Best of

Here are just a few of my favorite photos from our moving road trip.

Cute kids spooning in the hotel bed.

Happy to be out of his car seat, and we were only in Wyoming.

Vedauwoo, WY. Very pretty, and far less developed than the City (which makes it hard to find trails to the climbs.) I'd love to go there again someday.

Playing on rocks at Vedauwoo while Papa climbed.

Dry rocks and dry heat. Makes me miss the West. Kinda.

Roo

roadtrip redux

This is the quick&dirty version of our roadtrip.

Day 1: Left Logan late (4pm instead of ~10am) due to extra errands to run (#1: get nearly-flat tire fixed before loading Jeep). Had burgers in Laketown, drove to Rawlins, WY.

Day 2: Doodle played at train engine park in Rawlins. We drove to Vedauwoo, a climbing spot between Laramie and Cheyenne, and played for 3 hrs while J climbed, and Doodle chased chipmunks out of our gazebo (which, by the way, is a great way to teach a kid about not feeding the wildlife while also wearing said kid out in the process). Finally rolled into Kearney, NE as the lightning bugs wound down for the night. Camped at a lake, got mosquito bites.

Day 3: Kearney to Princeton, IL. Finished with Nebraska (hallelujah!), liked and exploited the wireless internet access at Iowa reststops (while still wishing we had an iPhone).

Day 4: Drove to Chicago where we met and had lunch with J's cousin Candy at one of Obama's fave restaurants, Medici. The service and bathroom lighting left something to be desired, but the food was really good. Drove through Indiana, part of Ohio. Ugh, Ohio. Turnpikes, expressways, and corn. But Window Crayons are awesome and double as 3yo makeup, and fuchsia sequined headband+sweaty napping kid = fuchsia-stained forehead. Should've taken more photos that day.

Day 5: Fremont, Ohio to State College, PA! Asked in OH if we were heading to the PA rainbow gathering. Hooray for looking like a ragged bunch o' hippies. PA has topographic changes! and far less corn! and Amish wagons! with canoes on top!

next up: The Craziness of Getting Settled. Or, this would be so much easier if we weren't all sick.

What I learned on our cross-country drive

• Wyoming, and a bit of Nebraska, have A LOT of freight trains passing through, easily visible from I-80. This made for a very happy Doodle... at least until we reached Iowa and points beyond, where trains were scarce and begging to see more didn't make them appear any faster.
• Camping in June in the middle of Nebraska right near a lake = mosquito central. Um, DUH. Totally should have expected that. Oh well.
• Lightning bugs glow when they splatter on your windshield. :( Very sad. But they were so dense in NE that there was no dodging them.
• Window crayons for the 3 y.o. are great, even when she grows silent for a bit, then declares "don't look at me." Yep, you guessed it. Window crayons double as Doodle Makeup.
• The corn fields of Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio seem to go on FOR.EVER. Bloody corn.
• Turnpike employees sound distinctly regional, even when simply asking you for $12 to cross Ohio.
• Wireless internet at rest stops = awesome.
• We were asked in Ohio if we were headed to the PA Rainbow gathering. It seems our Jeep, with cooler, camping bin, scoot bike and RocketBox strapped to the roof and liberal stickers on the back, looked like a hippie rig to fellow hippies. (woohoo!)
• Fun Ellen is my new hero. Her goody bags for Doodle totally made the drive more fun for all involved. THANK YOU!!!
• Doodle and Roo are great little roadtrip kiddos.

Now to get settled and find our place here in S.C., PA.

Season of perpetual motion

This summer seems to be going by at a breakneck pace. GoatFest was a success - we have a freezer full of vacuum sealed goat steaks and roasts, waiting for us to get the hankering to eat meat once again. I may post pictures (nothing gory) once we're back. Yes, back. We are embarking on yet another roadtrip.

This summer seems to be our season of perpetual motion. Sunday we were at the City of Rocks all day. Yesterday we recovered (somewhat). Today we scramble to get last-minute things done around the house because tomorrow we hit the road again, this time for WA.

This trip will be full of family and family events. Not too much bouncing around, but we will have a full 4th of July weekend with wedding festivities galore. I'm looking forward to seeing family, maybe getting in some climbing near Spokane, and finally making the trek back to our wedding location to see if we can find the tree we planted. Good stuff. Photos will be posted sometime...eventually...after things calm down. Say, September?

Epic holiday drive

We're back from our holiday journey to the frozen north. It was fun to see family, but I am so glad to be off the roads.

Day 1 of our adventure: part of I-84 was closed. We decided to backtrack when the FedEx trucks were turning around. Lost a couple hours, but made it around the blocked area. Tried to help a guy get back on the road (too stuck - trooper called a tow truck). At least we got some snow-driving karma points. Drove on nasty, icy crap roads but made it to Boise.

