As my son is fascinated by paleontology, I’ve included several stops mentioned in Cruisin’ The Fossil Freeway: An Epoch Tale of a Scientist and an Artist on the Ultimate 5,000-Mile Paleo Road Trip by Kirk Johnson, and illustrated by Ray Troll.

It’s Not Just Dorothy’s Home

When I think of Kansas, I envision flat lands of wheat fields and prairies, and yes, we found these.

However, back in prehistoric times, this land was covered by a deep ocean brimming with marine life that has left a rich deposit of shells and fossils. 

One Heck of a Lodging Deal

We plunged into our visit with an overnight stay at the Hays, Kansas Ramada Convention Center, one of the best hotel bargains that we’ve found. 

$50 per night for a room with two beds, in a hotel that features a pool with a 100’ Serpentine Slide, within sight of the friendly bar/restaurant.  Fun for the kids, and the weary mom.

A Small, But Mighty, Museum

In the morning, we visited the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, a small museum with a mighty collection of some of the choicest fossils.  It’s smallish size, and interactive exhibits, makes this a wonderful place to introduce children to paleontology.

After a short exploration of the hands-on stations in the Discovery Room, we began our fossil tour with a walk through a life-size diorama that truly captures the imagination.  OK, it captured some of our imaginations. Kayla thought it was a lovely spot for a nap, until the animatronic T-Rex roared and dipped his head in our direction.

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Fish-Within-A-Fish

It wasn’t until we were at the Sternberg, that I realized why the Kansas digs mentioned in Cruisin’ The Fossil Freeway, and the discovery of a fish-within-a-fish, looked so familiar. 

We’d seen the same kind of mammoth fish fossil at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, where we’d also watched the Imax movie, Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure that recounts the story of the fish-within-a-fish.

Now, we were getting to see the celebrity fossil in person.  Pretty exciting stuff.

Pilgrimage to the Chalk Pyramids

Even better, we went right to the source – the actual site where the fish-within-a-fish was excavated, the Chalk Pyramids of Kansas.

It’s an off-the-beaten-path site, down a long, dirt road, but well worth the visit.  Incredibly beautiful, especially in the golden glow of late afternoon, it’s a lovely destination even if you’re not in search of fossils. 

Still, it’s unlikely that you could miss finding a fossil, the rocks are liberally covered with ancient shells. 

Nearby, but sufficiently far away from the monument rocks, Alex found a perfect place to start his own paleontological dig.

He added his first fossil, a shell, to his new collection, fueling his desire to find more fossils.  Fortunately, the fossil freeway is a ubiquitous road.

Related Article:

• Alex’s article: Discovery Of A Lifetime At The Sternberg Museum

Read Across America Road Trip:

• BBQ In Kansas City, Missouri
• Adventures of the Imagination In Mark Twain’s Hometown
• Wright 3 In Chicago
• Yolonda’s Genius: On The Road From Cleveland To Chicago
• Read Across Road Trip Begins In NYC
• How To Plan A Read Across America Road Trip
• Reading On The Road

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She’d rather stay home with her friends, doing nothing in particular, and she’s holding on to the hope that I’ll cut this trip short.

I’m still hoping that she will enjoy this trip, and that someday she’ll look back on this with fond memories.  With high hopes, I’ve tried to include stops on this trip that I think she’ll appreciate.

Since she loves spare ribs, and we were going to pass the one place in the world that has BBQ that is so good that it’s listed as one of the 1,000 places to visit before you die, we added a meal stop in Kansas City, MO.

The book lists the legendary Arthur Bryant’s as the place to go for BBQ, but I checked in with my Twitter friends just in case there was a better choice.  BBQ is serious business in Kansas City, and I received a few responses, but in the end, I went with the popular choice.

We weren’t disappointed.  It’s a rustic, totally self-serve, hopping busy sort of place, but the line to place orders moves quickly, and the prices seemed reasonable (even if some reviewers complained about recent price increases.) 

We shared a rack of ribs, and I have to admit, these were different.  I’ve never seen ribs so well cooked that the flavor seems to have seeped through to the bones.  The kids were also very excited to discover a new kind of soda, a red cream, that was too sweet for me, but delicious to them.  I prefer the southern sweet tea.

She still won’t admit it, but I can see that she’s having a good ‘ole time, even with bossy mom and annoying little brother!

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If nothing else, this learning vacation has served to expand the boundaries of our imagination.

