The Life Outside

The Big Move - day 13

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 17:39:00 +0000

Today is Aug 31^st , day 13 We drove 185 miles today from Port Huron, Michigan, USA to Inglewood, Ontario, Canada.

Well here we are at the last day of our adventure driving across the country. Its really been so much fun, but tiring all the same. I hope that at least by writing it down our kids will be able to remember something of the trip. They're such smart, growing little guys its cool to have a snapshot of them right here and now. Our trip today takes us across the border into Canada and to the farm Erica grew up on. We'll be spending a month at the farm in Inglewood, Ontario before moving into our new place in Brampton. So there's a bit more settling to do, and of course it will be complicated but I think we've really accomplished the toughest part of this trip already. Getting out of our old house and ready for the move was so incredibly tiring, I'm glad we can now finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just one more day, so lets begin shall we?

The morning started off very well. The kids had a great night and Erica and I we're able to get the car mostly packed up the night before. Exiting the hotel should definitely be simple enough. Breakfast today was good and intentionally quick. We want to be at the border right around 9am since we might be there for a while.

As you'll see here there aren't too many photos. Generally speaking they do not like you taking photos of the border and I am honestly looking to make this as smooth a transition as possible. Erica and I have A LOT of documentation with us covering everything from our house to ourselves and the kids, to the car. They probably won't ask us too much, but they could. Moving across the border into a new country is very difficult. Especially when there's assets including property in both countries.

Our first stop was actually not at the Canadian border crossing though, it was at the US side. We pulled up to the start of the Blue Water Bridge toll road which connects the countries over a waterway. I'm not sure the waterway name, but its basically the river / channel that connects Lake Huron through Lake St Clair and into Lake Eerie. Port Huron is on the US side of the river and Sarnia Ontario is on the Canadian side. So anyhow, we pulled up to the toll bridge pay booth right at the start of the bridge and asked the woman where we were supposed to park to get across to the US customs and immigration. Obviously we were headed the wrong way to hit the US immigration naturally so we we're told to pull over before Canadian Customs alongside the big rigs and walk over to the US side.

This is all in order to get the paperwork signed off so that we can export our car to Canada. Yes we are exporting the car. Why else would we drive it across the country?! The woman at the toll booth let us know that we had of course missed the pull off and she actually held the entire flow of traffic for us so we could pull across all the lanes and park where we were. Then she gave some convoluted instructions on getting back, and over to the US side of the road, as well as finding the specific “Cargo” building. We parked well enough, but then we got out grabbed the kids, our paperwork and our coffees and started across the traffic to the US side buildings. Apparently that was the wrong move.

A US border guard was out with us very quickly asking us what we thought we were doing. After we explained and apologized he told us to go back to the car put down the drinks immediately, get only the paperwork needed and then just one of us go a different way down to the correct building. I guess walking in font of a line of big rigs that are supposed to be entering the country is a bad idea...

Erica stayed with the boys and I managed to eventually find the right building. Again though I went to the wrong place. I stepped into the building and saw a counter with someone working it. I went up to ask where I was supposed to be going. Well, I had the right building and desk, but I had apparently just accidentally budded in front of everyone else. He sent me to the back of the line. I waited for some 20 minutes before getting to the counter again. Not too bad considering everything (only two people ahead of me) There was again a no cell phones policy there so unfortunately I didn't get a photo. The other guys waiting in line with me were all truckers getting sign off on the goods they were exporting. They seemed pretty nice, and one of them told me a funny story about how one time he was at this desk and his phone rang; apparently everyone in the office just stopped and started to draw their weapons on him. Pretty scary stuff.

I got to the front of the line, and then had to wait through a system crash on their end, but finally finally got our car's original title stamped from the officers saying that it is good to go out of the country, and not stolen. From there on out we were set.

So we piled back into the car and drove across the bridge to the Canadian side of the border. There we had to park and the talk through everything with a Canadian agent. The Canadian agents were all vey nice. Not that the US ones were bad mind you, but I really liked the Canadian border guys. I spent a lot of the time chasing the kids around the office. They we're being exceptionally cute playing hide and seek.

My parents have recently made this same move from the States back to Canada, and had kind fo freaked us out that the entire process was going to be incredibly complicated. Franky, it wasn't. Yes we needed the right paperwork, but everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. Really a good experience all around. That said I'm glad we were prepared.

Beside us in lone at another counter in the Canadian secondary immigration office there was a guy having a full blown argument with the border guard. I am just amazed at how stupid people can be. I couldn't help but overhear some, since he was raising his voice a lot. But the guy was actually trying to file a formal complaint against the Canadian border patrol guards. I mean like asking for your identification is some sort of slight?! Apparently he didn't have ID with him and then got surly when they questioned him. My take on it was that he probably wasn't a US citizen. Why an illegal alien would even think the could travel to Canada without issue is beyond me. The border guard was being far too polite if you ask me, basically he told the man that he didn't have the right to complain. That even standing there having that conversation with him was a privilege. True enough.

So we made it through. We finished up our paperwork, got back in our car and headed on down the road into Canada and an exciting new future.

Ah Ontario... very nice to be back home. I grew up in downtown Toronto. Erica on the farm we're headed for in the Caledon area outside of the city. We headed east along highway 402 and then after London, Ontario onto one of the major highways crossing the Toronto area, the 401. We headed east to the sights of some pretty boring landscape. Is it because I grew up here? I don't generally find the landscape around here that exciting. I mean, southern ontario is really beautiful, but the roads always seem to go around pretty boring stuff. Mostly flat, some farmland, but often just empty meadowland and fields. Ah well, thankfully we're not planning on living beside the highways ;P

After Woodstock we turned more directly east and headed along the 403, through Brantford and towards the town of Burlington. Calum was sleeping, and Alec was listening to some music playing quietly so we decided that timing wise we could probably push and make it to Erica's sister Nicole's house for lunch. We're pretty thankful it only took such a short time at the border, definitely makes our timing for the day easier.

Aside from Erica's parents who live on the farm we've got a lot of extended family in the area. Erica's brother, his wife and their two kids, and her sister, husband, and their two kids are all here. We loved a lot of things about California, but having a network of family here. Giving the kids a chance to grow up really knowing at least some of their grandparents first hand, and having lots of cousins around to play with; well that's really what this whole move is about.

Erica's sister Nicole, lives in Burlington and was home with the kids when we arrived. Her husband Roy was just heading off to work so we said a quick goodbye to him then headed in for some lunch and a chance for the kids to play. Alec and Calum are a bit younger than their cousins Katy and Mason, but they are all definitely still in the range where they can play well together. The kids we're very happy to see each other and they went out back to play with snails in the yard and chase the cat. Nicole made us all some delicious burgers for lunch and we had a nice visit.

After food we decided to pack up all the kids and walk over to the local park. Well actually Katy and Mason rode their bikes, but you get the idea. Its more than a park I suppose, I think there's a community center there, and there's definitely a cool skate park. But the best feature of the play area has to be the Splashpad.

Essentially this is just a circular zone where there's water spouting up from jets in the ground at intervals. Not quite as elaborate as the water play area at that playground we stopped at in Green River, WY, but definitely fun. And on a day like today where its probably 90 degrees out the kids need some way to cool down.

The kids played and played. Alec got right in there in the water and had a great time running around with the local kids. And there were a lot of kids there. I suppose school hasn't quite started here yet for most kids. Last week of summer vacation, why not spend it at the park. Calum ran around, especially with Mason and checked out the playground.

Mason told me that he was keeping his eye on me and Calum, in case we did anything awesome. Good idea Mason. We regularly do awesome stuff. Katy was flying a homemade kite and trying to avoid the wet little Alec. He really looks up to her and wants her to play with him. She called him a little tornado, and that's pretty accurate most of the time.

