a few words about campsite etiquette

1) Please disarm the car alarm. I can pretty much guarantee you that when it does go off, it's going to be one of your kids or your buddies who forgot you locked the car, not a punk doing a smash and grab. I'm also pretty certain that when it goes off in the middle of the night, you are going to roll over, try to find your keys and hit the button from your cozy bed. But not before you've woken up half the people in the campgrounds.

2) Dude, I know we're all inspired by the olympics. But can you please quit trying to shave time off your bathroom run record and *walk around* my campsite instead of tramping through it. I'm pretty sure the next bathroom run world championships are a ways off anyway.

3) To the couple camped next to us in Yellowstone: next time can you wait until we go to bed? Please? It was really uncomfortable trying to hold a conversation with my husband 5 feet from where you were very obviously gettin' bizzay. I understand. Really. The smell of pine is a known aphrodisiac - that's why they use it for car air fresheners. Or maybe next time you can put your dang tent up just a few feet further from our fire ring? Or use a muzzle? Thanks for at least waiting until my kid was in bed, though. I really am not quite ready to have *that* conversation with him.

vacation re-cap day 3

Sorry to leave the 6 of you hanging like that. Yesterday Thomas and I went to the indoor bounce house place with some friends. Apparently he was quite worn out. When we laid down for a short nap before Mike got home, Thomas slept straight through the night until 8:30 this morning. Mike and I enjoyed a quiet, kid-free evening.

So, where were we? Day 3

Woke up, got breakfast, cleaned up, etc. Left the campsite around10:00. Again. I think Mike figured out that he needed to get over the whole "getting an early start" thing. Got in the car to head out for the day and found that, while it was fully functioning the day before, the Taurus had no air conditioning. It would only blow hot air. Fun! We sort of just blew it off, rolled the windows down and went on with our day. Some of the stuff we saw:

Sapphire Pool

Grand Prismatic Spring

Clepsydra Geyser

Firehole Falls

Lily pads in Isa Lake

We also managed to make it to the town outside the West entrance to Yellowstone, did some grocery shopping and tried to see if anyone could take a look at the car. No dice on the car. And while it was bearable in Yellowstone to drive without air conditioning, we knew our drive home would be miserable without it.

That night, after dinner, cleanup and getting Thomas in bed, Mike and I discussed our options. We finally settled on a plan to break camp in the morning, finish up Yellowstone a day early, drive that evening to Bozeman, spend the night & get the car looked at first thing in the morning. A deviation from the original plan, for sure, but one with pretty minimal impact.

vacation re-cap day 2

Sunday -- first full day in Yellowstone. Slept in a bit, got up, cooked breakfast, cleaned up & left the campgrounds to see the park. Mike complained that it took us until 10:30 to get out of the campgrounds. Dude, poptarts can be arranged if you don't cut it out.

Our first stop was Kepler Cascades. Just a little walk over a bridge to the overlook. Beautiful.

Got to the Upper Geyser Basin, parked and asked Mike what we needed to take. He said we "might want some water". So I grabbed the bottle I had been drinking from, some fruit leather for Thomas and a couple of Cliff bars, just in case. We got Thomas signed up at the visitor center to do the Junior Ranger and Junior Scientist programs. T and I scoped out a seat on the benches to wait for Old Faithful and started working on the Junior Scientist work. Mike walked to see some other stuff (Remember that "constant motion" thing from a few posts back?) and got back just in time. Thar she blows:

A short word about the division of labor for our trips. Mike plans the actual travel & packs his stuff. I pack for Thomas and I and do all the food prep planning and packing and worry about Thomas's weird food situation. So, having no clue what the "upper geyser basin" entails, but trusting Mike that we "might" want some water, we set out.

We saw some neat stuff - lots of geysers & hot springs, some geese on a stream, wildflowers, a bison carcass. Thomas had fun messing around with the Junior Scientist gear, taking temperature readings, looking at charts & just generally being nerdy.

ear spring - surface temp of the water 171 degrees!

grotto geyser

3 hours later, out of water, thirsty, blazing hot and sunburnt, we were back in the car and I was very displeased with my husband. We "might" want some water. Indeed. I "might" also want to strangle someone. Nevertheless, we found a picnic area and had our lunch and no one died.

We headed to the campstore in Grant Village, our campgrounds in the park. Remember how we were supposed to grocery shop in Jackson, WY but opted not to because we were burning daylight? The campstore was, as anyone could have guessed, understocked and overpriced. So much so that I wanted to drive all the way back (1 1/2 hour each way) to Jackson to go to a real grocery store. Ouch. We set out to do so, but then I came to my senses and realized I'd rather pay ridiculous prices than waste vacation time driving that far to grocery shop. So we turned back around, sucked it up and paid through the nose to get enough stuff for dinner and breakfast and some aloe for our sunburns.

