The Boys are Back in Town

My hubs has been on a mission this summer to keep himself and the boys on the go. So we were back at home a week from our western vacation and then they took off to Florida. The reason they went sans moi is because I am at work and have…four….and…a…half….vacation…days….left….to…my…name…...for 2009.

So he took them to the beach (we are lucky to have lots of family there). They drove 7 hours with two bathroom breaks, ate my famous chicken salad, drove to the beach parking lot at 4:00 p.m., changed into their suits in the SUV, and spent a couple of hours in the water, and calling me to say, “The ocean is so warm you would even be in it!!!” Then they showered off in another parking lot and met family for dinner at a restaurant on the water. Repeat for the next 5 days.

I missed them terribly. My Youngest one tried hard not to cry when I said good-bye to them that morning. He is very attached. Me too.

On the day they left I had to drive 2.5 hours to a meeting for work, sit for 4 hours, and drive 2.5 hours back. I couldn’t get home fast enough. I had a date with the living room, the couch, my dvr, and dinner.

(This is a photo of the Oldest is 13 now and looks older than he did last month and who was excited to see me too but tries not to show it)

Here is what I learned while they were gone:

1). It is clearly not my clothes that are the bulk of the tons of laundry we do each week. I did not have to do any laundry.
2). Ditto on the dishwasher. I know how to re-use my water glass. Ran one load after 5 days.
3). Ditto on the food. I ate what we already had and had no need to do my weekly shopping at BJ’s, grocery store, Super H for fruits and vegetables, or Target for toiletries and snack foods/cereals.
4). I could live in a studio sized place. No wonder the single lady sold the house to us.
5). I only watch a few channels on TV.
6). You’d have thought I’d get rest but I was up late watching TV or reading.

(One day the beach was deserted except for the boys and hubs said a few 10 year old girls came by and hung out. The boys were clueless).

After a few days of work, dinner, TV, computer, reading and no housework I then spent the weekend cleaning from top to bottom. It was way too hot outside to get motivated to do anything else.

But back to the boys. Apparently they got sunburned their first day out even though I reminded them to take it easy. “Uh-oh, Mom is going to be mad” is what they said Dad told them. And they had rashes on their chests, bellies and legs from the boogie boards and board shorts. They’d tell me about it on the phone at night, but apparently forget about it the next day as they’d spend more hours in the water. They even had a great “Dad is a hero” memory when hubs saw a teen-age boy caught in a riptide and whose friend tried to help but got tired too so hubs took a surfboard out to him and all three of them kicked parallel to the shore for a while and came back in.

On their last day they even spent 3 more hours at the beach before cleaning up at my MIL’s and driving the 7 hours back. They got back at 9:00 p.m. (...big sigh, and yours truly had to go to work again the next day) and they were all amazed at the spic and span house (I won’t be cleaning out the refrigerator again till the winter holidays again), which got trashed again within 24 hours.

Anyway, I was jumping for joy when they got back and was amazed at how huge they looked. I am totally serious even though it was just 5 days. I insisted I measure them in the garage at the usual spot and each of them grew ½ inch since last measured 30 days ago.

They showed me the cuts on hands from “where they had reached in sand when boogie boarding and a crab bit them”, and one’s chest was burned and peeling (yeah, I was not happy), and what amazed me was the hands that were red and raw from holding the boogie boards for hours and hours.

Their hair looked blonder, their bodies looked toned-er, and their eyes bluer. My hubs called his mother to say they were back safe and sound and I heard him say, “Yes, she is glad to have them back and has inspected their bodies from head to toe.” I guess I did!

(That night I heard about an earache (from the ocean water) and Youngest wa shappy to have me fix him up).