We stayed and played at the splashpad playground for a good hour, maybe and hour and a half and then picked up and headed back to Nicole and Roy's house. Getting our gear together we said our goodbyes, this time thankfully only for a short time, and packed back into the car for the very final leg of our journey.

We across, and then up the 410 towards the Caledon area, specifically Inglewood, and the farm where we will be staying for the next month until our house is ready. The highway edged us past Brampton and we could see some of it. I'm not too familiar with the town, and will probably be working in Toronto instead of out there, but am interested to explore and gt to know our new place. Before that though we've got just a little ways further to go to the farm.

Getting off the highway and passing through some of the farmland its definitely good to be back here. I really love the farm. Erica and I were married there, and we've spent many Christmases there. Its a beautiful property, and we're always made so welcome.

Looking at the mileage meter now that we're almost done the voyage I have to say we did really well. Even with all of our stuff weighing the car down we still got about 36 miles to the gallon. Good job Honda Fit!

Alec and Calum we're so excited to see their granny (and grandad too). When we finally pulled up, Alec ran up and hugged granny and immediately started talking her ear off about one thing or another. We went inside leaving everything in the car and had a good chance to sit and relax for a bit. Its great to finally be here!

After a great vegetable soup for dinner, we went for a walk around the property, well some of it at least. We saw the new kittens who we're very cute. There are perpetually new farm cats here. I'll start working on Erica to see if we can take one home with us when we move out. We also played a bit on the swing set and slide there. Not too big but good to have around with the way our kids feel about playgrounds. We walked around the house and barn looking at the trees. I think I'll have to get Erica's brother John to help me build a treehouse somewhere here for all the kids. And then we walked down to the pond. There's the stage there that Erica and I we're married on. There's a lot to describe here, and its all got memories and stories associated with it, so instead I'll just say this: Here we are at eh closest thing we have to our new home. We're all together and happy. I'm glad we did this trip, glad we all pulled together and had this adventure. I'm glad to be home.

Today we ended our trip across the country relocating from San Francisco, California, to Inglewood, Ontario. We drove a total of 2 971.8 miles. Thanks for reading and joining us on this journey.

The Big Move - day 12

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 03:50:00 +0000

Today is Aug 30^th , day 12. We drove 198 miles today from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Port Huron,Michigan.

We had yet another good nightlast night, and I'm glad for it since I was pretty tired after a latenight of blogging. The kids were in fine spirits and we headed downfor our standard continental breakfast, this time in the non lobbylobby of the Fairfield. The kids had cereal and english muffins andthen we headed back immediately to the room to get ready for a swim.The boys went swimming in the hotel pool while Erica got a bit ofwork done on the computer. Its definitely tough that we've got thesethings hanging over us. I mean we're practically on vacation...practically but not entirely.

We had a good swim and got a chance totire little Calum out. Alec was just impressed that the workmen we'rein the process of changing all of the signs in the swimming area withnew ones. They all read exactly the same thing but he was entrancedwatching the workers take down the old and put up the new. He'sreally gotten into signs on this trip. He's had us explain what aU-Turn is so many times now, and he's really gotten it that when yousee a sign with a red circle and line across it that you can't dowhatever that thing is. We've even played the game in the car wherewe have to find a sign with a red line across it along the highway.The “No Diving” sign is one of his favorites because its tiledonto the floor around all of these hotel swimming pools.

After our swim we packed into the carand headed out. We have a plan in place for today that should make ita bit more interesting than yesterday. And our pan involves headingnorth west along the I-69 E towards Lansing, Flint and all pointsbeyond. Erica's research had definitely paid off because she found avery cool sounding spot along the way in Lansing, the kids sciencemuseum “impression 5” and that was our goal.

Calum slept on our way up to Lansing,which is always good. He's gotten onto a good sleep routine duringthe trip; back to two naps a day instead of his usual one. Once weget into Canada of course we'll have to adjust that again but thelittle guy has really held up remarkably well. Really they both have:) Before we made our way into downtown for the kids museum westopped at Target again. I know we we're just there yesterday but wedo love the place... actually we wanted to return the propane tanksthat didn't fit our camp stove and a few other small things. I stayedin the car with Calum until he woke up, then we walked over toGamestop for a visit. Fun all around.

Anyhow, pit stop complete we all headedinto the city to find this museum. It was definitely a bitcomplicated what with the construction and a somewhat winding riverrunning right beside our destination, but after a few detours andwrong turns we made it safely to the Impression 5. Now I know you mayhave been to a kids science museum before, but what is the one majorissue with those places? They never cater to a younger crowd. Reallyits not just science museums but a ton of activities. There are somany cool things out there for 6 – 12 year olds to do and virtuallynothing for toddlers. I understand that for the most part they'll behappy at a playground, but sometimes its really nice to go do a realactivity too. Science museums are almost always culprits of this. Butaside from formalized sit down style education there are a ton ofthings that really little kids can do in the realms of science. I'mthinking toys that explore physics and geometry, animals, andconnections. All things that easily could translate to toddlers.Maybe I'm just too used to Alec at his Montessori school in SF, butI'm sure you could say... find some cool toy-like way to get atoddler to see the effects of gravity and be entertained by it whilealso learning a new concept. With all that said, YES Impression 5 isactually designed specifically with litter kids in mind. They do havean infant room, on one end of the spectrum, and they do have someexperiments that are obviously for older kids, but the medium ofexhibits was distinctly skewed for a slightly younger crowd, maybe 3– 7.

I was very impressed with all of thestuff they had laid out. Kids science museums are usually designed tobe hands on, but this one had more actual creative building andpiecing together than I've ever seen. Alec and Calum spent some timein the little kids section exploring, but then we ran out and aroundthe rest of the museum From bubbles, to music, to magnifying, andblock building we really did a lot of fun activities. This is a greatplace and I'd definitely recommend it of you're heading near Lansing,MI.

Everyone was pretty worn out when weleft the museum so we got ice cream at eh 7-11 and ate it in the car.I mean its such a mess anyhow at this point, whats a little spilt icecream. Alec has been wearing his cowboy hat pretty continually in thecar and the cheapness of it is really starting to show. I mean thisis definitely a $3 hat. There is straw from it coming out all overthe place. Ah well, we weren't expecting the stuff to stay clean,that would be too much to ask. Just so long as we make it there happyand still sane.

We drove on east on the 69 throughFlint and onto Port Huron. For all their troubles, Ive nothingagainst them, but I don;t really have any interest in stopping inFlint. We've got bigger fish to fry. Alec played the cowboy game (asdetailed yesterday) a bunch more and then we played the naming game abunch. This is a new game Alec made up where we all name something ina category that he picks. Some examples include all of us pick aflower, then all of us pick a tree, color, street sign, iPhone game, animal, and day. There didn't seem to be a winner ever, and he madeus stop after one round always and move onto a new picking game.Seemed like a good game to us. Pretty straightforward. Finally weplayed the animal game again. This is the one where Alec or wepretend to be an animal and then the others guess what animal it is.Alec is so funny because he will often just copy whatever we saidlast. Sometimes he'll say totally wrong attributes to an animal too,or say exact attribute and then actually be a mog instead of a dog.It can be pretty tricky playing games with that kid sometimes.

We drove on through until we finallycame to the border town of Port Huron. This is it, our journey isfinally coming near its end! Very exciting and sad too. Tomorrow weleave the States for good.

We checked into the Best Western andwent to start cooking right away. One of the reasons we chose theBest Western in Port Huron was because it was located immediatelybeside a park, and I called and asked before we got there. The womanat the front desk told me they had a playground AND BBQ pits at thepark. All true this time thankfully ;) So we grabbed our BBQing gearand headed over to the playground.

It may look like a normal playground,but it was actually pretty weird. I'm not sure what the company thatmade it was thinking. Maybe just that it was a playground probablyprimarily designed for tourists staying at the hotels nearby whowouldn't bother complaining, but there was some real weird stuffgoing on, especially with the slide.