Went back to camp, cooked supper, cleaned up and crashed.

vacation re-cap day 1

Day 1
Goal: Make it to Yellowstone with groceries in time to put up tent before dark.
Reality: notsomuch

Leave home at 8:30. Had hoped to be gone by 8:00, not too bad, only 30 minutes behind schedule. 8:45 realize I had not packed Thomas's margerine. The margerine I use to cook most of his food. You-can-only-buy-it-in-a-Kosher-market-at-Passover-margerine. Turn around and grab margerine from freezer. 9:00 leave home again.

Drive. Stop for lunch. Drive. Stop for dinner in Jackson, WY along with 1/8 the population of America, several European nations and several busses of Japanese tourists. Spend entirely too much time waiting on food from Taco Bell. Realize there is no time to grocery shop for perishables before getting to Yellowstone if you want any glimmer of hope for putting up a tent before dark.

Arrive in Yellowstone campground and put tent up in the dark anyway.

on vacations and marriage

Attention all pastors, counselors, therapists! Save the couples you see countless hours of fighting and frustration. Add vacations to your list of pre-marital counseling questions. Sure, we all know you have to be on the same page about money, kids and sex. But I think we've done a disservice to the institution by leaving something as important as vacationing off of the pre-marital counseling checklist.

Mike and I are fundamentally different. This is not news. To anyone. One of our more drastic differences has shown up in how we like to vacation. I'm not even talking about mountains vs. beach, hotel vs. camping, driving vs. flying. No. It's more fundamental than that. It's pace. I found this out on our first real vacation. [Our "honeymoon" was so ridiculous that we can't even count that as our first vacation. (Most of you have heard that story. "WHODAT???")]

The second summer of our marriage we set forth from our apartment in SC for the Outer Banks. Because my car had the air conditioning, we always drove it. The clutch was crazy high in that car and Mike's legs are crazy long. So it was uncomfortable/nearly impossible for him to drive the Dodge Omni. Which meant that *I* always drove. I drove and drove and drove and then I think I might have driven some more. You see, Mike is not happy on vacation unless he is in constant motion. His idea of the perfect trip is one where you have experienced everything there is to see and do in a place. Then, my friends, you can check it off your list and you never have to return. So logical. So Mike. So. Not. Me. Taking naps, chilling, relaxing and chillaxing are all valid forms of recreation for me. Then there's reading a good book, soaking up a good sunset, strolling aimlessly -- all good things. Hit the high spots and take your time. We can always come back, you know. This difference culminated in me crying and begging for a hotel and a nap on the second day of near-constant motion.

Now, things have improved since then. We have a vehicle we both can drive. Mike has learned to slow down a bit. And I've become really adept at napping in the car.

so I'm back

We've been traveling. Again. Got back this evening from a 10 day trip. Lots of blog fodder and pictures collected during our travel. Just letting you know I'll be posting soon. All 6 of you will be waiting with bated breath, I'm sure. ;-)

funniest facebook flair - ever!

So several of my friends from high school are hanging out on facebook as of late. I've got others on my friends list & it's been fun connecting with old friends and some of my peeps from Georgia, etc. There is something you can add to your page called 'flair'. (We've all seen Office Space, right?) You can add buttons to your page, send them to friends, etc. Fun little thing. Better than the hatching eggs, puppies, flowers and other junk you can send to people on there.



Last night I went to a friend's profile for the first time and found this on her page:

AWESOME!! I seriously about busted a gut cracking up! Granted, she is married to said pastor. But, way to put it on out there, Sherri.

stuff Christians like

So, I've been reading this blog stuff Christians like and it's been making me think. The writing is funny, sometimes irreverent, sometimes serious and always unblinkingly honest. He's exposing so many foibles in what we've made of Christian culture. Read it. Read all the old posts. Do not miss his post Booty,God,Booty.

One of the things I've been thinking about is how totally conflicted we are. Caught in a tempest of what we want to do, what we know we ought to do and what we end up doing anyway. We do the things we hate and hope no one notices.(Or maybe I should only talk about myself??) So flawed and often so caught up in trying to not show our flaws. Others see it. No matter how we try to hide it. We end up looking hypocritical. Why not let the world see that we are messed up? And then let them see what grace really is.

back to school

Despite the fact that we're *still* not done traveling for the summer, I decided to start school back up. We started Monday. We'll go slightly light, leaving history and science off until after our next trip. We're going to Yellowstone & Glacier in a few weeks, so right now we're reading books & watching DVDs about the parks. That's definitely science-y, right?. It would be a pretty big stretch to call it history, though. So, that and the usual math, spelling, logic & some reading time are kind of easing us back into the routine.

Unfortunately, piddling and daydreaming are part of the routine and it has started already. All you wise homeschooling moms out there . . . can you help a sister out?? What do you do to keep the kids focused on the work at hand??