View from the Frog Pond

Riley Time

2011-06-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

After writing about Cal's baseball exploits, it occurred to me that I should give Riley equal time, not just in order to treat both boys the same, but because Riley also has a compelling story with a happy ending. Riley has had a really impressive season in Little League this year, and it almost didn't happen.

Back in March, when registration time for Ypsilanti American Little League (YALL) rolled around, Riley declared that he didn't want to play baseball this year. He had expressed a similar sentiment at the end of last season, but he and I spent six Sundays in January and February at an indoor pitching/hitting camp, and he really enjoyed himself so I assumed he would be eagerly anticipating the upcoming season. Not so. I tried several times to get him to explain why he didn't want to play baseball, and the reasons included things like "too tired" and "too busy", with the excuse changing every time I asked him. Finally, Cathy and I decided to stage an intervention. Riley loves baseball more than anything in the world, so for him not to play would be a tragedy. I suspected that the real reason he didn't want to play was a bad taste left over from last year's final tournament game, where all of the adults behaved badly (for details of the event, read "Yankees Win, Parents Lose". Riley is the kind of person who will let the bad behavior of others bother him, simply because it's "not right". When I suggested to him why I thought he didn't want to play, he conceded that I was correct. He didn't want to have to go through a game like that again. I tried to get him to understand that things like that are a rare occurrence by asking him how many games like that he had been part of. "One", he admitted. Then I asked how many games total he had played in his life, and he said it was too many to count.He started to see that if, out of all the games he had played, this had only happened once, the chances of it happening again (at least right away), weren't that high. I also explained to him that I had joined the YALL executive board in order to try and prevent incidents like that from happening again. Finally, Cathy and I made a proposal; we asked him to agree to play Little League this year, with the understanding that if, after two games, he was still unhappy, we would let him quit. He readily agreed, and we registered him soon after.

Of course, as soon as he was on the field again with his buddies, all of the bad feelings instantly evaporated, and we haven't looked back. The two-game deadline came and went without mention. Equally gratifying was that he continued to play the game with passion and joy, and he seemed to get better with every game. He spent most of his time at his usual position of first base, but this year got called upon to pitch more regularly. He began the season as one of the two relief pitchers (YALL teams, because of the games per week and pitch count rules, typically have two starters and two main relievers, with others filling in as necessary). He did well with his pitching, although his velocity and consistency weren't as good as I would have liked. Still he was able to get results, and that's what really counts. After a couple of weeks, though, he really started to show improvement. His accuracy got better and he started throwing more strikes than balls. One of the other fathers pointed out to me (I had been completely unaware) that over two consecutive pitching appearances, Riley pitched a total of 4 2/3 innings, and every one of the fourteen outs recorded during that time was a strikeout. With the improved performance, his confidence grew as well. About this time he was promoted to become one of the regular starters. He was far from perfect - every once in a while he still needed to be reminded to throw the ball rather than trying to place it - but these reminders were required less and less often.

When it got late in the season, games started piling up due to the number of weather-related cancellations earlier in the season. At one point, Riley's team was facing four games in one week, including two on back-to-back nights. This kind of schedule is really hard on a team's pitchers, who are required to have a prescribed number of days' rest after throwing a set number of pitches. To get around this, the coach decided to pitch everybody in the first game of the back-to-back, but each pitcher was to throw 20 pitches or fewer (which requires no subsequent rest), allowing each pitcher to be available for the following game. Riley started the game, and had his most dominant performance of the season. He threw only 20 pitches over two innings and retired 6 of the 7 batters he faced (5 by strikeout, the sixth was a groundout to Riley), allowing only one hit. In contrast, no other pitcher on the team lasted more than one inning - they hit their 20-pitch limit in one inning or less. It was a shame when he got pulled, because he was throwing so well. If you do the math, at least 15 of his 20 pitches were strikes (the 5 strikeouts), and two others were good enough to hit (the groundout and the hit). If memory serves me, he only threw one ball that day.

In some ways, that performance was just a preview of last night's, however. Last night was the first game of the post-season tournament, the same post-season tournament that caused us trouble last year (even though the Yankees won). This year, because of our impending trip to Calgary for my 50th birthday, we knew that we would only be around for the first game of the tournament (this fact caused us little concern). Because it was Riley's last game of the YALL season, and in order to preserve the rest of his pitchers for future games, Riley's coach decided to start him at pitcher, and said he would let Riley throw until his arm gave out. All season, Riley seemed to peter out after about 50 pitches; he never got close to the league-mandated maximum of 75 pitches for a 9-year-old. Therefore, I expected him to last about 50 pitches, which could be anywhere from 2 to 4 innings, depending on how many walks and hits were given up.

It would up being a masterful performance. He wasn't quite the strike-throwing machine he had been in the previously mentioned game, but he was in control the whole time. Every time he needed a strike, he threw a strike. To me that was impressive, because often those pressure situations make it harder to focus and throw strikes, but he did it time and time again. The composure he showed throughout was amazing. As I predicted, he seemed to tire a bit around 50 pitches, but he said he felt good, and he just pitched through it. By the last inning, he had given up only two hits and a couple of walks, had eight strikeouts and three put-out assists (fielding grounders and throwing the runner out at first). Suddenly, something almost unheard of in minors baseball seemed possible - a complete game. These rarely happen (at least in the YALL) because pitchers, even on a good day, typically hit their maximum pitch count before the end of the game. You have to average about 12 pitches per inning to finish a 6-inning game without hitting the max of 75. Riley was getting close to the max, but three quick outs would allow him to finish. He struck out the first two batters, but he threw too many pitches to do it, and the coach had to pull him with one out left in the game. The next pitcher came in and threw one pitch - the batter swung at the first pitch and grounded out to end the game. It was kind of frustrating - Riley was one pitch away from throwing a complete-game, two-hit shutout - but in no way did it detract from how well he pitched that night. I was immeasurably proud of him, especially looking back on how much he had improved since the start of the year and even more so because he might not have played at all. It was a tremendous way to cap the season.

Of course, it turns out that the season isn't quite over yet. Both boys have been chosen to play for their respective all-star teams - Cal for the U12 team, and Riley for the U10 team. When we return from Calgary, they'll spend the month of July playing in a series of tournaments, including the district tournament, which leads to the state championships. Hopefully, I'll have more exploits to write about then.

The Long Ball

2011-06-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

Cal hit his first ever home run last night. This was a real home run, not one of those hits to the outfield that should be a double or a triple, but with a fast runner and a couple of throwing errors mixed in, the batter is able to score. I'm talking about an over-the-fence, out-of-the-park, home-run-trot-around-the-bases home run.

You may wonder what all the fuss is about; after all, home runs happen every day. The truth is, though, at local little league level, they're kind of a rarity. All this season, before last night, there were two home runs that I am aware of (and news like that gets around) so Cal's would be the third. Plus, this one was special (at least to me) for a couple of reasons: first, it was completely unexpected; and second, it was a gift.

Back at the beginning of May, Cal asked Cathy what she would like for her birthday. She told him she would like a home run. I thought that was asking for a bit much, but it was all in fun, so I said nothing. Thankfully, he didn't spend every at bat trying to hit a home run, because that would have been disastrous. In my experience, when kids try to hit a home run, their batting averages go into the toilet. Cal continued to bat the way he always did, which is why I didn't have high hopes for Cathy's birthday present. Not that he does anything wrong; it's just that he has a quick, compact, level swing designed to hit singles. He's big and strong - physically he looks the part of a home run hitter - but he has always been about just getting hits rather than swinging for the fences, and that's a good thing in my opinion.

Later in May, Riley got himself a home run. It was of the inside-the-park variety (I don't think most 9-year-olds are physically capable of hitting the ball over the fence), but it was legitimate - he wasn't assisted by any errors. It was his best hit of the year - right to the fence, if not over - and with his speed on the bases, he crossed home as the throw was coming in to the catcher. Cathy was at that game, and when she went to congratulate him, he wished her a happy birthday.

Cal, as I suspected, wasn't quite so lucky in fulfilling the birthday wish. He's been having a mixed year - some really good games, and some so-so games. He's had some nice hits, but more strikeouts than he would like. As I said, I didn't have high hopes for a home run, but that was okay.

Which brings us to last night. First game of the playoffs, against the number one seed. Down 3-2 in the top of the fourth inning, with two outs and Cal coming up to bat. He fouled one off, and then on the second pitch he connected. Beautiful swing, perfect contact. As the ball leaped off the bat, my initial reaction was, "That's a good solid hit." My second reaction was, "I hope the center fielder isn't standing right underneath it." I looked to see where the center fielder was, and I saw him turn and start to run back for the fence, so I thought it might be a safe hit. Just about that time, a little voice at the back of my head started thinking, "Could it be?", and a big voice at the front of my head coming out of my mouth started saying to the ball, "Go! Get out!" as I did the Carlton Fisk thing. Then I saw the ball drop behind the center field advertising banner and land in the grass about six feet past the fence. Cal pumped his fist in the air as he rounded first base and the dugout went wild. After that, everything was a blur. I don't remember him rounding the bases, but do remember him being mobbed by his teammates, who all rushed out of the dugout as he crossed home. I went to the fence by the dugout to give him a high five, and he practically had to fight his way through his teammates to get to me. I almost had tears in my eyes when I saw the beaming smile on his face as he fought to get back into the dugout.

The only disappointment was Cathy wasn't there to see it. She was at a workshop and couldn't be at the game. I got out my phone to call her, but Cal made me promise not to call and tell her; he wanted to be the one to surprise her, and rightly so. I settled for sending her a cryptic text message - "Happy Birthday".

I keep replaying the hit in my head. It was a sublime moment, almost like capturing one split second of perfection in a bottle. The phrase that keeps occurring to me is "pure, beautiful simplicity" - just a bat and a ball making contact, and the ball obeying the laws of physics as it sails through the air. It may never happen again, but it happened this time, and it's something Cal will always remember and treasure.

Fergus - A Life

2010-09-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about Fergus (naturally), and there has been a flood of memories that I want to record before they fade away. I've decided to do it by chronicling the life of Fergus, for posterity (at least as much as I can remember; there will probably be updates to come).

We got Fergus from the Ann Arbor Cat Clinic. Cathy felt that Gizmo was lonely and needed another cat for company, so we went to check out kittens to adopt. I was assigned the task of sitting in a room with a bunch of kittens and picking one. There was one who instantly stood out. He was on top of me in an instant, almost aggressively interactive. He kept licking me, presumably trying to groom me (or seeing if I tasted okay). This was Fergus. He was a funny looking thing, all skin and bones, with huge feet and a triangular head. We didn't know much about him. He had been found on the street, so his history was unknown, although the vets estimated his age at about 3 months, very close to Gizmo's.

We brought him home, where he instantly DIDN'T hit it off with Gizmo. We had to keep the two of them apart for several days until they got used to each other. What I forgot until Cathy reminded me recently, was how flatulent Fergus was. He stank up the house for about the first week we had him. He also proved to be very needy, demanding attention all the time, we assumed because of his hard, lonely early life on the streets. This was something about him that never really changed.

There always seemed to be more dog than cat about Fergus. Far from aloof, he was always seeking attention and loved having people around. He would purr continuously if there was anyone in the same room with him. He acted like he ran the place, and in some ways he did, except when I was around. I established myself early on as the alpha male, and he generally acceded to my authority.

Every morning when I came downstairs, he would follow me around seeking attention. If I didn't dote on him to his satisfaction, he would dart in front of me to get in my way so I would notice him. I noticed him, but usually it ticked me off enough that I didn't give him what he wanted, so invariably he would play the "cute" card, laying on the ground and rolling over on his back with his paws in the air. That one usually worked.

One way Fergus expressed his neediness was a need for body contact. Whenever I would work at the dining room table on my computer, he would climb on the table and try to lay down on top of my left arm, making it impossible for me to move my arm, and therefore type. I would chase him off, and he would lie down about a foot away. Then, over the course of the next 10 minutes, he would gradually inch his way back toward me, rolling and stretching and shifting, anything he could do to get closer without tipping me off. When he got close enough, he would casually put out one paw to touch me, hoping I wouldn't chase him away again. It was so funny to watch, because he was so predictable, but I usually didn't have the heart to chase him away a second time.

Fergus was the most vocal cat I've ever known. I have read that cats are capable of 124 different vocalizations, and Fergus had mastered them all. He was always yapping about something. I learned to tell his moods and needs based on the different sounds coming from him. My favorite was his happy sound - it was a very short meow that sounded more like the quack of a duck.

Without question, dinner time was his favorite time of day. Dinner time was typically around 5:00 pm, and if we were home, he would start whining for dinner about 3:00. He always got so excited when it finally was dinner time, that he would get all twitchy and run around not knowing what to do with himself. When the food was finally presented, he would dig in to his dish for a while, then go over and chase Gizmo off and eat her food. I worked hard to break him of that latter habit, but the best I could do was training him to wait until Gizmo was finished eating before he ate the rest of her food.

Fergus had a knack for laying down in the perfect place to get in the way of whatever we were trying to do. Over the years, we became convinced that this was intentional, because it got him attention, and he loved any attention, even if it was negative.

I used to tell him he was the most annoying cat in the world, and he could be because he was always in your face, but he was also really lovable, because he was much more personable than your average cat. Everyone who knew Fergus loved him. He didn't really give you much of a choice.

Fergus, RIP

2010-09-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

We lost Fergus today. It came out of the blue, and was so sudden that right now we're all in shock, trying to come to terms with it.

I came home from work at the usual time, and Fergus wasn't waiting at the door to greet me as he usually did. When I got inside, I heard him howling from the basement. He was at the bottom of the steps, just lying there. I harangued him for being too lazy to even come up the steps, but something felt wrong. I went down the steps to check, and he tried to get up to come to me, but he could only drag his hind legs behind him. I felt sick inside, thinking he had broken his back or a leg.

I had to get him to a vet, so I put a towel in an old postal bin, placed Fergus inside, and loaded him in the car. I didn't dare put him in the cat carrier in case I hurt him further. He wasn't happy in the box, but I tried to keep him calm as I rushed to the animal emergency. I took him inside and they rushed him back to have the vet look at him. About that time, Cathy arrived. Before long, the vet came out to tell us the news. Fergus hadn't broken anything; instead, he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (the most common heart disease in cats), and had thrown a blood clot that lodged in his aorta near the branch point of the iliac arteries, effectively cutting off the blood supply to his legs and tail. We don't know how long he had been lying there like that, but it was long enough that he was paralyzed from the waist down. The doctor said there was a minimal chance Fergus could recover from the clot, and even if he did, there would still be the cardiomyopathy, which is eventually fatal. As the vet described the situation, it became clear that euthanasia was the only option; anything else would be cruel.

They took us to a room to wait while they prepared Fergus. I turned to Cathy, and as tears flowed, I said, "Now we'll never know when it's dinner time." Fergus always let us know in no uncertain terms when it was time for him to be fed. After a few minutes, they brought Fergus in, and Cathy and I petted him while the vet gave him the injection. Fergus, being the persistent little cuss that he was, required a second shot; the first one wasn't enough. True to form, because he was receiving attention, he was purring up a storm until the anesthetic took effect and he quietly laid down and became still.

The boys were distraught when we told them. Riley was especially inconsolable, because he had really bonded with Fergus over the past year or so. Even Gizmo seems a little out of sorts; as I was getting her dinner, she kept looking around for Fergus and he was nowhere to be seen. Not that it's been easy so far, but I think it will really hit me over the next few days, when Fergus isn't crawling between my legs as I put my shoes on in the morning or getting in my way as I try to take my shoes off in the evening. I used to complain at times (only to him, mind you) about how annoying Fergus could be, but that was just because he was such a big presence in the house. Now that presence is gone, and we're going to find out just what a big hole is left without him.

August 3 - Melbourne to Ypsilanti

2010-08-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

Our flight this morning was scheduled for 10:10, so we wanted to be at the airport by 8:00. That meant catching a taxi by around 7:10, because we were told to allow 50 minutes drive to the airport. We had inquired about an airport shuttle, but for 4 of us, it would have cost the same as a cab ride, so we stuck with the taxi. Cathy and I got up around 5:30 to get ready, and woke the boys up at 6:15. We were pretty efficient, and headed down to the lobby at 6:50. We checked out, and caught a cab in front of the hotel. We were on our way by 7:00, exactly according to plan. The run to the airport took less time than expected, and we were there about 7:25. We got checked in pretty quickly, and managed to check our bags through to Detroit (we would have to retrieve them in LA and get them passed through customs, but it would make it easier to move them on afterward - we didn't want to have to haul our bags from terminal to terminal in LA). We grabbed some breakfast for the boys, then headed for security screening. They do it really well in Melbourne - there was a guy in a sequined red vest with a microphone who managed to convey all of the information about the process while being funny and entertaining; he even provided small zip-loc bags for anyone who needed them. It greatly relieved the tension that often accompanies security screening. We managed to run afoul of security - the boys' rugby balls were fully inflated and ran the risk of exploding at the reduced pressure in an airplane - but instead of getting upset and snarky with us, the officials managed to procure an inflating needle and deflated the balls for us, and did so graciously and with good humor. Having survived security, we checked out the duty-free shops (stocking up on Tim-Tams!) and proceeded to the gate. At the gate, there was more security. Four police officers were present, one with a police dog who was taken around to check everyone's carry-on bags. There was also a section of the gate to which access was restricted. Our flight was a bit delayed (for 'engineering reasons', although I was suspicious), but eventually boarding was initiated. As we tried to board, Cathy and Riley were 'randomly selected' for further security screening; Cal and I were allowed to proceed. When we tried to get our boarding passes scanned, however, they wouldn't register, and we were sent back for additional screening as well. We were frisked, and our bags were searched and tested for chemical residues. We passed (surprise!) and were allowed to proceed.

The flight itself was unremarkable; we got fed twice and I watched four movies, but it was long (more than 13 hours) and boring. Cal managed to sleep a bit, and Riley did toward the end, but Cathy and I slept little. We arrived in LA at 7:45, not long after our scheduled arrival. We progressed through immigration quickly (surprise!), then collected our bags and headed for customs. That was smooth too, except that the customs official wanted to confiscate our Tim-Tams (not because they were illegal, but because her really liked them). We were then able to get our bags moved on to the next flight, and we proceeded to wander two terminals over to get checked in for our flight to Detroit. Check-in was easy, but we had to pass security again, and this time the line was much longer than in Melbourne (there was no humor to break the tension either. We passed security without issue (for a change), got some muffins for breakfast (cereal for Riley), picked up a few items for lunch on the plane (what a comedown after three consecutive flights on Qantas, having to provide our own food on Delta!), and settled in at our gate. The boys quickly fell asleep, and Cathy and I just hung out. The second flight was also unremarkable, but almost more boring than the first, because even though it was shorter, there was less to do. The boys, luckily, slept through it. We finally arrived back in Detroit, our trip over. I have to admit, this was the first vacation I've had in years, where I'm actually sorry to be home. Now all there is left to look forward to is the jet lag....

August 2 - Melbourne

2010-08-03T10:38:00.001-07:00

I went for my now usual early morning workout in the gym, then as the boys struggled toward consciousness, I popped out and down the street to get breakfast. I got Riley his muffin from 7-11, and I got croissants for the rest of us at the French café. While I was in the gym, I could tell that it was raining, but by the time I went out, it was clear and pleasant. After breakfast, we headed out for the day. We started by catching a tram south toward St. Kilda. The area was pretty quiet (we bad hopes to go Sunday, when there is an open air market, but Monday, there wasn't much going on), and it was really windy. We walked out along the St. Kilda pier to the kiosk, where we got the boys a drink and Cathy and I had Devonshire tea (complete with scones and clotted cream). We wandered along the beach for a while, briefly checked out the rest of the neighborhood, then caught a tram back north toward downtown. We rode as far as Federation Square, because we had plans to see the Tim Burton Exhibition at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (ACMI). The exhibition was amazing; they has lots of artifacts from his various movies, but the highlight for mr was seeing all of his original drawings for movies, both produced and unproduced. He has an amazing talent and a really subversive wit. There were numerous clips from his films, both famous and obscure, tied to many of the drawings presented. We all really enjoyed the exhibit. Then we went in search of lunch. We walked along the south bank of the Yarra River and found a bunch of interesting restaurants, but nothing with food that Riley would eat. We solved that little problem by getting Riley a sandwich at Subway, then going to a nice Asian noodle restaurant for us. While we were inside, a heavy rainstorm hit. By the time we were done, however, it was nice and sunny again. We made a couple of quick stops to pick up items for dinner (we decided to have the rest of our cheeses and dips, supplemented with some other goodies and a bottle of wine, of course), then made our way back to the hotel. While Cathy organized our bags for the trip home, I took the boys over to the park to kick the ball around, but the rainstorm had left a few major mud puddles, and within about a minute, Riley was wearing a substantial amount of park, due to a slip while chasing the ball. When we were tired of kicking, I took the boys back to the room and went to get a couple of shared items for dinner. At a place called Burger Edge, I finally found the condiment combination I'd been looking for for a month - bacon, egg, beetroot, and pineapple - in addition to the usual lettuce and tomato. They called it "the Okker". I took one back to the hotel, along with a beef curry baked potato, and we all shared them along with the cheese etc. We had an early night, because an early trip to the airport awaited us in the morning.

August 1 - Melbourne

2010-08-01T15:29:00.001-07:00

I got up at 6 am to work out again this morning. The gym is in an atrium on the roof that gives a nice view toward downtown. As soon as I got up there, I noticed it was raining. At least the game we were going to (AFL: Western Bulldogs vs North Melbourne Kangaroos) was in an indoor stadium. I had my workout, then went back to the room and showered. The boys were still unconscious. Cathy, suffering through the cold she'd caught from me, hadn't slept well, and was trying to rest. I was hungry, so I decided to pop out and get breakfast for all of us. That way we could avoid the specter of having to eat a big breakfast in a restaurant. I walked a couple if blocks in the rain and picked up some croissants from a café (and a muffin from 7-11 for Riley). As I headed back, the rain began to lighten. Back at the room we eventually all got fed and ready - Cal was very resistant to getting up and getting moving, so by the time we were out the door it was pushing 11:00. That meant a lineup at the desk of people checking out, which delayed my purchase of transit cards. We had planned to go downtown St. Kilda Esplanade (by the water) to check out shops and another quaint market and enjoy the atmosphere. The morning had turned sunny (but slightly cool),which buoyed our spirits). We stood at the tram station for 10 minutes waiting for a southbound team before we realized that we wouldn't have enough time to do anything before we'd have to leave for the game, which started at 2:00 pm. We decided that our only real option was to head for the Docklands (site of the stadium) and check out the other sights of the area. We wandered around a shopping centre, had lunch at a cafe, then made our way to the game. I wore one of my Bulldogs jerseys, and fit right in with the rest of the crowd. We entered the stadium and found our seats - in the second row, near one 50m line. This was a mixed bag; we were very close to the action on our side of the field, but we were so low it was hard to tell what was happening on the other side of the field. It was fun to be there and enjoy the atmosphere, and the doggies turned a close game into a rout in the second half. During the third quarter, a chill blew through the stadium (even though it was indoors, they had gates open for smokers to go outside. The chill was due to a hailstorm that blew in suddenly, although we were unaware of it at the time. In the fourth quarter, Julia Gillard, the Aussie Prime Minister (embroiled in a tough election campaign) and longtime Bulldogs season ticket holder, stopped by the game, creating a bit of a ruckus. After the game, we popped across the street to a place called the Woolshed Pub for dinner. I had my first decent beer in Australia (a microbrewed dark lager) and we all ate too much food. We got a bit chilled on the way home (we had to wait about 15 minutes for a tram, and it had gotten quite cold), and by the time we reached the hotel, we were all pooped. We watched a little cricket (a rout for England over Pakistan) and then retired for the night.

July 31 - Melbourne

2010-08-01T04:45:00.001-07:00

I have to admit that Melbourne was pretty intimidating at first. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, we had spent the previous three weeks visiting primarily a series of small towns. The only major cities we stayed in were Wellington and Christchurch, and neither is a particularly large city. On our return trip to Auckland, we stayed on the outskirts and so avoided the bigcityness for the most part. Then, suddenly we were confronted with Melbourne, which is a very big city. Second, we'd been camping for three weeks and had dressed for it, so we looked like a collection of rubes from the outback. The area where we're staying seems populated exclusively by trendy, stylish 20-somethings, which we definitely aren't. As a result, on our first night here I found myself feeling like we would feel out of place the whole time we were here.

Today my concerns were alleviated. We decided to catch a tram into the city centre and get the lay of the land. We bought transit passes at the hotel front desk, had a big breakfast at a cafe across the street, and then caught the tram. It only took about 15 minutes to hit the city centre, whereupon we disembarked and began walking. Within seconds I saw dozens of people of all ages wandering around wearing AFL jerseys. They were in town to watch the Collingwood/Carlton game at the MCG. I turned to Cathy and said, "I am among my people." We explored the city a bit, then headed for Queen Victoria Market, a large flea/ farmers market. The flea market part was as expected - lots of crap for sale, cheap. The farmers market was more interesting. There were things I'd never seen before (custard apples?), and the vendors were all trying to outsell each other to attract customers ("$1.69 kilogram bananas!"). The best part, though, was the deli area - lots of shops selling cheeses and sausages and dips and various types of prepared seafood. We couldn't resist, and bought some cheese and dips and a really nice bottle of wine. We headed back to the city centre and tried to see a Tim Burton exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), but the lineup was way too long, so we went back to the hotel. It was too nice a day to stay inside (17C and sunny), so we grabbed a rugby ball and went to a local park for a kickaround. It was interesting, because Cal an I were playing Aussie rules while Riley was playing rugby, so we wound up playing a kind of freak hybrid. Still, it was a lot of fun. We were right by a hospital, and at one point the medevac chopper took off from about 50 yards away, which was interesting to watch but a bit disconcerting (not to mention loud).

When we were too tired to play any longer, we left the park and stopped for dinner at a small local restaurant. Then it was back to the hotel, where we spent the evening watching the All Blacks take on the Wallabies in the Tri-Nations Cup. We were too tired to do anything else, and we've all become fond of rugby.