Check out that slide. It looks greatright? Well looks can be deceiving. Sure it may be a three storywhite metal curly slide, and the curls are all well and good, but itsthe grade of the floor that's the issue. This slide is perhaps theworst designed slide I've ever been on. Maybe its better for kidswith small legs, but there is no way you can go down that slide andnot end up facing sideways or backwards at the bottom! Seriously, thesteepness, and more importantly the angle were totally screwed up onit! How does this happen? I mean don't you have some sort of engineerlook over the plans for a weirdo custom slide like this before youbuild it? Don't they play test it at least a few times beforeinstalling? Why is this slide so terrible?! These sort of thingsshould not exist and as someone who really knows his playgrounds thiswas pretty lame.

Erica cooked the BBQ dinner of chickenand salad, with bread, guacamole, and cherry tomatoes. And while shecooked I took the boys on a walkabout to see what the other side ofthe park, the side across the street looked like. Frankly though itwasn't too interesting.

There was a flock of Canadian geesehanging out on the lawn on the other side of the park though whichwas pretty funny, since Alec started running after them trying tocatch them. Of course they all ran away too fast for him, which madehim a bit sad. But we moved on to exploring the nearby bulrushes andhe was again ok.The sun was getting low over the hills and it reallywas very pretty. We headed back across the street soon enough to seeif dinner was ready and I ended up carrying both boys. Calum hadreally had enough walking, and Alec freaked out after I told him tokeep an eye out for goose poop. He didn't want to be anywhere on thegrass after that.

When we got back it was about dinnertime and we sat down to eat. Unfortunately just as we started digginginto our meal we were accosted. Accosted by wasps. Yes WASPS. Therewere only 3 or 4 at first, but then there were more. Never a whileswarm, never to the point where I felt threatened. But you can onlyhave multiple wasps land on your food so many times before it becomesunbearable. And Erica is some kid of quick-shot dead-eye. She killedlike 3 of them. And that's when I started to get worried. Don't waspshave some weird kind of telepathy or something? I mean don't youthink that one dying would seriously annoy the rest? Doesn't Ericaknow about the hive mind mentality?! I've seen enough sci-fi to knowthat when you kill someone like the Borg you are just asking fortrouble.

So I suggested we make a hasty exit andthat's exactly what we did. We grabbed our plates and cutlery andheaded into the lobby of the best western to eat. They already hadtables there (set up in time for tomorrows breakfast) and althoughit was admittedly a bit like something the Griswalds would do we satthere and enjoyed our dinner as best we could.

I went back to the table and securedour stuff. Thankfully the wasps hadn't quite taken over yet so I madeit out in one piece, but I'll tell you it was touch and go for a bitthere.

Soon enough we finished up and it wastime to get the kiddies into bed. We had a good long day and theywere tired. Getting them down can be a challenge even if they'retired though. Thankfully it was too bad this time. And once they weredown Erica and I did some very strategic repacking of the car and gotourselves as ready as we could for tomorrow. We're planing on gettingto the border around 9am, and we don't want something like aforgotten piece of fruit to hold us up. (FYI you can't bring fruitsinto Canada)

We collated our notes and then Eheaded to bed while I worked on the blog some more. This blogging hasreally been a lot of work and I know I won't have it all done beforewe get back to Canada, but I think a record of the trip is a reallynice thing; and ultimately it will help us and the kids remember aspecial time in our lives.

One more entry tomorrow after we makeour way finally back to the Great White North of Canada. Its been a fun ride, and I'm glad to have been sharing it with you. See youtomorrow :)

The Big Move - day 11

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 15:36:00 +0000

Today is Aug 29^th , day 11 We drove 143 miles today from Tinley Park, Illinois to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Starting our we did well with another great night. This time at the Comfort Inn at Tinley Park. I think pulling off the highway when we did was the right move, I didn't see anywhere worth staying around Gary anyhow, and giving the kids a chance to swim last night made them all tired out for a good night's rest. Didn't I say this would be the start of a trend...

We had another good continental breakfast at the hotel to kick things off. We've really decided that the only way to go is free breakfast, pool, free wifi, no smoking, 2 beds. Everything else is just gravy. Anyhow, the kids did well and we soon hit the road. But before we got too far, we decided to pick up a few more supplies. This may be our last Target run before we get to Canada (where they don't have Target) so we wanted to make the most of it. And what better pace than the SuperTarget!!! Yes they have a SuperTarget here. Totally Targetastic!

After getting fuel for the camping stove (which was the wrong size), a few new clothes for Erica, and new sippy cups all around we spent a few minutes checking in on the toy aisle. Alec has a real affinity for the toys at Target from all the time he's spent “playing” with them in the store. Sure things may be slightly different in Illinois than California, but not that much I bet.

Definitely rousing. From there we bundled back into the car and may one last quick stop at Best Buy for a look around. While we were there Alec got a chance to give his best at a game of Just Dance (I guess it was JD3?) And he was of course fabulous.

Then it was time to really really hit the road. Today should be a bit simpler day. We're not going quite as far today and we've got a time change in the middle of it again. This is definitely starting to feel like the beginning of the end of our trip. Hopefully we can have a few more adventures along the way though.

We made it into Indiana, and the change to Eastern time, smoothly in the car. I don't have much of anything to say about Indiana though. We really sped through our little corner of it. We're finally really into the Great Lakes region. Right after Gary we finally split from the 80 east and started north along the 94.

Our thought was that we might go to either Kalamazoo, or up to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the night. And yes we soon found ourselves entering the state of Michigan. I spent some time on the iPhone trying to figure out where all the best vacation spots are for families in Michigan but got a bit stymied when trying to find something nice in the middle or eastern part of the country. It sounds clearly like everyone who wants to go to Michigan on vacation really wants that “great lake” vibe (I believe that's even the state motto). Northern Michigan sounds lovely, I'm sure Luddington or Traverse City would be great, but we basically ended up turning off the coast when we hit Benton Harbor. Those other places are just too far and we ultimately need to get across this state mot get lost in it.

Speaking of the state in general though, if I thought yesterdays drive was getting to be like southern Ontario, then this was exactly it. Michigan looks exactly like Ontario in almost every geographic respect. Even the houses have some similarities.

While we drove, Calum slept and Alec played. He'd gotten out his John Wayne cowboy hat, a real favorite now, and just like the chicken game started putting it on and getting us to play along. E: “where's Alec gone to all I see is a cowboy”, A: “howdy do, y'all”, E: “hey cowboy, have you seen our little boy Alec” A: “nope I'm just looking for my cows.”, E: “well I haven't seen any cows but I swear we had a little boy in the seat a minute ago.” A pulls off hat: “it's me I'm here mommy!” This is of course followed by crazy giggles and then an exact repeat of the performance.

When Calum woke up we decided that we needed to stop for some food and a stretch. We'd looked up what to do along the way, but weren't getting very far. Eventually we pulled off the highway into the little town of Coloma. It looked at least on the map like lots of nice lakefront property, and even though there wasn't any designated park in town, with all that lakefront there'd surely be something nice. That was not the case though. The lakefront was full of houses, all the way around as far as we could tell, but truthfully we only drove 2 / 3s around and then back. The odd thing is that the lakefront property didn't look very nice. I'm not really used to seeing such lower-end property on a lake. Erica says this is common I'm not sure where she's been to see it though. Maybe its a southern Ontario thing. But my experiences near lakes in southern Ontario have been cottage country, all very nice.

So with the lakefront choices a bit weak we puled back towards the highway and found a park right before we got on. I don;t want to go to much into details on the playground or people, but I will say I didn't really like it. There was a bum sleeping on the bench next to where we were cooking, and I generally felt like the people at the park we're pretty shady. Although with that, we did meet a few nice folks there.

That was the only issue though, because the playground itself was Fantastic! I mean really fantastic. I think this is in my top 5 playgrounds of all time. It was so elaborate, and I felt like it was totally payable. One section was like a castle, another like a pirate ship, and another like an area with teepees. It was multi-storied with lots of activities as well as great lookouts.