We Stumbled Upon the Oregon Trail

We left Estes Park, CO headed for the Black Hills, SD (specifically Hill City, SD) which was about 6 or 7 hours away. I had our driving atlas in my lap and I was literally the back seat driver for our trip. Our oldest son gets queasy unless he sits up front, which works out well because I can do anything in the car such as read, or make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sitting anywhere and the hubs prefers to drive and I tell him where to turn. He just had XM satellite radio installed before the trip so he was happy (and I wasn’t with them for the first 6 days so I guess they managed without me).

(here is is strumming along to a tune).

As we headed north of Cheyenne, WY on I-25, I noticed a tall mountain to our left – called Laramie Peak. We pulled over for gas and debated whether to just make sandwiches in a parking lot or head a little more north. We decided to keep driving and I am so glad we did because we saw a small rest stop with picnic tables.......and a poster display showing that about 15 miles down the road was a National Historic Park with evidence of The Oregon Trail and a Register Cliff with name carvings. They call it the Guernsey Ruts. It was not out of the way, just another way toward where we needed to go. What I loved about this National Historic site is that there were no huge signs and in fact you went down a gravel road. It was off the beaten path, which is typically our style of travel (for example our feelings about island travel is if a cruise ship can get there, it's too big for us). I was so excited and the boys were too.

(this is youngest son--we told him to pose because in 3 years when he is in 5th grade he can blow this photo up and teach the lesson).

Had I even ever thought of The Oregon Trail before? Well there are those times I helped quiz my two oldest sons for Social Studies tests. This past year my middle son was in 5^th grade and I really got into his social studies. Several times I offered to help him study and the next thing you know I had hijacked his textbook to read all about the Westward Expansion and the sod houses and the Battle of Little Big Horn. In fact this year he made a point of telling me that we needed to see Night at the Museum 2 because General Custer was a character.

At this historic site there are a few plaques by the parking lot and then just land and you then walk all over the place.

And they weren’t in just one spot….there was a whole trail of them. There’d be prairie land and then an outcropping of sandstone. Hundreds and thousands of wagons would follow close behind one another with mostly oxen pulling them. The wheel ruts are worn to a depth of five feet in some places. I could picture the pioneers getting a taste of what would be coming ahead as they passed this rocky and pitched area and saw Laramie Peak in the distance.

I don’t remember learning about the Trail when I was a kid. But the strangest thing is that when I was in labor with my first son at the hospital I had an image pop into my head of women on the trail having to give birth in a covered wagon (I am not kidding—I have no idea why a covered wagon appeared in mind) and I really felt lucky as I was with a skilled midwife and I felt very cared for, and it gave me the strength knowing if they could survive that, then I can certainly find the strength to safely birth my baby.

After we took many pictures (and heard the target practice going on at an unseen National Guard area) we followed the minimal signs to the Register Cliffs.

Just 15 miles west of this cliff is Fort Laramie where the army had a base and where the Sioux and fur trappers would trade goods (I was almost going out of my skin that Crazy Horse had been there in the 1860’s). The emigrants would camp near Fort Laramie and then they would pass along this cliff and many would carve their names and the date. When we arrived there was a ranger (actually taking a poll as to how we heard about the site and he laughed when we told him at the new rest stop). The cliff is on private property, and sure there are areas where modern people carved in their names but the really old area has fencing around it. High above swallows built their clay-looking nests into the cliffs.

We still had a lot of driving to do so we did not stop at Ft. Laramie, but the rest of the drive through Wyoming, with Nebraska to our east, and South Dakota to our northeast was beautiful. We saw antelope and lots of volcanic outcroppings like a mini Devils Tower. The hubs keeps talking about what a beautiful area that was and what a great drive it was. I am very glad because the next day was cold, misty and grey, and someone had a meltdown. And it wasn’t me. Or the kids.