Day 2: driving through Eastern Oregon. Hit a shady slippery patch on a downhill slope and spun/slid off the road. Used those karma points. Some nice guys stopped and helped us dig a path back to the road, one using a cooler lid as a shovel. Made it back on the road, and the rest of the drive to SE WA was relatively uneventful.

Time with my paternal grandparents: they loved seeing Doodle. She played, jumped, danced, and made great-grandma's antique glass reindeer nurse ("have mama milk" she said) on the mama reindeer. So cute.

Drive to my mom's: horrid. We left Xmas Eve, around 8:45pm. Slid off the road once, similar scenario to previous time. Got back on road easily. Now out of karma points. Kept driving in slick conditions. Nearly got runover by a speeding minivan, narrowly missing being rear ended by moving into the left lane. Pulled over at rest stop, chained up. Did you know that you can only go ~25 MPH with chains? And that, in doing so, it takes AN HOUR to go frickin' 25 miles?!?! Egad, that took forever. Rolled into Spo-town very late, where there was lots and lots AND LOTS of snow. Drove slowly through town, made it to mom's house by 3:45 am. Merry Christma...zzzzzz.

Christmas day: my sis flew in, only a few hours delayed. Hung out, played, had fun. Got a kick ass knitted purse from my sissy complete with snazzy quarter buttons. I *heart* it. That and my new tiger box (oh, don't worry...I'll post pics) made for a quirky, eclectic MamaBee Christmas. Doodle loved her photo book, J got his very first climbing nut... it was good. Ate lots of turkey, gravy and rice dressing. Yum.

Day after Xmas: Obligatory visit to maternal Grandma, where she gave Doodle a window-clingy stuffed animal with a tag identifying it's production date as 1990. Do other peoples' grandparents keep stuff like this around for 18 years? Followed this visit with a trip to the climbing gym. Doodle played on crashpads with Uncle T while J belayed my mom and sissy. Fun times had by all... though I do miss being able to climb with everyone. Maybe next year.

Following day: dug out the house. Massive roofalanches (snow falling off steep metal roof in large sheets) resulted in some damage to deck railing. J and my bro T dug out the deck while my mom got the snowplow stuck and unstuck plowing the driveway. Yes, my mom has to plow her driveway. Ugh. The snow was ridiculous. I dug out the mailbox area while Doodle was napping. At least we got to enjoy the hot tub.

The next day we were back on the road, this time via MT and ID. One good mountain pass and one nasty pass, plus a bunch further into Montana. Managed to psych myself out with dark and blowing snow while driving, so we stopped short of Butte for the night. Kept driving the next morning and it was pretty good. A stretch of road to Butte was slick, and just past the MT-ID border it turned to nasty blowing ugly snow. Gross. Made it past that, and the rest of the way home was great. We got home at a reasonable hour. No more snow driving karma points acquired nor required. Now completely sick of winter driving. Is it spring yet?

We were glad to spend time with family, introducing Doodle to my Uncles and hanging out with my loved ones. Hopefully, though, that'll be our last major winter trek driving all the way up north. Next time we have the holidays up there, we're flying.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yellowstone recommendations?

We're heading to Yellowstone this weekend. J and I have never been there. We'll be there for two days. What must we see while we're there? Where's your favorite place in Yellowstone?

We're back!

Day one back from the roadtrip: already taught a section of Human Anatomy lab, and am now catching up on emails. Soooo much tidying and unpacking left to do, plus mowing, weeding, and seedling transplanting. But it's raining now, so the outdoors stuff will have to wait.

Here's a summary of the trip, with more details and pics to follow.

31st - Drove to SLC. Danced in the Shah Sitara Showcase. Crashed at a friend's house.
1st - Drove to The Cabin (Eastern Sierra Nevada, CA).
2nd - Crazily long hike above Mammoth Lakes.
3rd - Vegged at the cabin, recovering from hike. Bought chocolate and books in Mammoth. Went to the hotsprings.
4th - Drove to Glendora (greater LA region, CA). Stayed with J's mom.
5th - Ran errands for T's (J's sis) wedding.
6th - More wedding prep. Rehearsal at the church, rehearsal dinner afterwards.
7th - Wedding day! It was beautiful, and we had a blast.
8th - Packed up. Went to MECDA Bellydance Carnivale. Left SoCal, camped in a corner of AZ just outside St. George, UT.
9th - Puttered around campsite in the morning. Drove home to Logan.

Doodle did wonderfully with all of the driving, and really loved the cabin. She seemed to enjoy being fawned over by family once she got over her initial stranger danger with various people. She gives high fives, knuckles, and "noggin" (head bumps) on request, plus kisses or hugs to the family members she warms up to. She's such a love.

Okay, back to catching up on other things. I'll post photos of Miss Doodle in her cuteness, plus other random stuff later.