Vacation 2010 - April 9 - 10, Driving

We drove... A lot...

We left mom and dad's place by 7:15. After a Starbucks run to keep the monster in the passenger's seat happy, and a stop at the gas station for some gas and an energy drink (to keep the van and the monster in the driver's seat happy), we got out of town by 7:45.

Not much to talk about here - we lunched at a Dairy Queen in Gallup New Mexico after passing through our first timezone. There were many, many Native Americans there - the only non Native Americans were us and some old bitty behind the counter who took all her orders on a waitress pad then punched them into the register...

We stopped for dinner in Tucumcari at a truck stop. They were announcing shower customers over the intercom which kind of confused Ethan until I explained that they were in their trucks more than we were in our car for this week! While we were there, a crazy looking old guy with fatigues and a long gray beard walked in, sat next to us for a few minutes, then packed his stuff up and started to leave. That was before Quin started up a conversation with him, that is. As scary as he looked, he was tickled pink to talk with Quin and started telling us about his grandchildren...

After Tucumcari we went off the Interstate and headed north. It was dark when we went through, but we were warned about the cattle fields by my parents. I could see a big dust cloud ahead, and once we reached it, we could smell what it really was. I can only imagine what it looked like, but I thought I was going to die from the smell... All in the name of cheap burgers, I suppose.

We finally arrived in Dodge City, KS at 1:00 AM Central time - we had passed through 2 time changes and touched 5 states on that day's drive... We stayed at a Best Western on Wyatt Earp Drive which was a very nice hotel... Sleep came quickly.

In the morning we let the boys swim and got a little breakfast before hitting the road by about 10:00 Central. The drive was pretty boring today. Lunch in Wichita, which contrary to what you might think, is not actually a state, even though there is a college named Wichita State University... At that point we got back on the Interstate, a tollway as it turned out, which cost us $8.25 to travel on for about 2 hours... We quickly went through Topeka, Kansas City, and finally stopped in Des Moines for the last time. We ate at a familiar restaurant, Culvers, and we felt like we were pretty much home.

5 hours later, we were finally home. It was 1:00 AM Central - we were on the road 30 hours and 20 minutes including breaks the previous two days and had traveled almost 1800 miles.

It was a great trip, much better than I expected it to be - it usually is. I suppose I am a cynic when it comes to traveling with my kids, but they were, overall, fantastic and fun to travel with. To sum up, here are some parting statistics and random thoughts.

• In all, we traveled 4063.7 Miles over the course of 64 hours 37 minutes
• We traveled in 11 different states of these United States, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri.
  
• Not all states are created equal - Arizona is beautiful, Texas and Oklahoma, not so much.
  
• Iowa has very nice rest stops and roads
• There's no place like home!!!
  

Vacation 2010 - April 8, Apache Junction

We started the day off again with a run through the Usery Recreational Area. This time we knew where we were going, but that didn't make it any less exciting. We saw three hares (I believe that's what they were) and a roadrunner. Jenny was attacked by a cactus which waylaid us for a few minutes, but overall it was a nice run.

After spending several days with Quin, he seems to be getting smarter all the time! No doubt it's because of the extra exposure to me!!! Anyway, I thought it would be a nice aside to go through some of Quin's latest quotes.

• When Quin wants something to drink, he says "My toostie," which loosely translates to "My Thirsty." Anything can be his thirsty, including something that you though was your drink...
• When Quin does something, anything, he may look at you and say, "I did it." No doubt about what he's saying here. On the ride home we were treated to a variation of that. He would take off his shoes and socks while riding in his car seat and say, "I did it (pause) mommy." He would keep saying that until Jenny would look at him and tell him he did a good job. He would then move on and say, "I did it (pause) daddy." Same drill. Finally he would end with, "I did it (pause) E." E is how he says "Ethan."
• If Quin wants something open, he hands it to you and says. "Ope."
• If Quin wants to put something in his pocket. he hands it to you, grabs his pocket, and says, "Pock."
• However, if Quin is stuck or something he wants is stuck, he says, "uck." There seems no rhyme or reason to why some words are truncated at the end while others at the beginning...
• Sometimes Quin just sings or talks to be talking. Often it will be some variation of
  
• "Daddy... Helloowww."
  