A Full Day in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park

I previously kvetched about the weather while on our vacation but in looking back I realized we lucked out actually in the different states we visited. I flew from GA to Denver and took a shuttle 90 minutes to Estes Park to join the Hubs and boys who’d been on vacay for 6 days. They finished their 4 hour hike and met me at the hotel and then we checked out the town, bought a warm hoody and then went into the RMNP and saw tons of elk in the early evening. The air….was incredible. I keep thinking about it as I walk outside here and drown in the heat and humidity. We saw aspen trees with their white bark and black areas where the elk and deer chew during the winter. We saw water falls at the Alluvial Fan where a flood occurred from a dam break in 1982. I felt lightheaded. I was so happy to be there with the fam. The boys climbed huge rocks and I will never like it when they do that. Hubs does a signature whistle (same whistle that renders me deaf in one ear when he does it at football games)—meaning he whistles and they stop in their tracks and look at him.

The next day was chock full of action and we lucked out with the weather. We drove into RMNP at 9:00 a.m. and drove up Trail Ridge Road, which opens around Memorial Day, and gets to about 12,000 feet elevation. There were many places to pull over for photo ops:

Then we began to see more and more snow (as the boys said, in Georgia they are thrilled just to have an inch for a day) and here they got to see about 6 feet of it plowed to the side of the road.

The scenery changed from pine trees to tundra. At the Alpine Visitor Center at the top it was even colder. Maybe 40 degrees? And very windy. And even more snow. And a great store with all kinds of books about the area. They had to tear me away, but I picke done out about stories of incidents in the RMNP.

We drove a little past the Visitor Center to the Continental Divide. I didn’t even know what that was until a few weeks ago. This whole trip was full of info like that.

I had previously researched certain hikes that we should do and heard that if you park at Bear Lake, you can then hike to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. But first we hiked in the other direction to see Alberta Falls. The falls were nice with very dramatic rocks and the boys kept climbing. And getting closer to edges that dropped way down below. I had to tell them “Stay right there!” "Don't Make Another Move"! They are used to me and luckily they listen. Probably so I will stop.

So then we headed up another path to Nymph Lake. When we got to the lake there was a little snow here and there. It was pretty but we were ready for Dream Lake which I heard was gorgeous. There weren’t many people on the way to Dream Lake—maybe it was because the snow was more abundant. In one area the path was covered by a 5-foot snow bank and you had to go single file and take baby side steps. Here are the boys in one area but it is not yet Dream Lake.

Finally I can see that we are about to get our view of Dream Lake…and what was that noise assaulting me??? It was a whiny kid. Really Loud. With some siblings and parents. And what was he yelling? Over and over again: “We Hiked All This Way Just for a Stupid Lake and Now I Have to Hike Back”!!!!!!!!!! Whhhaaaaahhhhhhh!! Literally, it was: Whhhaahh!!!!He was about 8, so not talkin about a toddler here. And the parents weren’t shushing him. Or noticing that other people had also just hiked there. I was horrified. Because I really don’t like noise like that and didn't understand it coming from a kid his age. Other than this kid’s family there were maybe two other people and I looked at their faces to see their reactions. Couldn’t tell. I looked at my kids. They looked at me like WTH? I was THIS close to saying something but I didn’t. I was almost out of my skull with annoyance. It was rude. He kept on. Finally they left and I said to my husband, “Yay, now we have some quiet”. And he sort of scolded me. Told me that the boy has special needs. I felt bad. Like omg I am a horrible person. And he is a good teacher, and he deals with all sorts of families at his job and I am a bad lady. Even still, I didn't agree. I tend to feel the dynamics in situations. Then I got over it and enjoyed this view:

We could not make it to Emerald Lake because beyond this lake the snow covered any resemblance of a path or sign.

We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant that was recommended by Trip Advisor (so helpful!) called Dunraven and had great service. I felt the most charming thing about the town is the rushing stream (river?) that goes under streets and under buildings and right past the patio of a wine and cheese shop. And a 100 year old movie theater. It does have a lot of t-shirt and fudge shops as well.