July 30 - Auckland to Melbourne

2010-07-31T05:54:00.001-07:00

This was another travel day. Cathy and I got up fairly early and eventually motivated the boys to get moving. When we were all ready (about 9:00), we wandered across the street to the "International Buffet" for breakfast. Breakfast turned out to be pretty sad, but it was fuel. At 10:00 we caught the hotel shuttle to the airport, to make sure we got checked in in plenty of time for our 12:55 flight to Melbourne. We got checked in and through security with no problem (except for Riley the troublemaker, who got his bag searched because he was carrying a hole punch) (?!). We checked out the duty free, but unimpressed, we headed for our gate. Except that we didn't have a gate. So we sat in a general location to wait until our flight was assigned a gate. As boarding time approached, there was still no gate designated. Eventually, they postponed our boarding by over an hour, but we didn't know why. A while later, they postponed it another 10 minutes. Eventually, we got a gate assigned, and went there to wait a while longer. It turned out that our flight originated in Christchurch. Fog in Auckland had forced the plane to Wellington for refueling, so it arrived a couple of hours late. Eventually we boarded and had an uneventful flight to Melbourne, although we arrived two hours later than scheduled. We breezed through immigration (most efficient immigration process I've ever seen), but got held up in customs because Riley had muddy boots that had to be contaminated. Still, it was pretty quick, and before long we were in a cab heading for the city. We got dropped at our hotel in St. Kilda (a region of
Melbourne) and checked in. I was ready to go explore the city, but the rest of our party was too tired to venture out. We ordered some mediocre food from room service for dinner (and it took two tries to get the pizza right), and then the others went to be early (it is two hours earlier than NZ after all). I held out for a while, reading the newspaper, but eventually I succumbed too.

New Zealand - Final Thoughts

2010-07-29T13:32:00.001-07:00

Looking back on the last three weeks, I'm struck by what an amazing trip it has been. We didn't do any 'extreme' things in the land of extreme sports, bit we had a lot of experiences that most North Americans don't. We saw numerous very different and very beautiful landscapes, all packed into a very small area. The boys were exposed to new experiences and to two new cultures (European Kiwi and Maori, although the line between them has blurred substantially since I was here last), and to my delight, they enthusiastically embraced them, to the point where watching the Maori Channel on TV was something they looked forward to. With the campervan, there were some white-knuckle driving moments, and piloting a vehicle that big on these narrow roads elicits a certain level of stress at the best of times, but that just added to the adventure. I actually quite enjoyed the campervan experience. It harkened back to when I was 13 and we rented an RV that we took to Vancouver. I have strong memories of that trip, and I hope the boys retain strong memories of this one. Speaking of memories, it has been interesting for me, returning here after 24 years. I've discovered that my memory is far less than perfect. Some memories were obviously edited in my brain over the years, so things weren't exactly as I remembered, but were recognizable. Some things, of course, have changed since I was here last - NZ hasn't been in suspended animation for 24 years. Some empties I have were spot on - exactly as I recalled. And then there were some memories that I had apparently repressed (the road from Franz Josef to Fox, anyone?), but were dredged up from my subconscious by being exposed to them again. The other thing that amazes me is how nearly every plan we made came off near perfectly. There was the occasional minor glitch, such as missing a turn here and there, bit considering everything that could have gone wrong, the way it all turned out is pretty impressive. The only day plan that didn't work out was on the 27th, when we had to stop short of our goal because of the wind. That one was actually the least firm goal we had. When Cathy mentioned Hastings or Napier, I suggested that we try for it, but that we might not make it and might have to stop earlier somewhere. We did, but it wound up working out fine. All in all, this has been a tremendous experience, exactly what we had hoped for in a 20th anniversary trip.

One final, final thought: because of the relative lack of internet access we've had, I've had to write this entire blog on my iPhone using my thumbs. As a result, I'm sure there are numerous typos (I have beefy, Neanderthal thumbs), and I've been unable to post any pictures. At some point I'm going to go back and edit this, and add pictures, so check back for the updated version.

New Zealand - Epilogue

2010-07-29T03:09:00.003-07:00

With this part of the vacation over, it's time for our "Best of..." list.

Favorite place we visited:
Cathy - Punakaiki
Riley - Christchurch
Cal - Christchurch
Bob - Westland (the west coast of South Island - anywhere from Westport to Haast - I love the rainforest!)

Favorite thing we did:
Cathy - whale watching in Kaikoura
Riley - penguin watching on the Otago peninsula
Cal - penguin watching
Bob- tie between watching the All Blacks and getting doused by the waterfall in Milford Sound.

Favorite meal:
Cathy - the buffet at Skyline in Queenstown
Riley - the dessert bar at Skyline
Cal - chicken and shrimp curry at the Crooked Door in Taupo
Bob - Lamburger (with beetroot relish!) at the Pig & Whistle in Rotorua

Best shower:
Cathy - Top 10 in Ohakune
Bob - Top 10 in Greymouth
Cal and Riley - no real opinion: showers are just a tool the Man uses for keeping us down

Best Overall Holiday Park:
Cathy - Top 10 Taupo
Riley - Top 10 Christchurch
Cal - Top 10 Christchurch
Bob - Top 10 Taupo (the hot pool puts it over the top)

Best non-multilane road:
Bob (I get the only vote since I was driving) - highway 8 from Cromwell to Alexandra on the South Island. After a week of Marie twisty roads, this wide, straight, newly-paved stretch was a revelation.

Worst non-multilane road:
Highway 6 approaching Nelson - the most stress-inducing road in the country. Close second: Highway 6 between Franz Josef and Fox - headache in a can

Best beer:
the Celt from Green Man Brewery in Dunedin. It's a dopplebock infused with a hint of malt whisky - two great tastes that work great together ("You got dopplebock in my whisky!" "You got whisky in my dopplebock!")

July 29 - Taupo to Auckland

2010-07-29T03:09:00.001-07:00

Today was our last day with Jemaine 8-(

We began by cleaning out the cupboards as much as possible - clothes were packed, and leftover food was tossed. We dumped waste and filled up the water tanks, then went into town for breakfast. We found a café that had an interesting and varied selection. After breakfast, we filled with diesel and hit the road right at 10:00, exactly according to plan. Highway 1 north of Taupo was much straighter and faster than I anticipated, so we made excellent time. Cathy found a route around Hamilton, which saved us more time and allowed us to avoid the traffic. The only downside was that the cold I had a couple of weeks ago had returned with a vengeance, and my nose was leaking so much today that I needed to find some antihistamine, and Hamilton was the most likely place to find a pharmacy. Having bypassed Hamilton, we had to find an alternative. Shortly, we encountered Huntley, and after a little searching and exploration, we found a Countdown, where I found the antihistamine I needed, and then we found the city centre, where we could get lunch. Huntley isn't a particularly nice town, but it would do in a pinch. I'd been thinking that I needed to try fish and chips at least once while we're here, and today was the last chance. We went to a takeaway and ordered a special group meal, which wound up being way too much deep fried food. More than sated, we resumed our trip to Auckland. We hit the city just after 2 pm. I made it through the Auckland traffic, we topped up the diesel, and got to the Kea depot around 2:30, at which point we did our final packing and cleanup. With that done, we checked in, and were cleared within a few minutes. They hardly batted an eye at the damage from us hitting the concrete barrier in Warkworth, because our comprehensive insurance covered it. That insurance was a great decision! They also shrugged off the broken wine glass. We waited a little bit, then our ride showed up and drove us to our hotel near the airport. The cold was getting me down, so I had a hot bath (in the spa tub!) to clear my sinuses. We walked up the road to have dinner (at a Greek/Indian seafood restaurant that turned out to be pretty good). Then it was relaxing at the hotel (with a good rugby match on the telly - Northland vs Taranaki - close!).

Even more random observations...

2010-07-29T03:08:00.001-07:00

There's no tipping in New Zealand. At first thought, this might seem like a good thing, but it made us uneasy a few times, particularly when we got great service from someone and felt guilty for not leaving them a tip. There isn't even a spot on the charge slips to write in a tip. Apparently it is felt by most (probably rightly, too) that to introduce tipping would cause erosion of want are pretty decent salaries in the service industry.

It took us a while to learn this, but in most restaurants here you don't pay the server. The bill is never delivered to your table. You have to go to the counter and ask to settle the bill. It took us several meals and a considerable amount of time sitting waiting for the bill to figure it out...

Maori culture is much more prominent than it was 24 years ago. Aotearoa is used as the name of the country almost as much as New Zealand, and Maori names and greetings are commonplace on TV and on the street. I think it's mostly a marketing strategy (appealing to tourists), but it has had the trickle down effect of providing support for Maori culture, which bodes well for preservation of the culture in the future.

There's a show on the Maori TV channel that the boys like called "Hamai Te Pakipaki" (I love that name), which is essentially "Maori Idol". Ten people sink karaoke to compete for a nightly grabs prize of $10,000. Most of them are pretty bad...

Electronic payment here is done using a system called "Eftpos" (electronic fund transfer, point of sale). It's easy to use, flexible, and absolutely consistent from one location to another. The US could use a system like this.

Pepperoni pizza does not really exist in NZ. It can be found, but I'd you check menus at pizza places or check grocery stores, meat lovers and Hawaiian are commonplace, whereas just pepperoni can't be found.

There's not much of a microbrewing industry here in NZ, possibly because there isn't the population to support it. The major breweries have a market of only 4 million to split between them, so there isn't much room for anyone else. Of the two upstart recent additions to the brewing industry, only one is a true microbrew. Mac's is a smallish brewery centered in Wellington, but they've got a distribution deal hat puts them in bars and stores all around the country, so they can hardly be called 'micro'. Green Man in Dunedin, on the other hand, is a truly small operation, making organic craft beers the way I'm used to seeing in Michigan. Their beers are alos the most flavorful I've had here.

July 28 - Dannevirke to Taupo

2010-07-28T12:25:00.001-07:00

What a difference a day makes! It turned out to be a very good decision to stop early last night, bit I'll get to that. When I went to bed last night, after finally unwinding a little bit, I was looking forward to sleeping late (i.e. past 7:00) for one of the few times on this trip. We had no deadlines in the morning and not too long a drive to Taupo (about 250 km), and we were in a quiet, peaceful campground. A nice sleep-in was just the tonic for my stressed neck muscles. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to inform the local roosters. One of them started crowing about 4:00 am. He eventually gave up, but then at 5:30, two roosters started up, and they would not let it go. I finally managed to get back to sleep, but by then I'd been awake for 1 1/2 hours, so even though I slept until 7:40, I didn't get the full benefit. I saw those roosters later after I got up, and promised them I would have chicken for dinner just to get even.

Our last full day with Jemaine began with me making a breakfast designed to use up as much leftover food as possible. I fried the leftover potatoes from the other night with some onion, reheated last night's chicken tenders (from the boys) and fried the remaining ham lunch meat as if it were bacon. It turned out pretty well, and we were all well satisfied at the end. Then we packed up and headed out about 9:50. Our first port of call was Napier, on the east coast, about 1 1/2 hours up the road. It's quite a nice town, with a lot of art deco architecture (erected in the '30's after an earthquake). We wandered a bit downtown and by the ocean, grabbed some lunch, and then moved on. The trip to Taupo was hilly but not too bad - the only the transport trucks I met I timed perfectly, catching them during a passing lane so I never got stuck behind anyone slow. We got to Taupo around 2:30, did some shopping downtown, then checked in at the campground just before 4:00. It's a nice place, quite large, and with lots of amenities, including heated floors on the bathrooms and a geothermally-heated hotpool at 40C. They had the pedal cars for rent here, which the boys excitedly took advantage of. Cathy got caught up on laundry, then we headed back into town for dinner. We went to a seafood restaurant, and all ordered something other than seafood. (?!) Actually, Cathy and I had mussels as an appetizer, so I guess that's okay. I forgot my promise (threat?) to the chicken, and got lamb shanks for dinner, despite the fact that no sheep have ticked me off recently. I ate far too much, and waddled painfully back to Jemaine to drive back to the campground. We got back around 8:00, leaving us an hour to take advantage of the hot pool. There was a real inertia threshold about this, because it was cold outside (and the pool was outside), so we had a real reluctance to disrobe and get in. Once in, however, it was marvelous - sitting in luxurious warmth, leaning back, and marveling at the beautiful southern starry sky. All in all it was a perfect end to the day.

July 27 - Blenheim to Dannevirke

2010-07-28T12:24:00.001-07:00

Today was an interesting day, in every sense of the word (positive and negative). We got up early, to make sure we got to Picton in time for the ferry. Cathy and I hit the showers around 6:30, then we roused the boys at 7:15, and we got on the road about 8:15. All in all it was pretty efficient. The morning was nice and sunny, and the run to Picton was quick and pleasant. We somehow missed a turn in Picton, and wound up as visitors to the ferry terminal rather than being in line to board. A quick lap around Picton corrected the problem and got us checked in 15 minutes early. We were among the last to load on the ferry (a smaller ship than the one we came south on). The trip was unremarkable; we mostly sat and read, and the voyage went by pretty quickly. We arrived at 1:15, and when we disembarked, we got on the highway very quickly, and were on our way. I was impressed by the efficiency with which we got out of Wellington. Then the fun began. Our plan was to head up highway 2 to Hastings, about 300 km away. We were expecting to arrive around sundown. As we left Wellington, however, we encountered gusty winds. Crossing a bridge, The wind started pushing Jemaine into the other lane. I was able to compensate, but then a strong gust hit, and for one second, I was certain that it was going to push us over onto our side. It was truly frightening. We stayed up, though, and continued on our way. The problem was, we have so much lateral surface area that we were basically driving a giant sail. The wind came and went; when it was present, I slowed down to stay in control, and when it was absent I sped up to try and make up time. It didn't help that it began raining intermittently. Then we hit a 13 km climb over a mountain ridge. It was tight twists going up and then coming down. I've driven worse roads over the past couple of weeks, but this was hard, because I was already stressed out due to the wind. After the final descent, the road straightened out nicely, but the wind remained a problem. I thought I could handle it until Hastings, but some of the gusts had me fighting to keep Jemaine on the road. I was going slow enough that I was holding up traffic, which just added to my stress. Eventually, I couldn't take it any more, and had to get off the road. Cathy consulted our campground information, and found the nearest one in Dannevirke, about 100 km short of Hastings. We found the campground, booked a site (we're the only guests), and settled in for the evening. It was a great relief to be off the road after the stress of the afternoon. It's a nice campground; it's forested with a large central green space dor playing For dinner, I took much of what was left in the fridge and cupboard, and turned it into a meal. It was pretty good. After dinner, we settled in to play a game of euchre. The boys really gave us a run for our money tonight, bit we came from behind to win 10-9 on the last hand. Considering Cal had only played once before this trip, and Riley had never played, it was a real accomplishment for them. Hopefully, the weather will be better tomorrow, and I won't have to deal with the wind. The predictions are promising...

July 26 - Christchurch to Kaikoura to Blenheim

2010-07-26T02:34:00.001-07:00

We had a great day today. It dawned sunny and clear, albeit cold. We got a bit of an early start because we had to be in Kaikoura by 12:45 to check on whale watching. We had a reservation, but they don't decide whether a tour will go until they check on ocean conditions a half hour before departure. Anyway, we needed to get going relatively efficiently. We broke fast and packed up, and got going just after 9:30. It was a mostly pleasant drive to Kaikoura; we had actual divided highway for about 20 miles out of Christchurch, and the road was mostly flat and straight until we got close to Kaikoura, when we went over some hills and the road got very twisty. We arrived just before noon, parked at the whale watch place by the shore, and had lunch. At 12:45 we checked in and learned that the seas were quite calm (1 metre swells) so the trip was going. We waited a bit, got a safety presentation, then boarded a bus that took us across the Kaikoura peninsula to the boat. Our boat, the Wawahia, took us quickly out past the continental shelf to the Kaikoura canyon, a place where the water gets very deep very fast. Along the way we saw fur seals and albatrosses (albatrossi?). Out on the whales' feeding grounds, we spotted (one at a time) five sperm whales. They sit on the surface, taking deep breaths to accumulate oxygen in their muscles prior to a deep dive, then plunge into the depths while waving their tails. It was an impressive sight. One of the whales had a couple of fur seals hanging around its head, because apparently sperm whales are sloppy eaters, and seals can feed on the scraps the whales drop. It was a beautiful day on the water, and we were quite lucky; one or two sightings is the average on this cruise, and we had five.

After the cruise, we hopped back into Jemaine and sprinted for Blenheim, our destination for tonight. The road followed the coastline for a while; it made for some tense driving as the road wound around the coast, but the view was spectacular. We saw some surfers catching waves just off the highway. Along the way, Cathy noticed that the ferry reservation made for us yesterday was for Wellington to Picton (i.e. North Island to South Island) which is exactly opposite the direction we want to go. The person who booked it for us had messed up. We got into Blenheim just at dusk (good thing we fixed the headlight) and checked into the local Top 10 campground. While I parked Jemaine, Cathy contacted the Interislander ferry and corrected the error on our booking. We also discovered that we had exhausted our wine supply, so as I got dinner ready, Cathy went in search of wine. There was no place within easy walking distance that sold wine. This was highly ironic; Blenheim is the center of the Marlborough district, which is the major NZ wine region, and yet we couldn't find wine! After dinner, I took a longer walk, and eventually found a store that sold wine, but it took a bit of a hike. Anyway, we're all stocked up again. We've got a half hour drive to Picton tomorrow, and a 9:00 am check in for the ferry, so it's going to be another early morning. It's just as well, because we're all a bit worn out from the excitement of whale watching today.

July 25 - Christchurch

2010-07-25T14:09:00.001-07:00

We had a lazy Sunday morning today because we weren't traveling and we had no deadlines to meet. I was up and showered at my usual time, and while everyone else slept, I walked 10 minutes. Up the street to the supermarket to get a few staples and pick up something for breakfast. I got some breakfast sausage and pancakes, which I cooked up when I fit back to Jemaine. It was nice to have a totally relaxing morning for a change.

After breakfast, Cathy and I went to the office to book the ferry back to the North Island on Tuesday (we discovered recently they offer such services) - they saved us a bundle compared to the voyage over. Then I called Kea to arrange to get the headlight fixed. I found out the location of their Christchurch depot, which was pretty close to us, and we got on our way just after 11:00. We missed a turn and got briefly lost and confused, but eventually we were straightened around and found the depot. It took about 15 minutes to fix the lights, and we were on our way. We headed for the city center, found parking on the street (Montreal Street!), and walked a couple of blocks to the Art Center. This is the former site of Canterbury University, with some beautiful Victorian-style buildings, now converted into an arts centre (we are in NZ after all) with galleries and shops. On the weekends there's an open air market at the site with tent stalls (I visited one selling craft-brewed beer from Dunedin) and live entertainment. We saw a sword swallower and a juggler, checked out some stalls and shops, and Cathy visited Ernest Rutherford's den, which has been preserved from his time as a student at the university. There were numerous dos vendors on site as well, offering a surprising variety of international foods (Hungarian Fried Bread, anyone?), so we grabbed some lunch as well. We also hit the local fudge cottage for some after lunch fudge (kiwi flavored!). We wandered the city center a bit more, seeing the trams and some punters on the Avon River, and Cathedral Square from One edge. Then we returned to the campground and the boys spent an hour zipping around the grounds on 4-wheeled pedal carts. When they were done, we decided to walk up the road a bit to the local cinema, which was showing Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was an interesting experience. The seats were wide and comfy, like a big armchair in your living room. Seating was assigned, which totally caught us off guard, but it eliminated any debate about where to sit. The movie was great, and afterward we walked through the mall to the supermarketer pick up something for dinner (and some more beetroot relish!). Then it was back to Jemaine to get to work on dinner (lamb chops!). After dinner we had booked the "spa" (i.e. hot tub) for a half hour, and Cathy, Riley and I went for a nice hot soak. Then we just sat around relaxing until it was time for bed.

More random observations in New Zealand

2010-07-25T02:32:00.003-07:00

Here, hip waders are called "thigh gumboots".

There are numerous car models here that we don't see in the US, such as the 'Nissan Bluebird' and the 'Toyota Prada'. I saw one Mercedes the size of a smart car (what's the point?) and another that was a campervan. Sedan-style cars that are modeled as low pickups are popular too.

Theaters in NZ are interesting. Seating is assigned (not general admission), the seats are wide and comfy, and the concessions sell beer and wine. Very civilized....

In Christchurch, we saw a vending machine that sells "fresh from the oven French fries".

In Dunedin, I saw a postman on a bicycle, with panniers serving as mailbags. Earlier that day, I saw a postman on a motorcycle. Apparently NZ Post chooses vehicles according to the route.

In the wake of two Christchurch police officers being shot, and a police dog being killed, there's a debate raging right now proposing that police (at least few of them) be allowed to carry weapons (!!) There's a big backlash against this, however, including one of the shot officers who said having a weapon wouldn't have changed the situation.

Eggs in NZ are not kept in the dairy case. They are stored at room temperature on regular shelves.

July 24 - Dunedin to Christchurch

2010-07-25T02:32:00.001-07:00

It was a nice sunny (but cold!) morning this morning. I actually managed to sleep past 5:00 because I wasn't worried about meeting any deadlines, unlike the past few days. Once we were packed up and ready to go, we headed for downtown Dunedin. We actually found a parking spot along the street near the train station, and headed on foot back toward the octagon, which is the octagonal street (duh) that makes up the centre (we are in NZ after all) of town. There we saw a naval parade and concert commemorating the charter of the HMNZS Otago, which was stationed for the first time in it's home port. We also checked out a few shops, then went to the Cadbury factory to go on the chocolate tour. It was an abbreviated tour because it was Saturday, but that was fine with us because we didn't have a huge amount of time. We found out a bit about Cadbury's history and how they make various chocolates, and saw a ton of molten chocolate dumped from a vat. We each got a bag of sample chocolate bars, and got to visit the Cadbury store for discount chocolate. Yum!

It was time for lunch, so we headed for a restaurant called The Scotia, which serves haggis. Sadly, they didn't open until dinner, so we had to seek an alternative. On the Octagon, there was a sports bar that served lunch. Cathy and I had the special, which was a hearty beef ragout served on mashed potato. It was really good and the perfect antidote for a cold day. By the time we finished, it was 1:00 and time to head to Christchurch. The trip took a bit longer than anticipated, and we wound up arriving after dusk. I was bit nervous about this, because we had discovered that one of our headlights was burned out (as well as one of the brake lights). Still, we made it safely (albeit after a couple of missed turns). We got checked in and parked, then dashed across the street to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Our initial impressions of the campground were highly favorable, we had an extra unplanned day to do something with, and we hadn't seen anything of Christchurch, so we decided to alter our plans and stay an extra day. We were pretty bushes after dinner, so we just hung out in Jemaine. The boys and I watched Meet the Robinsons and Cathy read her book. Before we knew it, it was time for bed.

July 23 - Queenstown to Dunedin

2010-07-24T02:39:00.001-07:00

We got going early this morning, because we had to ensure we made a 2:00 appointment in Dunedin. We ate and packed up and got going around 8:45. The first leg of the trip was back down highway 6 along the Kawarau Gorge to Cromwell (halfway back to Wanaka). From there we picked up highway 8, heading east. It was stunning the variety of landscape we saw along this road. The scrubby mountain terrain of the Queenstown area changed into an otherworldly rugged rocky landscape devoid of vegetation around a town called Clyde. Then we passed through the town of Alexandra, and as soon as we left, we were in sharp hilly country, mostly grass-covered, but with numerous flat, layered rocks studded all over the hills. It was as if someone had imported the punakaiki, broken them into small (4-6 ft) bits, and scattered them all over the land. It's sheep country, because frankly the land is so rock-covered that it's good for nothing else. It's harsh country but incredibly beautiful. Eventually we passed down into the valley, which was filled with fruit orchards (apples, pears, cherries). It reminded me a bit of the Fraser Valley in BC. As we got closer to the coast, the hills became less stark and more gently rolling, like you would expect sheep country to be. About this time the sun came out, making things particularly pleasant. Soon we hit highway 1, which took us on a quick run north to Dunedin. We made good time all the way, and were set up in our campsite by 12:30. After lunch, we were picked up at 2 pm by a guide from "Back to Nature" tours, with whom we'd booked a custom tour. He took us on a tour of the Otago Peninsula. Unfortunately, as we hit yhe peninsula, the weather deteriorated - it was foggy, and began raining. We saw some sea lions (from a great distance), and viewed a colony of spotted shahs as they prepared for nesting season on the cliffs. The highlight of the tour was a visit to Penguin Place, a refuge for the endangered yellow-eyed penguin. They provide a relatively protected habitat for the penguins, have a hospital for injured penguins (their only current patient was a Fiordland Crested Penguin brought in from the west coast), and have built an amazingly elaborate series of camouflaged trenches throughout the area for observing the yellow-eyed penguins. We saw a couple of nesting pairs just hanging out, then were fortunate enough to watch four penguins return from their day at sea, feeding. It was funny watching them trudge up the beach as if coming home from work. We were within a few feet of these rate birds; it was a very special thing.

We were supposed to go watch little blue penguins come ashore at another location afterward, but by then we were so wet and cold that we decided against it. We returned to Jemaine about 7:00 and went down the street to get some takeaway for dinner. The rest of the evening was divided between laundry and euchre.

July 22 - Milford Sound

2010-07-22T02:29:00.001-07:00

Today was a long day but a good one. We had an early start - Cathy and I were up at 6:00, then rushed around to get the boys ready because we were being picked up at 7:40. One of my "must-do's" for this trip was Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park. It's one of the most beautiful spots on earth (IMO), but it's very remote. We had toted briefly with the idea of driving there ourselves and camping, but the timing didn't work out. Instead, we booked a bus/boat package, and we were ultimately very glad we did. The bus picked us up at our front gate at 7:40. We made a few more pickups and left Queenstown about 8:00. It was a 2 hour drive to Te Anau, where we had a brief rest stop. The weather was a real mixed bag. It was sunny when we left, but we passed into a valley that was cloudy, then passed back into a sunny area, then as we approached Te Anau we became surrounded by fog. From Te Anau it was about 110 km to Milford Sound, but it's a slow drive, and we stopped several times for photo opportunities. A bit past Te Anau, we entered the national park, and the vegetation kept changing. First there was a forest of Manuka trees (short brown trees whose nectar makes special honey). Then it became a very deep lush green forest (they filmed parts of LOTR here, particularly the Orc battle at the end of Fellowship). Then we started to climb into the mountains, and soon the ground was snow-covered, with minimal vegetation. It was starkly beautiful and we were glad we weren't driving. We passed through a 1.2 km tunnel through the mountain, and when we emerged on the other side, there was no snow and the vegetation was thicker and lusher than any we had seen. We descended down to Milford Sound, which is actually a fiord and not a sound.