We were able to get into the pool on this particular morning after Jenny and I did our run/Starbucks ritual. The Superstition Butte (that's the park mom and dad live in) pool has some odd rules, most constricting is that kids can use it only from 10AM to 1PM. No biggie, we went at 10:00. However, some of the other rules are a bit concerning. For one, you aren't supposed to use the pool under the following conditions:

• You are incontinent
• You have a skin disease
• You have diarrhea
  
• You may be contagious
• You have leprosy...

OK, I made the last one up, but they didn't give you a lot of good reasons to want to use the pool...

After lunch we went out in search of some outdoor activity. We ended up at a mini-golf course in Mesa called Golfland. Quin started out sleeping, but was awake enough by the time we started golfing and decided that he was going to play as well! Grandma won the round with the lowest score, so we made her buy us ice cream at Baskin Robins before heading back to the park to prepare for our big night.

The evening brought us to the Arizona Opry, a dinner show not too far from my parent's place. The place was filled with Arizona types, and by that I mean oldies!!! Dinner wasn't my family's cup of tea, roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes (also with gravy), vegetables (gravy optional), a roll, apples, and chocolate cake (no gravy on this one). I liked it... The dinner really isn't what it's all about, though - it's only a reason for them to charge you as much as they do for the show. The show is where the real fun starts.

The "music master" is a guy named George Staerkel. This guy could do it all! I couldn't figure out what his main instrument was since he played so many. He played keyboard on many songs, but wailed on the trumpet and various other brasswind instruments, was solid at many different varieties of saxophone and other reed instruments, and also played a respectable Swiss Horn while circular breathing. None of that was really quite as impressive as how well the guy could sing, though. He actually toured with a group called "The Tokens" in the 80's when they were doing a revival tour. They were the band that had the hit "In the Jungle" back in the 60's or 70's (I can't remember which - maybe the 50's). Anyway, he was pretty good.

The rest of the band was almost as impressive. Few played only a single instrument and they all sang. It reminded me a bit of some of the shows in Branson when we went there a couple of years ago. Ethan had a blast, Quin was a very good boy, only needing to be removed from the performance one time, and it was a 2 hour performance!

Vacation 2010 - April 7, Apache Junction

It was nice to be somewhere that we didn't have to be running all the time! To celebrate, Jenny and I went for a run!!! I had made it out in Denver for a quick 3 miler, but Jenny wanted to get out, so we went to the map and found somewhere that "looked like it had trails." After driving for about 10 minutes, we found a trailhead at the Usery Recreation Area and parked. We didn't have the $2 entrance fee for the self service registration, so we took all my dad's change (we took his car), $1.45, put it in the envelope, and hoped for the best. It was a nice run, but a word to the wise when running in the desert - if a trail has the word "wash" in it, don't run on it! We ran almost a mile on a trail called the Amigo Wash, which turns out to be a dried creek bed. It was like running on a beach!!!

After consulting the iPhone for the nearest Starbucks, we went back, got some breakfast, and relaxed a bit. My dad and I went out to run some errands and to get my tire fixed, Jenny, my mom, and the boys hung out at mom and dad's place and took a walk. After lunch, we finally got motivated to go somewhere, a shopping center south of Apache Junction called San Tan Shopping Center (or something like that). The main attraction was a little store called "Total Wine and More." It is basically a toy store for alcohol enthusiasts. They have something like 4000 wines, 2000 spirits, and 1000 beers. It was like sensory overload!!! I ended up spending just south of $20 on bombers and bottles of things I can't get in Milwaukee.

We then stopped quickly at Best Buy in the same shopping center where I was able to fondle an iPad for the first time. It took all my will power, well, all of Jenny's insistence for me to walk out of there without one! I will have one, some day...