Guess who was at the complimentary breakfast in our Comfort Inn the next morning? Yes, the loud crying yelling boy from Dream Lake. And all his siblings were behaving badly too. And the parents were oblivious. And hubs admitted that there did appear to be a parenting problem. And that the whole family was annoying. And that all three of their kids actually were out of control.

A little later that day we hiked to Cub Lake (photo in previous post). And there were elk and marmots and sun and rain and sleet and so much wind we are hiding behind rocks at the lake. But we heard that at the top of the RMNP it snowed and that they closed Trail Ridge Road that day, which is why I say we lucked out with the weather. The next day we drove into Wyoming on our way to South Dakota and found a hidden gem.

Back at Home from Estes Park, CO and Black Hills, SD and Beyond

We’ve been back home for a couple of weekdays and I am having trouble adjusting. It has been boys, boys, boys for 24/7. This vacation started out with boys only for 6 days until I was able to join the road trip by flying from GA to CO. After a few days we drove through WY to SD for a few days’ stay. Then three days on the road to Iowa, to St. Louis and back to GA.

(here we have 3 boys taking a bio break at the end of a long hike and hubs is doing same but I left him out of this shot.. Me, I had to wait another hour or so)

For 9.5 days I have had boys at my side in the SUV,

in the hotel bathrooms, at museums and “monuments”, on hikes, watching TV in bed at night, on hikes in the snow, eating picnics in the cold, eating dinner out, seeing buffalo, elk, prairie dogs and marmots, sharing my camera, seeing rude people, seeing nice people, reading magazines and brochures or sleeping in SUV or looking at license plates because the portable dvd player broke on day one,

making (affectionate) fun of “Dad” not even knowing name of town we'd just slept in, listening to alternative music station on XM radio, listening to my new obsession with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, eating candy bars, helping to look for Dad’s lost wedding band (found it),

with everyone listening to my obsession with the Mount Rushmore sculptor (who honed his granite mountain carving skills at Stone Mountain, GA first, before he got mad and left the job), riding together to the top of the tallest human-made monument in the US, and

during the long drives in between states with Oldest Son asking loudly, “what’s that smell?” over the noise of his Ipod….. Middle Son quoting lines from National Lampoon’s Vacation….Youngest Son either talking non-stop or sleeping.

(Here they are on a four hour hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park the day I flew out to join them. They never saw Lawn Lake as it was getting rainy and Hubs didn't want to see headlines of Dad Loses Boys).

On the boys’ 6th day of vacay I joined them in Estes Park and no one knew where my camera was. So we used tons of film on Hubs’ digital, and the old fashioned 35 mm camera and two “throwaway”cameras (haven't yet seen all those photos). Then we found my camera and used it on this hike the next day to Cub Lake. Not bad for a 4-year old digital. I thought I wanted a new camera for my b-day which is in a few days, but no need. For now.

(This 2.3 mile hike to Cub Lake had it all--sun, major wind, sleet at times, elk, marmots, friendly ducks, and hundreds of lily pads).

I have to get all these photos in order – and am back at work so no time with the boys during the day. I miss being with them 24/7.

(Clark Griswold from the movie, Vacation): Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes... or perhaps you don't want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away?

I Went to Mount Rushmore Today and Could Not Even See the Presidents!

We literally could not see the carving at Mount Rushmore today. I didn't even know where to look to try and see it. The mist and fog did pass for about one second to vaguely see the Presidents. Same story for seeing Crazy Horse. We were going to check out of hotel Thursday morning for our trip back home but we have extended it one more day (which means we will be driving like bats out of hell for 1,300 miles on way back to Georgia).
Never mind the fact that it is 44 degrees on June 10th!........just hoping for some clear skies!
Must get off computer as old person is staring me down.

It's So Hard for Them to Stop and Ask for Directions

Update: Can you see the full moon tonight on June 7th from where you are? The June full moon is called the Strawberry Moon.