On the way we saw a Kea (alpine parrot) and an incredible polished chasm blasted from the rock by three powerful torrents. In Milford Sound we boarded a boat for a 1 3/4 hour cruise out the sound to the edge of the Tasman Sea and back. It's an incredible place - sheer mountains rise right out of the ocean, covered by hardy trees desperately clinging to the vertical faces. We saw a couple of 500-foot waterfalls that looked tiny because they were dwarfed by the immensity around them. Words can't do justice to the beauty of the place. Luckily, I took nearly 200 pictures.

Along the way we saw three colonies of fur seals lazing on the rocks. They seemed wholly unconcerned that we were there. At one point, the captain said he was going to pull under a waterfall. The waterfall was right against the rock face so I thought he was kidding. I was on the foredeck trying to get a picture of the fall from below when he warned that it was about to get damp. Next thing I knew the water was coming right at me! I had only a split second to pull on my hood and cover my camera with my body. I got drenched, but the camera was spared and it was a unique experience. Luckily I was wearing my raincoat. Cal ran out while the water was coming down because he wanted the experience too.

The boat returned to dock, and we had a four hour return trip to Queenstown ahead. It was a quiet trip because we were all exhausted from the long day. We decided to make an early night of it and try to get an early start for Dunedin.

July 21 - Franz Josef to Queenstown

2010-07-22T01:33:00.001-07:00

Today was supposed to be just a travel day, but it turned out to be much more. We wanted to get to Queenstown, and there isn't a lot in terms of towns between Fox Glacier (just down the road from Franz Josef) and Queenstown, so we decided to do it in one shot. It's only about 450 km (which under normal circumstances would take about 4 1/2 hours), but given that we would be climbing over a mountain pass, we knew it would take longer, an allotted most of the day. One book we have suggested the trip would take 7 1/2 hours, but I thought 6 was more realistic. I must admit that I wasn't looking forward to driving the Haast Pass. It was the place that I felt we were most likely to run into snow and ice. Luckily, my fears turned out to be unfounded.

The day started rainy again, but I didn't mind too much since we were going to be in the RV traveling rather than outside recreating. We were reasonably efficient getting ready this morning, and got on the road at 9:15. The first leg, 23 km to Fox Glacier, was very slow, winding, up and down. I hadn't remembered it that way, but after we traveled the road, the memories slowly returned. 25 years ago, I biked the 120 km from Greymouth to Franz Josef, checked out the glacier (and Lake Wombat), then decided to head to Fox, since it was only another 23 km. Those final 23 km were far worse than all the previous 120 put together, and I remember cursing myself all the way. It's funny how we repress certain memories, but can still access them with the right cues. From Fox it was a straight shot to Haast, site of the invention of Weet-Bix with chocolate milk in 1985. We decided to atop for gas and an early lunch, because there was going to be no place to stop until Wanaka, on the other side of the pass, about 2 1/2 hours away.

Haast Pass turned out to be much easier than anticipated - no snow, generally good roads, and beautiful scenery. The rainforest had continued all the way from Fox to Haast, and it continued up the pass, right up the mountainsides as far as the tree line. I've never seen such thick, lush vegetation on a mountainside, and as a Rocky Mountain boy, it was really strange to see mountains covered in palms and tree ferns, with no pine trees in sight. When we crossed the pinnacle of the pass, everything changed very quickly. The lush vegetation disappeared, the the other aide of the mountains was covered with brown scrub brush and the occasional tree. The contrast was striking. After the pass, in central Otago province, the road straightened out and the trip sped up. Past Wanaka (primarily a ski town), we started seeing lots of vineyards, almost more than we saw in Marlborough (the major NZ wine region). I had seen a couple of Central Otago wines in the stores, but I had no idea of the extent of wine-making in the area. It's a mountainous region, so the vineyards cram into every available nook and cranny that is conducive to growing grapes. I'm curious to see what the main varietal is in these parts.

The last leg of the trip, along the Kawarau River gorge, got a bit twisty again, but nit too bad. The mountains here were almost bare and quite dark brown, different again from the previous two sections. Before long we arrived in Queenstown (at 3:15 - 6 hours on the nose!) and checked into the campground. It's a cute place; the world's first environmentally certified campground (there's a worm bin for breaking down trash). We went to check out Queenstown, and decided to go up to a place called Skyline for dinner. It's at the top of a small mountain; you ride a gondola up to the top, check out the sights, have dinner, and ride the findola back down. They also offer parasailing and bungy jumping, but we declined those opportunities. We made a reservation for the 5:45 dinner seating, then took the gondola ride to the top. The view from up there was stunning. We could see all of the Remarkables, as well as much of Lake Wakitipu, and all of Queenstown. It was getting late in the day, and the sun was going down, so we got to see the changes in the view as the light quality changed. Absolutely gorgeous. The dinner was equally impressive. It was a buffet, and the food was uniformly excellent. Our table was next to a huge floor to ceiling window, giving us a spectacular view of Queenstown as we ate. We could also watch people bungy jumping from our table. I tried to behave myself at dinner, and I did okay, but I wound up having a 5-course meal, with soup, salad, seafood, main course(s), and dessert. We washed it all down with a really nice bottle of local Pinot noir. It was all well worth the price of admission, and a very memorable experience.

After dinner, we wandered around Queenstown a bit, then went back to Jemaine for a quick game of euchre and bed.

July 20 - Greymouth to Franz Josef

2010-07-21T03:21:00.001-07:00

We were awakened during the night by the sound of rain on the roof. Unfortunately, it was still raining when we got up. We did the shower and breakfast thing (I discovered a new taste sensation - tea with chocolate milk!), then packed up and headed out. The rain became intermittent, which was an improvement. Our first stop was just down the road about 40 km at Hokitika, home of New Zealand greenstone (jade/nephrite/pounamou). We hit most of the jade outlets; Cathy found another bead for her bracelet, and I found the perfect replacement for my lost wedding ring (silver with jade inlay). From there, we passed through a couple of scenic reserves that had large areas of natural temperate rainforest - LOTS of ferns (tree ferns and the ground variety), palms, and numerous other plants in a forest so dense that it becomes pitch black about a meter from the edge. It's really beautiful.

Before long we reached Franz Josef, where we headed straight for the glacier. We had lunch in the parking lot, then geared up for a hike to the glacier. It was a beautiful hike through the bed of a long-gone lake. The rain had become little more than an occasional drizzle, so we didn't get too wet, and the low cloud added to the atmosphere of the place. The rocks along the route were fascinating - lots of jade and other composites. There were waterfalls everywhere. The trail took us to within 120 m of the bottom of the glacier where we saw a river running out of an ice cavern at the bottom. We also had great views of the glacier itself.

Once back from the walk, we headed back to check out the town. We hit a small bookstore because Cal was looking for the next book in a series he was reading, and surprisingly, they had it! The proprietor said we had hit the first rain they'd had in six weeks. I guess it's all about the timing. We picked up some supplies for dinner at the local grocery, and Cathy wandered down the street to check out a store while the boys and I returned to Jemaine. On the way we had the most amazing bathroom experience ever! The public toilets in Franz Josef are "Exeloos", automated toilets. These are individual outdoor cubicles with buttons and flashing lights. You push a button to open the door (if it's unoccupied, as indicated by a flashing green light). When you enter, a voice says, "Welcome to Exeloo; please press the button to close and lock the door." When you do so, the door slides shut with Star Trek sound effects. The voice then says, "Your Exeloo experience will last a maximum of 10 minutes. At that time the door will open." Then, it begins playing music (Cal and I got piano music; Riley had something more contemporary). The toilet and hand washing station are completely automatic, and when you're done, you press the door button, the door slides open, and the voice says, "Thank you for using Exeloo." I don't think anything else we experience on this trip will match the Exeloo.

Random thoughts in New Zealand

2010-07-20T02:33:00.001-07:00

As far as I can tell, there is no Diet Pepsi in New Zealand. They have Pepsi Max, as well as Diet Coke and Coke Zero, but no actual Diet Pepsi. In general, Coke has a much bigger presence here than Pepsi.

My favorite new flavor of potato chip: Succulent Roast Lamb and Mint. Another good one: Honey, Soy and Chicken. Another good one: Sweet Chili and Sour Cream. One chip company has contest to come up with the next great flavor, but it's hard to beat those.

Subway in New Zealand has most of the usual sandwich options, plus a new one: roast lamb and mint sauce.

"Unusual" meats are readily available here, including ostrich and venison. Of course, lamb is common, but one would expect that.

Toilets here have two buttons for flushing - full flush and half flush. It's a much better system than in the US, where all toilets are required to be half flush, which means some of the time the toilet doesn't work sufficiently.

We've all become addicted to TimTams here. They're a cookie from Australia that I've gotten a couple of times in the US. Here, they're everywhere and they've become a staple in our diet.

I've discovered a new drink called Lemon & Paeroa (L&P for short). I have no ides what paeroa is, but it goes well with lemon.

I've seen lots of parasitic plants here.

A surreal moment: standing in a Borders in Wellington, and realizing that we were on the other side of the world, but in a little piece of Ann Arbor (for those of you who don't know, Borders is based in Ann Arbor).

July 19 - Richmond to Greymouth

2010-07-20T02:15:00.001-07:00

We got a bit of a late start today. I was up bright and early as usual, but two unnamed individuals (their initials are Cal and Riley) took forever to get up and get moving. Once we got moving, we headed west toward Westport. The terrain was really beautiful. The day started sunny, but we passed into a valley with very low cloud that soon became fog. Around this time the road got a bit twisty and turny, but it wasn't as bad as yesterday because there was less of it and because the traffic was very much lighter. I have no trouble driving slow on roads like that if there's nobody behind me. As we got closer to Westport, it started to rain lightly. When we got to Westport, we turned south toward our final destination, Greymouth. We soon emerged onto the coast - this stretch is the most ruggedly spectacular coastline I've ever seen - rocky, studded with palm trees (there's a warm current that runs by here), truly gorgeous. I knew that the south island was more scenic than the north, but I'd forgotten just how beautiful it is. To make the situation even better, the sun came out at this point, as if on cue. Unfortunately, I had to keep my eyes on the road, so I couldn't enjoy the scenery as much as the others. We stopped for lunch at Punakaiki, home of the famous pancake rocks. These are limestone rock formations that formed in layers, then were weathered over wins by the action of the ocean waves. In the parking lot, as we had lunch, we saw a flightless bird about the size of a chicken. Riley checked his book of New Zealand birds and discovered it was a weka, which has short, stubby wings but cannot fly. We checked out the punakaiki and several blowholes (where water is blown up high through holes due to the pressure below). It was really beautiful. From there we carried on to Greymouth, a former mining town. On the way, we saw a sign that read, "penguin crossing - 5 km" (it was a real sign, seriously!). Eventually, we got to Greymouth, filled up with gas, and checked in to our campground. We had learned about a brewery tour and BBQ dinner at Monteith's brewery in Greymouth, and had planned to do the 6:00pm tour. Unfortunately, that tour was completely booked (bus tours) and they no longer did the BBQ dinner. Dejected, we went on search of something else to do. We found a place called "Speight's Ale House" (Speight's is a popular brand of beer here) and decided to go in for dinner. They had good food, good beer, and rugby on the big screen - what more could you want? I had beer-braised lamb shanks that were excellent; overall, the meal gave me a much better outlook on life (which was pretty good to begin with). Back at the campground, we settled on for a competitive family game of euchre, then went to bed.

July 18 - Wellington to Richmond

2010-07-19T00:16:00.001-07:00

This was essentially a travel day, and it started early. We had an 8:25 am sailing time booked on the ferry to Picton, and check-in time was 7:25. We got up at 6:00 am, and got the campervan ready to leave (we skipped breakfast and showers because we didn't want to get up ridiculously early). We left the campground at 6:50, and headed for the ferry terminal. It was an easy drive because traffic was light that early on a Sunday morning. We got checked in around 7:10, loaded on to the ferry at 7:25, and headed up to the cafeteria to get breakfast. It wasn't open yet, so we went out on deck. The day has started rainy, just like Saturday, but after we boarded the ferry, it cleared up. We got some nice views of Wellington as the ferry left, then we headed back down to see about breakfast. We shouldn't have bothered. Breakfast on the ferry amounted to mealy sausages, rubber eggs, and cold soggy toast. Yum. Eventually we wandered back and found a nice seating area in an observation lounge in the back (stern?) of the ship, above the bar. It had great views, and was the least crowded place on the ship. Cathy had a conversation with an author of New Zealand historical novels, and I worked on planning our itinerary for the South Island. It was a beautiful trip; about an hour outside of Picton we passed into a sound with numerous islands and rock formations and a stark, weathered coastline. It was gorgeous. I kept grabbing my camera and running out on deck to take pictures.

Once in Picton, we stopped to get fuel for Jemaine and ourselves. This also allowed all of the other traffic to get ahead of us so we wouldn't hold anybody up. Cathy had greenshell mussels for lunch (every place in town had them on the menu - the mussel capital of the world is just up the road). After lunch, we headed for Blenheim, from which we would continue on to Nelson. Starting in Blenheim, we entered wine country - the Marlborough district. We saw vineyard after vineyard - in one, sheep were grazing on the grass around the vines! We saw the Mount Riley Vineyard (alas, it was closed) and a little bit later we saw Mount Riley Road. Closer to Nelson, we hit the twistiest, tight-turning mountain pass. I recall this section of road with horror from my bike trip 25 years ago. It was worse on a bike, but it's bad in a campervan too. I think I averaged about 30 km per hour through that section, and developed a couple of really big knots in my neck muscles from the tension. Eventually we made it to Nelson about 4:00 pm, and drove just past to the town of Richmond, where the campground was. We settled in, then the boys got really antsy to play some rugby. They had each gotten a rugby ball in Wellington on Saturday and were dying to try them out. Serendipitously, there was a rugby field right across the road from the camp, so we wandered over and worked on our rugby skills for a while. As it got dark, Cathy did a load of laundry while the boys and I walked to the local grocery to pick up food for dinner. After a leisurely meal, we just relaxed, reading, until it was time to turn in for the night.

July 17 - Wellington

2010-07-18T02:13:00.001-07:00

This was a very full and busy day. It dawned rainy and foggy, but the rain was intermittent and just a light drizzle, so we tried not to let it dampen our spirits. As I heard someone say during the day, "It is Wellington, after all" - you pretty much expect it to be wet. After breakfast, we caught the 9:52 #52 bus to Courtenay Place (downtown) and went to Te Papa - the museum of New Zealand. We had planned to spend the morning there, but the museum was so great, and there was so much to see and do that we were there for much of the day (which worked out well, given the weather). There are numerous interactive exhibits, lots of great stuff on Maori history and culture, a beautiful greenstone exhibit, the best preserved remains of a colossal squid (caught by accident by fishermen off Antarctica), and the skeleton of Phar Lap! (Anyone else remember that movie?) We also went on a ride that simulated a dive to an underwater volcano. It was all very educational and enjoyable. After we left, we wandered around the Cubano district of Wellington for a while, and had tea/ coffee in a bake shop (but we managed to hold off on the baked goods). We wandered back toward Lambton Quay and did some shopping, then started looking for someplace to have dinner. This turned out to be a huge challenge. The All Blacks (New Zealand's national rugby team) were playing the Springboks (South Africa's national team) in the Tri-Nations cup tournament (one of the reasons we were in Wellington) and there was a real carnival atmosphere in town. Many people were decked out in black (except for the surprisingly large number of South Africans, who wore green), and every place we went to try and eat was jam packed with people waiting to watch the match on TV (every place was showing it). We got the boys dinner at Subway and looked for something easy for ourselves, but there was nothing in the offing. All of the interesting little ethnic places we found were closed, even though it was 6:00 pm on a Saturday evening. Eventually we gave up and just headed for the stadium, hungry. Luckily, we happened upon a group handing out free samples of muesli bars; they were finished for the evening and were trying to get rid of their excess stock. One guy handed me about 2 dozen bars, which sustained us during the walk to the stadium (and would on several occasions over the next two weeks). We got to the stadium about an hour before kickoff, and Cathy and I each grabbed a burger from the concession. Not exactly haut cuisine, but it filled the void. We had great seats, about 10 rows up from the field. There was still intermittent drizzle, but somehow, because of the way the wind was swirling, we didn't get too wet. The rain pretty much stopped by kickoff, which was nice. There was pretty food entertainment before the match - a drum band, and the Three Pacific Tenors performed. The match itself was great. We got to see the All Blacks do the haka (a Maori war chant they always do at the start of a match to unnerve their opponents). The All Blacks completely dominated the Springboks (the defending World and Tri-Nations champions), winning 31-17 (the score actually flattered the Springboks). After the match, we looked for a cab to take us back to Jemaine, but no cabs were to be found. We were in perfect time, however, to catch the #52 bus back (at that time of night it runs only hourly), which was cheap and convenient and got us home by 10:00, which was a good thing because we were exhausted. I had started my iPod's pedometer function when we left in the morning, and at the end of the day we had walked more than 17,000 steps (a good five miles by my conservative estimate).

July 16 - Ohakune to Wellington

2010-07-16T14:34:00.001-07:00

It was slightly warmer when I got up this morning (no frost on the ground!) but it was cloudy. We showered (great showers at this campground - timed for only 7 minutes, but lots of pressure and nice and warm), ate breakfast (Wheat-Bix with chocolate milk - yum!), and prepped to go. By the time we got moving at 10:00, the clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day. Mr. Ruapehu looked stunning in the morning sunlight. It was a pretty good drive today - the roads were mostly straight and traffic was pretty light. The only issue I had was with a truck doing 70kph in a 100kph zone during a long stretch with no passing lanes. Eventually we got by him, though, and continued on our merry way. We stopped for lunch at a small town called Foxton beach, where we parked by the shore of an inlet leading out to the Tasman Sea. There were lots of people fishing off the wharf, and a regular parade of boats being launched (all metal boats). After lunch we did the rest of the drive to Wellington. I'd forgotten how mountainous it is on the way to Wellington - really beautiful country. Not exactly rolling hills because the ups and downs aren't that gradual. We got to Wellington (Newlands, actually - a suburb) around 2:30, got settled in, then caught a bus downtown. The bus was really convenient; the stop was right across the street and the bus took us right downtown in about 10 minutes. We scoped out the rugby stadium for tomorrow, wandered around downtown doing some shopping, then wandered down to the harbor and walked along the harbor walk. We found the NZ museum (but didn't have time to go in. We found a spot to catch the bus back to the campground. Back at Jemaine, we got the kids a pizza and I made venison stew for us. We finished the evening with a game of euchre, then settled in for the night.

July 15 - Rotorua to Ohakune

2010-07-16T03:10:00.001-07:00

This morning dawned clear and cold. After our morning routine (shower, breakfast, prepare Jemaine for travel) we made our plans for the day. I had wanted to go to Rainbow Springs, a wildlife-themed tourist spot that I really enjoyed 25 years ago (their border collie demonstration was amazing). We wanted to make extra miles, though, to get to Wellington a day early, so Rainbow Springs fell by the wayside. Instead, we hit the road, heading for Taupo. It was a pretty straightforward drive, and we got to Taupo just after 11:00. It was a beautiful sight - Lake Taupo in the sunshine with three volcanoes, snow-covered, in the distance. We found a place to park (!) and wandered around town for an hour (we found a wine store with an AMAZING wine cellar), then found a grocery store where we could park, stocked up on groceries, had some lunch, and hit the road again. We drove around the lake to the south and headed for Tongariro National Park, where the three volcanoes (Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ngauruhoe, and Mt. Ruapehu) are found. I was surprised by the starkness of the landscape in the park- I had expected lots of pine trees (typical mountain park vegetation) but there were no trees at all. Mt. Ngauruhoe, snow-covered against this sparse backdrop, was gorgeous. This volcano was used as Mt. Doom in the LOTR movies, and seeing it live, I could understand why.

We stopped for the night in Ohakune at the southern edge of the park. The town is an offbeat ski-town, and is also the carrot capital of New Zealand. After parking Jemaine at the campground, we wandered around town for a while, then retreated to Jemaine to have dinner. After dinner (and clean up) we played a game of euchre (we're teaching the boys to play), then hit the hay.

July 14 - Rotorua

2010-07-15T01:18:00.001-07:00

We had a really chilly night last night. Luckily, we have plenty of blankets and comforters so we were pretty comfortable in bed. It meant, though, that I was really reluctant to get put of bed because I knew it would be frigid. As a result, I didn't get up this morning until nearly 7:30! After we showered and had breakfast, we headed off in Jemaine to see some of the sights of Rotorua. We had to decide between Whakarewarewa village (a traditional Maori village) and Te Puia (a thermal area with demonstrations of Maori arts and crafts). We settled for the latter, because it is the area's most popular attraction and has access to the best geysers. If I didn't mention it, Rotorua is a major thermal area. The park next to our campground had steam issuing from various places, and the smell of rotten eggs is prevalent. The tour at Te Puia took us to a kiwi enclosure (which makes it seem lime night-time for the nocturnal kiwis), where we saw a kiwi digging around in the ground. They're much bigger than I would have thought. We then ventured out to the thermal area, where there were bubbling mud pools, geysers galore (although they didn't really erupt while we were there) and a cooking pool - a spring of naturally boiling water where the Maori would cook their meals by lowering the food onto the boiling water. We got a little (ie. minimal) information on Maori culture from our guide. Mostly he talked about how we were supporting the Maori Arts Institute (carving and weaving) that is housed on site. We attended a "cultural performance" that had showed some interesting aspects of traditional Maori culture, but it was punctuated with some lame songs that I could have done without. At least they did a haka (the traditional Maori war chant). (The boys seemed captivated by it, though - I caught them later watching the "Maori Television" channel, which was showing a program that teaches Maori language, and they were answering along with the show.) After the show we had lunch in the cafeteria, which included a "hangi meal" - food cooked the Maori way by lowering it into a boiling thermal spring. It was pretty average, but fun to try. We finished there around 2:00, which left us little time to do anything else (and Cathy wanted to check out the shops in town anyway) so we headed downtown. Parking was a real challenge, so we parked back at the campground and walked downtown. Riley and I picked up a couple of Rugby jerseys, we bought some gloves, and we got a few grocery items, but that was the extent of our shopping. We had cheeses and ostrich sausage and dips and crackers for dinner, after which we just relaxed until bedtime.

July 13 - Paihia to Rotorua

2010-07-14T01:30:00.001-07:00

We awoke this morning to a beautiful, sunny day (at least once the sun came up; I was awake again at 5:00, although I didn't drag myself out of bed until 6:00). We showered (warm water right away this time!), had breakfast, and filled the water tank while dumping the waste, then headed out around 9:30. We were headed for Auckland, because I had arranged with Kea to bring Jemaine in to have the stove checked. Apart from a couple of twisty sections that raised my stress level, it was a pretty straightforward drive, at least as far as Warkworth, about 60 miiles north of Auckland. It was there that disaster struck. There was a road construction project that had reduced the traffic lanes to very narrow widths, and as I drove along, I strayed a tiny bit left and hit a solid construction barrier. Okay, not exactly a disaster, but I was pretty upset. We needed to find a place for lunch and assess the damage, so just out of town, we turned off toward a farm park and museum. They had room for us to park, which is always a bonus. The damage wasn't as bad as it had sounded - one fiberglass molding had been pretty badly smashed, but there was no functional damage. Thank goodness we got comprehensive insurance!

We had our lunch and checked out the park. There was an 800-year-old Kauri tree, and a pathway to an overlook. Riley and I decided to check out the path, and it was really worth it! The boardwalk path led through pristine temperate rainforest, with lots of silver ferns and palms. It had a primeval feel to it, and it was gorgeous! It greatly improved my outlook on life. From there we cruised to Auckland, although we misread the directions and briefly got lost. Eventually we found the place and got the stove fixed. It was a valve that hadn't been opened as it should have, which meant it wasn't my fault. It was only 2:30 by then so we decide to push on to Rotorua, about 3 hr away, which would get us ahead o schedule and give us some flexibility. It was a pretty easy drive, although we hit a lot of traffic in Hamilton, which was annoying. By the time we got to Rotorua, it was dark and I was wiped. We got set up in our campsite, then walked downtown to a pub that had been recommended, the Pig & Whistle. They brew their own beer, which is okay (but their other taps were better). I ordered a lamb burger for dinner, and it was one of the best burgers I ever had! It had beet relish on it, which gave the burger a distinctive flavor. As a side, I got kumara chips (New Zealand sweet potato), which also had a distinctive flavor, somewhere between a regular potato and a sweet potato. After dinner we wandered around downtown a bit, but most places were closed and it was getting really cold, so we decided to head back to the campsite and call it a night.

July 12 - Paihia

2010-07-13T02:06:00.001-07:00

It rained overnight, but by the time I got up, it had stopped. I was up early again (awake around 5 am) and headed over to shower around 6:00. I had trouble getting hot water in the shower; I wasn't sure which side was hot (at the time the two choices seemed to be cold and colder) and even when I figured it out, I had to run the water for 10 minutes before any warm came through. Finally I managed to get clean and returned for breakfast. We ate and packed up quickly because our bay cruise had an 8:45 check in, and we had to drive into Paihia and find the place. We got to town quickly (despite the twisty, tension-filled drive), found a parking lot for RVs and made it to the boat in plenty of time. The weather was iffy, alternating between sunshine and dark clouds with occasional showers. Our boat was called the "Dolphin Seeker", and it headed out into the bay just after 9:00. It was a beautiful trip, stopping at a number of the islands to deliver the mail. The islands are gorgeous and mostly undeveloped. The swells on the bay were about 2m, which meant we did a lot of rocking (making photography difficult). We saw a couple of dolphins and a couple of rainbows. The trip culminated in a trip out to the "hole in the rock", which, surprisingly, is a hole in a big rock island. On calm days boats will travel through the hole, but we were bouncing around so much on the swells that it was too dangerous to try. Still, it was a spectacular sight.