The kids romped off to play while Erica and I alternated on the grill. At one point Alec asked Erica why there was a guy nearby sleeping on the table. He then told E that he really “looks like he needs a rest.”Other than that Alec ran around like a little wild tornado playing with the local kids. He did well meeting people, really he's very personable. At one point however he went up to a little girl and ask her if she wanted to play. The girl said, that she had regular friends to play with. Alec's response to that was “don't worry you can still love me”

After a lunch of sausages and corn (our best BBQ meal at this point) we packed up the car and headed back on the road. This was a really nice playground, but overall I suspect that this town is a bit sketchy.

We drove east on the 94 into Kalamazoo. Well the outskirts of Kalamazoo, and found another nice hotel with the Fairfield Inn. Alec spent some time 'talking on the phone' and then had us bury him in pillows, made a pillow train, and then the kids wrestled a bit. This is pretty typical nighttime play for our kids at least. Probably a thing little boys have to do :)

Since it wasn't too late, and with the time change our kids we're too tired Erica tried to calm Calum a bit while I got Alec into his swim stuff and we hopped into the hotel swimming pool. Alec and me had such fun swimming. He's really getting great at swimming, even though he's wearing water wings you can tell how much he's learning. We splashed and kicked, and swam over and under each other. Pretty fun times all around.

For dinner we had thought to make pasta, but after getting the wrong propane for our camping stove we're in a bit of a bind. How to make pasta without a burner? The BBQ seemed a bit extreme for pasta. But Erica had the idea that we might be able to do it in the microwave. Unfortunately this hotel is one of the few hotels we've had that doesn't have a microwave in our room. But there is one in the lobby. Well actually to be accurate the hotel lobby was under construction so they had two guest rooms open as a temporary lobby, and the microwave in there was just sitting around.

We piled into the guest room temp lobby and put our pasta and water in a microwave safe tupperware. After about 10 minutes it actually seemed to work. Pasta was cooked, and we added a sauce made from a can of tomato sauce, half a pepper, and leftover sausage from lunchtime. It sounds all a bit slap-dash but honestly it all turned out very well.

After dinner it was time for bed. Not such a big day today but definitely necessary to get there. Despite still really enjoying the fun side excursions as we go, I think we're all getting a bit tired of the day to day grind of traveling like this.

More tomorrow as we head out for Port Huron and then the following day it'll be into Canada and the completion of our Big Move.

The Big Move - day 10

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 05:49:00 +0000

Today is Aug 28^th , day 10 We drove 185 miles today from Muscatine, Iowa to Tinley Park, Illinois.

With last night spent not in a hotel but in a real bed everyone felt a better and I think that's why the kids slept so well. The kids slept in until 7am (which being 5am PST is more or less their normal time, but at least no one was up in the night). I think having a day where we didn't drive as much was a big help too. We've been pushing so hard now a respite was very welcome.

When the kids got up we played more games of Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, as well as Jenga, and Bingo. Alec still doesn't ant to learn the rules, but he's loving all these new things to play with! Bingo was a pretty bad idea (too many small pieces) so we ended up putting that one away. But then Alec discovered Twister. That one he sort of got the rules to... but he kept leaving his spot on the mat because he wanted to “spin the clock”.

Soon Ruth treated us with a wonderful breakfast of eggs, sausages, and homemade biscuits. The kids we're happy and ate lots.

After breakfast we decided to take advantage of Aunt Ruth's awesome swimming pool. The idea was relax a bit and get Calum especially tired out and then we could drive on through and push for somewhere around the Chicago area.

The kids had such a good time swimming that we ended up staying a bit late, but that's ok. As long as everyone is having fun, that's the important part. It was already getting hot (ended up mid 90s in Muscatine) and very bright out so we eventually pulled the kids out of the pool.

Since the carseats were already out of the car and in Ruth's Yukon I took advantage of it and vacuumed the car before reinstalling the seats and packing up. Wow, our car is SO dirty. Its pretty amazing. While I was out, Erica played with Calum and Ruth read some stories to Alec.

Soon enough it was time to say goodbye and hit the road. We had such a great visit with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Marty. They were very gracious and we really appreciated everything.

We headed out on the 61 to the 280 East across the Mississippi and soon found ourselves into Illinois, coming up along the south side of Moline. Calm slept for a bit and Alec played well. Hes definitely gotten used to entertaining himself with just the rest of the family.

There's not really a ton to say about the landscape here, we're getting closer and closer to what Erica and I grew up with. Same kind of trees, same kind of houses as Southern Ontario. Its still hotter than we're used to, but I don't think we'll be too impressed with the landscape while driving anymore. Not that its bad, just not terribly exciting or different. I will say both Erica and I enjoyed seeing sunflowers growing wild at the side of the road though.

Eventually Calum woke up and we stopped for a bathroom break at somewhere called the Great Saulk Trail rest area. I thought it was just a rest stop on the side of the road but it was obviously built up pretty well. I think it must've been a trail-head. Either that or the State of Illinois makes the nicest rest stops ever. That's possible too.

There was a playground and a ton of picnic tables. I think Alec was a bit punchy because we lathered him and Calum up with sunscreen and he walked out onto the playground in the hot sun and came right back to me onto the sidelines saying “”playgrounds are too hot, trees are better” Then he played in the shade and with the brush on the side of the nearby woods for the next 20 minutes. Calum of course flowed. He'll pretty much do whatever Alec does.

Eventually Alec propped himself up at a picnic table and asked for snacks. We told him that we were planning on pushing through, and that this was just a stretch the legs stop, but he very calmly explained that it was late, and he was hungry. And that we should stop for a snack now and then have a BBQ later on. Well, he made a convincing argument. Especially since we swam in the morning it was already well into the afternoon, and despite the time difference for us, we were pretty hungry once Alec pointed it out. So we had cheese, bread, crackers, and humus, along with some strawberries. Definitely made everyone feel better :)

Then it was really time to get back in the car. We had an idea of a hike in the afternoon and wanted to get there.Driving on the 80 East now we passed La Salle, and turned south onto the 178. I had seen the Starved Rock State Park on the map and thought it might be good. I mean its right on a river, maybe we could swim again? Anyhow, I called them to ask if they had any good hikes they would recommend for families with young kids. Firstly they informed me that NO ONE swims in the Illinois River. Apparently that is a bad idea. And then she suggested we actually go to another state park! A little one just South of Starved Rock called Matthiessen.

After picking up some groceries in town we headed into the park itself. Although it doesn't look like much when driving up, we were told that there was a play area for kids and a place to BBQ and a good short hike. Since we'd already eaten a big snack recently we decided to look around and hike before eating again. We looked for a play area. There was definitely no playground around the mostly barren and boring parking lot though. Just one sad set of swings that Alec couldn't even bring himself to use. Not so promising...

There was a rebuilt fort there though. I had read online that it was a replica of the French Fortifications that we're built in the area at some point or another. Don't quote me on that … this isn't a history blog. Anyhow, we enjoyed exploring the small fort even though it was a top a very long looking set of stairs that proved to be the trail-head.

Just seeing the people come u pall sweaty from those stairs made me worry. I know how this plays out. Lots of stairs with kids means lots of carrying :( It couldn't be helped though, so we packed up our hiking gear and headed down for what we planned as basically a 2 mile hike.

I won't keep you in suspense though. Thankfully, all of my doubts were quickly washed away. This park was honestly amazing. We got to the bottom of the long staircase, into a valley and found the bridge crossing the shallow river flooded with water! Well, we needed to get to the other side of that water. So we started our adventure walk by shimmying along the railing of the bridge. Avoiding the water like it was lava or something. Alec did a super job, although he couldn't totally understand it since he loves walking in water.