We finally ended up at a ghost town outside of Apache Junction called Goldfield (I think) to do a bit of touristy stuff. We first rode the "choo choo," followed by some ice cream, and finally Ehan and I did a horse ride. It was pretty cool, actually. It was the first time I was allowed to control a horse while on a ride rather than just getting on a "horse train." Ethan was also able to ride his own. He rode Bear and I rode Captain. The 30 minute tour took us through national forest and desert land. Our guide was full of interesting information, like the fact that Arizona had one of the lowest percentages of privately held land in the nation, only 18%. In fact, he said that you could ride all the way from where we did our tour up to Utah without hitting a town or leaving public land. Interesting... Bear and Captain were great, too. Ethan had his hands full with Bear who liked to stop and munch on desert grass he found, while Captain seemed to like nothing better than to smell Bear's butt!

For future study, we learned just a little bit about the "Lost Dutchman," who was apparently some guy that buried a bunch of gold, up to 9 pounds or something, in the Superstition Mountains, which is the mountain range outside of Apache Junction. I didn't catch the whole story exactly but put it here so you can do your own research and to remind me to look into it later.

After taking supper in (my parents were leaving the same day we were for Wisconsin in the offseason and had a lot of food to get through in their refrigerator/freezer), Jenny and I got dressed up and went out on our own! As usual with vacation, we were too tired to do anything all that exciting by the time we actually got out. We ended up going back to San Tan, browsed through Barnes and Noble, groped an iPad at the Apple store, then had a brownie and beers at Gordon Biersch.

Man, even the "off days" are packed full of activities!!!

Talks with Ethan.

It sometimes frightens me to think what Ethan tells people about us. He and I are sitting in the car waiting for Jenny and mom to come out of a store and he's telling me about how he and a girl from school have made up new words to a song that I had made up when I was a kid. Or was a parody to the tune of "this is it" by Huey Louis and the News called "Smell my Pits.". I probably shouldn't be telling him some of te things I tell him…


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:S Signal Butte Rd,Mesa,United States

Vacation 2010 - April 6, Sedona and Apache Junction

I'm writing this three days later, so there is a serious possibility that these memories will be stale... Oh well, maybe I'll get some comments from my wife and parents to help fill in the blanks.

Qunny got up early this morning! 5:00 AM. A 5PM afternoon nap of 90 minutes didn't help us out here at all. We tried to push him over to Grandpa and Grandma's room right away, but he didn't want to have much to do with that. At one point Jenny and I were so mad at him that I took him out to the van to let him cry it out. Eventually Jenny was able to take him over to breakfast and let Ethan and I sleep for a little while longer.

The continental breakfast at the hotel was pretty good. After some food, we headed back up to the canyon to check out how it would look in full sunlight. The day was cold, but it was sunny, which was nice. Predictably, the canyon looks completely different in full sunshine.

We didn't stay long, though. By 10:00 we were heading down 64 to 180 towards Flagstaff with Sedona our interim destination of the day. The trip from Tusayan to Flagstaff was quite breathtaking. One thing that's nice is that all speed limits are 10 miles per hour greater than Wisconsin, so even though we were on 2 lane highways, the speed limits were 65 miles per hour. But the trip - now that was something else. Up and down, windy roads, but we traveled between two mountains, so we saw lots of different terrain.

After getting some gas and directions, we continued south to Sedona. Now that is a drive! Sedona is only about 25 miles south of Flagstaff, but the terrain couldn't be different than that of Flagstaff and locales north. The rocks turn red and you descend several thousand feet almost instantly. The road is so windy and steep that it takes about 45 minutes to make the trip.

We stopped in Sedona quickly for lunch. The place has grown quite a bit since we were there in 1994. There were shops there then, but the shops seem to have multiplied. It was difficult to get around with all the tourists walking around. It looked like Wisconsin Dells in peak season! Now maybe I'm being romantic, or maybe the fact that we were there in the middle of January made it seem more quaint in 1994, but I have to admit it was a little disappointing. The landscape was still just as impressive, though.