Back in Paihia, we wandered around town, checking out the shops. Cathy got a New Zealand- made Pandora-knock off bead and plans to get more based on places we go. We headed back to camp around 2 pm, with plans to try some sea kayaking. The tide was outa when we got back but we didn't thunk it would be too much trouble carrying the kayaks an extra hundred yards to the water. We were wrong. About halfway to the water, the mud got so thick that we sank in up to our ankles and had trouble pulling our feet out. We quickly gave up and retreated back to shore. Cal was bitterly disappointed by our failure (he was desperate to kayak) and went off to pout. Riley and I learned of a hiking trail, so we went for a walk in our mud-encrusted boots. It was a nice hike, climbing through the trees to some beautiful vistas overlooking the bay. We watched some kind of long-legged wading shorebird hunting for food in the shallows of the bay. When we returned to camp we showered the mud off our legs and returned to the RV with thoughts of dinner. Cal was still moping about kayaking, particularly since the tide had come in. Despite the fact that the sun was getting low, I acquiesced and decided to try kayaking again. This time was much more successful Cal took a single kayak and Riley and I shared a double. We paddled around the bay near the shore, and Riley and I found and explored a mangrove forest. After half an hour of paddling we started to get chilly (the sun was going down anyway) so we returned again to Jemaine. The stove was still non-functional so I decided to make dinner in the camp's kitchen. They had several cooktops and sinks, which serves nicely. I packed up what I needed (or at least what I thought I needed; I wound up making several trips back to Jemaine to get additional items. I soon discovered one error we made in our shopping. We got the lightest margarine we could find (for health reasons) bit the stuff is useless as a lubricant in a frying pan (it's largely water), so the chicken I was cooking stuck hard to the pan. It made a nasty mess. Dinner turned out okay, but the cleanup was a lot of work (just ask Cathy). Once again, soon after dinner we all crashed, and it was an early end to the day.

July 11 - Auckland to Paihia

2010-07-12T00:15:00.001-07:00

We were awake early this morning because of our early bedtime. I went for a workout at 6 am while Cathy got organized and the boys lounged. Cathy went out to search for breakfast - there was a bakery cafe a couple of blocks away, but it wasn't open despite the fact they claimed to open at 8:00 on Sunday and it was 8:15. We wound up having breakfast at the hotel, which was outrageously priced for the continental breakfast, considering it was essentially cereal and toast. Right after breakfast we were picked up by the camper rental company and driven to the north shore where their depot is. We completed the agreement and learned everything we needed to know (including the location of the closest grocery store), and set out. Despite a small snafu with the parking brake (Really? You're supposed to release it before driving?) I got the hang of handling the vehicle okay, and we found our way to the grocery (Pak 'n' Save!). Cathy and I love checking out grocery stores in new places because you can learn a lot about a culture from their grocers. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to spare (we had essential provisions to pick up so we couldn't browse to our satisfaction. Once loaded we made to leave, but it was an adventure getting out of the parking lot. I took a wrong turn and wound up in the lot of the adjacent strip mall, which had narrow lanes and was loaded with cars. It was a harrowing experience but I managed to get out and back on the road with no casualties. Then we headed north toward the Bay of Islands.

The drive north was without incident, although there were a couple of narrow, twisty segments, particularly the last stretch before Paihia, our destination in the Bay of Islands. We arrived about 4 pm, and got a campsite next to the water. The boys spent some time hunting for shells on the beach while we set up camp. We soon discovered a problem - our stove burners wouldn't light. Nothing we tried would remedy the situation, so dinner wound being whatever we could microwave (mmmm, soup is good food!). We decided that we need to christen our campervan - he's part of the family now, so he needs a name. After some discussion, we decided on Jemaine, after Jemaine Clement of 'Flight of the Conchords' (New Zealand's self-proclaimed fourth-best folk parody duo). Like the real Jemaine, the campervan is kind of big and awkward but in a likable way, so the name fits nicely. Not long after dinner, we retired to our beds to read. We still weren't completely adjusted to NZ time, but we managed to stay up an hour later than the night before. Frankly, I wouldn't be disappointed if we stayed on this schedule - getting up early allows us to get going early and arrive at our destination at a decent time. In addition, once the sun goes down (around 6 pm), there's not much that can be done outside. We can't take advantage of the night life with the boys in tow, so going to bed early to read is a good option. Tomorrow is a cruise of the bay; I just hope the weather holds.

July 10 - Auckland

2010-07-11T02:03:00.001-07:00

After deplaning in Auckland, we joined the queue for immigration with three other flights. The process was handled efficiently, though, and we passed through without incident. At customs, however, we weren't quite so lucky. New Zealand is very paranoid about keeping out any invasive species, so on our documents we had to declare our hiking boots. They sent us to the penalty area for inspection, where Cal's and my hiking boots were examined (Cathy's and Riley's were brand new). Mine apparently passed muster, but Cal's had to be disinfected. The officials handled it all very nicely; US customs officials could learn a lesson in manners from them.

Once free in Auckland, we caught a cab to our hotel. Despite 24 intervening years since my last visit, I was struck (with a big grin on my face) by how familiar everything was. After our $73 cab ride (!!) we tried to check into our hotel, but it was only around 10:15 so of course our room wasn't ready yet. With several hours to kill, we managed to stow our bags at the hotel, and went for a walk around downtown Auckland. One of the first places we stopped was an indoor mall where 25 years ago I had stocked up on supplies and bought a book. It was instantly recognizable. We wandered around a bit, then hit the food court for lunch. Riley did McDonald's (which dropped the kiwi from the golden arches logo) but the rest of us were more ethnically adventurous (Malaysian lamb curry, anyone?). After lunch we wandered up and down Queen street for a while, planning future purchases, then returned to the hotel around 2:30. We were able to check in, which allowed us to shower (for the first time in about 36 hours) and feel human again. For the rest of the afternoon we just hung out. The boys went for a swim, and Riley and I went on a drink and snack run (on that trip we saw someone jump off the sky tower - people actually pay money to fall from the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. For dinner we hit a kebab/burger takeaway place (as well as hitting a liquor store to get beer and wine) and Pizza Hut (??) for Riley. I had an ostrich burger with peach salsa while Cathy had a beef burger with beetroot. After dinner we all settled in to watch the All Blacks play the Springboks (South Africa) in the first match of the Tri-Nations cup. Before the match could start, however, Cathy and the boys had passed out in their beds. I managed to last until nearly 8:00 before sleep took me. As a result , we all missed the game (a convincing All Blacks win), but we went a long way toward catching up on our sleep.

2010-07-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

After a three hour wait at LAX, we boarded our Qantas flight. I had expected a 747, but it turned out to be an A330. Still a pretty big plane, though. Qantas really knows how to treat it's customers. They don't quite live up to Wardair's service (for those of you who remember that great but now defunct western Canadian airline), but they're head and shoulders above every other airline I've flown. They do all the little things right - unlike US airlines they don't charge for food or drinks - they gave us two hot meals and a snack package for in between. They also provided a travel kit with a sleep mask and a travel toothbrush with toothpaste. It was a long flight (14 hrs), bit we all managed to sleep a bit, which definitely helped. Now we just have to clear customs, then it's on to Auckland!

July 8/9 - Detroit to Auckland

2010-07-10T21:57:00.003-07:00

This was essentially a travel day, with a flight from Detroit to LA, then from LA to Auckland. We arrived at the airport plenty early We were a bit concerned about getting our bags checked all the way through because the two flights were booked separately so we had no itinerary listing the entire journey together. We didn't relish the thought of having to pick up our bags in LA and shlep them around to get them checked in for the second flight. Luckily, the folks at Delta were very accommodating and checked the bags all the way through. (Who would have thought I'd ever say anything nice about Delta? Good on ya, Delta!) The security line was uncommonly short, so we breezed right through (although they had to take my backpack for testing -?- apparently it passed because they let me on the flight). We left Detroit (in theory) at 5:25 pm, Thursday, July 8 (although in reality we had to wait for some connecting passengers so we were a bit late departing). We were scattered among three rows (Cal was in front of me, Riley was across the aisle, and Cathy was a row behind him), which was annoying but we all made do. It was an unremarkable flight, although it was made easier by the plethora of entertainment choices available on the seat-back video screen. I was able to watch live satellite TV to pass the time (including an interesting episode of Iron Chef - Battle Sea Urchin!). (Wow. Two positive things about Delta in one entry. It defies belief.)

When we got to LA, we had to wait a bit before deplaning; there was a medical emergency, and we had to wait while paramedics came on board and helped the person off to a waiting ambulance. I don't think it was anything too serious, just someone who became ill during the flight.

Eventually we got into the airport and tried to figure out where we were to catch our next flight. Unfortunately we were in a Delta terminal at LAX, so we couldn't find information about Qantas. Eventually we figured out which terminal we needed (there are TOO many terminals at LAX) and headed out. We had to leave the secure area to get to the other terminal, which meant going through security again 8-( Luckily, the security line was short again so we weren't held up long. We checked out the duty free, and I found a great price on a bottle of 18-year-old Highland Park Whisky. I was reluctant to get it because I didn't think I could finish it in three weeks, but Cathy convinced me that if I applied myself and worked at it a bit every day that I could get it done. I love a challenge!

Yankees Win! Parents Lose

2010-06-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

The inaugural Ypsilanti American Little League (YALL) post-season tournament (minors division: 7-9 year olds) was won last night by the Yankees, in a tense and thrilling 11-8 extra-inning victory over the White Sox. Riley had a great game, going 3 for 4 at the plate, with 3 RBI, a walk, and a couple of runs scored. One of his hits was a massive blast to center field that drove in a run in the fifth (by far his best hit of the year). He also pitched the middle two innings of the game, giving up three runs in one inning, but shutting them out in the other with a couple of strikeouts. If that's all there was to the story, it would just be a feel-good tale for our family, and probably not even worth mentioning in this blog. The rest of the story involves coach and parent misbehavior at the game. There was nothing too egregious or outrageous, but it left a bad taste in my mouth and detracted from the joy of the moment, in part because my own behavior wasn't exactly above reproach.

I've been thinking about it all to try and understand how I found myself in the situation and frame of mind I was in, and I think I can explain it, but certainly not justify it, at least from my own perspective. It stems in part from the circumstances surrounding the team, and in part from the poor relationship between the two teams that were playing.

The latter part of the explanation started early in the season, the first time the Yankees played the White Sox. One of the White Sox coaches complained that our pitcher's glove had some white on it, and apparently it is illegal to pitch with a white glove. This kid is 8 years old - is he supposed to go out and buy a new glove to satisfy one person? Anyway, this incident rubbed one of the Yankees coaches the wrong way, and his attitude toward the White Sox deteriorated throughout the season. There was a subsequent disagreement about trying to reschedule a rained-out game, and every time we played them, there was a bit of sniping back and forth by both sides, as each side tried to out-nitpick the other regarding following the rules. In an earlier round of the tournament, things almost reached a boiling point. Two of the White Sox pitchers were continually pitching from several inches in front of the rubber, and despite repeated requests to the coaches to have them step back, nothing changed. Our coach then lost some composure and started yelling to the umpire every time it happened. All of that was just a prelude to last night.

The other part involved the circumstances of the tournament. The league decided to initiate a post-season tournament this year, which is a great idea, but it was very badly handled. There was an announcement at the start of the season about the tournament, and we were told that it would run from June 14 - 19. Then, in the last week of the regular season, we were told that the tournament would instead take two weeks to play, running until June 22 or 23. The problem with that was that many families had made plans to leave town on vacation after school got out, so teams started suffering attrition. The Yankees did okay through the first couple of games of the tournament, which we won to get to the final, but going into the final, we'd lost 6 players, including all three of our 9-year-olds, and both starting pitchers. Only 8 players were left in town, which is the minimum number of players to avoid a forfeit. Therefore, all available players had to show up in order for the team not to lose by forfeit, (and the White Sox to win by forfeit, which is no way to crown a champion). One of the eight remaining players hadn't shown up for a game in three weeks, so there was much doubt and hand-wringing over whether there would be a game. The player in question did show up, but another of the players was missing. Through phone calls we learned she was on her way, but as game time loomed, she was still absent. We actually had to start the game without her, and hope she showed by the final deadline, which was 15 minutes after the start. She eventually made it, but just in the nick of time, and only after much stress was induced in everyone. I include this to explain that most of the adults (on the Yankees side, anyway) were stressed even before the start of the game, which I think precipitated some of the behavior later (I believe that it did in my case).

Soon after the game started, the gamesmanship started as well. One Yankees batter was called out on strikes, despite the fact that the third strike was clearly fouled off of her bat. Everyone watching the game saw and heard it, apparently except for the umpire. The Yankees coach protested that it was a foul ball, but the umpire said he never saw or heard contact with the bat. The White Sox coach intervened, stressing that it was the umpire's call. This really bothered me - their coach knew it was a foul ball, but she insisted that the umpire's original call stand. Sportsmanship would have dictated otherwise; in numerous games this season, the coaches would admit things (like a player dropping the ball, or failing to touch a base, etc.) to make sure a bad call was corrected. It's the right thing to do at this level, but it wasn't done in this case, and it created a lot of frustration. Adding to the frustration (on both sides) was the fact that the umpire was calling a much smaller strike zone than any umpire had called all year, making it more difficult for pitchers to throw strikes. Riley told me after the game that while he was pitching, he was getting frustrated, and every time he threw what appeared to be a strike but was called a ball, he slapped himself in the thigh to shake it off. By the end of the game his thigh was very sore. There were also several other controversial calls made that got the opposing coaches into heated exchanges with each other and with the umpire. With all of that and the closeness of the game, the tension built considerably as the game wore on. It all started to come to a head at the end of regulation. The two-hour time limit had been reached, with the score tied 8-8. The Yankees coach told his players to line up to shake hands, whereas the White Sox coach sent their players out to take the field for the next inning. There was another heated discussion at home plate about whether to proceed with the game. The Yankees coach seemed to be arguing that since we came into the tournament undefeated while the White Sox had a loss, a tie should give us the championship. I still don't follow that logic, and I think it may just have been some gamesmanship on his part to try and negotiate the championship rather than playing for it. The overall opinion (by everyone on both sides, including the players, but excepting the Yankees coach) was that another inning should be played to decide it.

That one incident changed my perspective on the game. Until that point, I had gotten caught up in the competitive spirit (or perhaps more correctly, the over-competitive spirit). I had made a couple of snide remarks not directed specifically at the umpire, but designed for him to hear. I had voiced my opinion from the stands about a couple of the calls, what constituted a ball or a strike, and whether or not the opposing pitcher had reached his pitch count. Seeing the coach try to finagle a win out of a tie bothered me, and made me look at my own behavior in a different light. Suddenly, I was ashamed at the way I'd been behaving. I had convinced myself that I was acting no differently than many of the parents on both sides (which, sadly, was true), but I realized that it was no excuse for my behavior. After that, I moderated my behavior - I continued to cheer for the team, but controlled my other outbursts. Unfortunately, I was in the minority in that regard. With one inning to play and the championship on the line, the tension reached critical, and some of the behavior started to get out of hand. Cathy got so stressed out, she couldn't watch anymore and had to leave. Part of it was the closeness of the game, but part of it was the people behaving badly. It came to a head in the top of the extra inning. The White Sox pitcher was again pitching several inches in front of the rubber. The Yankees coach, instead of bringing it to the attention of the opposing coach or the umpire, directly told the pitcher to keep his foot on the rubber. At that point, one of the White Sox coaches lost it, and starting yelling at the Yankees coach, saying he should not speak to the player directly. There was another heated exchange, and it took a few minutes to get order restored. It was distinctly unpleasant, with parents and coaches sniping at each other. I was still trying to stay above it all. I was keeping score for the Yankees, and I had evidence that the White Sox let their pitcher go over his maximum pitch count, which could have led to a series of serious consequences. Apart from making a brief inquiry about the pitcher's age (which would have impacted whether or not there was a violation), I decided to leave it alone and let the game play out. I did not want to fan the flames of what was already burning.

Getting back to the game, the Yankees scored three runs in the top of the extra inning to go up 11-8. In the bottom half, the White Sox put two runners in scoring position with one out. It was still anyone's game. We struck out the next batter to get within one out of the championship, and got two quick strikes on the next batter. One strike away from a win. At this point, all the White Sox parents started to chant, loudly, and with each successive ball they got louder and louder. It was clear they were just trying to rattle the concentration of our pitcher. That to me was hitting a new low - parents trying to play mind games with an 8-year-old. I'd only seen this once before, and on that occasion, the umpire prohibited the crowd from chanting during the pitcher's windup. There was no such prohibition forthcoming on this occasion, however. As the chanting reached a crescendo, the pitcher delivered a perfect pitch for the third strike and the win. There was much jubilation, although I had a bit of trouble joining in because of everything that had gone on. Ultimately, though, it was the kids who rescued the occasion. They were completely unfazed by the whole thing. They had gone out to play baseball because it's fun, and they did so with joy, seemingly oblivious to all of the misbehaving adults around them. They taught me a lesson, one I hope I recall the next time I'm in a similar situation.

In the end, the Yankees coach was made out to be the the villain in all of this. Instead of any kind of real trophy presentation, league officials merely handed a box of trophies to the coach to distribute, with one official muttering under his breath as he walked away, "Next time we'll throw you out." Certainly the coach could have handled the whole situation much better, and he instigated some of the trouble, but he was far from alone in culpability. The opposing coaches were the ones who got things off on the wrong foot, and parents on both sides must share some blame as well, myself included. I also contend that the league itself should shoulder some of the blame, as it created the tense situation that I believe had everyone's tempers a little short to begin with. With these two teams, because of their history, there would have been some tension regardless, but the situation created by the league's screwup made things that much worse.

So how can we keep this from happening again? It's hard to say, and probably harder to do. We can't control the parents (although they should be able to control themselves). Better planning by the league would help, but wouldn't guarantee good sportsmanship. Somehow we all have to learn that lesson from the kids - learn to shrug off the negative stuff, deal with our frustration by slapping our thighs, and focus on the joy in the game and the promise of ice cream afterward.

Road Trip 2009 - Epilogue

2009-08-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

I realize this is being posted a couple of weeks after the fact, but I swear we took a poll on the last leg of our trip, so all of the following opinions were offered while things were still fresh in our minds. That having been said, here is our assessment of all things from the 2009 road trip:

1) Number of Volkswagen Beetles spotted: 159

2) Score in the license plate game: trip out - Bob 44, Cathy 44
trip back - Bob 39, Cathy 18

3) Best hotel room: Bob & Cathy - just as in 2007, the Grandstay Residence Inn, Madison, WI (we get our own bedroom, 'nuff said!)
Riley - Hilton Garden Inn, Tulsa, OK (the most comfortable bed led to the best night's sleep)
Cal - no opinion

4) Worst hotel room: Cathy - Peartree Inn, St. Louis, MO
Bob - Best Western Airport Inn & Suites, Albuquerque, NM (the entire room was smaller than our bathroom in Flagstaff)
Boys - no opinion (they don't like being negative)

5) Best pool: unanimous - Crowne Plaza, Colorado Springs, CO (atrium setting, real trees, very nice)

6) Best breakfast: Holiday Inn Express, North Platte, NB (fresh cinnamon rolls, yum!)

7) Best fitness center: Crowne Plaza, Colorado Springs, CO

8) Best hotel overall: Crowne Plaza, Colorado Springs, CO (loses points for no breakfast and no free internet, but the pool and fitness center make up for it)

9) Best brewpub (overall): Phantom Canyon Brewing, Colorado Springs, CO (good beer, excellent food, nice open space, good atmosphere). Honorable mention: Beaver Street Brewery, Flagstaff, AZ (good beer, nice patio)

10) Best collection of beer: Beaver Street Brewery (not a bad choice in the bunch - all were good, although there wasn't a real standout). Honorable mention: Phantom Canyon Brewing

11) Best single beer: Schnorzenboomer Dopplebock, Main Street Brewery, Cortez, CO (amazing how much deliciousness they crammed into one glass). Honorable mention: Zebulon's Peated Porter, Phantom Canyon Brewing. Honorable mention 2: Superfly IPA, Oaken Barrel Brewing, Indianapolis, IN (over 100 IBU's!!!)

12) Best meal: Cathy - Iron Skillet Ahi Tuna, Phantom Canyon Brewing
Bob - 3-way tie: Grilled Yellowfin Tuna Sandwich, Oak Creek Brewery, Sedona, AZ
Soulard Cubano Sandwich, Beechwood Bistro, St. Louis, MO (slow cooked pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickle, topped with a fried egg - VERY interesting)
Buffaloaf, Raccoon River Brewery, Des Moines, IA (a new twist on an old favorite)
Cal - too many to name
Riley - see below

13) Best Grilled Cheese - Whiskey River Grill, North Platte, NB. Honorable mention: Raccoon River Brewery

14) Best service: Whiskey River Grill (best service I've had in years - sincerely friendly and pleasant, helpful, attentive without being obtrusive, and great with the kids). Honorable mention: Phantom Canyon Brewing (friendly, helpful, great recommendations, good advice about where to take the kids for fun)

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 10

2009-08-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Aug. 1

After their late night at the baseball game on Friday, the boys needed to sleep late yesterday morning. We had a fairly short trip (~4 hr) to Indianapolis, and no time constraints, so we let them have a late morning. I worked out, then Cathy and I went for breakfast and brought food back to the room for the boys (this was becoming a trend on the trip home). We got on the road about 10:30, crossing quickly into Illinois and heading for Indiana. We encountered one small snag when we stopped for lunch just inside the Indiana border (near Terre Haute) - we lost an hour switching to Eastern Daylight Time. I had thought that wouldn't happen until Sunday in Michigan, because anytime I've crossed from southwestern Michigan into northwestern Indiana, I've had to set my watch back. It turns out that the time zone boundary splits Indiana, and we were in the part on eastern time. It meant we arrived at Indianapolis an hour later than expected, but it was no big deal; we were still there just after 4 pm. We decided to do a movie that night, scoped out the closest theater, and discovered a brewpub in the same direction, so our evening was set. We had dinner at the Oaken Barrel, which had decent beer (their IPA, with more than 100 IBUs - that means it's bitter - was exceptional) and okay food, then headed to the theater. We wanted to see Harry Potter 6, and it turned out that the time we chose (i.e. the most convenient time for us) was for the IMAX version. Bonus! We greatly enjoyed the movie (although Riley was a bit scared at times), then returned to the hotel (with only one missed exit off the freeway to brag about) for our last night away from home.

Sunday, Aug. 2

Today, once again, the boys were extremely lazy. Cathy and I worked out, showered and dressed, and had breakfast, and we still had to throw open the curtains at 9:30 to rudely awaken them. When we finally got on the road, it was a pretty straightforward trip. We had pretty much run out of picnic foods, so we were forced to eat out for lunch today. We stopped in Fort Wayne, IN at a Subway (to satisfy a craving of Riley's). Once we hit Michigan, the traffic got heavier and faster. Cathy drove the last leg, and claims she had to go about 80 mph just to keep up with the flow of traffic (note to law enforcement: the previous statement is hearsay,and therefore cannot be taken as an admission of guilt). We were glad to get home, although we faced a 2+ week growth of lawn and an empty refrigerator, not to mention several suitcases full of dirty laundry. It was a great trip, with no real negatives that we can think of. On the last leg today, we did the family poll of everyone's favorite things. It's late, though, so that will have to wait for the next post.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 9

2009-08-01T20:35:00.000-07:00

What a great day we had yesterday! We woke up from a sound sleep on the most comfortable bed of the trip, had a good workout at the fitness center, and packed up to go. The hotel didn't offer breakfast (only the second one we booked that didn't) so we made our one and only visit during this vacation to a fast food restaurant. We stopped in at the McDonalds up the street, had a quick breakfast, and headed out. We were a bit concerned about time, because we arrived in Tulsa so late the day before, the drive to St. Louis was even longer, and we had a 7:00 baseball game to make. We hit the highway around 9:40, a little ahead of our typical departure time, but not enough to make me comfortable, so we pretty much drove straight through. We stopped for lunch in Missouri at a rest stop, where we saw a car with a SpongeBob paint job (the boys loved it). (Lunch was also a sad event, because we finished the last of the Old Dutch chips we got in Iowa. Now we'll have to go without for several months until we visit Alberta or Hamilton again. 8^() Apart from lunch, and a stop for gas in Rolla (named after the capital of North Carolina), we kept moving. Still, I was able to enjoy the Ozark countryside, which was hilly and visually interesting. Because of our singlemindedness, we got to St. Louis around 4:30 after battling some freeway traffic (but not as bad as that headed out of town). The early arrival gave us flexibility; instead of having to head straight to the ballpark, we could take a more leisurely trip. We walked down to Union Station, a collection of stores and restaurants in an old train station building that Cathy and I visited years ago (BK) while attending a science teachers convention. We ate at the Beechwood Bistro (where I had an interesting sandwich containing barbecued pork, ham, pickle, citrus aoli, and a fried egg - yummy!), had dinner, checked out some shops (especially the Cardinals' shop, where Riley got a hat and a shirt and Cal got a jersey). From there, we walked the ten blocks or so to the ballpark, arriving just in time for the game. Our seats were in the very top row behind home plate; they were far up, but with a great view. It was a close game and very exciting. The Cards came from behind to take the lead in the bottom of the eighth and win. The boys (Riley especially) were really into the game, and quite excited about the whole thing. As a bonus, there was a fireworks display over the Mississippi River about 10 pm, for which we had perfect seats. Any lower in the stadium, and the scoreboard would have blocked our view; anywhere else in the stadium, and we wouldn't have had a head-on view. I don't know what occasion prompted the fireworks, but it was a great show. After the game, we walked back to the hotel. Under any other circumstances I would have been nervous walking back in the dark in a strange city, but there were other fans walking the same way, and plenty of car traffic along the route, so there was little to worry about. We even came a cross a sculpture garden along the way, which people were walking though and interacting with. There was a lit-up interactive fountain, and other lit sculptures; the whole thing was quite fascinating. We got back to our hotel safe and sound, and even had time for a quick workout before bed.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 8

2009-07-31T21:00:00.001-07:00

Thursday (July 30), the boys slept late, so after working out, Cathy and I snuck downstairs for an intimate breakfast for two (plus a dozen other guests), then brought food back to the room for the boys. Our travels began with a visit to the Cadillac Ranch, a spot west of Amarillo where a dozen vintage Caddies have been buried nose-down in the dirt and spray painted a variety (and I mean a variety) of colors. It's an interesting place, but it was uncharacteristically cloudy and cold (63°F in Texas in July???) so we didn't stay long. We resumed our journey east, with Tulsa, OK as our goal for the day. Amarillo turned out to be a transition point; everything was desert and scrub brush to the west, and slightly greener with grass and crops to the east. We saw one interesting crop - it looked like a field of bamboo, although it may have been sugar cane (?). Another interesting sight - the Chamber of Commerce in Shamrock, TX, which is in an old 40's/50's gas station, still maintained (at least visually) as such.

