this year, not a single buffalo, only a few antelope. However, after leaving Yellowstone, we were on our way to Grand Teton—where we ate dinner—and shortly after entering the park we saw a bear, up close and personal. He was walking up to the road right as we were passing and I slammed on the breaks and he froze. Thank God I did not hit him. He ambled behind the car like it was no big deal at all. Of course we were watching him the whole time. He investigated the road and then a bear jam started building and we had to leave. It was the highlight of the day. We are not sure if he was a grizzly or a black bear. He had the snout of a grizzly but he was smaller like a black bear. Perhaps he was a young grizzly.
So here we are today. We stopped quickly by Dinosaur National Monument and we are making our way home. Tomorrow our plan is to see the Colorado National Monument and head out toward home again and we may stop at a thing or two on the way home. I would like very much to be home by Friday. The kids have meet the teacher that night on Friday. I don’t know if we will make that. Two of us are sick—Michael and I have both come down with a ferocious cold. I am miserable right now and I would love to teleport myself back home. I am hoping that I feel better tomorrow. Mike is already on the improving side. It is not fun being sick on the road.

Just can't quit Montana

We woke up yesterday still at the campground outside of Glacier and realized that "holy crap, it's already Sunday and we are still in northwestern Montana!" So we made one final trip to Glacier; Marianne, Christopher and Claire got their Junior Ranger Badges; we ate ice cream for lunch and we visited the Discovery Cabin which has a whole bunch of animal pelts and skulls that are there for the kids to touch. You would never believe how heavy the bighorn sheep horns are. I would estimate that they weigh between 30 and 40 lbs. I was able to lift them, but they were seriously heavy. Grizzley bears are not soft, but black bears are. Mountain lions are so incredably soft as are grey wolves. The wolves have the thickest fur.



I owe you all a correction from a prior post. My description of huckleberrys was actually a description of juneberries. We learned this while on a trail yesterday in Glacier. We came upon a woman in the woods who was picking something and the kids asked her what she was doing and she told them she was picking huckleberries. We told her about the tree we found the prior day and she told us "oh I know that tree, those are not huckleberries those are juneberries." She then offered us some of the huckleberries she had picked and they were very similar, but there was no issue with the seed like there was with the juneberry. I am including pictures in this post of both berries so you can see why we were confused. I did not take these pictures, I got them off of the web. The first picture is of juneberries which grow on a tree, the second picture is of the huckleberries which grow in a patch or a shrub like a blueberry. So the interesting thing about this woman is that she lives one mile outside the park. She is about maybe 60, and she bikes in to the park, picks her berries and goes home and bakes herself a pie with them! She told us she often rides her bike in with a picnic lunch and then parks her bike and hops on the shuttle and eats her lunch up at Logan Pass. All I can say is...what a life!





So we drove out of Glacier and we made the decision to head south and we are planning to fish today in Townsend/Canyon Ferry Lake in Townsend, MT. It is pretty windy so we probably will not take out the canoe. After fishing we are heading down to Yellowstone and we are going to go see Mammoth Hot Springs which we missed last time we were in Yellowstone. I know we will not be capable of passing through Grand Teton without stopping and we are planning to try to stop by Dinosaur National Monument. Then we are going to head for home. I will keep you posted on our progress. It is sure to be a slow circuitious route. I hope the next time you hear from us, it will be from inside or near Yellowstone. If we do camp in Yellowstone, we will not have internet access and you will have to wait until we come back to civilization to do a new post.

A totally perfect day!

Today we spent the entire day in Glacier National Park. At one point Charlie said, "These parks are just incredible; one's better than the next." This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. Glacier is so incredible. There are these beautiful waterfalls that seem to materialize out of the rock itself. There are also what is called "weeping walls" where water literally rains out of the rock. How this happens is a mystery to me, but it is a sight to behold. We saw the glaciers, and snow pack that is not going to melt before the snow starts falling this year.

So today's activities went in this order: we woke up, did a load of laundry, the kids played in the campground playground while that was going on. We got on the road and stopped at a bear zoo. You drive your car in and you get to see black bears just roaming around, eating, sleeping, swimming and doing whatever it is bears do--which is mainly eating--these bears were born in captivity and I am not really sure if they prepare for hibernation like regular bears or what. Seeing the bears up so close was really cool, but the park itself was nothing to really write home about. After the bear park, we headed in to Glacier NP itself. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed up to Logan's Pass. This is the area of the park where you get to take a short hike and you can go play in the snow. It is also where we got to see a heap of wild animals. We got to see mountain goats, bighorn sheep, marmosets and squirrels. After the fun at Logan's Pass, we headed back down the mountain and we put the canoe in at McDonald Lake. This was just so incredible. The water was calm today. Yesterday, McDonald Lake was rough because it was very windy. We paddled around for about an hour and as we paddled back in to shore, there were two people setting up to play alp horns as the sun went down. I had never heard an alp horn before so this was totally cool. An alp horn is the Swedish National Instrument. You can see the picture of the two musicians here. After loading the canoe back up on the car, we headed off to eat dinner. We ended the day at a restaurant called Eddie's. National Park food is almost universally terrible. This food was not great, but they did have a bunch of huckleberry-based desserts. I got huckleberry cobbler, two of the kids had huckleberry ice cream. Prior to my trip to Glacier NP, the only huckleberry I had ever even heard of was Huckleberry Hound. I am not even sure if I was aware that huckleberries are actual berry. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was, a huckleberry is somewhat like a blueberry. The seed on the inside is much bigger so imagine the shape and size of a blueberry but the seed problem of a blackberry and you pretty much have the idea. They grow wild all over the place up here, and if the bears haven't eaten them first you can pick them and eat them right off the tree.