On the way out of town we stopped at a roadside trailhead to attempt an assault on Chicken Point, a 1.5 mile hike from the road. The rocks were breathtaking, but the terrain seemed more difficult than the NGS employee lead us to believe. The trail was very rocky and had a lot of up and downhill traverses. Ethan found a lot of rocks that he enjoyed climbing on, and Jenny and I enjoyed getting back to something close to the hiking we used to do back when we lived in Washington back in the late 90's. Quin enjoyed his backpack that we purchased in Denver for him... When we finally got back to the parking lot, we realized that we took the wrong trail! I'm kind of glad we did, though, as this trail was much more interesting than the one we eventually discovered was the correct trail.

We finally left the Sedona area and headed towards Phoenix around 4:00. Directly after getting into the car, I asked Jenny, nervously, where my phone was. For some reason I had a feeling that I had left it on the van roof before we left. I located the phone quickly, however, and we continued on. About 10 miles later, I got a call on said phone from my parents who were driving behind me. My mom asked if my wallet had somehow fallen out of the car. She thought Quin had thrown it out of the window. I looked down to where I had been storing my wallet and noticed that it was gone, and my mind immediately went back to when we pulled out of the parking lot. I had set my wallet on top of the van and forgot to retrieve it before we left! Somehow it stayed there for 10 miles while we drove!!! We pulled off the road, did a U-turn, and traveled back about a mile where my dad somehow located my wallet in the middle of the road. After retrieving it from highway traffic and returning it to me, I discovered that a credit card and another card were missing from one of the compartments. We walked up the road a ways where I caught a glimpse of something on the road which I quickly identified as my credit card. After two cars passed by, it was blown to the side of the road where I was able to retrieve it, slightly damaged. The other card was an XBox Live recharge card which I paid $35 for and inexplicably haven't activated yet, so I was half ready to leave it. For some reason, however, I decided to look the other direction from the car to see if I could somehow find it. Sure enough, I caught it out of the corner of my eye on the other side of the road. I crossed, two more cars passed, and the card was blown to the side of the road again. So as far as I can tell, all of the contents of my wallet are accounted for after I had left it on the roof of my van while driving down the highway! How's that for luck!

The remainder of the trip to Apache Junction was blessedly uneventful. We arrived at mom and dad's place around 6:30. It's a very nice and surprisingly big place in a retirement park in Apache Junction. There seem to be hundreds of these retirement parks down here!!! After unpacking our car I realized that the left-front tire looked a bit low. I measured the pressure which was at 15 pounds... Have to check that out in the morning.

We were quick to bed this evening after the day's activities. Not much to do the following two days which is just fine!!!

Vacation 2010 - April 5, The Grand Canyon

Busy day, this one. We woke up after "sleeping in" until 6:00 at the Hampton Inn in Flagstaff, AZ. Very nice hotel, reasonably priced, with a nice rooms, decent continental breakfast, and most importantly, a POOL!!! After Quin woke up, he and I went downstairs for some fruit, cereal, and juice. Jenny and Ethan joined us shortly afterwards. After we were sufficiently fed, we got into our swimming suits and took in some much deserved swimming. We had the place to ourselves, which was nice since the kids are extremely loud! I'd say we swam for at least an hour this way. Ethan has become a very good swimmer and really enjoys the water. He particularly likes when I launch him into flips, but we can only do that when nobody else is in the water. Quin thinks that he can do anything that Ethan can do, but still can't swim. He really enjoys jumping from the edge of the pool into the water - not really jumping to me, but into the water. I still catch him, though... He hates that!