Getting to the other side we started our hike out about a mile slowly careening up a gravel path along the opposite hillside of the valley. Up, and up we went. Not so bad considering it was a slow climb, and Alec did pretty well. The trees were beautiful here in the valley, especially the way the sun broke through them, and the little grey squirrels we saw running around we're very cute. This is the kind of hiking I enjoy.

We walked the mile out and ended up at a “lookout”. What a weird structure. I can't tell when something like this would've been built and I'm not entirely sure why. There was no explanation, no signage, but The lookout, actually looked out over a nice green lake. Lilly pads, algae covered much of the surface while and bulrushes dotted the sides and big oaks surrounded the perimeter. If it wasn't a state park, I might say the lookout was a hunting post, and maybe it was sort of. There was a road leading up to the back of the lookout and a sign about fishing in the lake. Yes you are allowed to fish, but only certain amounts and sizes. Maybe this is a fishing lookout... do people who fish have lookouts? But why the weird design with the pillars and everything? Very odd. Anyhow, we stopped for a snack of blueberries and enjoyed the view.

Then we moved down to the bridge crossing beside the lake. As we got onto the bridge I realized what this was a bit better. The lake was actually made by damming up the river which naturally flowed through the valley floor. I had wondered why the valley floor and riverbed was so deep, steep and much lower than us. You would think they would've designed the park to have us hiking along side the river. But the dam held back a ton of water considering how big the lake was. This bridge was built above and over the dam. Separate, and above. Once in the middle of the bridge I looked over the side expecting to see just to the lake level, but instead found myself looking all the way down to the face of the dam to the mostly dry riverbed below. I'm not sure If I'm explaining it properly so you'll understand it but this was a very cool view down the face of a dam. It was really far down.

Crossing the bridge one way, we stepped onto the bank on the other side of the valley and then we're able to walk back across again on the top of the dam. It looked like maybe the majority of the dam was actually natural rock-face. My guess is that this was a very cool waterfall that the parks dept just stopped up the top of forming the lake. Really neat stuff, and beautiful.

The best was yet to come though as we followed the path which looped us along back to our starting point across the water bridge. This time though we didn't walk on the gravel path, no instead we wound down some more stairs and found ourselves walking right on the bottom of the mostly dry riverbed! It was very very cool. I've been on a lot of hikes, and I don't think I've ever been hiking along the bottom of a riverbed like this. At some points I'm sure the wall was 30 feet straight up, and the ground was pocked with puddles, rocks, sparse vegetation, and deep tree roots. We hopped along a path on the riverbed, thoroughly enjoying the really original hike.

I'm not sure the pictures can convey how cool this was. I was really impressed with it, and the kids loved it too. We walked along until we came to a large pool called the Giants Bathtub. Alec had a good time with that one, especially after we told him the giant was gone for now.

We continued on and found ourselves at Ceder Point where we reluctantly headed back up the slope to the main gravel path. Along the way we came to a point where the parks department had placed this meshed large rubber netting along the ground, no doubt to stop the path from eroding. Alec thought it was just about the funniest thing. He decided that it was a great place to sit, and every few feet would just sit down again.

He might have been getting tired too, since once we got back to the top I carried him for a while. We crossed back across the water bridge shimmying along and then hit the stairs.

Alec was definitely getting tired as we started back up. I told him he had to walk, and he did but that didn't mean he couldn;t stop for a rest along the way. Roughly every three sets of stairs there was a bench for people to rest on. Alec climbed up on every single one of these benches to “take a little rest” It was pretty hilarious.

Once we eventually made it back up to the top Alec started running around again. I guess he wasn't that tired out ;) We played in the fort again and Erica got us a snack. We'd decided not to BBQ at the park, since Calum was so tired and we really wanted to get closer to our destination. Instead we had dessert. If you'll recall Alec had made some cupcakes with Aunt Ruth yesterday. Well at Ruth's instance we had taken a few along with us on the road and it made for a good snack at the picnic tables. Alec was again very funny as he kept trying to make a cupcake mustache. He did this of course by rubbing the cupcake all over his face! What a guy!

Finally we hit the road and got on our way back towards Chicago. We'd thought about staying in the city, but then thought better of it. This is not the trip for that kind of stuff. We're not trying to do a ton of sightseeing here, just taking advantage of the opportunities around us. Also getting in and out of Chicago would be super annoying. And would Alec or Calum care? I mean we'd still just be hanging out in a hotel room at this point.

So as we started passing the city to the south we decided to call it quits once Erica had enough of the rush hour commuters. We stopped once again in Denny's for a quick meal. Since we'd pushed off BBQing to get some more distance on the road. Not a great meal, but not terrible by any means and they are immediately set up for families.

We decided that enough was enough and found a hotel as close to the Denny's as we could. Well, a hotel as close as possible that wasn't a dump. We ended up at the Comfort Inn in the suburb of Tinley Park. And surprisingly we found a way to get it cheaper than Priceline. We've been using the Priceline app as we've been traveling, and are usually very impressed with it. After finding the hotel we wanted though this time, we just called them to see if we could do it over the phone directly with them. If they said no on a price match then we could always just do it through Priceline. Instead they told us that they could do it cheaper than Priceline, especially since we also got a AAA discount. Fantastic.

We settled into the hotel and got the kids changed and into the pool asap. Both kids we're squirrely and we wanted to get hat final last bit of energy out. Also it had been a hot long day hiking and a swim (or another swim I guess) sounded great. We all went into the small but very nice pool at the hotel and had a good time.

Afterwards we had a good excuse to throw both kids into the bath. Something they are definitely not getting enough of on this trip. But there is really only so much time... Then it was off to bed for the kids, and Erica while I stepped into the lobby to get a bit of work done.

Fun times all around. We had a great day, and I'm looking forward to another one ahead as we make our way in towards Michigan and the end of our trip. Just two more full days to go!

The Big Move - day 9

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 05:58:00 +0000

Today is Aug 27th , day 9 We drove 40 miles today from Iowa City, Iowa to Muscatine, Iowa.

The AmericInn in Coralville turned out really well for us. The kids had a good sleep and I think this wll be the start of a trend. These kids may be starting to get used to the time change and life on the road. It was really misty outside but just the kind that burns off. Its definitely a lot more humid out here, I forgot how serious the weather can be.

The continental breakfast was really solid. The kids had cereal and yogurt. From there we packed up the car and headed out for a short drive into Iowa City and the University.

This is kind of a boring part of the day so I'm not going to go too much into it, but we stopped in at the Ophthalmology lab at the University of Iowa and had eye tests for me and the boys. I've got an eye condition and we wanted to see how the kids were looking. This happens to be the best place in the country for us, so we really wanted to stop. Its a VERY impressive operation and we're very thankful to be able to see the expert here. All three of us boys had our eyes dilated and pictures taken. And yes we're all doing fine.

From the eye doctor we hopped back in the car for the short drive out to the suburb of Muscatine where my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Marty live. The drive was beautiful. Although with dilated eyes the kids and I we're all pretty light sensitive and the bright Iowa sunshine was pretty tough to manage. Thankfully we had sunglasses!

After a short ride we found ourselves in the town of Muscatine. This is a very pretty little town with a surprising amount of stuff going on. My Aunt and Uncle live there in a very nice house and we're kind enough to host us. We went right over and met up with my Aunt Ruth. My Uncle was out working so we settled in for a little bit to visit. They have a nice big house and the kids had lots of room to run around in.

After a quick visit and settle in though we all packed into Ruth's old Yukon and headed off for a visit to the local Wildlife center. The center was great for kids and had all kinds of things they could touch and feel. It was focused on Iowa so was perfect to get an overview of the local wildlife. We also learned that bison can run up to 40 miles and hour! Alec really enjoyed a puzzle they had as well as a small magnifying glass, he wanted to be sure and solve all the local mysteries before we moved on.