Exploring Tom Sawyer’s World

It’s a small town, and you could easily see every bit of it within a few hours, but then you’d miss discovering what it’s like to see this river town from the perspective of an imaginative child.

We could’ve gotten a cheap motel room for about $50, but we chose to set up our tent at the Injun Joe Campground, thinking this was part of the Tom Sawyer experience.

Lured by ads for go carts, batting cage, and go karts, the kids chose this campground over the Mark Twain Campground.  Well, we learned our lesson.  Although these rusty amenities were available, we never touched them.  It takes a LOT of imagination to call this a campground.  (My kids call it a trailer park.)

Setting up our tent, we were fairly happy with our new home.  We’d found a spot far from the RVs that looked like they’d long forgotten the feel of the open road, and with judicious placement of tents, we were able to ignore the litter on our site.  That first night, we relaxed in our fancy screened in room, and listened to Tom Sawyer on audiobook. 

On the first night, we woke to the sounds of torrential rains.  It poured, and continued to pour throughout the day and following night.  Our gear was saturated with Mississippi River mud that promises to be a reminder of our trip for a long time to come.

The second night, we managed to lock ourselves out of the car.

Discovering Mark Twain’s Hometown

Fortunately, the rest of the trip wasn’t nearly as eventful.

In Hannibal, MO we visited Mark Twain’s boyhood home, an interpretive center, and a children’s museum.  None of these took long to explore, but all were well worth the visit. 

Beware, the gift shop is well-stocked with the kind of items that appeal to mischievous children.

Some kids may learn lessons that we may prefer they never learn.  Here’s the “real” Tom Sawyer fence:

And another in the Children’s Museum:

We skipped one of the popular attractions, the steamboat ride, but we went in for a closer look at the Mississippi River:

Personally, I preferred the Mississippi Mud Malt at the Mark Twain Dinette, served with real southern fried chicken:

Afterwards, we worked off some of this rich food with a climb to the top of Cardiff Hill, and a view of where Tom Sawyer supposedly played at pirates.

Our favorite attraction was the Mark Twain Cave.  We’ve explored more geologically exciting caverns, but this one comes with a doozy of a story.  Not only do you get the full Tom Sawyer tour, but you learn about the real-life cave inhabitants, including Jesse James and the doctor who stored a dead child.

Alex was just mesmerized by the cave, and the prospect of treasure.  For that day, at least, he planned to grow up to be a geologist.  He donned his miner’s hat, and went in search of underground treasure.  Although he had to leave Injun Joe’s treasure on sight, he was thrilled to discover and keep piece of “pure” limestone.  It may look like glass to some, but to the imaginative mind this is a rare jewel.

There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.  Mark Twain, Wit and Wisecracks.

Related:

Alex: Review of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn

Kayla: Tom Sawyer; Huck Finn 

Photos On Flickr: Read Across America Road Trip – Hannibal, MO

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Although Yolanda’s Genius and the Chicago Blues Festival were the primary inspiration for our road trip to Chicago, I also sensed that the time was right to further acquaint my kids with the architectural genius of Frank Lloyd Wright. 

Sometimes I have to look hard to figure out if the kids actually like something that could be considered educational, but both seemed interested as we passed the Frank LLoyd Wright room on a recent visit to the Met.  They lingered at the exhibit, and they didn’t yawn.  That’s enough of a sign of interest for me.

I’d bought a copy of Blue Balliet’s The Wright 3 as soon as it came out, but it had been sitting on my bookshelf, untouched, waiting for this perfect moment when: a) they have an interest in the topic, b) we could enrich the reading experience with a visit to book’s setting.

So, I downloaded the audiobook from Audible.com, and we listened to the story on our way to Chicago.

First off, I must admit that I was not riveted by the story, or the reading.  Perhaps my ears were tainted as I’d really enjoyed the previous audiobook of Yolanda’s Genius, read in the rich voice of Novella Nelson.   The narrator of Wright 3 is no Novella Nelson.

Also, I just didn’t find the mystery in The Wright 3 as interesting or as captivating as that of Blue Balliet’s previous book, Chasing Vermeer.

Since I wasn’t a big fan of the story, I guess it’s not surprising that I was underwhelmed by our tour of Robie House, the Frank Lloyd Wright building that is endangered in Wright 3.

I had booked the Wright 3 Tour of Robie House in advance, and was aware that the tour would be led by a student.  I’d thought that it would be a good thing to have my kids see someone not much older than themselves being so deeply involved in the story, and working with the museum. 