We hit Oklahoma just after noon, and stopped at the visitor information center for lunch. The skies had cleared a bit by then, and it had warmed up to the 70's, so lunch was quite pleasant. in the afternoon, we stopped in Clinton, OK to visit the Route 66 Museum. It was fun - there was a lot of info about the construction of Route 66, intermingled with plenty of nostalgia and kitsch from the heyday of the highway. Because of the stop, we were a bit late getting into Tulsa, arriving about 6:30. We dropped our bags in the room and immediately headed out to dinner. Cathy had found a place called "Tulsa's Incredible Pizza Experience", a pizza buffet with games, etc. In addition to the usual skee-ball and electronic games, they had an indoor go-kart track, a mini-golf course, and a bowling alley. After eating, Cal and I went to the go-karts, and raced against the pack. I won he race, with Cal a close second out of a field of eight (Cal won a subsequent race). It was a great way to unwind after a day on the road, and the boys had a great time (I kind of enjoyed it too). Cathy and I finished off the day with a quick workout before bed.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 7

2009-07-30T13:38:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, July 29

In the morning, Cathy left early to visit a quilt shop while I got the boys up and fed. When she returned, we went to check out Petroglyphs National Monument, but it was a hike through a lava field with no facilities and we had insufficient water, so we just hit the road. We climbed (and climbed and climbed) out of Albuquerque, and then drove through endless flat desert. Unlike the day before, when we drove through the painted desert with it's multicolored rock formations, this was fairly colorless lifeless countryside. At least the weather was nice, although it was pretty hot. We had lunch at a rest area with cute little adobe-style huts sheltering the picnic tables. In the afternoon, we took a detour into Tucumcari, which our Route 66 book waxed poetic about for it's embodiment of the route 66 atmosphere. We were very disappointed, because the town was largely closed down; many of the businesses were shuttered, and those that weren't has become more seedy than kitschy. I guess in that sense it has become the embodiment of what has happened along route 66. Another sign of economic woes: along one stretch of highway, there were miles of blank billboards. I guess nobody has anything to advertise.

We got to our destination, Amarillo, around 5:00 CDT, having lost another hour with the time change. We went for a swim to relax, then went in search of genuine Texas barbecue. We chose a place called Dyer's because it seemed authentic. One look at all the trucker's hats and suspenders holding pants up beneath prodigious bellies on the clientele, and we knew we'd found the right place. The food was good - simple but tasty. The ribs were especially good. After dinner we cruised Route 66 to scope out the collection of funky shops and restaurants and biker bars, then tried to find a brewpub, but the only one we knew of had disappeared. 8-( We stocked up on groceries at a nice market, and while we were inside a heavy thunderstorm blew through and dumped a lot of rain. It actually got much worse just southeast of us, where winds got up to 102 mph. It's odd; since we left Flagstaff, we've been in the desert (supposedly), yet there has been rain every evening. Hmmmmm.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 6

2009-07-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've let a few days slip by, and I have to catch up, starting with Sunday.

Sunday July 26

As has been my habit, I got up early to go for a bike ride. This morning, I planned something different, however. I wanted to try riding the trails at the Flagstaff Nordic Center, about 15 miles north of town. I loaded up the car and headed out around 6:30. It was a pretty drive through ponderosa pine forest, and I arrived just after 7. Unfortunately, the gates were locked and there was no apparent way in. My trail guide said the center was open "8 days a week" in summer for mountain biking, but it clearly wasn't open upon my arrival. (I found out later that the center opens at 8 am.) Disappointed, I headed back to Flagstaff, and lacking too many options, I stopped at the county park and went for a ride on my usual trail. It was a good ride, but not what I had hoped for.

After my ride, I returned home, ate and showered, and collected the family. We headed to Walnut Canyon National Monument, just east of town. This area was home to the Sinagua branch of Pueblo Indians, and has a huge concentration of cliff dwellings. We walked the mile-long trail loop that takes you past numerous cliff dwellings (none as elaborate as those at Mesa Verde) and then climbed the 240 steps to get back to the visitor center. It was nice hike, and the area is beautiful. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died just toward the end of the hike. Then, as we got back to the visitor center, a heavy downpour started (we had seen the clouds gathering and heard rumbles of thunder throughout the hike, but luckily the rain held off until we were done). In the gift shop, they had walking stick badges commemorating the site. Cathy had seen such badge-adorned sticks in Germany as a child, and thought it would be fun for the boys to start collecting walking sticks with badges. We got them each one, and then headed back to town for lunch.

We had lunch at a superb Mexican restaurant, Salsa Brava, that has been featured on the Food Network. I had salmon tamales, Cal had carne adovado, and Cathy had carnitas; it was all excellent. The chef had just published a cookbook, so I picked up a copy. After lunch, we ran some errands in town. We needed to get walking sticks for the boys and I needed camera batteries. We also hit the grocery store for a couple of items, and found a tremendous selection of chiles, including ones I was unfamiliar with (but were listed in the new cookbook). I stocked up on supplies (including dried corn husks for tamales) to take back to Michigan. We couldn't get anyone in our party to decide what to do at that point, so we returned to the house. I went for another bike ride (around the community - 5 fast-paced miles), and got working on dinner. I grilled some corn and made mac and cheese; we had decided to catch a movie after dinner, so we wolfed down our food and raced into town to get to the theater on time. We went to see "G Force" for Riley's benefit, which was goofy but kind of fun. Then we returned home to prepare for the Grand Canyon.

Monday, July 27

We were up early and on the road by 7:30 on our way to the Grand Canyon. We arrived about 9:00, and made a stop at Mather Point to get our bearings. What a view! Words can't describe the spectacle. I was dizzy standing by the edge. From there, we drove to Grand Canyon Village and found a long-term parking spot (in the shade!) without any trouble. We started by doing a short hike on the rime trail from the village to Maricopa Point. It was a hot day, but it was a nice hike, and the view from the point was worth it. Unfortunately, the boys got really whiny on the last leg of the hike, so going further on foot wasn't an option. Instead, we caught the shuttle bus at Maricopa Point and rode it further west a couple of stops to Mojave Point. There, we had lunch at the overlook, enjoying the view while we ate. We then caught the shuttle back to the village, where we wanted to hike a bit of Bright Angel Trail down into the canyon. The boys were ultra-whiny about that, so the family wound up going just a short bit down the trail to a tunnel in the rock. I went a bit further alone, then climbed back up and rejoined Cathy and the kids. We were very hot by that point, so we stopped in the Bright Angel Lodge lounge for a quick beer (aaahhhh!). We spent some time looking around the village, during which we saw native dancers and four California condors, including one that glided down below us into the rocks - very cool! We then returned to the car, and began the drive eastward around the rim. We made several stops on the way, and the canyon was different at each place. Along the way, my digital memory card in the camera became full, so I had to frantically delete unworthy shots to free up space for more pictures. At the last stop, Desert View, we encountered our housemates, the Wolcoff-Wilcoxens. We checked out the observation tower at Desert View with them; the view there was especially spectacular, with the sun getting lower in the sky (it was 5:30 by this point), and the Colorado River in full view, glistening in the sun. The others seemed to have the opinion that when you've seen the canyon once, you've seen all there is to see. I completely disagree - different parts of the canyon have distinctly different personalities, and that changes during the day as the quality of the light changes. Finally we left for Flagstaff (the Wilcoxens stayed for sunset), arriving about 7:30. Were were starving, so we stopped at Sizzler for dinner (I hadn't eaten there since Bethesda 15 years ago). Then it was home to pack for our departure on Tuesday.

Tuesday, July 28

I got up typically early (5:50), giving me plenty of time to go for one last ride before packing up my bike. I did a figure-eight loop around the community, including both golf courses. It was 8 miles in total, and I was impress with how much more easily I handled the hills than I did last week upon my arrival, the irony is that just as I got acclimatized to the thinner atmosphere, I had to leave. Everyone else got up reasonably early, and we got ready and easily packed up the car in time for our planned departure at 10 am. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and not too hot - perfect fro traveling. We didn't get too far though before we had to stop. Cathy wanted to stop in Winslow (30 miles down the road) to get a picture of the corner ("I was standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona, such a fine sight to see..."). They have a statue on a corner on Main street dedicated to that song. We continued on, and as lunch approached, we started scanning the map for upcoming rest stops for our picnic. There were none to be seen, so we decided to get off the highway at Holbrook, AZ. Alsomt as soon as we exited, we saw a picnic area and puled over to eat. As we lunched, clouds began building in the southeast, indicating the possibility of storms in the afternoon. After lunch we decided to cruise through Holbrook and pick u \p I-40 at the other end. I turned out to be a fortuitous decision, because Holbrook is a haven for route 66-type attractions. Foremost among these is the Wigwam Motel, where every unit is a self-contained tepee. From Holbrook we cruised to Albuquerque, with storms comstantly threatening on the horizon, but never quite materializing (on us anyway). New Mexico varied from open expanses to beautiful, multicolored rock formations. We got in to Albuquerque about 5 pm MDT (we lost an hour along the way), and after fighting some construction traffic made it to our hotel.We checked in and headed out right away, looking for Kelly's Brewery, a brewpub on historic route 66. It is housed in a 1940's Ford car showroom. They had 19 in-house brewed beers on tap (!), but sadly they did not offer a sampler. I had a black bitter, and Cathy has a Weizen, both of which were quite good. The food was interesting too - I had an ostrich burger, and Cathy had a buffalo burger. The best thing about the place was the ambiance, though. Once finished with dinner, we headed to Isotopes Park for a baseball game. I've been somewhat interested in the Albuquerque Isotopes because they used to be the Calgary Cannons, so I got tickets for their game against Oklahoma City. The evening was full of surprises. First, parking at the ballpark was free and plentiful (!!) which I haven't seen at any other ballpark. Second, the stadium itself, which looked kind of old and dumpy from outside, turned out to be really nice with a retro feel to it on the inside. There was a kids area with rides, and the concessions had good, interesting food and good beer (although sadly we did not partake). The weather, which had looked threatening all day, had gotten worse, and I worried that the game would be rained out. Apart from a couple of light sprinkles, however, rain never was an issue, and the weather was quite pleasant overall. There was a point though, where the game was delayed for a couple of minutes by a duststorm. Welcome to baseball in the desert. The game was a good one (the Isotopes won 6-2), and we all had a great time. It was a quick shot from the game back to our hotel and to bed...

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 5

2009-07-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

I've been derelict in my duty he past few days, so there's a bunch of stuff to catch up on. I'll start where I left off, on Wednesday, July 22.

We spent the morning at Mesa Verde National Park, about 10 miles northeast of Cortez, where they have Anasazi cave dwellings. It's a beautiful area, but a bit of a challenge to get to. After entering the park, you have to drive half an hour over windy narrow cliff-side roads up to the visitor center. From there, to see anything, you have to choose one of two routes to the dwellings. We chose the less traveled route, where things are less developed but there would be fewer other visitors. This route required another half hour drive over twisty narrow mountainside roads. At the site, we wound up doing a 4 mile hike, which took us past 4 different dwellings dating from different periods so you got a sense of the evolution of their buildings, and finally to a beautiful view across a chasm to a fascinating cliff-side dwelling. We finished off by having lunch at a roadside picnic area looking down on the valley 2000' below. It was a great morning, but by the time we got back to the highway (we had to retrace our route on the twisty narrow mountainside roads), it was 1:30 and we had a good 5 hours of driving ahead of us. Our route took us into desert country, with interesting rock formations springing up out of nowhere. We stopped briefly at 4 corners (where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona all come together. Apart from that, we just drove, although we hit a few more construction areas where we had to sit in the hot sun (92°F) not moving for extended periods of time. We stopped in Tuba City, AZ for dinner, and eventually made to Flagstaff around 8 pm (although it turns out that Arizona doesn't have daylight saving time, so it was really 7 pm). We arrived in the midst of a heavy downpour, which is common for Flagstaff this time of year (they call it the "monsoon season"). We unpacked and settled in - Cathy and I were given the upstairs master bedroom, because it contained stuffed animals that freaked the others out (a bearskin rug and a stuffed fox pouncing on a stuffed pheasant). The house (which is actually a few miles south of town) is spacious and gorgeous - the master bath attached to our bedroom here is as big as the boys' bedroom at home. Once you get used to all the stuffed animal heads, it's very pleasant. After settling in, Steve and I headed into town to get groceries for the week at Safeway. I was pretty brain dead by then after the long day, so I may have made some questionable purchases. Time will tell....

Thursday morning (July 23) dawned beautiful and sunny. I was awake early (before anyone else), so I decided to hop on my bike and explore the community. The house we're staying in is in a gated community surrounding two golf courses. I went down the road a little ways, at which point the road descended slightly, then curved around, and started to climb. Halfway up the climb, I was sucking wind. I thought to myself that I was in worse shape than I thought, but then I remembered the altitude effect. We're at 6900', and the air is thinner, which is why I wasn't getting enough oxygen. Duh.

I did 5 miles, then returned home for breakfast and a shower. Mid-morning, we headed into town to have a look around during the daylight. We wandered the historic district and checked out the visitor's center. Flagstaff is a nice place - kind of funky, very bike friendly, pretty relaxed. We had lunch at one of the local brewpubs, which turned out to be a big disappointment. Of the 9 beers listed in their menu, only 3 were available, and only the porter was something I typically enjoy drinking. Cathy sampled the 3 available brews, and they were all, at best, just okay, nothing special. After lunch we looked around some more, and I managed to pick up a mountain bike trail guide of the area. We also found the local "natural" grocery, which was Whole Foods in everything but name, but more expensive. Back at the house, I made a pineapple salsa to go with grilled salmon for dinner, and a chile-mushroom risotto. Steve made a salad, so we had plenty of food. It was nice to be able to eat in after a week of restaurants.

To be continued.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 4

2009-07-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (July 21) was in some ways uneventful, but it was interesting nonetheless. We started by continuing to head south on I-25, and were curious to observe that the mountains to the west fell away rather quickly so we were back into just hilly country pretty quickly. We exited about 80 miles south onto US 160 West. This is a two-lane, undivided highway, and immediately we got stuck behind a slow moving trailer. All in all, our progress wasn't too bad. Except for one climb over a small pass, the terrain was flat and dry (no trees to speak of) and the road was pretty straight. We did hit some construction - a couple of places where the road was down to one lane so traffic had to alternate, which meant sitting in a line for 10 minutes or so waiting for our turn to go. These waits were made bearable by listening to "Inkheart" (the audiobook) on my iPod broadcasting through the radio. The book grabbed Cal right away, and he spent the rest of the day begging us to listen to more any time we turned it off.

We stopped in Alamosa for lunch, at a picnic spot in a park beside the river. At the table next to us was a Mennonite family, with parents, grandparents, and at least 5 kids (by my count) all traveling together in a single van. Cathy wondered where they put their luggage.

After lunch, the road headed into the mountains it was beautiful, but frustrating. Every town we entered, it seemed we got stopped at a traffic light, and some large behemoth (my favorite, a semi carrying a dozen cars) would turn onto the road in front of us and become another hindrance to have to get around. There was another bit of road construction (but we had perfect timing and didn't have to wait), then a looooooonnnnnngggg climb up one one side of a mountain pass leading to the Great Divide, followed by a looooonnnnngggg steep, winding descent, which the Pilot's brakes did NOT like, shuddering every time I tried to keep our speed from getting too high. It was important to maintain speed and not go too fast, because there were regular speed traps and they had plenty of luck catching cars going too fast down the steep decline.

All of the afternoon driving was done with the threat of rain hanging over our heads. There were numerous scattered thunderstorms (we saw several pretty impressive lightning strikes), much like on Sunday, where the storms were highly localized (only a mile or so in diameter). At a couple of places where the vista was expansive, we could see several of these storms at once, in different places, with bits of sunny skies around them (although not terribly sunny). We were lucky overall; every time it seemed we were going to drive right into the heart of one of these storms, the road turned or the storm moved off in another direction, so for the most part we just caught the edge of any storm. That was until we hit Durango, where a deluge opened up on us. By then, though, the tricky mountain driving was over, and as we left Durango, we climbed over one last pass and out of the storm.

We reached Cortez about 5:30, all pretty tired from a long day in the car. We found a brewpub just a few blocks from our hotel, and wandered down for dinner. They had a great dopplebock, which helped take the stress out of my shoulders from the stressful driving. Cathy continued her tour of beer samplers, as seen below:

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 3

2009-07-20T21:41:00.001-07:00

What a great day! We got up early (Cathy and I had our usual workout), had breakfast at the hotel, and hit the road by 9:30. In no time we were in the mountain time zone and the terrain began to get more hilly. We got onto I-76 toward Denver, and hardly saw another car. Soon after crossing into Colorado, we saw another wind farm on the northern horizon, probably in Nebraska. There were dozens of windmills stretching as far as the eye could see. We stopped for our usual picnic lunch about 66 miles outside of Denver. In the west I saw storm clouds coming, which didn't bode well for the afternoon's travels. After lunch we headed right into the storm, which turned out to be an interesting experience. The storm was only about a mile or two across, so after watching it approach for over an hour, we were past it in a couple of minutes. It was truly an isolated storm. All around it were blue skies. Bizarre.

We got into Colorado Springs around 2:00 pm MDT, having relived an hour with the time zone transition. We checked in to the Crowne Plaza, which is a really nice hotel (although they charge for Internet access, which is why I'm typing this on my iPhone). We drove up to a place called seven falls, just out of town in the mountains, and climbed the staircase to the top of the falls (224 steps). Riley and I went for a brief hike in the woods at the top of the falls - the forest smells took me bak to my youth and hikes in the Canadian Rockies. For dinner we went tdowntown to a brewpubs (Phantom Canyon). The beer was very good and the food was superb. Cathy had her sampler (9 beers this time) most of which were excellent. The peated porter was a particular favorite. We figure we need to do a ranking of brewpubs on the trip. It was a really pleasant meal.

Our waitress told us about a penny arcade in a place called Manitou Springs. We checked the location and went for a drive. The town was very cool, kind of an artsy funky community with lots of character. The arcade was great, with ancient pinball machines and all games for a dime or quarter. Cathy and I also fell in love with a painting at one of the galleries, and had to buy it. We returned for a swim in the indoor pool, which is in an atrium with real trees; it's a very pleasant spot. Now we're all exhausted and ready for some z's.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 2

2009-07-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

We had a light breakfast at the hotel this morning and left about 10:00, picking up I-80 heading west toward Nebraska. It was a much nicer day than yesterday - sunny and warm. It's not the most exciting driving in the world; Iowa and Nebraska are pretty flat with straight roads, but we did see some interesting views. In western Iowa we saw a couple of wind farms that had dozens of huge modern windmills (possibly over a hundred in total). It was quite an impressive sight.

We crossed the Missouri into Nebraska just before noon, and began looking for a place to stop for lunch. There was a visitor's center in Omaha on a hill just off the highway, but when we got there the parking lot was packed. It turned out there was a zoo nearby, and many people going to the zoo parked at the visitor's center. We continued on and wound up having our picnic at a rest area west of Omaha overlooking a corn field (what's more Nebraskan than that?). After lunch we made a stop in Lincoln so Cathy could visit the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. We also discussed stopping at a historical museum that spans the highway (it's an impressive structure) but the nearest exit was several miles down the road and we didn't feel like driving back. We reached North Platte (our destination) around 5:30, and went for dinner at the Whiskey Creek Grill, one of those places where they have peanuts at the table and you throw the shells on the floor. We had one of the best servers there that I've experienced in a long time (she alternatively addressed us as "hon" and "darlin", and when Cal ordered his dinner, she said, "Well, how polite are you!"). Next door to the restaurant was a tacky souvenir shop masquerading as a museum (Fort Cody, open Monday to Saturday 9:00 am - 9:00 pm and Sunday 9:00 am - 9:00 pm), so we had to check it out. After a quick drive around town, it was back to the hotel for milk and cookies (gratis from 8=9 pm) and resting up for our assault on the Rockies tomorrow.

Vacation Road Trip 2009 - Part 1

2009-07-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

Well, we're off on another cross-country trek, so I thought I'd keep track of things again in my blog. The trip theis time is to Flagstaff Arizona, where we'll be sharing a house (a 3 br 3 1/2 bath "log cabin") with another family for a week. The plan is to take a more northerly route there, and then follow route 66 on the trip home, taking our time each way. We left last Thursday (July 16) and drove our first leg to Madison, Wisconsin. It's not exactly on the way, but we wanted to visit our friends Tammy and Jon, who we haven't seen for over a year. The trip was pretty uneventful, except that Cathy didn't double check the route the iPhone planned for us, and we wound up in downtown Chicago, instead of skirting around the city like we usually do. As a result, we sat in stop & go traffic for over an hour.

Eventually we got to Madison, where we stayed at the Grandstay Residence Hotel, the same place as our last trip through here (and which got the highest hotel rating from our group). Tammy and Jon met us at our hotel and we walked up the street to Pizzeria Uno for dinner. It was great to see them!

On Friday (July 17), Tammy joined us at breakfast in the hotel lobby, and we spent the day wandering around Madison. We parked the car centrally, and headed out from there. We checked out the capitol building, explored a museum shop, and went to lunch at the Great Dane, which is an excellent brewpub just a couple of blocks from the capitol. After lunch we headed back toward the car, stopping to check out some shops along the way. There was a major event happening along State Street ("Market Street Days"), in which the several blocks of the street had been closed to traffic, and all of the retailers had major discounted merchandise for sale. It was kind of a fun festival-like atmosphere, and I picked up a Hawaiian shirt for $5 and a bargain computer for my bike to replace the one I lost a couple of weeks ago.

After we returned to the hotel, Cathy and Tammy went out shopping, ostensibly to find food for our trip (lunch stuff for picnics) as well as food for dinner - we had decided to get a variety of foods and eat in so we could visit more easily. It turned out Tammy and Jon booked a room at the hotel so they could stay late, and visit longer with us! They would up getting the room right next door, completely randomly. We had a nice leisurely dinner with cheeses and salads, and went through several bottles of wine. It was very enjoyable.

Saturday meant we had to leave. 8^( After breakfast in the lobby, we bid goodbye to Tammy and Jon, promising to meet at least once a year, then set off for Des Moines. It was cloudy and cool (62°F) but not too bad. Our route followed US 151 rather than any interstate, which turned out to be a great choice. The road was divided highway the whole way, and traffic was really light. It wound through pretty terrain with verdant rolling hills. Just after crossing the Mississippi into Iowa, we stopped in Dubuque around 11, and wandered their weekly farmers market. We didn't buy anything (except some kettle corn), but it was nice to wander around and see the sights.

Further down the road, we found a rest area to have our picnic lunch. Unfortunately, the weather had worsened by then, and the boys were not interested in eating outside. There was a picnic table under a shelter, and Cathy and I set up there while the boys ate in the car. It was cool, but pleasant. Nearby was a motorcycle shop, in the middle of nowhere, that had a steady stream of customers pulling up on their motorcycles. I guess when you sell Harley parts people will find you no matter where you are. Another interesting sight - I saw several farms where the yard around the farmhouse had no fence, but the yard was bounded by cornfields on every side, so the corn stalks formed a natural fence.

From there we made a straight shot to Des Moines, arriving around 3:45. We checked into our hotel and looked for things to do. The Iowa Cubs were playing, but the boys didn't feel up to a baseball game. We hit the local Hy Vee to grab some more supplies for lunches on the road, and then set out in search of dinner. We didn't see anything too appealing (mostly fast food or unsavory joints), and just kept driving, generally in the direction of downtown Des Moines. Cathy was finally able to get the restaurant locator on her iPhone to workwhen we hit downtown, just in time to locate a brewpub (the "Raccoon River Brewery") two blocks away. It turned out to be a great choice. I had "buffaloaf" (an excellent buffalo meatloaf) and a pretty good IPA. Cathy tried the sampler (8 beers - her goal for this trip is to take pictures of beer sampler sets at as many brewpubs as she can). Some of the beers (the lighter ones) were pretty mediocre, but the stout and the saison were excellent, and several of the ales were very good. After dinner, we just drove around downtown to see what there was to see. Eventually, we wound up at the capitol building, which has a very distinctive gold roof. It was very different from the capitol in Madison, much more ornate, but somehow less imposing. It sits on a hill, surrounded by nice grounds with various statues. The weather had cleared, and the evening was quite nice, so we wandered a bit looking at the sights (being a Saturday night, we couldn't go into the building), then headed back to the hotel. A brief soak in the hot tub (with a game of charades to keep us occupied as we soaked), and we were ready to turn in for the evening.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 17

2008-12-17T06:59:00.000-08:00

IT'S DONE!!!!!

...well,almost.

The electricians finished up yesterday, and all of the lights work very nicely. That should have been the end of it, but we realized that one of the new heating vents is still without a grate. It works fine, but it's currently just a hole in the wall. We're in the midst of final inspections (plumbing and HVAC yesterday - passed; electrical today; final project inspection hopefully Friday), so the project manager promised they'd bring and install a grate while they're doing today's inspection.

I got to really use the kitchen yesterday for the first time. It was a bit of a challenge making dinner, because all of the pots/pans/utensils/etc. were still in the basement. I was constantly running downstairs to find some utensil or food item. I think that's going to be a recurring theme over the next couple of weeks, as we gradually bring things back up to the kitchen and figure out where we want to put them.

After dinner I ran the dishwasher, and washed a bunch of the (dust-covered) pots and pans from the basement by hand so I could put them in their new hiding places. Between the two activities, I managed to cause a minor flood of the kitchen floor. The water was coming from under the sink, leaking out from the cabinet. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was - the plumber had installed the garbage disposal incorrectly (only two of the three clamp units had engaged, so it was loose on one side). It was fine with small amounts of water going down (typical faucet use), but when the dishwasher drained after a cycle, or when I dumped a whole large pot of water down the drain, the water flowed out the opening on the loose side. It didn't take much time (although it took a bit of balance and strength) for me to unhook the disposal, and reconnect it properly. Now it seems to work fine. Shows how carefully the plumbing inspector did his job before passing us on the inspection yesterday...