Ruth then took us for a tour of the town and we got to see what Muscatine is all about. It is a really pretty town that is amazingly diverse for its relative small size. It is right on the Mississippi River and has some of the prettiest houses we have seen. Yes I fully admit that both Calum and I may have fallen asleep during a portion of the ride, but I contend that it is not because I was bored with Muscatine. I'm just really REALLY tired. Late nights blogging have caught up with me. I did wake up for the end though and thought it was all quite lovely :D

When we got back to Ruth's house Calum was still sleeping so I stayed out with him while Alec went inside to make brownies with his Great Aunt. It looks like he really got into it. Pretty typical Alec.

After that Erica helped get dinner ready while I took the kids for a walk around the back woods. There are some great woods and paths out back of Aunt Ruth's house. As we walked on the half mile loop or so, Alec got a bit frightened of Poison Ivy. Eventually he calmed down after I explained what he needed to look for, but I still ended up carrying him past the most deadly looking of the plants and grasses... Calum on the other hand was fine. These are really fantastic woods though. A great hike as the sun started to set.

Alec also got into the games here too. He again found Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. I think this really means he is ready for them at our new home... Sure he doesn't get, or want to play by the rules, but hes definitely interested. We sat on the pavement and played Chutes and Ladders for at least 15 minutes of our guys climbing the ladders and then sliding down the slides. Alec's guy kept trying to climb up the big slides but couldn't quite make it and kept slipping back down. Very funny stuff.

Then it was time for dinner.Another delicious home-cooked meal, this time of literally some of the best brawts I've ever had in my life. Also finally Uncle Martian was around. Even after retiring the guys spends a lot of time working. I think that's just the nature of it though. You get into a mindset and have a need to be doing something, and Marty is such an amazingly talented business guy, its no wonder hes so driven. Calum was very happy to hear Mandarin at the table. He thought Uncle Marty was just about the funniest guys in the world. In case you didn't know, Calum speaks about as much Mandarin as English.

After dinner, we put the kids to bed, a surprisingly easy task and eventually ended up sitting out on the back porch listening to the sounds of the night. The noise was so distinct. Owls, Bats, and a lot of little animals we're out on the town.

What a great day. Iowa is such a beautiful spot, I'm so glad we had a chance to see a bit of it on our way East. More to come tomorrow when we head out and make our way towards Chicago.

More delays

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:31:00 +0000

Sorry all. More delays on the blog. I had to work last night. Expect updates catching us up later tonight.

We're all good now. Somewhere near Kalamazoo MI.

Ttyl.

Day 9 Delay

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:27:00 +0000

Hey all, day 9s blog post is being delayed and pushed into day 10. We didn't have a good chance to write or solid Internet last night. Everything is going great though. On the road towards Chicago now. More tomorrow!
Geoff

The Big Move - day 8

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:18:00 +0000

Today is Aug 26^th , day 8 We drove 300 miles today from Lincoln, Nebraska to Iowa City, Iowa.

The night went well last night. I think the kids we're happy to be settled in a real home for a change as opposed to a hotel. And in case I wasn't clear in yesterdays post (since I was a bit rushed at the end) we had a great evening visiting with Denae and Travis. They're really nice people and I certainly hope they can come visit us once we're settled.

We woke to another excellent home cooked meal of french toast and eggs. The boys we're very happy to get something better than the standard continental breakfast, and we all enjoyed a little breathing room. Its nice to not feel like we have to rush off in the morning. You know we've only been traveling for a week, but it seems like we've been at it for a lot longer. A respite of any kind is welcomed.

Erica and the kids took off with Travis and Denae for a walk around the neighborhood and to the park. It was a bit misty this morning but never turned into rain, at least as far as we saw, so that's good. Erica tells me that the kids had a great time at the local playground. They've got three climbing rocks that Alec loved scrambling on and generally the kids ran and played like they're supposed to, At one point Alec reported on his plans for Halloween. So according to Alec, the plan so far is for this year Alec to dress up as Dora the Explorer, with a backpack and a map, and Calum to dress up as Boots the Monkey, then the following year Alec has plans to be a giant, then the year after that he will dress up as Travis and Calum can be Denae. Sounds like a reasonable plan...

While the kids were gone I worked a bit on this blog and then packed up the car. When everyone came back we said our goodbyes and hit the trail once more. Our timing out of Lincoln wasn't great. We left at around 11:30 and Calum was tired, he soon ell asleep. We usually like to have a stopping point at least sort of planned out along the route, but with Calum asleep right as we left, he was asleep through all of the interesting potential stops nearer the beginning of our driving day. We passed by Omaha, and Council Bluffs (both of which sounded like good places for kids), and Calum was asleep the whole time.

The road, and landscape out here is nice. After Council Bluffs we hit Iowa state and oddly enough it felt like the terrain changed pretty quickly. From the boring farmland and corn of Nebraska, we hit greener, slightly hillier farmland of Iowa. We saw lots of farming equipment on the roads and in the fields. And probably the coolest cargo load on the back of a truck, we actually saw a semi hauling a helicopter! Neat stuff.

Alec was again at it with his chicken mask that he got at the state fair yesterday. “Where is Alec? I only see a chicken in the car... “, “No mommy here I am” (followed by crazed giggles). Alec also has taken to pulling his shoes and socks off in the car. Today he put his socks and shoes on his hands, then he said “mommy, daddy, don't you like my mittens?”.

About a third of the way between Omaha and Des Moines Calum had woken up and the kids we're ready for a break. In fact so were we, that car just gets hot and uncomfortable after a while. So we pulled off the highway and into the little town of Avoca, IA for a BBQ lunch. After a quick drop in at the supermarket for some supplies we headed where else, but to the local park.

One of the weirdest set ups for parks I've seen. The Avoca park, actually the Eddington Memorial Park, is a pretty large space with a lot of playground equipment, but for some reason its like scattered over 3 or 4 acres. Thre we're two play structures, probably one old and one new, but then additionally there were just random solo pieces of playground equipment: swings, teeter toter, climbing bars, marry-go-round, all just scattered about over this very large area. I suppose it forces the kids to run around a bunch more, but I found it a bit odd. Regardless we decided to BBQ some lunch there and the kids honestly had a great time playing around with all of the equipment all over the place. There were some locals there but both Erica and I felt like they we're being pretty cold to us... Maybe they don't like strangers in their park. Whatever, its a public park and we used it.

We set up the grill and BBQ'ed some sausages and corn on the cob, which all turned out delicious. Even though it always seems like a challenge to get Alec to eat when he wants to be playing.Of course he wasn't too busy for blueberries for dessert.

After lunch we hopped back in the car for another long stretch of driving. This sure can get a bit tedious. But we had to push on through and so we did.

With the kids a break is really needed every two hours, and since every break seems to take at least 30 minutes the travel time becomes pretty long pretty fast. We peeled off the highway a bit down the road for another detour, this one with a bit intent though. Winterset was calling and so was The Duke.

The Duke, yes, that Duke, the man, the myth, the legend himself, a true American hero: Marion Robert Morrison, aka John Wayne. Winterset is the birthplace of Wayne, and we felt like we owed him at least enough to go and visit his home. Ok, well that's a bit of a stretch. I like Wayne and all, definitely not a great actor mind you, but I appreciate his place in cinematic history. I have a feeling Erica has probably never seen a John Wayne film. I of course like The Searchers, and The Green Berets, but I seem to remember liking The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as well. I never really took to The Alamo, but I suppose that might be his most famous film.

Anyhow, we wandered around over to his homestead, but got there just as the museum was closing so unfortunately didn't have time to get a look around inside, other than the gift shop. Also admission was $7 each for an adult and $3 for each kid, that seems expensive to me. We did enjoy the gift shop though and got the kids each a cowboy hat. They look really cute in them when they wear them properly, but I don't think they're going to last too long. They're not very well made...

I like the town of Winterset though, Erica said its like a film set that's empty. The buildings all have this older artsy look about them. Artsy ina real world middle America way. To me at least this is a pretty 'classic' mid sized town and I think its place in the history of the Middle River Valley has shown that.