Although our tour guide did not exhibit the enthusiasm and passion for the subject that I’d hoped for, my kids didn’t think the tour was as lame as I thought it was.

Quite the opposite, they really enjoyed the tour.  Even Alex, who wasn’t thrilled with the story, was fascinated by Robie House, and asked at least a dozen questions on the tour.  Afterwards, he was so carried away by the experience, that he decided that he wanted to be an architect when he grows up (at least that was his plan on that day!)

I still don’t know exactly why they enjoyed the tour so much.  Perhaps it was the brevity of the educational venture.  The tour itself was less than an hour long.  Or, maybe they liked Robie House because it was designed with children in mind, and our tour started in the playroom.

Whatever the case, I’m glad the book and the tour appealed to the children.  I thought about following up their interest with a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, but I decided to quit while ahead.

Both kids have been introduced to Frank LLoyd Wright, and architecture in general.   We’ll leave it at that for now, rather than dousing this spark of interest with too much information.  Of course, we also dropped by the Gift Shop and picked up a set of 3D Pentominos, and a book on how to draw buildings.

I wasn’t going to waste a golden opportunity to sneak in a little learning any way I can!

Related Articles:

• Alex: Review of Wright 3
• Alex: An Architect’s Dream
• Kayla: Wright Three
• Kayla: June 13, 2009

Read Across America Road Trip:

• Yolonda’s Genius: On The Road From Cleveland To Chicago
• Read Across America Road Trip Begins In NYC
• How To Plan A Read Across America Road Trip
• Reading On The Road

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I still like to have a musical theme for my road trips, and often a variety of themes. 

Driving to Chicago, in time for the Blues Festival that colors the climax of Yolonda’s Genius (see Kayla’s Review,) I thought about playing the blues.  Instead, we mixed it up with a variety of musical genres, from Jazz to Hip Hop, and we added in a stop at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

I think, actually, that this was an inspired way to introduce a story that is about the nature and recognition of musical genius.

On The Beat

When I insisted on playing the audio cd with Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry With a Beat, my kids wanted to know what did Hip Hop had to do with anything.  This wasn’t Rock and Roll, and it wasn’t the Blues.

Then, I asked them to read aloud poems from Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes.  (See Lesson Plan on Langston Hughes and the Blues.) Well, there was no great revelation, more of a slow buildup of understanding, trying to connect the ideas that lyrics could be poetry, and that vastly “different” musical and literature genres can share common elements and influences.

Both helped set the stage for the next stop on our Yolonda’s Genius Tour.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – Cleveland, Ohio

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is huge, and the exhibits suck you in, so that you find yourself spending hours watching documentary videos, listening to songs, or reading informative posters.

I had planned to just spend a couple of hours at the museum, but we ended up spending most of day.  It was that interesting (although my 9yo son wasn’t as much of a fan as my teen daughter and I.) 

Somehow, with promises of free T-shirts, I persuaded both kids to fill out an Activity Guide.  I was glad I did, as this forced them to spend a little time learning about the early influences of Rock and Roll.  Otherwise, I’m sure they would have bypassed The Roots of Rock and Roll: Blues, Gospel, R&B, Country and Folk, even though this was one of the most useful exhibits for understanding the themes in Yolonda’s Genius, especially the idea that genius lies in creating something new out of the old.

We also watched a couple of films – Mystery Train, Kick Out the Jams (with mature content) -  that I thought did a great job of showing how artistic geniuses, those who are breaking new ground, are often not appreciated at home, at least not until they achieve fame elsewhere.  Picture Janis Joplin defiantly returning to her small hometown.

Dancing In The Streets

By the time we arrived in Chicago, we’d already heard the book, and discussed it at length.  Now, it was just time to appreciate the setting, the music, and the food (as Yolonda seemed to try every food tent at the festival!)

And, to pretend for just a moment, to be lost children like Yolonda and Andrew when they were scheming to go backstage.

From Mississippi To Chicago

Checking into the Essex Inn, a stately but moderately priced hotel with a magnificent pool (an important criteria for the kids!), we met a fellow traveler who happened to be one of the headliners at the Blues Festival, Terry “Harmonica” Bean. 

I was tempted to ask him if he’d ever been a misunderstood genius, like Yolonda’s harmonica-playing little brother, but I manage to show a little restraint.  Not much, mind you, but a little.

Our hotel was located across from Grant Park, the site of the several stages that are part of the festival, but Terry is from South, and he would perform on the Mississippi Juke Joint stage.