Anyway, the kitchen is beautiful - it's a warm, open, and inviting space. I'm sure it will be really functional too, but I'll find that out as I begin to use it. Here are some pictures:

The Kitchen Blog, Part 16

2008-12-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

One more day!

Unless something catastrophic happens, everything will be done tomorrow (except possibly for some minor bits and pieces). The dishwasher was delivered as promised last Thursday, and this one was intact. The tile guy came Friday morning to grout. He looked at the tiles, specifically the five Motawi tiles I had set on Tuesday, and he asked, "How did these get here?" I explained that when I saw the Motawis had been left out, I pried out five tiles and cemented in the Motawis. He told me the instructions I left had confused him, so he decided to just leave the Motawis out. No big deal, since I was able to install them where I wanted. The tiles, now grouted, look REALLY nice.

The plumber returned Friday afternoon and connected the dishwasher and the range. Everything is pretty much set, except for electricity. As I write, the electricians are here installing outlets and lights, plus some smoke alarms. They'll have some minor stuff to finish off tomorrow, but most of it should be ready today. I'll take some fresh pictures once they've gone and we get a better chance to look around. I hope I remember how to cook on a real stove....

The Kitchen Blog, Part 15

2008-12-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was another up and down day, but once again, the pluses outweighed the minuses, this time by a bit more than on Monday, I think. As promised, I got Alpha working on Big George's, with the hope that they'd have more success than I did. This tactic paid off, and in the early afternoon I got a call informing me that Big George's would replace the dishwasher with an undamaged one, so it looked as though we were back on track. Plus one. The tile guy was scheduled to work yesterday, and sure enough, when I got home, the tile backsplash had been done. Plus two. The tile looked really good, too. Plus three. Unfortunately, he had failed to put in any of the accent tiles on one wall. Cathy had bought 10 Motawi tiles a while ago, which we wanted to use as accent tiles in the backsplash. I had left the tiles out along with detailed instructions and diagrams about where they were to be placed. On the wall behind the range, he placed the tiles exactly as specified, but on the other wall, they were completely left out. Minus one. Luckily, the mastic hadn't completely set yet, so I pried five tiles out, and cemented the five remaining Motawi tiles in their place. Did a pretty good job too, if I do say so myself. Plus four. I managed to enhance and seal the tiles as well, which really brought out the color nicely. Then I heard from Alpha that they were pushing back the electrician from Thursday/Friday to Monday/Tuesday, because the plumber had to return Friday to connect the dishwasher, when the carpenter was scheduled to return for some finish carpentry. Adding the electrician to that would make for too may people in a confined space. So it turns out that even though the dishwasher issue has been resolved, it cost us a couple of days. Oh well. Minus two. Today I got a call from Big George's setting up the delivery. I was free all day except for 2:00-4:00 pm when my Cell Biology final is. Guess when they wanted to schedule delivery? I convinced them to move the dishwasher to the back of the truck, so it gets delivered last. That pushed it to between 4 and 7, which works, even though it probably kills my scheduled trip to the Corner with David. Minus three. (I know it's technically not yesterday, but there was no work done today, so I lumped it in with yesterday.) Overall, then, I figure I came out one ahead, although it actually feels like more, the same way that Monday, it felt like a lot less. Tomorrow the tile gets grouted, then Friday we get final plumbing and carpentry.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 14

2008-12-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a rough day.

It was full of ups and downs, with the minuses dominating the morning action, although the pluses rallied before the afternoon's closing bell (if I may be allowed to mix metaphors).

The day started promisingly enough. The carpenters arrived early and started moving appliances into the house. I had expected the appliances to go last, but Jerry, the lead carpenter, reminded me that the range and fridge both had to be plumbed, and the plumber was coming that day. From there, as I said above, it was a day of pluses and minuses, and of course Cathy was in Chicago for a workshop, and therefore unavailable to consult on any of this. Here's the checklist of good and bad:

Minuses:

1. Soon after I got to work, I got a call from the contractor telling me that when Jerry uncrated the range, he discovered two dents, and didn't want to proceed without my input. I went home and checked it - the dents are rather small, won't affect performance of the range, and they're on the side, which will be hidden by the cabinets. As much as it annoys me to pay over $2K for an appliance that has flaws, I decided it was better to stick with this one (which will work fine) than to try and replace an appliance that, according to the invoice, is now three months old (having been sitting in the garage since September).

2. While I was home to check the range, I was informed by the plumber that our faucet was missing a washer. "Can't you just go to Home Depot to get one?" I asked. I was told that it was an unusual size, and that I needed to contact the retailer to find out what happened to the one that was supposed to come with it. The problem there was that the faucet was a display model we got for half price from a vendor that isn't exactly hard core into plumbing. I was sure that course of action would not be successful. Complicating things was the fact that the manufacturer is an Israeli company, so calling them to order a replacement part was not going to be straightforward. I cursed myself for letting Cathy talk me into going to a boutique fixtures place instead of just going to a plumbing retailer, as the contractor had recommended.

3. Not long after I got back to work, I got another call. This time it was the dishwasher. At some point in its travels, it had been dropped. The legs were bent, and because the door mechanism is connected to the legs, door operations might be compromised. Once again, I was faced with the prospect of trying to return a brand new, three-month-old appliance. I called the retailer, Big George's (an Ann Arbor fixture), and told my story. I was told by the person at the other end that she'd have to talk to someone to see what they could do for me and call me back. Needless to say, I never got a return call.

At this point, it looked my dreams of a functional kitchen for Christmas were out the window. No sink, no dishwasher, and maybe no range. Microwaved turkey in the basement, anyone? I was really depressed.

Pluses:

1. The refrigerator got installed without incident, and to my surprise, was working when I got home. I had forgotten that the one functional outlet in the kitchen is the one behind the fridge. It looks great, and seems to be working beautifully (very quiet). It also has an icemaker that I was unaware of (it's in the freezer and not on the door). Bonus!

2. Surprisingly, the faucet was working too when I got home. The plumber must have been able to find a replacement washer. The old garbage disposal went in fine and looks good in the new sink. (We wanted to reuse the old one, because it was just a couple of years old. I'd saved it when demolishing the kitchen.) The kids enjoyed playing with the new faucet, which extends (has a hose attachment) and has a spray feature. It's very nice. This made me feel a lot better.

3. Jerry had installed the last cabinet (which had to go in after the countertop), finished the crown molding around the top, and installed trim around the bottoms of the walls and all of the doors. The room now looks a lot less rough. One thing I'll say for Jerry - he does really nice work. He also finished installing the railing on the back steps.

4. The kicker that won it for the pluses was the last one - when I turned on the hot water, there was no banging. Ever since the plumbing had been redone going upstairs (as part of the ceiling joist fix), whenever we turned on the hot water anywhere in the house, there was a hammering sound - bam! bam! bam! bam! - in the pipes. After a couple of weeks, it was enough to drive us mad. I kept meaning to mention it to the project manager, but I forgot at a couple of meetings because we got off onto some other issue. I finally mentioned it last Tuesday, and the PM said he'd look into it. He tried to find the source of the noise, but the floor was being installed that day, so it was noisy and he couldn't pin it down. He said when the plumber came back (which was yesterday), the house would be quiet and they'd try to track down the problem. I don't know what they did yesterday, but last night the noise was gone. What a difference! Before, it was like being slowly driven insane by the incessant jungle drums. Now, it's peaceful.

So overall, we'll put yesterday in the plus column, although I don't want too many more days like that one. Unfortunately, today may be more of the same. I'm still trying to resolve the dishwasher issue. I'm going to try and sick the contractor on Big George's; they have a working relationship, so things may be resolved better between them. I'm curious to see what else the day has in store for me....

The Kitchen Blog, Part 13

2008-12-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

We're on the home stretch!

The kitchen has officially started looking like a kitchen. On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, the flooring was installed. I felt kind of bad, because by Tuesday evening, they had completed about 3/4 of the floor, but Cathy noticed one tile that had a couple of raised edges (as if it had been driven in place with a hammer and had become distorted at the points of contact). Over time (and not a long period of time, I expect), the raised bits would have been tripped over, getting worse, soaking up water any time the floor was washed, getting weaker and weaker, until they finally chipped off, leaving a disfigured section of flooring. Clearly, it needed to be replaced now, while it was relatively easy to do so. The unfortunate thing was, it was five rows of tile in from the edge they left off at, so they had to pull out five rows of installed tile to replace that one, and then replace the five rows. They were good about it, though, and the finished floor is beautiful. We decided on laminate as a compromise floor - I like the look of ceramic tile, but it has so many problems associated with it for kitchen use, especially in an old house. Cathy suggested hardwood, but I had doubts about its utility in the kitchen. The laminate we got has a stone-like pattern that makes it look like ceramic tile, but with much better resiliency and lower cost.

Then on Friday, the countertop was installed. For the countertop, we chose engineered quartz (Cambria). We had originally wanted granite, but we became aware of the controversy surrounding granite and radon/radiation. I'm not sure how big a problem it really is, and I'm not prone to overreaction about such things, but since we were starting from scratch and could pick any material we wanted, we decided to err on the side of caution and go with quartz. The countertop we got is beautiful - black with flecks of green and gold, and little sparkly bits seemingly deep in the counter. They really did a beautiful job of fabricating and installing it. What really impresses me is how well all of the parts match in terms of color ("Of course, they do", says Cathy, as if she planned it all along). We matched individual items as we went, but we've never seen them all together, and they fit perfectly.

Things should happen very quickly now. We're told that everything will be done by this Friday (only 6 days to go!). Tomorrow (Monday), the tile guys come to install the tile backsplash. We spent some time today laying out where we want the Motawi tiles to go. For those of you who aren't familiar, Motawi Tileworks is a southeast Michigan tilemaker that produces gorgeous artisanal tiles. They're VERY expensive, but Cathy scored ten tiles on sale a while back, and we've been saving them for this. Actually the color scheme in the kitchen is all based around the Motawi tiles. They will form a set of accent tiles, with the bulk of the tiles being a beigeish rough stone tile. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all looks tomorrow night. The plumbers also return tomorrow, to connect the sink, etc. On Thursday (or maybe Wednesday), the electricians return to do the final electrical work (installing outlets and undercabinet lights). Throughout the week, the carpenters will do finish work, mostly trim work. That will leave just the appliances, which presumably will be the last things to go in, on Friday. I can't wait!

The Kitchen Blog, Part 12

2008-11-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

Not much was scheduled this past week (because we were waiting for the flooring and countertop to be prepared), which turned out to be a good thing for a couple of reasons. For one, not much would have happened anyway because of the Thanksgiving break. For another, it gave the carpenters a chance to catch up on little things that had been pushed down the list by the need to install cabinets. They installed some trim, and finally built the back steps:

Now, we can finally use the back door without having to jump!

The other benefit was that I was able to catch up on the painting. I had painted the walls where the cabinets were going to go, but not in the mudroom or around the bathroom. I was able to take care of that over the Thanksgiving break. Everything is now painted except for the trim, most of which hasn't been installed yet. I'll try to get ahead on that, so I don't have all of it to do at the end.

This week coming up is going to be busier. The flooring starts to go in on Tuesday, and should take 2-3 days. Then, on Friday, the countertop gets installed. That will leave a week to finish off the electrical and plumbing and tiling, with an expected finish date of Dec. 12. It can't come too soon as far as I'm concerned. I'm getting really tired of cooking in the microwave and eating processed food. Fergus has a different opinion, I'm afraid. He'll be upset, I'm sure when everything is installed and he loses all his extra sleeping spots.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 11

2008-11-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

The pace of the blog has slowed because the pace of progress has slowed. That's not to say that there are problems, but things have to be done one at a time for a while. Last week, the cabinets were installed over a couple of days; They look really nice.

Once the cabinets were in, the floor guys were able to come in and measure for floor installation, which happened Thursday. Then on Friday, the countertop guys came in and created a template for the countertop. Cathy said they cut it out of balsa wood, measured to 1/16". Now we have to wait a week for the floor and countertop to be prepared. It's just as well, because Thanksgiving is Thursday (when nothing would happen anyway), and it gives me time to finish the painting. The current schedule is to have the floor installed Dec. 1-4, and the countertop installed on Dec. 5. The following week will be a flurry of finishing activity (plumbing, tile electrical), with a projected end date of Dec. 12. That would put us about three weeks behind the original schedule, which, considering the unforeseen ceiling problems account for two weeks of the delay, isn't too bad.

On a down note, our project manager, Kevin, was laid off last week, due to a decline in business on the design/build side of things. I know the economy's rough and unemployment is on the rise, but when it happens to someone you know, it really hits home. It's such lousy timing too, right before the holidays. We're getting a different project manager to finish things; I hope the burp in continuity doesn't negatively impact the renovation.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 10

2008-11-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

I managed to get to the painting this weekend, but it was not completely straightforward. The drywall guy was supposed to come Friday to sand the drywall, but by 5:50 pm, he hadn't shown. Without sanding, we couldn't prime and paint, and if we didn't do that, the cabinets couldn't go in this week. The whole project would be delayed by a week. I called Kevin, and he got on the phone to the drywall guy, convincing him to come do the job on a Friday evening. We went out for a while, and when we returned at 9 pm, the sanding had been done. After vacuuming the walls thoroughly (there was dust everywhere), I spent all day Saturday priming and sealing everything (two coats), then on Sunday I painted the ceiling and the parts of the walls that will be partially covered by cabinets (so we don't have to paint around the cabinets later). We decided (for fun) to choose only colors that are food related, so the ceiling is painted in Vanilla Custard and the walls are Sweet Honey. Personally, I think the Sweet Honey looks more like a pail of nacho cheese sauce, but it's still with the food theme.

Today, the cabinets were delivered! They have been piled in the middle of the kitchen, which prevented me from continuing to paint tonight. They're all wrapped up, but from what I can see, they look really nice.

It didn't take long for Fergus to check things out and give his own special seal of approval:

The Kitchen Blog, Part 9

2008-11-13T18:48:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted to the kitchen blog, partly because I've been distracted, and partly because progress was slow for a while. After the last post on Oct. 30, we waited through a series of inspections. Friday (Oct. 31) was the electrical inspection, Monday (Nov. 3) was the HVAC inspection (the HVAC guy sat on the driveway for 2 hrs waiting for the inspector, who finally showed up and did the whole inspection in about 3 minutes), and Tuesday (election day!!) was the rough carpentry inspection and insulation inspection. The insulation inspection was supposed to be Wednesday, but the inspector called the carpenter and gave him 2 hr warning that he would inspect the insulation as well, even though the insulation hadn't been started yet. It all got done, and we passed all the inspections. That opened the way for drywalling to begin. More on that in a moment. Meanwhile, on Monday and Tuesday the siding was put up. We're all sided again, but of course now it's too cold and wet to paint. Luckily it was pre-primed, so it should be okay until it warms up enough to paint.

I had to leave town for several days on Wednesday. That night, I got a call from Cathy, who was very upset. The drywall had been delivered that day, and the morons piled it in the kitchen, blocking the door to the basement. As a result, Cathy and the boys had no access to any of the food or drinks in the house, and couldn't even feed the cats. Cathy couldn't make breakfast or lunch for the boys, so needless to say she was upset. She called Kevin the project manager to voice her dissatisfaction, adn got assurances that it would be moved the next day. Sure enough, the next day all of the drywall had been installed, and was out of the way. I was pleased how quickly the drywall went up, and there was hope for getting back some of our lost schedule time. That hope was soon dashed, however, because nobody showed up to work on Friday. Monday (Nov. 10) a bit of work was done (taping the seams), then Tuesday a bit more (mudding the taped seams). Wednesday nothing happened again, so it has been nearly a week with minimal progress. Today another coat of mud was added to the seams, but there's still some sanding that needs to be done. It has to be done by tomorrow, because we nee to prime and paint on the weekend. The cabinets are being delivered Monday and installed beginning Tuesday, and the painting has to be done before that. I'm starting to get a bit frustrated with the mounting number of days during which nothing gets done.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 8

2008-10-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

We've actually seen some progress this week. The plumbing was fully restored Monday, although not without minor incident. I had left a note for the plumber to fix the leak in the tub upstairs. He called me Monday afternoon to tell me he couldn't find a leak. I told him it was only when the shower was running and someone was in the shower. He said he'd check it. When I got home Monday afternoon, the carpenter told me that the plumber had been unable to find a leak, despite having filled the tub up all the way to the overflow drain. Of course that meant he was using the faucet and not the shower, which we had already determined didn't cause the leak. The carpenter suggested that we weren't using the shower curtain properly, and the leak was from water that was getting out of the shower and on to the floor. That really annoyed me - I'm not such a moron that I don't know how to use a shower curtain! Tuesday morning, the tub started leaking while Cathy showered, so I got a ladder and a flashlight and took a look. The water was coming down from the overflow drain, so when Cathy was done, I checked out the shower. There was a small gap in the plate that covers the overflow drain. I poured some water on top of the plate, and it poured right through to the kitchen. We had the culprit. At my weekly meeting with the project manager, I gloated (a little) and showed him where the leak was. It was fixed Tuesday.

Things took off from there. The back door was installed Tuesday, which makes a big difference, the new windows were installed Wednesday. The plumbers were also back Wednesday, installing the gas line for the new range. The electricians have been around from Tuesday through today installing the electrical fixtures. Tonight we have actual working lights in the kitchen (although only one light switch is in and working).

We've got a couple of inspections scheduled for the next couple of days. After that, the drywallers should be able to come in and put up the walls.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 7

2008-10-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

We're almost at a point now where the real kitchen work can begin. The ceiling work was mostly completed last week. On Tuesday, the carpenters reinforced as many joists as they could without pulling the plumbing. On Wednesday, as promised, they shut off the water and ripped out all of the pipes in the kitchen walls and ceiling. It broke my heart (or at least my wallet) to see all the new copper pipe we paid for just last summer being pulled out so unceremoniously. Supposedly, they'll reuse as much of it as possible to save us money. After pulling out those pipes, they capped the ends and turned the water back on, so there were functional sinks and toilet on the main level and basement. I didn't realize they would do that, so we could have stayed in the house, but we had already booked a hotel, so we stayed in the hotel overnight. They were unable to do enough work for the plumbers to come in Thursday, meaning a second night without water upstairs, but we decided to stay at home anyway Thursday night. Unfortunately, when we got home Thursday night, we discovered that the carpenter had cut an electrical line that turned out to be the supply of all power upstairs, so we were completely in the dark (and without alarm clocks) in our bedrooms. Once he was informed of his error (Friday morning), he spliced the line back together, so we have power upstairs again. The plumbers came in Friday, and ran new water lines up the wall (moved over next to the ascending duct where the peninsula will go), and a new bathtub drain to the opposite side of the kitchen where it used to run (now it doesn't run through any joists). The plumbing took longer than anticipated (they had trouble drilling through the new joists), so they were able only to restore water to the tub/shower. The upstairs sink & toilet are still out of commission. That was good enough for the weekend, though, and everything should be finished today. we noticed a leak in the newly installed bathtub drain, so I left a note this morning for the plumbers to fix it.

The new ceiling is much improved over the old. They used laminated veneer lumber (lvl) instead of regular wood for the new joists. It's much stronger and straighter than regular lumber. In places, they sister two of those onto each joist, so there are three side-by-side joists in spots. It's a really beefy arrangement, and should be pretty much bomb-proof. Completion of that meant they were able to take down the post that had been installed to support the ceiling, so the kitchen is now completely open. I'm still struck by how much bigger and more open it is with just that small addition. The back door has been framed in, but not installed, although that should happen in the next day or two.

Kind of a funny story - several times over the last couple of weeks, I got home to discover Fergus in the living room (where he typically is not allowed). Of course he was purring away, happy as a clam, until I tossed him back in the dining room. I assumed that the workers (who access the kitchen through the front door, there currently not being a back door) were leaving the dining room doors open. I mentioned this to them, but the problem continued. On Friday, I noticed that Fergus was able to get the door open himself. The French doors between the living room and dining room had no latch (the doorknobs were just for pulling open); we always used to leave them open, so there was no need. When we made the living room off-limits to the cats, I built a sliding brace that sat under the doors and held held them closed - one door locks into the floor, and the brace held other door firm to the locked one. It took him a year, but Fergus was able to figure out how to slide the brace back, and then pull open the free door. It was fascinating to watch, and if I may be allowed to anthropomorphize a bit, Fergus seemed pretty proud of himself, but needless to say, I went out to Home Despot on the weekend and bought a new doorknob set. I only used the internal mechanism, and was able to match that with our old glass doorknobs, which match the doors and the general decor of the house much better than the new ones would have. Fergus is going to have to work a bit harder now to figure out how to get the door open.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 6

2008-10-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything for a while, because not much has been happening. Early last week, they closed in the back porch and took out the old walls. It's impressive how much bigger the room feels with just that small addition. After that, work stalled. There's nothing more they can do until the ceiling issue is fixed. To that end, Kevin (the project manager) has been working with Alpha's engineers to find the best way to shore up the ceiling joists and level the ceiling without destroying the tile floor in the bathroom above. It's going to be pretty extensive, involving a whole new set of ceiling joists, and moving all the plumbing and electrical. You can see in one of the posted pictures the source of the problem - the bathtub drian is running through the joists, which have holes cut far too deep to accommodate it. They're supposed to start on the ceiling work tomorrow, and finish hopefully some time on Thursday. Adding to the fun is the fact that we'll be without water for at least a day (Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon). We're going to have to figure out how to deal with not being able to shower or flush or brush teeth, etc. Probably a hotel for a day or two. All told, we've lost about a week of work with this issue, and we're going to lose three more days with the additional ceiling work, so finishing by Thanksgiving is just about an impossibility at this point. 8^(

The Kitchen Blog, Part 5

2008-10-12T17:24:00.001-07:00

As of the end of Friday, the kitchen has been stripped bare - the floor is gone, all of the lath has been removed, the sink is finally gone (the pipes were capped, thankfully), and the fridge and range were removed to the garage. They've also stripped off the siding from the outside of the kitchen, removed the outer door, and stripped the back porch bare. At this point, I figure they must be ready to build the new walls and take out the old walls by the back door. The dumpster is being removed tomorrow (Monday), so I assume that demolition of the walls will happen tomorrow so they can get the scraps in the dumpster before it goes. We trashed a lot of stuff from the basement into the dumpster - it helped clean up the basement a bit. I'm curious to see what will happen tomorrow....

The Kitchen Blog, Part 4

2008-10-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

The renovation got underway today, and the kitchen is now pretty much gutted. I'm amazed how much they stripped down the room. The ceiling is gone, and all of the walls are stripped to bare lath. The room looks completely different now, but I can see the possibilities of the kitchen much more easily now. Where the fridge once stood, there is now an opening into the front hall closet. As Cathy thought, the closet used to be a passageway from the front door into the kitchen. They're going to seal it up again eventually, but for now it's kind of fun to have that opening there.

We ran into a couple of problems. First, the dumpster that was delivered wasn't put in front of the garage as it was supposed to be. They couldn't get it in deep enough (a power line got in the way) so they dumped it beside the house, nearly blocking the entire driveway. Luckily, Jim and Helen are considerate, and willing to put up with the annoyance. The other problem was revealed when the ceiling was removed. Some of the upstairs floor joists were cut through too much to install drain pipes fro the upstairs bathroom, and they have begun sagging and a couple have cracks in them. Some previous owner was a real moron when it came to home repairs, doing things very poorly. We need to hear what the engineers have to say before we know how to proceed. Hopefully the solution won't be too extensive or expensive.

Even with those glitches, it's really exciting to finally be under way, and to see things get so far so quickly.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 3

2008-10-05T18:36:00.001-07:00

I managed to rip out most of the rest of the cabinetry today. I disconnected the sink from the countertop, and then I pounded the crap out of the cabinet underneath until it splintered. I was able to take it out in pieces, and with a couple of saw cuts, the counter came out as well. Now all that's left is the back wall of the cabinet and the sink, which I had to support with a stool. We emptied our large pantry cabinet and moved it downstairs; now all that's left is to empty the refrigerator so it can be moved to the garage. We'll be using the downstairs refrigerator (the former "beer refrigerator") during the renovation. We'll finish things off tomorrow and be ready for the real to begin on Tuesday.

The Kitchen Blog, Part 2

2008-10-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

The second weekend of kitchen demolition went a little less smoothly than the first. The key goal in this portion was to disconnect the plumbing to the faucet and garbage disposal so I could remove the counter with the sink and the rest of the cabinets underneath. I immediately encountered a problem, however. The cold water shutoff under the sink doesn't work, so I can't shut off the water. That means I can't disconnect the faucet unless I shut off the water to the whole house, which is completely unworkable (although Cal would probably appreciate not having to shower. Initially it seemed like this would stall the whole demolition, but I found a couple of workarounds. I was able to remove the disposal intact (in good condition, so we'll be able to reuse it in the new kitchen) and get two of the cabinets out from under the counter top. I was also able to get part of the countertop off (the right angle part next to the stove). With some playing around, I disconnected the sink form the countertop, so I'm hopeful that tomorrow I can remove the cabinet from under the sink, cut the remaining counter in two and remove it, leaving just the sink supported by its supply pipes. That should be good enough - Alpha can remove the sink and cap the cold water line. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

The kitchen blog, part 1

2008-10-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

With our kitchen renovation officially beginning next week, I thought I'd chronicle the trials and tribulations, so we can look back on this some day and laugh. I'm sure we won't be laughing while it's going on, but I'll just think about how many people are losing their homes these days, and going without a kitchen for six weeks won't be so hard to bear. They say it will take six weeks to complete the job; I'm anticipating eight to ten, because these things never finish on schedule. From October 6, eight weeks would put us at Dec. 1; if that's the case, we won't be able to do Thanksgiving this year, which would be very disappointing. I'll hold out hope for the six week completion time, which would get us done before Thanksgiving, but I'm not counting on it.