After a walk around we struck back out for the highway, but before we got there... what would a stop in Madison County be if we didn't go and see a covered bridge?! We couldn't pass it up... even though you know, they're only bridges.

So don't quote me on this but here's the deal in a nutshell, originally there were some 19 covered bridges in the Madison area of Iowa. They covered the wooden bridges to keep the wood less exposed to the elements. Replacing the boards on the ceiling and walls was a lot cheaper than replacing the floor beams. Most of these bridges are gone. Now there are only 6 in the Madison area. And I think only 5 are available to view easily. These particular bridges became famous after Clint Eastwood made a movie called The Bridges of Madison County (I presume it was based on a book). The bridge we saw was the Hogback bridge.

Covered bridge... yup, what can you say. My only comment is that there were two other couples visiting the bridge and one couple (both the man and woman) we're smoking while walking onto the bridge?! What the heck are they thinking, I mean this is a hundred year old wooden bridge and a place you presumably are excited to see as a tourist, why on Earth would you smoke inside the bridge!? Just step outside for goodness sake!

After the bridge excitement we made our way back to the highway and the kids fell asleep. Even though it can be tricky in terms of timing its always better for Alec's disposition if he naps. He's definitely growing out of it, but he still does it sometimes and it really makes him much more personable later in the day.

We set ourselves the goal of powering through and making it out to Iowa City while the kids slept, but it was still just too far. About an hour outsider of Iowa City, Alec woke up not too happy. He had crashed out a bit upset about the music selection in the car and woke up still upset :(

We had to stop and fast, so we found literally the next small town and pulled in with the intention of getting some dinner into him as fast as possible. Food, be it a snack or a meal is always helpful for kids. The simple act just calms kids down, and kids who don;t eat regularly, at least in my kid's case, can get very grumpy.

We pulled into Brooklyn, Iowa. Yes Brooklyn. I didn't see any relation to Brooklyn New York, but its always odd to me to see towns named the same as much larger more famous towns. People who live there must always be qualifying their city to strangers.

The City Park in Brooklyn was pretty great. Iowa is doing well in the parks department so far. There wasn't a ton of equipment, and oddly, just like at the other park in Avoca, the pieces of equipment were really spread out around the entire park space. Maybe that's just a thing here. Anyhow, it wasn't that the equipment was that great for Alec, no, it wasn't bad, but Alec really liked the fact that there were other kids there to play with.

Alec is a really outgoing happy kid, and he wants to play with other kids. On this trip he's had mostly his brother and us. Not that we're bad, Calum is definitely trying to keep up with Alec as best he can, but he's not quite there yet. Almost but not quite.

Alec and the other kids got along really well. I'm always impressed when I see older kids making an effort to play with younger kids. It makes me hopeful that the kids today are really going to be alright. And these kids, a girl and boy who we're cousins, maybe around 11 and 9 we're great.

Alec played and played and played, and Calum played and played, and then ate and hung out with his mommy. While Alec and Claum ran around the playground, I cooked pizza. Yes pizza on the BBQ. It was all Erica's idea and wow it really turned out well. We got some ready made crusts, a can of tomato sauce, a whole tomato, a green pepper and some shredded cheese, threw it all together, put it on the grill and had at it a few minutes later. All we really needed was it heated up so the cheese melted, and the BBQ certainly did that. Really a good idea.

Even the kids liked it. I mean what kid doesn't like pizza? So this was a sure success. After dinner we just let Alec go, we decided hat rather than force him to leave his new friends we would just stay until they had to go (when the street lights turned on) and go at that same time. So Alec and Calum got some extra run around time. The park was cool, but these kids really made Alec's day, and I am so thankful for that.

As the street lights came on we eventually bundled up Alec and headed back into the car and onto the road.We're staying at the adorably named AmericInn tonight just outside of Iowa City in Coralville. Tomorrow we're off to see an eye doctor at the University of Iowa, and then staying with my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Marty in Muscatine, IA. Looking forward to some more fun family time!

The Big Move - day 7

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 15:27:00 +0000

Today is Aug 25^th , day 7 We drove 230 miles today from North Platte, Nebraska to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Our Big Move continues today as we woke in North Platte, NE. The Howard Johnson turned out to be a decent place, despite the shouting match outside our window at 2am. I don;t think anyone heard it but me so thatch good. The kids had a good night in the hotel; again for the most part. This time change is really killing us, but we've all got to start getting onto the right time zone. We actually passed a zone marker late yesterday meaning we're now officially in Central time. Those two hours are causing some small havoc with the kids, but we'll get there.

Calum woke up around 4:30am our time, pretty upset. That's just one of those things you get with kids, no real explanation, just bad nights every once in a while.

Just like Alec the night before though, by the time the kids actually got up for the day Calum was back to his sunny disposition. Both kids were incredibly dirty and we haven't had a chance to bathe them since the Hot Springs, And even then we didn't get to really wash them, so we dumped them both in the tub for a quick scrub. Soon they were clean and ready for breakfast.

The kids and Erica headed down to the free continental breakfast, while I packed the car. Alec did well with with his breakfast, he ate one and a half hard boiled eggs a piece of toast with peanut butter and jam,and a small box of Fruit Loops. No wonder hes growing so fast! Also he loves Fruit Loops because we don't give them to him; he just got them at daycare. Calum on the other hand played with his food and didn't eat anything. Every day its something new...When I joined the rest of the family breakfast was almost over so I grabbed a quick bowl of porridge and a muffin. Unfortunately I forgot where we were. There is a big difference between porridge and the gravy for the biscuits.. I apparently just served myself a big bowl of gravy... yuck.

We packed into the car and started East on the 80. As we got on the highway Alec made sure to let let know that the on ramp bridge was his most favorite bridge ever. Pretty impressive North Platte!

Onto the highway then and its all grey skies and flat fields. Corn and farms. This is Nebraska. The threatening rain finally broke as we headed towards Lincoln. Mostly sputtering, not too bad, but then with a few patches of slightly heavier stuff. Not enough to spoil your day or anything, but you'd definitely have to call it scattered showers.

worst store name ever!

Calum fell asleep and Alec did a good job playing with us and by himself with his toys. Alec told us the story of the Three Little Pigs a few times and then had his Incredible Hulk toy get into some serious adventures with his firetruck toy. This kid really has a great imagination!

I got two odd text messages from AT&T today and decided to call them to see what was up. The texts seemed to imply that I was passing my data usage limits. But I'm on an Unlimited Data plan with my iPhone, so that can't be right... I hate dealing with this stuff :( Anyhow I called AT&T and found out that I was using too much data from their partner networks. Since they did away with all roaming charges domestically a while back this has been their thing. Basically I'm using too much bandwidth from networks other than AT&T and its costing them more to pay the other companies for it than I am paying them. So what I asked? Its an unlimited data plan, are you going to charge me for it? No, they can't charge me, but according to some fine print somewhere they can stop me from sing networks outside of AT&T. Really! So basically this is warning number 1, if I get two more warnings they'll restrict my data access to only AT&T towers temporarily, and then if it happens again they'll restrict me permanently! Well, what exactly am I supposed to do? I'm traveling around the country, and AT&T doesn't have coverage out here?! God, these people make me crazy... I'm glad I'm leaving. Hopefully I'll never have to deak with AT&T again. I'm sure the Canadian telecom companies are way better ;)

Then one of the greatest plans ever came together! You see last night Erica and I were looking for something to do to spruce up the trip out to Lincoln. Erica's suggestion was the Pioneer Prairie Museum, which I'm sure would've been fine and all, but its not super exciting. I was looking around though and found probably the most fun thing to do ever: the Nebraska State Fair! Yes the State Fair has literally just opened for the season, and it just happens to be right on our route.