By 10:00 we were wheels up and on our way to the Grand Canyon. The first order of business was to feed the Starbucks need, though. Using my trusty iPhone we located a Starbucks no more than 1 mile away. During that short drive, we could already see that today was going to be interesting. That pervasive wind from the day before hadn't subsided. In fact, it seemed to be gaining in strength! I really hate wind, even more so when I'm trying to work out. With that in mind, my mind was completely blown when I saw a biker huffing his backside up the mountain we were driving up. It was 40 degrees (a generous exaggeration) with wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour!!! Some people are cut from a different cloth, I guess.

With caffeine desired satiated, we headed up Highway 89 towards the Grand Canyon. About 75 minutes later we crossed Highway 64 and headed west towards Grand Canyon National Park. I've been to the park 2 times in the past. Once with my family on a vacation in the early 90s, and once with a school trip in the late 90s. Both times I visited probably added up to 30 minutes of looking at the park, so I was looking forward to this opportunity to spend some real time here. We were optimistic that the weather forecast was all wrong, too, as the car thermometer read 65 degrees, though it was still windy as hell!

Our first stop along 64 was prior to getting into the park, a little place called Little Colorado River Gorge. We parked there and were immediately blown away, literally, by the wind. We hadn't really been out of the car to experience the full force of the wind yet, and it was brutal. It was so bad that two of the port-a-potties actually fell over. Here's the picture to prove it!

Anyway, this viewpoint, along with most others east of the canyon, was lined with Indian craft salesmen. We wound our way through the sales tents to find our first glimpse of the canyon, and man was it spectacular. This particular vista was of a far east locale but had a great view of the Colorado River. Well, it could have been the Little Colorado River, I'm not sure, but it was awesome. Unfortunately, I started to feel guilty and a little nervous that we had left Quin in the van, which by now was over 500 meters away, because he was taking a nap. So I took what I refer to as the "Glen Grady tour of the Canyon, 35 seconds and out" and headed back to the car. Luckily he was still sleeping peacefully in the van.

We continued west towards the park proper. At regular intervals we would pass views that exceeded the last ones we saw, all from the car. We did the same things that we remember our parents doing to us on trips like this, we kept urging Ethan to look out the window at how beautiful that was!!! He was happily playing his Nintendo DS, though, in what I'm sure he'll remember when he's 37 years old!!! It's refreshing and frightening at the same time to realize that we're turning into our parents!

As we continued to drive, we noticed that the weatherman was getting more and more accurate. The temperature, a respectable 65 degrees at our first stop, had dropped to 50 over the course of about 7 miles. We eventually entered Grand Canyon National Park's east entrance and stopped at the first vista, the Desert View. We all got out of the car this time, Quin in his new riding backpack, and the rest of us on foot, to take in our first real look at the Canyon.

I'll spare the gory details, but to sum it up, Jenny and I took around 400 pictures of the canyon. It seems that every time you move 10 feet, it completely changes. We tried feebly to capture the awe we felt by snapping all of those pictures, but I'm sure they won't quite translate. If you've never visited, visit.

Our stay at Desert View lasted about 1 hour, already doubling my previous two trips to the canyon. We were able to walk up the Observation Tower, an 80 foot high structure that was undergoing some repairs. At the top, the view of the canyon looked much the same, since it is so damn far down there in the first place!!! It was a bit nerve wracking going up there as I realized they were tracking the width of the cracks in the wall, no doubt hoping that the structure wouldn't fall down. One thing we noticed immediately were all the foreign visitors to the canyon. Many people from Asia and Europe were populating the park. Man, that makes our little driving excursion seem small by comparison!

We stopped at a couple more vistas and eventually wound our way around to Tusayan, AZ just south of the park where we were to meet my parents who have recently relocated their winter headquarters to the Phoenix area. This was the first time the kids have seen them since Christmas, and the reunion was precious. I was a little worried about how Quin would react to them, but he did not disappoint, giving big hugs and kisses to both of them, especially Grandpa! Boy does he have a thing for his "bompas."