The renovation actually began unofficially last weekend. We offered to do the demolition on our current cabinets to save some money (what can I say - I'm cheap!)and I started on that process last Saturday. My friend Glenn came over, and we spent the day ripping out cabinets. It went pretty smoothly, with the exception of the last cabinet. Three of the screws securing it to the wall stripped and wouldn't turn, so I had to go midieval on them with a hammer. A little bashing and the thing eventually came down. The only cabinets and counter we have left is the set around the sink and dishwasher, which I'll take out this weekend. I didn't want to disconnect the plumbing until the last minute. In the meantime, we're adjusting to life without a lot of the items we're used to having in the kitchen - they're all buried in the basement now. It's a good transition for us, because things will get more drastic next week.

The kitchen looks interesting now - behind the cabinets is just lath and plaster. It looks an old-beat-up house from a bygone era (which I guess it is). I'll post again in a few days when things start to get more interesting.

The Hogtown Diaries, Part 2

2007-07-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

Monday, July 23
The trip home was uneventful. The border crossing was mercifully quick, and the house was still standing when we arrived. Unfortunately, I discovered around 8 pm that the freezer door had been left ajar while we were away (ice buildup on one of the shelves had forced the door open), and almost everything inside had thawed. Much of the food had to be tossed (defrosted frozen vegetables just aren’t worth saving), but some of it was okay to be cooked. I spent the rest of the evening trying to cook food to save it, and trying to defrost the freezer with a couple of space heaters. It looks like we’re going to be living on chicken and perogies for a while....

Sunday, July 22
This morning we packed up our stuff and prepared to check out - we were going to the Jays’ game, and then over to visit my friend Jay in Oakville after the game. Jay had convinced us to check out of the hotel a day early and stay overnight at his place. Logistics of the checkout were tricky - Cathy’s room key had stopped working, and as of this morning, mine had gone AWOL, so somebody had to stay in the room at all times to let the others back in. When we were ready to leave, we said goodbye to as many people as we could find (most of them had partied until 3 am, so some were still unconscious). Cathy’s brother Phil had eleven bottles of champagne left over from the wedding that were not part of the liquor license and therefore couldn’t be returned, so he gave us a couple of bottles to take with us. With that, we headed downtown toward the Skydome (I still can’t wrap my brain around calling it the Rogers Center). We found a convenient parking lot along Front street, practically across the street from the stadium (and only $12 - a bargain these days). After a brief debate, we decided to pass by the vendors on the street and get lunch inside (to me, lunch from the street vendors is one of the “must-do” Toronto experiences, but so be it). Our seats were almost as high as you can get in Skydome (the air was getting a little thin), but they were right behind home plate so they were actually really good. It was a good game - the best the jays had played in a while - and we had a great time. We skipped out late in the 8th with TO leading to try and avoid heavy post-game traffic, managed to find our way to the Gardiner expressway, and pointed ourselves at Oakville. Close to Jay’s place, we stopped in the LCBO to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner, and I there was a New Zealand sauvignon blanc that I had to get - “Mount Riley” (it was actually pretty good). We had a really nice visit with Jay and Beth. We had a nice relaxed dinner by the pool and tried to get caught up on the last three years. It was great to see them.

Saturday, July 21
Today was wedding day, and it was a beautiful sunny day. The wedding was scheduled for 2 pm, so we had some time to kill in the morning. We had kind of a lazy morning, hanging around the room, getting in a quick swim, and plating some more nerf tennis. Cathy found time to pop over to Yorkdale to pick up a copy of the new Harry Potter book. We went to a nearby deli for lunch, where we all (except for Riley) had sandwiches made with way too much meat. While at lunch, I gave the boys some valuable information about weddings, so they would be properly prepared for the event. I told them that unless you‘re the bride or groom, or a girl, weddings are boring. I didn’t want them to have any higher expectations, lest they be disappointed. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a science store, which had all kinds of great scientific toys and kits. We probably could have spent a couple of hours in there, but it was getting close to wedding time, and we had to go get ready. Once dressed, we left for the church. We allowed about 45 minutes to get there; some of the others chose to wait until 1:30 to leave, not wanting to arrive too early at the church. Traffic was once again heavy, and we got into the church right at 2:00. Those who left after us would up arriving late, but luckily the ceremony had not yet started. We would up sitting very close to the front (because we arrived with the grandmothers of the groom), which made me feel like we had been considered more important than we really are. The ceremony itself was very nice (and brief), and because we were at the front, we got to be among the first to leave the church and first to go through the receiving line, so we got it out of the way quickly (can you tell I love receiving lines?). Outside the church, a horse drawn carriage was waiting, with an iced bottle of champagne sitting on the floor. It was a very classy touch. While the bride and groom headed off for pictures, we had 3 hours to kill before the reception, so we hit the LCBO, picked up a six-pack of interesting beer, and went back to the hotel to kick back and relax (mostly, Cathy wanted to read her book). The reception was being held not far from the church, so based on our earlier experience, we allowed 45 minutes to get to the reception. It turns out that traffic is much lighter in Toronto at 5:15 on a Saturday than it is at 1:15, so we got to the reception earlier than expected (and before we could get in). The reception was at Casa Loma, a castle built by a prominent financier and industrialist in the early 1900’s. The place was beautiful, and pre-dinner drinks and appetizers were served on the huge back patio overlooking the garden and fountain. It was a beautiful location, and a really pleasant time. The boys played hide and seek with Edie in the garden while we relaxed. Dinner was served in the dining room, which was a bit cramped with 150 people, but it was very elegant. At one point I took Riley off in search of a bathroom. We found a door labeled “Gentlemen”. I asked Riley if he was a gentleman, and he nodded yes, so I told him, “I guess you can go in then.” One of the caterers walked by at that moment, and cracked up when she heard the exchange. There was a bit of an interesting twist for anyone wanting the bride and groom to kiss. They had to spin a wheel, which might say “bride and groom kiss”, or it might have a challenge for the spinner. If the challenge was successfully completed, then the bride and groom would kiss. Naturally, as soon as they announced this, Cal was up there in a shot. He spun the wheel, and was challenged to kiss someone himself. Of course, he kissed his Mom, and turned nine different shades of red. He got Meaghan and Chris to kiss, though. Dinner was wonderful, but everything took a lot longer than planned, so by the time they were through dinner and the speeches and ready to begin dancing, it was after 10:30, and the boys were crashing. Cathy and I had hoped to get at least one dance in, but we were doomed to be disappointed. We retired to the hotel, and put the boys to bed.

Friday, July 20
Today was a largely uncommitted day, apart from the wedding rehearsal dinner in the evening. We had breakfast in our room (the cooler saves us again - breakfast in the hotel cafe was $20 per person!), then spent the morning wandering around Yorkdale Mall, which is right across the street from the hotel. There’s a Rainforest Cafe in the mall, and we decided to stop in for lunch. Riley wasn’t keen on the half-hourly “thunderstorms” (where lights flash and canned thunder rumbles), and spent most of the time with his ears covered asking how many more minutes until the next one. The kids got drinks that gave them a key, which they could use to try and open a treasure chest. Riley’s key worked, and he won a $50 gift certificate. Naturally, he had to spend it all right away (which kind of makes sense because we don’t really have a Rainforest Cafe near us), so he got all kinds of merchandise from the cafe shop. In the afternoon, the kids and I took advantage of some of the recreational opportunities at the hotel. They have a small tennis court in one part of the lobby, where guests can play nerf tennis. I played for a bit with the boys (it was quite fun), and then we went for a swim. About this time, the rest of the Renaud clan started arriving from various locations around the continent. The boys got to meet their new cousin-once-removed Ryder, who flew in from Nova Scotia with his Mom and Dad (our nephew Chris and his wife Dena). Cal and Riley had been talking about nothing but Ryder all day, and they were excited to finally meet him.
In the evening, we went to the rehearsal dinner, which was a barbecue at the bride’s parents’ house. We had an interesting time fighting Friday afternoon Toronto traffic on our way to the barbecue, but we got there unscathed. The barbecue was enjoyable, especially so for the kids. Cal and Riley spent a lot of time goofing around to entertain Ryder, and were very successful in making him laugh. They also met the flower girl, two-year-old Edie, who spent the evening following them both around, trying to get them to play with her. We gave our wedding gift to the couple early - a quilt Cathy had made for them. Needless to say it went over very well.

The Hogtown Diaries, Part 1

2007-07-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

This entry should be entitled, “View from the pitch”. We’re in Toronto for our nephew’s wedding, staying at the Holiday Inn Yorkdale. Our hotel room looks out over the exquisite natural beauty of Highway 401 in Toronto, the single busiest stretch of highway in Canada. Luckily, we just happen to be here at the same time as the semifinal of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup. We were able to score tickets on the internet a while back, so after checking into the hotel this afternoon, we headed down to the stadium (we wanted to get there early to make sure we got a parking spot). Outside the stadium, they had a “fan zone” set up, with interactive things for the kids to do (one time a shot in the air, shoot at a goal, stop a shot at goal), demonstrations of soccer skills, etc. We wandered around a bit (and got a free family picture from the Sony tent), then headed into the stadium. We were still early, so we looked around the stadium a bit before taking our seats. It had been sunny when we arrived, but clouds moved in quickly, and within a couple of minutes of taking our seats, a downpour started, 45 minutes before game time. We rushed down to the concourse to take cover. By that point, the stadium had started filling up, and it was a carnival-like atmosphere. Roving bands of fans decked out in Chilean and Argentine flags paraded through the crowd, playing drums, singing, and chanting, trying to outdo each other. We waited until just before game time to return to our seats, and within a few minutes, the rain miraculously stopped.

The game itself was really entertaining, but not always for the right reasons. Our seats were excellent (just inside the penalty area at one end, 19 rows up), but as Cathy observed, there probably isn’t a bad seat in that stadium. We had a superb view of the action. Both sides had amazingly skilled players; the difference was that Argentina had more discipline, and played better as a team, especially on defense (where they swarmed any Chilean with the ball). The Chileans lost their composure early - they gave up an unlucky goal, and had several calls go against them, and one player took out his frustrations on the sideline by kicking his opponent, earning a red card and an early trip to the showers. The Chileans had a few chances to score, but they tended to try and beat defenders one-on-one, instead of passing. Because of the Argentine team defense, it was really one-on-three, so most of their drives were snuffed out before they started. To make matters worse, the referee really seemed against them. The calls were decidedly one way (Cathy, who as far as I can tell was a dispassionate observer, couldn’t believe how one-sided the ref was). In the second half, Chilean frustration started bubbling to the surface. The ref called a bad foul on what was really a superb tackle by a Chilean defender. The Chilean goaltender said something, and got a yellow card for his trouble. Another teammate said something after that, and he got a yellow card as well. A few fans started tossing things on the field in response, and a chorus of boos emanated from the stands. Moments later, a Chilean ball carrier was taken down by a high, dangerous tackle. A foul was called, but no card was shown. The Chileans, incensed, surrounded the referee demanding a yellow card. One of the players touched the referee, and was immediately ejected, leaving Chile two men down. At this, beer cups started raining down on the field, and the booing intensified. Then things got crazy. An enraged Chile fan leaped onto the field, and charged at the referee. Security seemed not to have noticed, but a man appearing to be with the broadcast team (he was wearing a headset with a microphone) started chasing after the interloper. The Chilean players actually grabbed the guy and kept him away from the ref, then gently guided him back to the perimeter, where security guards escorted him away. The referee had clearly lost control of the game, there were only a few minutes remaining, and the result was a foregone conclusion (with Argentina up by 2) so we decided to leave early and beat the traffic. It turned out to be a good decision, because I saw later that there had been another altercation at the end of the game, with Chilean players trying to get at the referee, and police required to get the him safely off the field. Apparently there was a brawl on the Chilean team bus after the game, and police had to use tasers to get control. It was all great theater, as well as good soccer. Argentina deserved the win; they played impressive team defense, and passed the ball really well in attack.

Report from the Road, Epilogue

2007-07-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

Here are my reflections on the trip, after having the chance to think about it for a day or so now...

- The whole trip went unbelievably smoothly. When we told people what we were planning, we generally got knowing smirks in response, suggesting that we were crazy to drive across country with two young boys. The boys were great the whole trip, though. There were no major backseat fights, very few “Are we there yet?”s, and only one “I have to go to the bathroom” right after leaving a rest stop. I was very impressed with both Cal and Riley.

- The picnic idea was a great one. The thermoelectric cooler paid for itself within a few days. Not only was it much cheaper to make our own lunches, it was much healthier, and it was much nicer eating where we could (often) enjoy the scenery, rather than staring at the same McDonald’s decor as everywhere else in the country.

- June is a great time to travel. As bad as the traffic was in Yellowstone, it must be horrid in July and August. Other places weren’t as crowded as we’ve seen them in the past. Plus, the weather was beautiful for most of the trip - mid-70’s and sunny. The first week of July, some of the places we had visited earlier in our trip shot over the 100 degree mark.

- Minnesota and Saskatchewan are the places for wind farms. We saw several in Minnesota (some still being constructed), and what appeared to be new lines going in to connect the farms to the power grid. Saskatchewan had only one that we saw, but it had a huge number of windmills.

We took a poll among the family, and came up with our list of favorite places/things. Without Freddy Adu, here it is:

The List of Lists

Bob’s top 5 hotels:
1) Grandstay Residence Suites, Madison, WI: unfortunately, nothing subsequent could top where we spent the first night of the trip.
2) Days Inn, Thunder Bay, ON: similar amenities to Tsawassen Inn, but scores extra points for free breakfast and internet. Cheaper, too.
3) Tsawassen Inn, Tsawassen, BC: the most upscale place we stayed. Nice suite, nice pool, but why charge for internet access?
4) Glacier Park Lodge, Rogers Pass, BC: not the fanciest place or the nicest room, but I loved the atmosphere of the place and you can’t beat the view from the front door.
5) Quality Inn, Spokane, WA: comfy beds; extra couch was a nice touch. Nice pool, too, although crowded.

Bob’s top 5 restaurants:
1) Redwater Rustic Grill, Calgary: excellent food prepared in an innovative style and with a beautiful presentation. Expensive but worth it.
2) Kinniwabi Pines Restaurant, Wawa, ON: a pleasant surprise. Nice, down home atmosphere, surprisingly excellent food. Standard fare with an Asian flair.
3) The Keg, Richmond, BC. I know it’s a chain restaurant, but the food was excellent. The most tender chicken I’ve had in a while.
4) The Firehouse Brewing Co., Rapid City, SD: good food in a unique atmosphere. Good beer too.
5) (tie) Melissa’s Missteak, Banff, AB: Twenty years later, they’re still serving great burgers; Red Radish Bistro, Qualicum Beach, BC: When I order a veggie sandwich, it’s usually to be healthy, but I’d order theirs just because it’s really good.

Cal’s top 3 pizzas:
1) Melissa’s Missteak, Banff: two words: deep dish.
2) Starlight Inn, Calgary: lots of meat for meat lovers. Just as good for lunch the next day.
3) South Wind Grill, Winnipeg, MB: because he couldn’t think of the other places he had pizza and this was the most recent (-personally, I’d nominate the Firehouse Brewing Co. - BW).

Best Ice Cream:
Bob: My Favourite Ice Cream Shoppe, Calgary - still the standard to which all others are compared;
Cathy: My Favorite Ice Cream Shoppe
Cal: Bowness Park, Calgary - Yummy Rolo ice cream (but it’s Nestle! -BW)
Riley: Wall Drug, Wall, SD

Favorite Pool:
Cal: Days Inn, Moose Jaw, SK - the waterslide trumps cold water.
Riley: Best Western Yellowstone, Livingston, MT - where he first learned to put his face under water
Cathy: Glacier Park Lodge, Rogers Pass, BC - a pool with old-world charm, plus it’s WARM
Bob: tough call, but I’d say the Tsawassen Inn, Tsawassen, BC - nice atmosphere, plus a very pleasant hot tub. Close second: Glacier Park Lodge. Close third: Best Western Yellowstone.

Giant animal sculptures sighted: moose, cow, bear (Smokey), sheep, buffalo, Canada goose (2 sightings) - Does Winnie the Pooh count?

Report from the Road, the Final Chapter

2007-07-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

Sunday, July 8
Unfortunately, our trip ended on a bit of a sour note. We awoke to rain, and unsettled skies - the first real rain we had seen the whole trip (there was intermittent rain traveling from Vancouver to Rogers Pass, but nothing steady). We set out from Wawa to Sault Ste. Marie, passing more spectacular scenery, which was undiminished by the cloudy weather. It was a nice trip, pleasant driving with minimal traffic. When we got to the Soo, we intended to stop for lunch, but before we could find someplace acceptable to eat, we were approaching the border, so we decided to wait until we got to the US side. We stopped briefly at the Duty Free to pick up a gift (and get a GST rebate, which we learned to our chagrin they no longer do), then headed for the bridge to the US. We almost immediately got stuck in traffic, and it took 50 minutes for us to cross the river and get through the border. Unfortunately, this was merely foreshadowing of what was to come. We ate lunch then continued on our way. I was almost sorry to be back in Michigan. There was heavier, faster-moving traffic, and the scenery was nowhere near what we had seen in Northern Ontario. Still, we made good progress until we got about a third of the way down the lower peninsula, where we hit stop-and-go traffic. Our impeccable planning of the trip finally let us down - we were doing our last leg on a Sunday afternoon when everyone returns from their cottages up north. It took us about 2 hours to travel 40 miles. It was getting close to dinner time, so we pulled off to have some dinner and give the traffic time to dissipate. An hour or so later, we resumed, and after getting past some construction, the traffic began moving again, and it was much smoother traveling until we got home (about 2 1/2 hours later than anticipated). After the long day, we were too tired to even unload the car, choosing to leave that until tomorrow.

Report from the Road #11

2007-07-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 7
Today was our 17th wedding anniversary. Yes, we beat all of those 7/7/7 wedding lemmings by nearly two decades, so we own this day, not them! We started the day with a swim - I took the boys down to the pool early. We followed that with breakfast, then packed up and left town. The road today wound around the north shore of Lake Superior, so there were some spectacular views. There were also many rocky hills (or what would be called mountains in some parts of the US), so the road did a lot of climbing and descending and winding in general. It really is beautiful country. The rocks are fascinating; in many places they’re quite red, with streaks of gray through them. After lunch, the road veered away from Lake Superior for a bit, but passed many more smaller lakes, much like yesterday. It almost got to be a joke: “Oh, look, another perfect picturesque lake (yawn).” In the afternoon, we made a brief stop n White River, whose claim to fame is being the birthplace of Winnie-the-Pooh. It’s a bit of a stretch - a Canadian soldier bought an orphan bear cub in White River in 1914 while on his way to Europe during the First World War, and named it Winnipeg (after his home town), or “Winnie” for short. The bear was the company mascot in England, but when they were sent to France, the bear was given to the London Zoo, where it inspired A.A. Milne to write about it. Like I said, a bit of a stretch, but it’s a good story. Somewhat coincidentally, just before White River, we saw a black bear at the edge of the forest by the side of the road. Our destination today was Wawa, Ontario, which turned out not to have too much going for it. We took a quick tour through town, then headed for the motel, which was a few miles down the road. We settled in, then went to dinner at the restaurant next door, the Kinniwabu Pines, which turned out to be a revelation. It was tiny; a little log family-run restaurant offering Chinese, Caribbean, and North American food. The decor was quaint, with an asian theme, and not what one would expect in a restaurant practically in the middle of nowhere. The food was excellent: we started with an Asian mushroom soup, followed by Caesar salad. Both were excellent. We then had filet mignon, which was equally good, and was complemented by a nice South African wine. Cathy had let it slip that it was our anniversary, so they brought us a complimentary piece of cheesecake for dessert, which was beautiful to look at, and just as good to eat (we let Cal share it; Riley didn’t want to). When we planned the trip, Cathy was disappointed that we wouldn’t be spending our anniversary someplace nice (there was no way to do that and get home in a timely fashion). This restaurant made our anniversary special, we had a superb meal, and a generally wonderful time celebrating with the boys. After dinner, we went back to the motel, and had a game of pool in the billiard lounge, then retreated to our room for the night, where a bottle of wine was waiting to be cracked...

Friday, July 6
We decided to break with routine today and start with some sightseeing before hitting the road. We went to the Royal Canadian Mint, which wasn’t too far away from our hotel. The RCM produces all Canadian coins for circulation, and also produces coins for 80 other countries - over 15 million coins per day! At the mint we got a guided tour (which was pretty personalized - it was the four of us and a tourist from Germany), during which we got to see all steps in the process of making the coins. It was very informative and quite fascinating. At the end of the tour, I got to pick up a gold bar worth $350,000. Unfortunately, I had to put it down again.
We drove as far as Kenora by lunchtime, so we went into town. We had lunch at a nice park by the lake, then found the LCBO to pick up some wine for our anniversary (after two consecutive days of getting to the wine store after closing time, we wanted to take no chances). After Kenora, in the Lake of the Woods area, we passed some of the most beautiful country east of the Rockies: one lake after another, with rugged, rocky coastlines surrounded by dense coniferous forest, and all of it unsullied by development. It’s a canoer’s paradise. The roadsides are lined with huge rock outcroppings, and on a regular basis, small cairns (piles of rocks) have been placed on top of the rock outcroppings. We saw dozens of them. I'm not sure what they mean; it's like building cairns in the middle of nowhere is a favorite pastime around here. The road was only one lane each way through northern Ontario, but the traffic wasn’t heavy and there were enough passing lanes to make the driving not too onerous. The big problem we had was with dinner. The speed limit was 90 kph, which slowed us down and dragged out the trip. It soon became apparent that we weren’t going to make Thunder Bay in time for dinner, so we began looking for someplace to eat. This was much easier said than done, because there is practically no civilization between Kenora and Thunder Bay. We found one small family restaurant by the side of the road, but when we went inside, we discovered that everyone else had found it too. There wasn’t a free table available. Pushing on, we eventually found another small family restaurant by the side of the road. This one had free tables, but when we sat down, we were told that the two tables of eight people each had just submitted their orders, and it was going to take quite a while for the cook to get through those and get to ours. Again, we left disappointed and got back on the road. By this point we gave up and just pushed on to Thunder Bay. We found our hotel and checked in, and Cathy took the boys swimming while I went in search of dinner. I got some takeout from Swiss Chalet and brought it back to the hotel, where we all ate clustered around the coffee table while watching the Jays game on TV. It wasn’t elegant, but it was kind of fun.

Report from the Road #10

2007-07-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 5
I managed to squeeze in a workout (25 min on the recumbent bike) this morning before breakfast, which was a nice treat. I’ve been feeling fat because of all the eating out we’ve been doing. We did the complimentary breakfast at the hotel, then packed up and left around 10:00. Once again, we had trouble locating rest stops, although we did find a visitors’ center in a small town where we had a bathroom break, chatted with the nice visitors’ center attendant, and officially became the only visitors they’ve ever had from Ypsilanti, MI. Once again, there was little reason to stop other than gas and bathrooms, although the fields of mustard made for a pretty, almost surreal landscape (the fields are almost fluorescent yellow/green). We had lunch at the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border around 1:30 (central standard time), but we gained an hour, making it suddenly 3:00 (central daylight time) by the time we got back on the road. We had a 100 km stretch of undivided highway, which was stressful at times because of the slow-moving transport trucks that had to be passed. The road eventually went back to divided highway, but it was a prelude to tomorrow, when we lose divided highway until we get back to the US at Sault Ste. Marie. Late in the afternoon, we saw a handful of crop dusters, working simultaneously on different fields. It was an interesting sight. We finally got to Winnipeg about 6:30, and made our way to the hotel. After a dinner in the hotel restaurant (kids eat free!), we took the boys to the pool. It was a nice pool, with a kiddie pool perfect for Riley. The main pool was nice and warm, and we had a good swim, meaning of course that we also had another late bedtime. It should make for an interesting morning.

Wednesday, July 4
Today began the journey home, and it was a frustrating day. We had trouble getting away (as often happens when visiting family); it was 11:00 by the time we got on the road. Our route was under construction, which slowed us down further, so it was around 11:35 by the time we got on the Trans-Canada Highway. Our frustrations continued later, when it was time for a bathroom break, but we couldn’t find a rest stop anywhere. The one listed on our map was not where indicated, and was on the wrong side of the road. When we finally found one, it had only pit toilets that were pretty disgusting, and no picnic tables on which to eat lunch. We continued on, and continued to be disappointed by the lack of rest stops in Alberta, and the lack of quality of the ones we saw (easily the worst of all the states/provinces we’ve been in). Eventually we found a visitors’ center in Medicine Hat that was a suitable place for lunch (it was 2:30 by then). The place also had a playground and a retired oil drilling rig that could be toured. Apart from that stop, it was pretty much continuous driving. There aren’t too many sights to stop and see in southeastern Alberta/southern Saskatchewan (although there was a pretty extensive wind farm in southwestern Saskatchewan, we just didn’t stop there). We got to Moose Jaw a little after 6:00 (luckily, Saskatchewan doesn’t believe in daylight savings, or we would have lost an hour). We went for dinner down the road at Boston Pizza (one of which I hadn’t eaten at in probably 20 years - it’s changed a bit since then), then I took the boys for a swim while Cathy ran errands. The pool was too cold for my taste, but it had a water slide, so Cal was happy. The boys swam late and had a late bedtime, but given all the time in the car, they deserved it.

Report from the Road #9

2007-07-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 3
I’d been promising the boys that we would go to Southland Leisure Center for swimming (I took them there two years ago, and as soon as we arrived in town they were begging to go there), and today was the day. We went before lunch and had fun in the wave pool and on the waterslide. It’s amazing what a change there had been in Riley - he used to hate the water, but ever since he tried goggles and can’t get water in his eyes, he loves the pool. After swimming we had a bite of lunch and picked up some food for our return trip home. Later in the afternoon, we braved rush hour traffic and went across town to Bowness Park for a picnic. Bowness Park hasn’t changed much; it’s still a nice area. After dinner, I rented a canoe, and Cal and I spent about 45 minutes paddling around the lagoon, with Riley as our passenger observing the numerous ducks and geese. We had a great time. On the way home, we stopped at a Starbucks to meet up with Morgan Grant, an old friend of mine who I haven’t seen in about 10 years. It was great to catch up with him, although we had just a limited amount of time to reminisce before we had to get the boys home and to bed. After all, tomorrow we have to hit the road again.....