See, this is where I started seeing those connections, as if I could miss them.  It’s only two years since I took the kids on our first major road trip, a Spring Break vacation spent exploring the subject of Kayla’s state report, Mississippi.

Kayla had decided that what she most wanted to learn about was Elvis Presley, who was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.  As part of that project, we visited the Tupelo museums where we learned about his various musical inspirations, including the folk, country, gospel, and blues influences.

We also drove to the Crossroads, and visited  Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club  and the Blues Museum along the Delta Blues trail, before heading to Sun Studios and Graceland. 

On that road trip, and again on this one, it’s been fascinating to discover the way music connects across geographic and other boundaries, and to see how it is used as a tool for change.

Rock and Roll Resources:

• Rockin’ Lesson Plans – Connecting music with Language Arts and Social Studies.
• General Reference – Popular Music Studies.
• Student Activity Guides – Grade-specific scavenger hunt activity guides.

Related Articles:

• Alex: Review of Yolonda’s Genius
• Kayla: Yolonda’s Genius and her impressions of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Read Across America Road Trip:

• Read Across America Road Trip Begins In NYC
• How To Plan A Read Across America Road Trip
• Reading On The Road

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In a way, we’ve been preparing for this Read Across America Road Trip for years, as we explored the setting of the children’s book du jour.  From My Side of the Mountain in the Catskill Mountains, to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in Mississippi, we’ve had a grand time following the footsteps of fictitious children.

Most recently, I revisited another storybook travel favorite in New York City as we shared it with my second child. This was an excellent dress rehearsal for our cross-country road trip, combining learning and fun into a jam-packed day.

Discovering The Mixed-Up Files

I first discovered From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a story about a pair of siblings who run away to the Metropolitan Museum, as a recent college grad, while working as a paralegal in a big New York City law firm.  I had decided to restart my children’s book collection, a casualty of too many overseas moves, and wanted to enlarge it by soliciting my friends’ childhood favorites.

One of my co-workers, a recent Yale graduate, was a native New Yorker, who grew up in Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side.  This was a girl of privilege, accustomed to the finer things in life, who could truly appreciate that some kids aren’t cut out to run away to the woods.  Some children require 5-Star lodging, and nothing less the priceless furnishings of a world-class residence will do.  I guess it’s no surprise that this friend’s favorite children’s book was the E.L. Konigsburg classic.

Visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I have many fond memories of visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a young adult, but it’s a different experience visiting with kids.  You’re forced to slow down, and find ways to make the works of art accessible and interesting.

The Met provides lots of programs and self-guided tour material to help you find the right hook, including The “Mixed-Up Files” Issue of Museum Kids.  You can use this guide to plan what to see within the overwhelmingly vast collections of the Met. 

On this visit, I used this guide and the suggestions in Storybook Travel, but added my own flare.

Stopping At The Cloisters

You might think it’s too much to visit two art museums in one day, but, alright, you’re right.  It’s too much, but that’s how I travel.  Sometimes I go overboard in my travel plans.  That’s just how I do things. 

Since we were driving into the city, on a daytrip in May, I couldn’t resist a stop at the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum’s uptown branch, and one of the few places in NYC that offers free parking.  I wanted a peek at the gardens, and this seemed like a good way to introduce our kids to the Renaissance art that provides the mystery in The Mixed-Up Files. 

Our first stop was in the Garden Cafe.  After three hours on the road, I was desperately in need of a cup of coffee, and the kids needed a little pick-me-up as well.  Not that I needed an excuse to sit by the garden.

I had the sense to keep our time at the Cloisters brief as I didn’t want to overwhelm the kids.  I told them we would just stay long enough to find an angel like the one that inspired Claudia.  Surprisingly, we had no luck finding an angel sculpture, but we recreated scenes in the book as we visited a chapel, and later snuck into a student tour.

As I said, we didn’t stay long, and we were soon on our way to the main branch of the Metropolitan Museum, where parking isn’t free, but it’s convenient.

Following Claudia’s Footsteps

I like to let the kids lead the way in museums, so I handed over the Met’s Mixed-Up Files Issue, and did my best to keep up as the kids ran to find the exhibits mentioned in the book.   They soon discovered the urn and sarcophagus where the runaway children hid a trumpet and satchels:

While the beds that were featured in the book are no longer on display, this bed was appropriately opulent:

Mostly, we ended up exploring the Egyptian Wing.   Even though it wasn’t part of the book, we visited the oh so dramatic Temple of Dendur.  Afterwards, we lost ourselves in learning about the Egyptian artifacts, just like the children in The Mixed-Up Files, even slipping into the recessed rooms to escape detection.