After an overpriced cafe lunch, we went back to the park with mom and dad for some quick glimpses of the big crack before we finally returned for our pre-planned tour of the canyon, a sunset jeep tour. Our guide was Mike, a foreign (I say British, my dad says Australian) guy of advanced middle age who knew lots of interesting information about the canyon and its surrounding forests. The tour would take us through the Kaibab National Forest and back into the park. Along the way, Mike filled us with little known facts about the park and surrounding forests. Some of bits I remember include:

• In order to control overgrowth, the forestry department allows anybody to come into the Kaibab National Forest and, for a $20 permit, take 4 chords of wood.
• A chord of wood is 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet, a volumetric measurement.
• There are trees in the national forest that are 350 years old and older!
• The Hopi and Navajo people both held residence in the Grand Canyon in the past, and at the same time. One was a subset of the other, but I don't recall which.
• They use mules to trek to the bottom of the canyon because horses are too skittish (though mustangs might be able to make the trip) and donkey's are just too stubborn.
• Last year, 22 people died in the canyon. 3 from dehydration, 3 from suicide, and 16 from tragic accidents near the edge.
• If you lose your footing near the edge, the next time you are likely to touch something is 300 feet later. That fall is rarely survived.

After 2 hours and several stops, Mike, who incidentally looked a lot like my uncle Al, brought us to where we were to watch the sunset. We were 30 minutes early, but the weather was already starting to roll in. He kept saying that the weather can change in a heartbeat there, but eventually conceded that it was not going to this evening. We were able to leave early just as the snow started coming down! All in all it was a great tour despite the fact that we did not get to see the sunset.

After our "early" departure from the tour, we were finally admitted to the hotel (long story, I'll post it later if I feel bored, or just ask me over a beer sometime - let's just say the cleaning crew must be very sparse at this hotel). While the kids enjoyed their grandparents for awhile, Jenny and I ventured out to get an overpriced pizza from the Pizza Hut Express in town. We then scarfed that and various sundries we had brought along for the trip while watching Duke eek out a victory over Butler in the NCAA basketball championship game. After that, Quin hung out with Grandma and Grandpa while Ethan, Jenny, and I went to the main lodge to take in some video games and some bowling - yes, they have bowling at this hotel.

Traveler's Tips

• If going to the Grand Canyon and you don't plan on doing spending more than a day, stay in Flagstaff or elsewhere. Tusayan and the GC Village are just too expensive - the lodging, the food, the fuel. We would have probably have been much better off just staying at the Hampton Inn another night and driving back after our tour.
• The Grand Canyon can be cold!!! Pack for all occasions.
• If you can, spend a couple of days at the Canyon and do one of the hikes, not just around the rim, but into the canyon itself.
• The "Canyon Walk" that you've likely seen on TV with the horseshoe glass walkway out over the canyon is NOT at the Grand Canyon National Park. That structure is somewhere 250 miles west of the park and was built by a Native American Group.
• Gas in Flagstaff is actually more expensive than the smaller surrounding communities!!! Who knew?

I think there's a ton I've missed, but I think I've been writing long enough. Today's journey to Sedona will have to wait until tomorrow for details. As a preview, though, we're happy today to be in the Phoenix area where we hope to relax a bit, finally...

Vacation 2010 - April 4, Driving...

OK, I'm a little out of order. Bear with me. April 4, Easter Sunday, was a day of driving. I was actually able to get out of bed and get out for a 3.4 mile run in the crisp Denver morning (41 degrees but sunny). Running in Denver is nice and not so nice. Nice because they have so many running trails and there are so many cute girls that are generally out exercising as well (even when it is cold). Not so nice because it is the "Mile High City" and that seems to play tricks on either my mind or my lungs or both. The first 10 minutes of this run was brutal! After that, though, I settled into a nice, slow trod and was able to complete the run. A couple of "interesting" things I saw on the run - there were a bunch of old men out walking their equally old looking toy dogs, there was a guy that lived in the city that had outfitted his little postage sized lot of land into looking like a farm, complete with 3 classic tractors that he appeared to enjoy working on, and there was this one spot on the trail where somebody had spread out a bunch of bird seed, no doubt meant for birds, but was being hoarded by a group of wayward squirrels that were afraid of nothing!