Monday, July 2
Today we paid for last night (or at least one of us did). Cathy slept late; I got up with the boys fairly early. I decided to take them to see Ratatouille at Chinook, we went to a show around noon (popcorn for lunch - yay!). The movie was great, then we went home to see if Cathy was alive yet. She was. Barely. We gathered her up, then went with R & J to My Favourite Ice Cream Shoppe, which hasn’t changed; it’s just as great as ever. There are so many flavors that it’s tough to choose. I wound up with banana fudge; Cathy wanted Nanaimo bar, but they were out so she had to settle for chocolate lovers’ chocolate. After dinner, we took the boys out bowling to the Chinook Bowladrome. It’s funny - after all the renovations at Chinook Mall, the basement is completely unchanged from when I was a kid. The bowling alley has had a bit of a makeover, but it was just as I remembered. It was the kids first try at 5-pin bowling, and they enjoyed it. I hadn’t bowled 5-pin since Somerset in 1994, so it took a bit of getting used to. Anyway, it was fun, and the boys did well.

Sunday, July 1
Happy Canada Day! In true Canadian fashion, we celebrated the country’s birthday by hanging around and relaxing. Partly because of the time change, we didn’t get ambulatory until fairly late in the morning, and even then we didn’t have a lot of energy. Dad wanted some help installing a washing machine, but apart from that, it was nice to just hang out and worry about having to get anywhere. In the afternoon, Cathy went out to pick up some groceries, and I took the boys down to Stanley Park. We walked (Cal scootered) along the Elbow river path, watching the hordes of rafters floating down the river. We also spent some time playing at the various playgrounds at the park. In the vening, we left the boys with Dad and Ferrol (they tried to get take-out and went to Glenmore Reservoir to play by the water) and we went out for dinner with Randy & Jocelyne. We went to a place called Redwater Rustic Grille, which was excellent. We had Bison Carpaccio as an appetizer, and I had scallops served over beet slices and pea sprouts. (It was MUCH better than it sounds.) We had a couple of bottles of a nice Australian Cabernet (Nugan?) and finished with a Bonny Doon Framboise dessert wine. After dinner we went back to R & J’s for raspberry martinis on the deck, which was very enjoyable. We didn’t get home until after 2:00 am, but it was a very nice evening.

Report from the Road #8

2007-07-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 30
Today began cloudy and cool. We loaded up and headed out about 9:00, which quickly changed to after 10:00 when we hit the mountain time zone. The big excitement today was when I got a speeding ticket just outside of Golden. I was watching the road (winding) and the traffic (fast cars and slow cars, not much in between) and not paying enough attention to the speedometer. Oops. I was a bit annoyed because I had just been passed by a fast car, but he was hung up behind a slow truck when he passed the police so he didn’t get caught. Ah, well.
We got to Banff about 12:30 sand had lunch at Melissa’s Missteak, which was one of my old haunts from way back. The burgers are just as good as ever. We looked around town a bit, but they’re tearing up the main street so the ambience wasn’t what it usually is, and it was tougher getting around. Then it was off to Calgary. As we approached the city, we saw how much it had expanded; housing developments are sprawling way to the west. We got to Dad’s place without too much trouble, and after settling in, we went for dinner, then took the boys to play at the park I used to play at when I was a kid. After about 15 minutes we began to be ravaged by mosquitoes, so we gave up and headed back to the house.

Report from the Road #7

2007-06-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 29
We woke up today to a rainy morning in Hope. After a light continental breakfast, we hit the road around 9:30. Once on the Coquahalla highway, it wasn’t long before we ran out of the rain and the clouds started to break up a bit. After that it was a smooth run into Kamloops. It was a beautiful drive; the clouds were hanging very low over the mountains (sometimes seemingly not much higher than the car), which gave the scenery an eerie, gothic kind of feel. We saw numerous roadside waterfalls, as well as some impressive longer ones over on the mountainsides. We stopped for lunch at a picnic site just a little bit past Kamloops, next to a fast-running river. The boys and I took a hike along a riverside path that led to an impressive waterfall. It wasn’t very high, but the sheer force and volume of water shooting over the fall was impressive. Back in the car again, the afternoon traffic was heavier, and it was one lane traffic. Once past Sicamous (the last town on the resort-heavy Shuswap Lake), however, much of the traffic disappeared (and reappeared magically going the other direction). Apparently it was all a convergence on the Shuswap for the Canada Day long weekend. I noticed something funny today - the distances between all of these towns are much shorter than when I was a kid (when we did this drive every summer). I guess the world really is shrinking. We stopped at Craigellachie to see the site of the Last Spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway. I’d been by it so many times, but never stopped there. We got a bit of a history lesson, and Cal got attacked by a mosquito, causing much panic and dismay. It was Butterfly World all over again! Does the entire insect world have something against Cal? As we approached our destination, the occasional light rainstorm hit us, often interspersed with sunny periods. We got to Rogers Pass around 4:30, and it was just as beautiful as ever (see the view from our hotel, above). The hotel has an outdoor pool that’s covered over with plastic sheeting on a greenhouse-like frame. It was chilly outside (around 60F), but inside the cover it was balmy and humid. We went for a swim before dinner, and had the pool to ourselves. It was an interesting setting, being able to see the silhouettes of the mountains through the plastic cover as we swam. We had dinner at the hotel (our only real option - there’s not much here other than the hotel, the visitor’s center, and a gas station); it was a buffet, and pretty good. We decided to turn in early after dinner, so we can get up early. We lose an hour early tomorrow when we cross into the Mountain time zone, and we want to have time to stop in Banff and maybe Lake Louise.

Report from the Road #6

2007-06-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 28
We had an early wake-up call scheduled this morning so we could get to the ferry on time, but it wound up coming early than expected - one of my grad students called me on my cell phone at 6:45 this morning and couldn’t understand why I was groggy and grumpy. We got packed up and hit the road only 5 minutes behind our scheduled departure, and reached the ferry terminal in Nanaimo in plenty of time. The ferry trip was pleasant (the ferry itself was brand new), with the exception that I lost my favorite sunglasses somewhere along the way. 8^(
Once back on the mainland, we had some time to kill. We wanted to visit with my cousin Rosalie, but she was unavailable until after 3:00, and our ferry arrived at 12:15. She directed us to a mall in Richmond, so we went there to kill some time. In the mall was a barber shop, which gave us the perfect opportunity to get the boys’ hair cut. We’d been meaning to do so for a while, but the opportunity hadn’t been present (until now - do we know how to have a fun vacation, or what?). I was also able to get a pair of cheap sunglasses to replace the ones I lost. When we left to go to Rosalie’s, we hit heavy traffic, which continued the whole way to her place. Even worse, the quiet side streets are so crammed with parked cars that there’s barely enough room for one vehicle to drive on the road, and impossible for two to pass each other. All I can say is that Vancouver has changed a lot since I was there last, and with the Olympics coming in 3 years it’s only going to get worse. We had a nice visit with Rosalie, then fought traffic back to Richmond for dinner at the Keg. After dinner, we bade goodbye to Rosalie and headed out for Hope, our destination for the night. (Hope is best known as the town Sylvester Stallone blew up in “First Blood”, the first Rambo movie.) By the time we got on the road, it was nearly 7:00, so we didn’t reach Hope until about 8:45. We let the boys have a brief swim in the pool to burn off some energy, then retired to our room to crash. Thankfully, we’ve got internet access again after four days without, so I can get caught up on email and other necessities (can you say “internet addiction”?).

Wednesday, June 27
Today it was sunny and warm, for the first time since we arrived. We started the morning with another trip to the beach, to watch the goings on in our favorite tide pool. Today there was a third kind of creature - small fish (almost looking like minnows) that were the same color as the sand. They’d be invisible except for their shadows. The crabs were out in full force again; there were fronds of seaweed in the tide pool, and they were teeming with crabs crawling around the weeds.
We went into Qualicum Beach to look around this morning, then met Joanne for lunch. After lunch, Cathy took the boys down to the beach in town to wade in the surf, while Joanne took me to meet a friend of hers - a 100-year-old woman she met in Calgary just before I was born. We visited for a while then met up with Cathy and the boys at a local park. We went back to the Old Country Market in Coombs, and stocked up on goodies for the trip tomorrow. We took Mark and Joanne out for dinner to their favorite Chinese Restaurant, since we missed their anniversary. After dinner we spent a few minutes throwing more rocks in the water (and seeing seals from a distance); then we had to head home to get organized for the ferry trip back to the mainland.

Tuesday, June 26

Today was a lazy day - we slept in and didn’t get going until nearly 11:00. The boys and I went down to the beach to look around and throw some rocks. The tide was out again, so we had plenty of territory to explore. I’ve discovered that animal life here is largely limited to two types of critters: barnacles (which are all over many of the rocks) and crabs. Among the pebbles of the rocky beach are tiny crabs the size and color of the pebbles, so they blend in really well. You can only tell they’re there when they move. Not too far down the beach was a sandy area with a tide pool. In the tide pool was a second variety of crab, about twice the size of the pebble crabs (but still only about an inch across). These ones (and there were dozens in the tide pool) came in a variety of colors - some were greens and browns, and blended in well with the environment, whereas others were yellow or red. Whenever two came together, they’d lock pincers and wrestle. It was fascinating to watch.
We went to Joanne’s for lunch, and just sort of hung out for the afternoon. The boys played an online game with Angela, so that kept them busy. Riley freaked out once, but after that he was calmer around Panda, as long as she didn’t come straight at him. Cal spent some time in the back yard tossing the ball to Wolfie, and Riley was brave enough to wander out and watch. Mark gave me a sample of his home-smoked sockeye salmon - what a treat! For dinner we grilled steaks and salmon (and chicken for the boys), then Angela had to catch the ferry home. We stayed a while longer, then headed home ourselves.

Monday, June 25

I awoke this morning to a chorus of happy birthday from the boys. We had breakfast, then wandered down to the beach. My toe, although still tender, was feeling better, and I was able to walk more easily. The tide was out, so we could walk out a way. The beach where we are is somewhat rocky, which suits the boys just fine - plenty of things to throw. Cal collected some nice looking shells, and we saw some tiny crabs (less than an inch across) that crawl among the pebbles and blend in with the rocks beautifully - you can’t see them unless they’re moving. Joanne and Angela dropped by and we all went to Butterfly World - it’s like a large greenhouse filled with tropical plants and tropical butterflies, which are absolutely gorgeous. The butterflies were everywhere, which meant it was Cal’s turn to freak out - he was afraid of having a butterfly land on him, so anytime one flew anywhere near him, he yelled. While there, it seemed my phone was ringing constantly. First it was Walker, calling to sing happy birthday (badly), then it was my Dad, also calling with birthday wishes.

From there, we went to Coombs, to the Old Country Market, which is a very cool place. The building has a grass roof and a herd of goats that lives on the roof to keep the grass trimmed. We had lunch there and did a little shopping. I found a nice t-shirt with a native frog motif on it. In the evening, we met everyone at a restaurant called the Shady Rest for dinner. It was nice - our table looked out directly onto the ocean. After dinner we went back to Joanne’s for birthday cake and presents, all of which were frog- or Calgary Flames-themed. I’m so easy to buy for.

Sunday, June 24
This morning went like clockwork. We were up on time, got organized, and got to the ferry terminal exactly on time at 9:15. We took our spot in line, and went into the ferry terminal shop area to kill time. There was a gelato place that had some very artistic concoctions, and rather enticing flavors (chocolate ginger!). Too bad it was early in the morning, and not really gelato time. We got on the ferry just before 10:00, and staked out some seats. There wasn’t too much to see on the trip over. The weather was a mixed bag - mostly cloudy, with occasional showers (our first rain to speak of), so the views weren’t great. My foot was still very sore (I don’t really know what I did to it, although Cathy remembers me stubbing it one night in the dark), so I couldn’t wander around the ferry too much to take in the sights. We had a picnic lunch on the ferry just before it docked at 12:15. After getting off the ferry, it was a straight shot up the highway to Qualicum Beach. We got in just after 1:00, too early to check in to our accommodations, so we popped up to Joanne’s place. Panda (their border collie) tried to greet Riley by jumping up and licking his face, which caused Riley to freak - he was screaming and crying, which just got Panda more excited. Wolfie (Angela’s dog) then came running and barking (he’s a tiny dog, but has a loud bark), which just made things worse. Riley was a mess for quite a while. We visited until about 3:00, then drove back to the resort and checked in. After settling in, Cathy went to the store for some essential groceries, then we went back to Joanne’s for an early dinner (Mark had to leave for work at 6). The boys eventually settled down and played with Panda by throwing her ball for her (which was fine as long as Riley didn’t have to get too close to her). I borrowed an ice pack and iced my foot when we returned to our cabin, to try and get the swelling down.

Saturday, June 23
Today was a pretty relaxed day, relatively speaking, although it started somewhat early. We only had a couple of hours’ drive to Vancouver, and we didn’t need to check out until noon, so we decided to sleep in and have a relaxed morning. Unfortunately, our plumber called from Ypsilanti at 6:30 am, not realizing we were in the Pacific time zone. Everyone else was able to get back to sleep, but I was up for the duration after that. I woke up with a sore right foot (my big toe, actually), and it bothered me enough that I couldn’t get back to sleep. Cal wound up sleeping until 9:20, and had to be awakened even then. We had breakfast at the hotel and headed out on the road about 10:30. We stopped for a while to look around an outlet mall north of Everett (I got a new watch to replace my old screwed-up Timex), then stopped in Bellingham for lunch and gas. When we reached the border, we had a 50-minute wait before crossing. Once across, it was pretty quick to the hotel, which is very nice. After settling in, we all went for a swim, then headed to a strip mall down the road for dinner. Our first choice (a local pub) didn’t allow minors, so we wound up at the White Spot across the street, which was okay, because you can’t visit BC without a stop at the White Spot. With all the walking around (or perhaps because of my pre-prandial dip in the hot tub), my foot got significantly worse, to the point where I had trouble walking. After dinner, we stocked up on supplies (Cheezies!), and retired to our room for an early night, because we had an early (10:15) ferry to catch in the morning.
After traveling for a week, it’s time to start making a list of hotel rooms from best to worst. this will change over time, but here’s the early ranking:
1) Grandstay Residence Suites, Madison, WI. A suite with kitchen facilities and a bedroom separate from the kids - need I say more? A bargain.
2) Tsawassen Inn, Tsawassen, BC. Also a suite with a separate bedroom, but more expensive and lacking the kitchen. Loses points for charging extra for internet access.
3) Quality Inn, Spokane, WA. Comfortable beds, separate seating area, nice pool.
4) Best Western Yellowstone, Livingston, MT. Big room (though plain), nice warm pool.
5) Best Western Ramkota, Sioux Falls, SD. Nothing special about the room, but the indoor waterpark gets extra points from the kids.
6) Quality Inn, Everett, WA. Comfy beds, nice room, but loses major points for not having a pool.
7) Quality Inn, Rapid City, SD. Double beds (cramped), motel-like atmosphere, and a cold pool. The shower felt like needles on the skin. Best free breakfast of them all, though....

Report from the road #5

2007-06-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

The plan for today (Friday, June 22) was to get to Everett, hang out at the pool for a bit, then take in an Everett Aquasox game in the evening. I’ve been a fan of the Aquasox since 1992, when (at a Frederick Keys game) I first spied a baseball cap with frog on it. Because of my association with frogs I bought the hat, and only found out later the team that it represented. I’ve followed the team over the years, but living on the other side of the continent I was never able to see a game. While planning our trip, we realized that the aquasox would be in the middle of a home stand when we passed through, so we made plans to stay in Everett and catch a game. The first part of the plan went smoothly - we had a decent trip to Seattle, including a stop overlooking the Columbia River at a state park where 10 million-year-old petrified gingko trees were on display. We reached Seattle around 2 pm, and turned north toward Everett. We immediately hit nasty traffic, which made the drive to Everett (just north of Seattle) fairly slow (although it would have been much worse, except for our ability to use carpool lanes). When we arrived at the hotel, we discovered, contrary to advertisements and much to the kids’ dismay, that there was no pool at the hotel. We had been unable to book tickets for the game over the internet, and were worried about ticket availability at the gate on a Friday night, so with nothing else to do around the hotel we decided to drive to the ballpark and pick up tickets early, then do some shopping and find something to eat before heading back to the park for the game. At this point our plan began to unravel. We didn’t want to face the stop & go traffic on the highway again, so we found an alternate route. It turned out to have very heavy traffic as well, and a drive that should have taken us maybe 20 minutes wound up taking more like 40. When we got to the ballpark, we were underwhelmed - it was a non-descript-looking place sandwiched into a small area in a commercial area of downtown Everett. The good news was that we were able to get tickets. We had wasted so much time getting there, though, that we didn’t dare return to the hotel; we decided to look for a place to eat instead. After driving around for a considerable amount of time, getting lost a couple of times in the process, we gave up on finding some place suitable, and stopped at a Jack in the Box. The boys to their credit, never once complained about the seemingly endless time in the car stuck in traffic or looking in vain for a decent restaurant. After all the wasted time, by the time we ate, it was time to return to the ballpark for the game. By this point we were all really discouraged, and wondering if it was all worth it. Luckily, the charm of minor league baseball came to the rescue. The ballpark turned out to be much nicer inside than it had appeared from outside. We had good seats, and the clouds that had been threatening rain all afternoon suddenly parted over the stadium. Best of all, they had Red Hook ESB on tap at the stadium! It was an entertaining game, and we all wound up having a really good time. We sat next to a guy whose wife works for the Aquasox, and who had apparently sewn the American flag on the back of my game-worn Aquasox jersey. It was kind of a neat little coincidence. Tomorrow; on to Canada!

Report from the Road #4

2007-06-22T07:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day. We took our time in the morning, and hit the grocery store to stock up on some necessities (mostly stuff for lunch). As a result, we didn’t get on the road until 10, although that’s becoming pretty much par for the course for us. We drove until we hit a rest area just beyond Billings, where we stopped for a picnic lunch. Some of the mountains on the way to Billings were fascinating - they were composed of these interesting rounded rocks. It almost looked as though each mountain was made completely of a pile of rubble. Around Billings, we saw a couple of mountainsides that had been completely eradicated in the mining of copper. It’s a very impressive sight when you realize just how much rock would have to be moved to deface a mountain like that, but it’s sad at the same time. After lunch, we continued on and drove some pretty windy (that’s twisty, not blowy) mountain passes, especially as we got close to the Idaho border. It was a bit hairy at times, and I was glad when we reached the bottom of the worst pass and got to stop for gas and take a break. From there it was a pretty short shot into Spokane (driving past beautiful Lake Coeur D’Alene), and because we set the clocks back an hour when we crossed into Idaho, we arrived before 4 pm. That gave the boys a chance to go for a swim before dinner. We once again had too much food for dinner (at a place near the local mall) - some time I need to rant about portion sizes at restaurants - then still had time for a post-prandial swim (although I opted for a workout and Cathy surfed the net. Then it was off to bed, with plans to head to Seattle (Everett, actually) in the morning.

Report from the road, #3

2007-06-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That pretty much sums up our trip to Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday (June 20). It's a beautiful place, but we experienced many frustrations. We had to drive south for about an hour to get to the park. Once in the park, we had planned a 141-mile loop that would take us to all of the hot spots. With a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit in the park, I estimated a little over 3 hours driving, leaving us about the same amount of time to wander around and see things before we had to head back to Livingston. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and Bob....

It turned out that it takes a LOT longer to get anywhere in the park than I had planned. The 45-mph limit isn't true everywhere; some places have limits of 35 and even 25. This is because the roads are very narrow and twisty. Plus, there are nervous drivers from elsewhere who are scared of driving on the roads, so even when the limit is 45, they go 30, and it's nigh impossible to pass on those roads. Worst of all are the traffic jams. Anytime there's wildlife within view of the road, people will just stop their cars in the middle of the road to take a picture. Some even get out of their cars (still sitting in the road) to go get a better picture. We saw one guy walk to within about 6 feet of an elk to have his picture taken with it. Park laws make it illegal to get within 25 feet of wildlife, but nobody seems to pay any mind to that. It made me very cynical about the human species.

As a result of the slowdowns, we got way behind schedule, and had to skip a lot of what we had planned to see. We made a beeline for Old Faithful, wanting to be sure not to miss it. True to form, we missed an eruption by about 10 minutes, leaving us with an 80 minute wait until the next one. By that time, we didn't have much time to waste, so we couldn't wait. We looked around the area and moved on. It was disappointing, but that's life.

I don't want to give the impression that things were all bad though. Yellowstone is a beautiful place. There's such variety of landscape packed into a small area, and it's all really picturesque. There's an abundance of wildlife (as alluded to above) - we saw elk, mule deer, numerous bison, and a couple of bald eagles. Add to all that the thermal areas, the likes of which I've only seen in New Zealand, and the place is spectacular. I'm disappointed that we missed a lot, but it just whets our appetite to come back some day.

Report from the road #2

2007-06-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

Monday (June 18) was an especially good day. We had breakfast in the room, then Cal and I went for a swim (and waterslide) early. We packed up and got on the road just before 10. We stopped for lunch at a Rest Area overlooking the Missouri River, which was pretty impressive, even this far north. The area had nice sheltered picnic tables, which was good because it was gusty. As we drove on, the landscape began to change a bit. It went from mostly flat farmland to the occasional gouge in the earth, revealing the layers of sediment. The gouges increased in frequency, until we were right in the badlands, in which the farmland disappeared entirely, and there were just jagged teeth of sedimentary rock sticking up from below. It's pretty spectacular; too bad we didn't really have time to stop and drive through the national park to really get a good view of the badlands. We stopped in Wall, SD to visit the infamous Wall Drug, a sprawling multi-multi roomed complex selling all kinds of tacky stuff. We had been there 9 years ago, and it really hasn't changed much (which is a good thing - you can't have enough cheese). Along the road, we had counted how many billboards we saw advertising Wall Drug, beginning in Minnesota. The total when we reached the store was 102. There were probably 20 in the last couple of miles alone. The boys enjoyed the store and bought a couple of souvenirs. Then we made the final push to Rapid City. After checking in to the hotel, we headed downtown to the Firehouse Brewing Co. for dinner. It's an old converted firehouse that is now a brewpub. The food was good (especially the chicken nachos) and so was the beer (although not quite in Arbor Brewing's league). From there we headed out to Mount Rushmore. The sun was behind the mountain when we arrived, so it made photography kind of tricky, but the pictures turned out okay anyway. It was a beautiful evening, and we were there at a time (~6:30) when the crowds were much smaller than we had expected. We did the walk around the President's trail, which we hadn't done in 1998, and it was really enjoyable. I took too many pictures, but that's the great thing about digital - take what you like and delete what you don't. We returned from Mount Rushmore and went to have a swim in the pool. It was very busy at the pool (which was cold), and the hot tub was filled with foam and small children. We were so tired from the day that when we got back from the pool, we all crashed by about 9:30.

Tuesday started with a buffet breakfast at the hotel, then packing up to leave. We had awoken early because of our early night, which was good, because it was going to be a long day in the car. We got on the road about 8:45, and crossed into Wyoming early. Wyoming is starkly beautiful - almost no trees, just green grass and sagebrush, with unusual little hills everywhere. With the exception of one pit stop (where we saw mobile homes on trailers being gased up - an interesting sight), we drove until lunch, when we stopped at Sheridan, WY. We had a nice picnic lunch at a rest area in view of the mountains, and gave the boys a chance to play for a bit. Then it was on the road again, and soon into Montana. Once in Montana, we stopped at the Little Bighorn National Monument, where Custer had his last stand. On one hand, it's just a large field, but they do a really nnice job recreating the times and events, and making the battle seem very real. They also do a nice job of being even-handed with regard to the natives and the Europeans. Definitely worth a stop. from there it was a dash to Livingston, MT, where we stayed for the night. We got dinner and headed down to a park by the river, where we ate and the boys played.

Report from the road, #1

2007-06-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday morning, June 19, and I'm sitting in a motel room in Rapid City, SD. We started our trip out west on Saturday, June 19. The first day was pretty uneventful, travelling through Michigan toward Chicago. We had lunch at a rest stop outside Kalamazoo, which was nice. The biggest surprise that first day was that we cruised through Indiana without hitting any stop & go traffic - it's the first time that's ever happened during the day for us! The biggest excitement we had was around Chicago. On I-290, the gas light came on, although it looked like we had an eighth of a tank left. We decided to stop at the next oasis to fill up, but of course we didn't see another one. Next thing we know we were out in the hinterlands past Chicago with little likelihood of finding an oasis to fill up, so we bit the bullet and got off at the next exit. By that time, the needle was really on empty, and we were getting nervous. Of course we picked an exit with no gas stations, only a strip mall surrounded by a couple of new developments and lots of empty countryside. After driving around looking in vain for a gas station, we stopped at the mall, and Cathy ran in to ask for directions. We had been close to a station, but had turned around because it had looked like we were heading into the country again. We filled up, bought snacks, and headed on our way. Eventually we got to Madison, WI, where we stayed for the night in a suite in a very nice hotel. Having a bedroom separate from the boys was nice. We were sufficiently tired that we decided not to do the baseball game as we had planned. We went for dinner to Pizzeria Uno down the street, then went back to the hotel for a swim before bed.

Sunday morning, I got in a quick workout at the hotel. I had to use the treadmill, because the bike seat was stuck at kid level. We had continental breakfast at the hotel, then headed out on the highway. It was a good day. We stopped for a break at a rest stop along the Mississippi River between WI & MN. It's a beautiful spot - tree-covered bluffs rise up from the river on the Minnesota side. Then you climb out of the river valley, and suddenly you're on top of seemingly endless falt prairie. It's a stunning transition. We stopped for gas at a place that had a nice picnic area with a playground. In the station store, they had Old Dutch potato chips (woo hoo!), so we stocked up on several varieties. Mid-afternoon, we hit Austin, MN, where we just had to stop and visit the Spam Museum. It was all we anticipated, and the boys enjoyed it too. We had played a Youtube clip for them earlier to show them the Monty Python Spam sketch so they would appreciate why we wanted to go. At the museum, they have a section where a TV shows the sketch over and over. We stopped that night in Sioux Falls, SD. The hotel had a water park, which was good for the kids. We had dinner at the hotel (buffalo burger), then went swimming before bed.

Well, Cal is complaining about hunger, so I'd better post this and take him for breakfast. More later when I can.