No tour of the Mixed-Up Files is complete without a look at the blue silk chair that inspired the book.  When we found the chair, we read aloud the passage from E.L. Konigsberg in the Mixed-Up Files Museum Kids where she tells us that she got the idea for the story while visiting the Met with her children, and noticing a popcorn kernel on a blue silk chair in the Hotel de Varengeville period room.

This is also a good spot to stop and discuss story inspirations, before wandering and searching for our own story starters.

Usually, when we explore the Mixed-Up Files setting, we include a visit to the Medieval Armor exhibit.  This time, I forgot about the armor, in favor of a more current armor, that of the Costume Exhibit – The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion.

This didn’t have anything to do with the Mixed-Up Files, but it was interesting, and I knew it would appeal to my daughter.

An Army Marches On It’s Stomach

I find that these kinds of expeditions always go better when everyone is well fed.  The Met offers several options for feeding the family, from the diverse options in cafeteria, to the very elegant cafe near Greek and Roman exhibits.

On this day, we chose to dine outside of the Met.  Sitting on the front steps, we enjoyed hot dogs and shish kabob, while listening to a jazz band. 

Later, we left our car parked at the Met, to walk through Central Park, before heading west, to go to my kid’s favorite NYC destinations – Dylan’s Candy Bar and Serendipity 3, home of the frozen hot chocolate:

On Climax, Not Setting

The reason we were at the Met was that my son’s book club was exploring The Mixed-Up Files as part of an ongoing project to read/work through the assignments in Deconstructing Penguins: Parents, Kids, and the Bond of Reading.  So far, the book club has learned about protagonists, antagonists, and setting.

Although you might expect that they would explore the story element of setting with this book, the authors skipped the obvious to discuss climax instead.

I have to admit that we haven’t discussed climax with the kids as our visit did not lend itself to challenging lessons.  We went with the obvious, and talked about how setting affected the story, especially in contrast to the other runaway story, My Side of the Mountain.

More Book Club Questions (from 100 Books For Girls To Grow On by Shireen Dodson):

• Why does Claudia want to run away from home? Have you ever felt like doing that? Why?
• Why does Claudia call running away a “great adventure”?  What’s your idea of a “great adventure”? Why?
• Why is the statue of the angel in the museum important to Claudia?
• Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler observed that “often the search proves more profitable than the goal.”  What do you think she means by that?  Have you ever experienced that?

Not So Mixed Up

Even though we’ve temporarily tabled our discussion of climax as a story element, the authors of Deconstructing Penguins make a strong case for arguing that the Mixed-Up Files is really about discovering that “what distinguishes people from one another is effort, what they put into things.”

I found their conclusion to this section insightful, especially as we venture forth on a summer long road trip of discovery:

You know, the way Claudia felt at the beginning of this book – bored, uneasy with herself, wanting to be different – is not unique to her age…You may feel that way when you are seventeen, or twenty-seven or thirty-seven or eighty.  And if you feel that way, art is not the only place to turn for help.  You can go to science or math or music or history or literature – anyplace where you can learn, so long as your effort is genuine.  Because the act of learning helps people grow on the inside, so that you can find out who you really are, and what you are capable of, just like Claudia.

Related Articles:

• Book Babes: A Mother Daughter Book Club
• Exploring My Side of the Mountain, Part 1
• How To Plan A Read Across America Road Trip
• Reading On The Road

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Please excuse the delay in posting.  We’ve been having such a full and marvelous time touring the country, that I’ve fallen behind in my blog posts.  I thought about skipping a few stories, and coming back to them later, but I just couldn’t do it.  I have to do this chronologically, I’m just compulsive that way.

This means that I’m still sharing stories from before we hit the road, including the one about a fabulous end-of-year homeschool party that we attended.

Dreaming of a Pie Fight

AJ had a dream.  It was a bold, audacious plan to stage a pie fight.  Not just any little old pie fight.  No, he wanted a whopper of a pie fight.

His mother also had a dream.  She wanted to make her son’s dream come true, but she didn’t want it to end up in a big mess.  With a little creativity, and planning, both were able to make their dreams come true.

First, she had to select the right setting for the pie fight.  The ideal pie fight scene includes tables for making the pies, lots of room to run around, and access to water for clean up.  Grafton Park provided the ideal combination with a secluded pavilion that included a water source, and the lake and showers just a short walk away.