We managed to get out of town at 10:00 AM and met little traffic immediately. The travel south of Denver was quite nice through Pueblo. We made a quick stop in Pueblo to let Ethan go to the bathroom. I had initially intended to stop there, but we were a bit early and Quin was sleeping, so we called an audible and decided to move on.

We finally stopped for our Easter lunch in Weisenburg, CO, which looked like the next largish town on our way. We saw a sign for Subway and decided to get subs and have a picnic in a town park. Not much went right with that plan. When we got to Subway, it was closed for Easter, so we settled for roller dogs and chips from the Loaf 'n Jug. We still attempted a picnic, but after about 10 minutes had to leave because the wind was blowing so hard! So much for Easter lunch!

The remaining travel south to New Mexico went without incident. We hit one major milestone, the car passed 100,000 miles!

Another 5 hours of driving and we made it to Albuquerque, NM, our intended supper destination. The plan this time was to get something decent to make up for the roller dogs. However, a bid to hit a Best Buy to get Ethan a new DS game took us WAY off course - there was no Best Buy, and we ended up settling for KFC and a much nicer park than lunch for supper.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful. We finished the trip at 10:30 local time, 12.5 hours after we left. Mileage was close to 800 miles, but I don't remember for sure. A couple of brief observations:

- Driving through New Mexico is like watching Cars. I kept wondering when I would see Radiator Springs.

- I wonder why they would build Route 66 right along the I40 interstate. I mean, why take that meandering route if you could go straight through!

- I saw a sign that said "Indian Tacos" on the way through western New Mexico. I wonder if that is code for a reservation bound brothel...

I'm a day late on today's post now, but am tired and need sleep. I will hopefully be able to post two tomorrow, but will likely get lazy and just do two lame posts or one longer posts that cover our two days in the Grand Canyon area. Time will tell.

Grand canyon

Holy crap it's windy!!! Short post for now. Jenny and Ethan are out looking at the little Colorado river gorge about 15 miles east of the south rim park of the grand canyon. It's not too cold out but I bet the wind is gusting up to 50 mph. It's so bad that it tipped over 2 portapotties.

Quinny is napping. We left him in the car to start with but then felt guilty so now I'm hanging out with him. We are heading over to the main park in a couple of minutes and will post a full recount along with pictures later.


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Unnamed Rd,Cameron,United States

Vacation 2010 - April 3, Denver

OK, back to the standard keyboard. Too much to write to try to do it on my little iPhone.

The day started out pretty early this morning. Quin woke up around 5:00 local time, but that was OK with me since I had fallen asleep last night at 8:30 local. Of course, in a single bedroom apartment, once anybody is up, everybody is pretty much up. By 6:30, everybody was done pretending to be asleep anymore and we got up and ready for the day.

Ethan started his waking day by playing Wii Fit with the balance board. It was pretty fun. He ended up the hoola-hoop champion even though I showed him how to do it! Once we were all ready, though, we left the apartment and were off to meet Jason for some breakfast, but not before going first to the mall to check out the line for the Apple iPad launch!

OK, I fall for these things time and time again. I convince myself that I need one of these things as soon as they come out, then I get there and realize that I have no interest in standing in line for a couple of hours while I wait for the privilege of paying them to give me one!!! I did the same thing with the XBox 360 before realizing how dumb I was and waiting a whole week before I got one... Anyway, we were able to manage a Starbucks run out of the whole ordeal. There were many people in line at the Apple Store.

We left the mall and headed out to our breakfast destination, the Village Inn, which is right next to Best Buy. I happened to know that each Best Buy was allotted 15 iPads for launch and I saw only 4 people in line, so I am pretty sure I could have gotten one there, but breakfast beckoned, and I ultimately decided I could wait (again).