As we ate dinner we reflected on what a perfect day this has been. We don't know yet what we are doing tomorrow, but we are leaving this campground. We are considering heading off toward Cascade National Park in Washington. Another possibility is to head down toward Yellowstone and Teton, but if we do that, I may not ever come home. Charlie is looking at the map now as I type and is figuring out what is possible in the time we have left.

Enjoy the pictures from Glacier. The video is a panorama of McDonald Falls.

Montana

Let me start today's blog post by telling you all that I will be taking my life in my hands if I shout out either "wow!" or "oh my god, look at that!" one more time in the car. I think the family is good and sick of hearing it. But here in Montana it is impossible not to do that. We pulled out of Indian Creek (Deer Lodge, MT) right about lunch time, and although we only had to go about 150 miles, it took us until past 11 last night to get to Kalispell. There was just so much to look at and stop and see. This place is so incredibly beautiful.

We decided to cook our own lunch yesterday which we did at a place called Beavertail Hill State Park in Missoula County. Were were one of two occupied campsites; we had the entire place to ourselves. This place is an incredible state park with two gorgeous teepees that you can camp in. A river for fishing and a self guided nature trail. Here is the link with pictures of the park: http://fwp.mt.gov/lands/site_280871.aspx

The one downside to this park is that because it is so sparsely populated with actual people, the wildlife has taken over. Not too much of a problem except I was really afraid we might run into a bear. Needless to say there were no bear sightings--that would obviously be paragraph one in these blog posts, but there did turn out to be a hornet's nest under the table where we were eating our lunch. Annoying, but no one got stung. This is noteworthy, because we couldn't figure out where the hornets were coming from and Mike kept teasing Marianne and saying, "Marianne, there's a nest under the table!" to freak her out and it turns out that is exactly where it was!

So we got on the road again and made it out to Flathead Lake, which is the largest naturally occurring body of fresh water east of the Mississippi River. It is a beautiful lake and it is really big, way too big for us to put the canoe in.

We are camping now in Kalispell at a place called Rocky Mountain-Hi campground. We will be here for two nights.

Today we are doing the highlight activity of the trip, we are going in to Glacier National Park. It should be amazing. I will report on it either tonight or tomorrow.

Big Sky!

We made it to Montana last night. We spent the night in a campground--from where I am writing this post now--called Indian Creek Campground in Deer Lodge MT. This is the simplest campground you can imagine and the kids are having a blast. There is no pool (you wouldn't need one--it is damn near freezing at night!) no playground, but what there is, is open space...something they don't get at home! They have been literally running around all morning. They played a game they made up called sprinkler tag--it was hilarious. They big field has one of those agricultural type sprinkler systems where water just shoots out randomly. The object of the game was to run from the sprinkler and not get wet. Everyone was motivated to avoid the sprinkler because once your clothes get wet, it is pretty darned cold. The campground is at the base of a mountain range that is--hope you are sitting down--SNOW capped!! July 31 (Happy Birthday Kyle!!) and there is SNOW on the mountains across the interstate!

We are still about a full day's drive from Glacier NP. We are planning to do a pit stop today at a place called Flathead Lake. It is supposed to be very nice. I will report on it either tonight or tomorrow.

I got a question from my sister wondering what the kids had to do to earn their junior ranger badges at the national park. Here is the answer. Each park creates its own activity book that the kids need to complete. The activities include attending a park presentation, and writing about something they learned. They also have to go see a variety of things specific to each park--plants or animal observations. They have to learn about the geologic history of the park as well. So in Zion earlier this week they had to learn about how the canyons were created and how long it took for they erosion to happen etc... Lastly each kid gets a chance to talk to a park ranger and then they take an oath to protect the national parks, not litter and not harass or feed any wild animals they encounter.

It is almost noon, so we need to get on the road. The three pictures in today's post are some I took this morning.

A morning in Utah

Well, here we are still in Brigham City. I got a lot accomplished this morning. The camper is organized--finally. I did a load of laundry, all kids are showered, and we ate breakfast and I got yesterday's pictures uploaded. Here is one of our budding naturalist Mike in Zion National Park.

It is morning and the kids are currently having a raging argument over who will be sleeping where tonight. I am doing my best to ignore it.