Scoping out sale items, AJ’s mom gathered pudding mix, pie tins, and whipped cream for the pies.  She also sent out online invitations asking participants to bring contributions for a potluck picnic and water guns.

On the big day, she used emergency scene tape to cordon off the area for the pie fight, making sure that the mess would be contained in an easy to clean area with tall grass to hide the errant pudding.

She also went over important ground rules with the participants.  I’m not sure what she said exactly, but it must have had something to do with keeping the pie fight fun, and within the designated area.

After the pie slinging, a water gun fight was a great way to wash off the bigger globs of pudding pie.  It was also a highlight of the party in itself. 

For the final rinse, the kids washed up in the showers, took a dip in the lake, or both.  Mine went straight from the water gun fight to the lake, and by the end of the day they were cleaner than when we started.  Pretty much, anyway.

AJ and his mom achieved their dream, but Alex did as well.  He got to attend one of the most creative, fun end-of-school-year parties ever, with new and old homeschool friends.  This was definitely the way to welcome the summer with a bang! 

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Last week, in New York, our Cub Scout Pack attended a program at the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center where we discovered that the firefly population seems to be decreasing.  Old timers, and anyone over 30 years old, say they no longer fill the night with their bright lights the way they used to when we were kids.

Are fireflies disappearing?  New England volunteers are helping to discover if this is true by counting the fireflies in their backyards, just 10 seconds once a week, and sharing their findings with Firefly Watch.

Meanwhile, here at our campground in Hannibal, MO, the fireflies are plentiful.  In the evening, I passed a dad teaching a pack a of kids how to catch them to light their lantern.  I didn’t stick around to watch the results, but there were so many fireflies in the air, that the kids wouldn’t need much in the way of lessons to achieve success.

When we turned off our lights for the night, we could still see bright pinpoints of light hitting our tent like twinkling lights.

It was a magical setting, and the perfect backdrop for listening to Tom Sawyer over the Ipod speakers, here in Mark Twain’s hometown.

Related:

• Cub Scout Firefly Program Photos

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Even if it wasn’t one of the seven wonders of the world, I decided that it was worth a stop on our drive from Cleveland to Chicago, if only to find out what all the fuss was about.  It was on our way, easy to get to, and an inexpensive place to get a meal.

I wasn’t disappointed in the hot dogs either.  They were pretty tasty, not as good as the street hot dogs in New York City or Prague, but delicious nonetheless.  Even better were the creamy cucumber salad, paprika dumplings, and apple strudel.

I still don’t get what all the buzz is about.  Apparently, Tony Packo’s got a lot of media exposure when one of the MASH characters raved about the hot dogs.  Later, celebrities turned the place into an even bigger deal by autographing the hot dog buns.

Now, the walls are covered by autographed buns. 

No strangers to green, moldy bread, the kids asked how come the autographed buns didn’t suffer the same fate.  Accustomed to answering a barrage of questions, mostly on subjects that I know very little about, I came up with what I thought was a reasonable answer.  I suggested that  the airtight packaging preserved the hot dog buns.

The kids believed me too, until an employee piped up that they use Styrofoam hot dogs.  Fake hot dogs seem to be a popular item, and the gift shop was selling them like hotcakes.

I was tempted to bring one home as a souvenir, but I decided to hold on to the squeezable buns with my camera instead.

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Silly him, he really thought that we’d be on the road by 10AM, just because I said that was my plan.  You’d think that by now he’d know that it takes a miracle to get me out that early.  Today was no exception.

We gave Dave another hug, waved him off to work again, and were still home a couple hours later.

Packing has got to be my least favorite chore, and there was a lot of packing to do for this trip.  Then, there was the logistical challenge of cramming it all into the car.  Yoohoo watched us fill every bit of the trunk with a hopeful expression, apparently wondering how much room we were going to leave him.  I think he was hoping that we were planning on taking him back to visit his favorite vacation spot. 

Alas, we had to disappoint him.  He’s staying home this time as a hot car in the Southwest deserts is no place for a dog.

After we thought we’d filled every inch of space, we realized we still had one last item to fit in.  A dear friend hand-crafted a set of gorgeous walking sticks, each one a work of art.  There was no way these were staying behind.  We rearranged our luggage one more time, and found just enough space.

At 2PM, we headed out on the highway, two kids, a mom, and a Suburban filled to the brim.  We’re headed out on an adventure, whatever comes our way.  Born to be wild, yeah, that’s us, and this is how we roll.

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