Today's big destination was the Denver Zoo. It's a pretty nice zoo and will be getting nicer as they complete a huge new project called the Asian Exchange (or something like that). It appears to be a very large project, taking up an entire border of the zoo. Quin and Ethan enjoyed themselves, Quin especially loved the "choo-choo." Ethan was interested in getting through the Zoo in time to see the movie I had promised him, "How to Train your Dragon."

After several hours of zoo tourism, we retreated for an afternoon snack at the Bull & Bush Pub and Brewery. This, I believe, marked my first vacation experience of this trip. This is an awesome little English inspired pub that makes their own English style ales and serves them for inexpensive prices. The kids didn't really go for it, but I really, REALLY enjoyed it. I probably would have stayed there all day if not coaxed out of there by my family.

After a few beers and some appetizers, Jenny, Maylee, and Quin dropped Ethan and I off at the movie theater where we saw "How to Train your Dragon," while they went shopping somewhere. When done, we went back to Maylee's apartment for a little dinner and bed.

Tomorrow promises a long day of travel through Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Should be a hoot. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post again tomorrow night before I crash. The day following should be fun - we'll get to see my parents for the first time in 4 months and will get to see the Grand Canyon for the first time (for some).

By the way, pictures for this trip can be seen at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grady.mke/SpringBreak2010?feat=directlink

Vacaton 2010 Leg 1

Vacation 2010 Leg 1

So I'm trying a couple of new things this time around. I've recently identified that I require an ipad in order to survive. In order to prepare myself I've decided to post my vacation blog entirely from my iPhone. We'll see how long this lasts. I think I may be too old to learn to thumb type and ignore basic punctuation and spelling rules, but I suppose time will tell.

Our 2010 "trip" started last night around 4:30 central time. Our destinations this year inlude Denver, the grand canyon, then finally Phoenix where my parents have recently "relocated" for their winters. We opted to drive since the thought of flying with Quin makes even a brave man cringe.

The original plan was to leave after Ethans tennis lesson at 5:30, but we found out later that tennis had been canceled, so I had designs on leaving by 3:00. Well, things rarely work out he way you think. Jenny has to run reports once a month at the beginning of the month. On this run, everything that could go wrong with those reports did. When all was sai and done we didn't get out of the house until 4:30. Even then, as we were trying to leave, Ethan fell while rinning to the car and had a boo boo that had to be tended to before we could go.

We managed to make it to Rockford by 6:00 in time to het so e dinner at some ghetto mall in the greater Rockford area. Ethan was treated to some typical suburban teenage language with m-er f-er this and that… I guess they are going to bear that eventually. Ethan heard it from me and my family years ago…

The plan was to drive all night and we accomplished that goal. We used a tested method of listening to a book on tape while we drove which really made the time go fast. I also employed a new technique of drinking a 5 hour energy drink which has kept me up through now. Everything seemed to work out well. We made it to Denver with two stops by 9:00 mountain time this morning.

A couple of observations from the road. Iowa is much more interesting than Illinois or Nebraska. They also have very nice rest areas with wifi and everything. At their least frequent they are spaced at 40 miles and most of the time they are at 20. Nebraska is just damn big and seems even moreso when you don't even get into the state until 11:30. Lastly, as tempting as it might seem at the time, Sterling, Colorado is not a great place to stop for gas or food even though it is the first town of any size in Colorado. Gas is expensive, the water has nitrates, an the fii doesn't taste all that good. Other than that it's nice.

Today has been a bit if a blur. We went to Dave and busters, I tried to take a nap and failed. All in all it was a pretty good first day of vacation. It finally turned into a vacation at 5:00 tonight when I cracked my first Colorado beer.

Tomrrow should be nice regardless of what we do since Jenny and I will be able to amass more than two hours of sleep between us.

As an aside, this posting method is kind of painful. I can't get as much on the page as I want to because this is so slow…. I'll keep trying.

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Fairmount Dr,Denver,United States