Last night in my post there was something notable I forgot to mention. Kenab Utah. I know, I know...you are thinking why is she going to waste my time blogging about Kenab Utah? Well, there is a good reason. Anyone of you readers who is ever planning to visit one of the many National Parks in the Southern Utah area, will probably find yourself rolling through Kenab at some point. (And I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to visit some of the parks near Kenab. Zion, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, Grand Staircase/Escalante, Arches, Bryce Canyon are all in this area, and they are such great learning experiences for kids.) So back to Kenab. We have been to Kenab before, at dinnertime and we stopped at a place called Grandma Tina's and despite it's wildly promising name, the food was disappointing. Well, yesterday morning we had the opposite experience in Kenab. We went to a place for breakfast called Huston's Trails' End Restaurant. It was by almost all accounts the single best breakfast food I have ever had in a restaurant. They biscuits and gravy are the real thing to write home about. They biscuits are light fluffy and homemade--not like the heavy fast food ones--and although I'm not a real fan of that sausage gravy that typically goes on biscuits--THIS gravy was totally amazing. The pancakes were light fluffy and just perfect. The only things that were not right were that they did not have actual half and half for coffee, only non-dairy creamer--that was a big let down in a place where everything else was so great. Here is a link with pictures of Huston's.

http://www.houstons.net/

We are going to be getting on the road the minute the laundry is finished its dry cycle. Here is a picture of some of yesterday's fun in Utah.

Zion National Park and other points in Utah

We woke up this morning at Lake Powell. For those of you back East who may not know this, Lake Powell is the man-made creation which resulted from the damming of Glen Canyon. The dam itself is, in my opinion, a total monstrosity. It is horribly ugly and there is just something completely unnatural about seeing that canyon filled with water. This is a case where I wish the environmentalists would prevail and they would remove the dam.

We left the Glen Canyon area at the crack of dawn and headed out toward Zion National Park. We have not previously been to this park so we were excited. The park is gorgeous but if you are confined to the park shuttle, you only get to see very little of the park. Joseph, Marianne, Christoper and Claire all earned their junior ranger badges for Zion, which was a fun activity for us all. Mike spent a lot of time taking pictures of lizards, squirrels and the creek that runs through the park and created the canyons. It was ungodly hot, so we did very little hiking, a ton of sweating and then decided to come back in the fall, and we got back on the road.

We made it to Brigham City, which is where I am now composing this post. Tomorrow we will try to make it into Montana, but not before giving the kids an opportunity to play in the playground that is here at this campground, maybe we can even go for a swim. There is a pool here.

The evening temperatures are not bad. It is about 70-72 degrees as I write this and there is a really nice breeze going. I'm off to sleep. Goodbye until the next wi-fi hot spot!

On the Road Again!

Hello Readers!

It has been many moons since I have last posted to this blog. But there will be a flurry of posts over the coming days as we head out on the road again as a family for yet another fun-filled and sure to be wildly exiting camping trip.

The first step in this journey was to get my boss to agree to the time off. She did and so we are heading out tonight. The camper is almost packed. The kids clothes are in, and the food is in. I still have to put out my clothes and Charlie's. They are all packed, just not moved to into the camper. The canoe is tied to the roof. We are almost ready.

Last year when we travelled to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Bryce Canyon and Arches (scroll back to last summer to read the posts on that trip) we learned that the best plan is to actually have very loosely defined plans. That said, we are planning to go up to Glacier National Park, then head west and hit the Northern Cascade Mountains. We are leaving tonight after I get these dinner dishes (and this blog post) finished. We are going to get to I-15 as quickly as possible, then just head north as quickly as possible. We will have to stop for the night tonight--I have no idea yet where that will be. If we get as far as Zion National Park tonight, I'll be thrilled. The plan, as I write this, is to head out of Phoenix going north on I-17 and then hop on State Route 89 and pick up I-15 outside of Zion National Park. If I have access to wi fi, and any energy left at all, I will post tonight and let you know where we are.

The fighting about who is sitting where has already begun, so I better wrap this up, finish those dishes and get moving. Wish us luck!

The Actual Tina The Techwriter

It occurs to me that some of my readers may not be acquainted with the actual Tina The Techwriter. Here is a picture of her. The description of her on the United Media website is "She's the technical writer in Dilbert's engineering department. Tina believes any conversation within hearing distance is intended as an insult to her profession and her gender. She strives to maintain her dignity while surrounded by engineers who don't have a proper respect for her work."

I hope you are all having a great day! Here is a strip featuring Tina for you to enjoy:

Happy New Year!

As the holiday season winds to a close, I thought I would post a new year blog post. 2007 was a wild year for us and from the looks of it, 2008 will be no different. Here is a picture of all the kids on Christmas Eve.

I don't have a lot of resolutions this year. I'd like to have at least one of my work projects to go on longer than 6 months. As with every year, I'd like to shed 20 lbs (as of this writing, I have very little motivation for this project, so we'll see what happens.) I'd also like to see a few more foreign films since it is unlikely that I'll actually travel anywhere abroad this year.

I start a new project on Monday, and we have a new babysitter. So we are starting this year out with a lot of "new." Wish us luck. If anything interesting happens, I'll be sure to post. Until next post, Have a Very Happy Healthy Prosperous New Year!

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!