I was working a little late tonight and my husband called me at 6:15 p.m. to ask me directions to the hotel he is going to. Which is a little hard for me to do because he is about 1,300 miles away in Estes Park, Colorado and I've never been there before. I told him I have the address with me but not the phone number and because I am a take care of it all kind of gal I looked it up and gave it to him. He wrote it down (I think). "I've just pulled over to a realtor's office so I will just go in there and ask", he says.

Oooooooookay. Could he not have done that first? I'll cut him a little slack--he has been driving 1,300 or so miles from GA to CO with 3 boys. But I swear I had that info and map in the 3-ring binder I created chock full of info....

Tomorrow I fly (!!!sweating bullets over here....!!!!) to join them for some adventure in the Rocky Mountains and then up to South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse and the Badlands and then work our way down through Iowa and Missouri and TN and then home. We don't own any portable electronics (and as you've read no GPS either) so I will be offline for about 10 days.

Then I may need to take a day off just to get my blog fix. Bye for now!

10 Honest Things About Me

I was so surprised the other day to get tagged for an award by blogger mom Amy who is a Southern gal living in Australia. She will soon have baby number three and I can't wait to hear about it. Seems we started our blogs within a couple days of each other. She is the sister of Becky whose writing voice I love and whose blogroll I hijack to find other great writers. Don't their names sound like Little Women? Writing talent must run in their family.

Without further ado, here we go:

1). I have a very good poker face. Oh, I may look cool, calm and collected on the outside, as I have heard from so many people over the years, and it's a benefit for work situations, but often on the inside I am all nerves and have to vent it all out later.

2). I have an apple shaped body that I inherited from my mom. Which from what I've read is unhealthy. I also read that stress causes belly fat. Which is hard to get rid of.

3). I started having hot flashes here and there a couple years ago. I used to be freezing at night at home and have to wear socks and a sweater to keep up with the cool house the hubs loved. Tables have turned now as he gets cold and I do not. I like to say I am getting hotter as I am getting older.

4). I paid for my own braces as an adult. Not sure why I didn't get braces as a kid because I could have used them as I had an overbite. Then they got more crowded. So I was 28 years old, married for several years, had no kids, and got clear braces on top, metal on bottom. Paying for them as an adult means I still wear my retainers.

5). I have not worked out at a gym in over 2 years. And sadly it shows. I previously had serious arm definition. Must find photo of that. I really need to make some changes.

6). I am a Gemini and my birthday is in a couple of weeks. I used to be into reading about astrology when I was a kid. I even made a book about the Sun Signs and their characteristics (by make a book I mean I handwrote it and stapled the pages together). Often I would get to know someone a little bit and then be able to guess their sign. And just like the astrology books claim, I have always had a thing for Aquarians.

7). I love to cook. I may complain that I come home from work and go straight to the kitchen but most of the time it helps me unwind. Tonight I was all alone and cooked salmon with dill from my garden, real mashed potatoes and peas with chives from my garden.

8). I really loved all of the '80's. Still love the music. I graduated high school and turned 18 (freedom!!) I had boyfriends. I attended several colleges. I had more boyfriends. I met the man for me in the 80's. Graduated college. Married him in the '80's. Want to still be with him when we are in our 80's.

9). I wrote journals from age 15 till I got married. I sure did write a lot about those boyfriends. The journal notebooks are in my closet and come in really handy. Like a few months ago when my husband actually debated with me about a detail on the event on which we met and I went into the closet and showed as evidence the journal from so many years ago. The debate was over.

10). I am not a big fan of wine. I've tried, I really have! So if I came over and you offered me wine I would choose chardonnay over red (so I am even more of an oddball on this) and then after one glass I would get really tipsy and then switch to a Corona. Or a Bahama Mama.

Bonus Item: I am lucky to have my hubs and boys--they are my life.

I am supposed to pass this along to 7 other bloggers. Stay tuned!

(photo taken two years ago around the same time I stopped working out)