Now I've been to a few County Fairs in my time, not as many as someone who grew up in the country but I'm certainly no rookie. Erica.. Well I'm not sure about Erica, she did grow up on a farm but I don;'t think fairs were really her family's kind of thing.I know the kids have seen some of this stuff before. But I don't think ANY of us have been to such a big fair before. This is a really huge event, and getting a chance to check it out was pretty cool.

They had so much stuff that I wanted to see that we ended up not getting a chance to, and most of the things we did see we're just by happenstance. Having a plan, but then being able to throw that plan out the window is the best way to go about these things in my opinion.

We started out at the fair in the Main Expo Hall. Mostly because we wanted to find some restrooms :) The hall had a TON of vendors in it. And honestly a surprisingly eclectic mix of people. I had gone in imagining this to be a far more Agriculture focused fair but found it a lot closer to an As Seen on TV fair. And that was none more apparent than in the expo hall. There was everything from reclining chairs, to artisan crafts, cutlery and cookware demonstrations, tires and life insurance. From hot tubs, to the latest horticultural advances, kitchen cleaning solutions, and cell phone service providers; the vendors in this hall ran the gamut.

Alec found a little artisan boutique and some cute little “love bugs”. We got one for him and one for Calum although Alec has mostly been taking care of Calums for him. We also wandered past the John Deere store and picked up a pretty cool tractor toy for him. That's out of sight for the moment though, I'm sure we'll need a toy for him soon enough and giving these kids too much at once can be a bit difficult. If you're a parent you'll understand that sentence, if not, you will.

Moving back outside int the drizzly wet weather Alec immediately was drawn to the hay bale dressed up like an Angry Bird.

From there we moved onto the Hendrick's Petting Zoo. All of the animals here were behind bars, but they were the kind that you could reach through. Really this was a very cool little zoo area, Alec and Calum got a chance to get right up close and pet alpacas, zebras, cows, and a lot of goats. As we arrived at the crowded goat pen we saw why there were so many people there. A baby goat had been born literally within the 5 minutes before we got there. The goat was still covered with gunk and the mother was licking her clean. It was pretty amazing to see this little thing that was actually just born trying to stand up and suckle with his mom. Pretty awesome for us, I'm not sure Alec understood.

Outside again we walked along and tried to regroup ourselves and get a plan of action in place. More or less the plan involved getting the kids food. The only issue at these kind of events is of course the lines. Thankfully a solution presented itself in the form of a fake apple tree. We stumbled onto the Kids Fun Zone play area and all went in. This was a cool spot under a tent where they'd set up some dress up clothes, and a few kid games. Lasso the fake cow, pretend to go fishing and win a prize, collect fake eggs from under fake chickens, and Alec's favorite: picking fake apples off fake trees. Alec apparently LOVES picking apples. I mean to the point where I think he should probably just be a migrant worked when we arrive in Canada. He's certainly got a knack for it.

Alec and Calum played with the apples while Erica ran off to get us some recommended local Nebraska pizza. What made Valentinos pizza so “Nebraska” is beyond me, but that's what we were told...Anyhow, when Erica returned we all ate a bit, well all except Alec who seriously would not stop picking apples!

This was one of those situations where we ended up having to literally drag Alec away from the game. Thankfully once we were outside and on the move he got into a better mood about it all and soon forgot his fake apples. Instead he focused his energy on the Midway and the rides!

We walked the midway and the kids we're in total shock and awe. There are so many lights and things to see and hear; I'm sure they were on super sensory overload. We walked until we found a good ride for Alec. He is at the height that he can ride on lots of the stuff as long as he's got an adult present and Erica was willing to brave the Crazy Plane while I stayed firmly on the ground with Calum. Its a bit insane how expensive tickets for these rides can be when for the most part at Alec's age he'd be just as happy picking fake apples... ah well, its all a good experience, just funny.

Alec had a great time on the plane ride. He had demanded that they sit in the front and he was the captain. Actually he wanted Erica to sit in back while he sat in front alone, but mom wasn't having any of that. Alec is such an independent little guy sometimes!

Calum on the other hand was upset mom was out of site from start to finish. Thankfully the ride was short and we all headed back together to slowly make our way towards the car. Before we got there though we had to stop into the Sheep Pavilion.

We strolled into the Birthing room first, and while none of the animals there were actually giving birth at the moment, we saw some 2 day old piglets, and a calf that had just been born that morning (fast asleep).

Heading into the Sheep Pavilion properly though we we're greeted by rows and rows of sheep and chickens. We walked up and down a row or two but made a point of not petting anyone there. This is where they hold the cattle shows, and the pig contests. The even had a pen set up with some bleachers for spectators inside the hall. All pretty cool stuff.

On the way out we walked through the chicken and goose area. Alec managed to get himself a really cool chicken hat for the road as we headed back out of the fair to finish up our trip and get into Lincoln.

We strolled through the Expo Hall one more time and then took the tractor and trailer shuttle service out to our car and I wonder if that may have been Alec's favorite part. He's pretty easygoing on most of this stuff.

Hopping into the car we hit the road for one last time headed out about one more hour to Lincoln, NE. We're planning on seeing my cousin Travis, his wife Denae and their new 2 month old baby girl.

In the car Alec played funny games pretending to be a chicken, then asking us where Alec went and for ua to call him chicken. And then he also played a lot with his new ladybug toys. He's also taken to asking us to talk with his toys. Then he responds as the toy. Its pretty cute, until of course you find yourself talking to the ladybugs for 10 minutes about their work schedule and when they can come out to play with the firetruck and Incredible Hulk. Its really just scheduling at that point..More rain started in as we drove but again none of it was too heavy.

Finally we reached our destination for the day, my cousin Travis' house where he lives with his wonderful wife Denae and their 2 month old baby girl Emersyn. The baby is so sweet. She let both Erica and me hold her and didn't get upset, and Travis and Denae have been wonderful hosts. We all had a great home-cooked chicken dinner, then Travis's brothers Todd and Tab came over with their families for a quick visit. I'm not going to go into a ton of details on the visit since I'd like to get this posted before we get too far into the next day, but suffice it to say we had a great time. Alec got a chance to ride very fun a rocking horse named Cactus, I was introduced to Tomato Beer, Alec played Candyland and Chutes and Ladders (sort of...), and we had fantastic homemade cherry cheesecake!

We expect to spend tomorrow morning in Lincoln, relaxing and visiting before heading off for a big drive out to Iowa City.

The Big Move - day 6

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 06:12:00 +0000

Today is Aug 24^th , day 6.We drove 298 miles today from Centennial, Wyoming to North Platte,Nebraska.

Well despite having a really super niceB&B hotel in Centennial last night, things did not go so wellwith the kids. Alec has gotten to the age where he's started to havenightmares. And he woke up with some indeterminate nightmare. Thewhen we went in he was mostly inconsolable. He also got thirsty andupset that we didn't have the exact right cup for his milk. Its gotto be tough being a 3 year old. You have all these new emotions, andyou're only just starting to figure stuff out. So much of the worldmust seem totally random, and when you're mad you have such littlepower to do anything about it.

Thankfully our Alec is really a cheerylittle guy, and by the morning time he was back to himself. Our happy,upbeat, and very excitable little kid.

I worked on the blog a bit, getting itposted while Erica and the kids stepped downstairs and across thestreet to Friendly's. When I finally joined them breakfast was in fullswing with Uncle Dan, my parents, as well as Dan's friends from Guadalajara Franklin and Alma, and Erica and the boys. I had to eatquick but it was good, and Friendly was a nice cafe style restaurant.

After goodbyes with Franklin and Alma,we crossed back to our hotel and packed up for checkout. Its such anice place, and the people in Centennial have been so hospitable Ireally wish we were staying longer, but we know we've got to keepmoving on, so we did. Packing the car we met up again with Uncle Dan who took us out to his cabin. This is a different property than hishouse, but a very nice little remote cabin in the woods. Dan bought the cabin some 40 years ago and it was his first property in Centennial.While spending the few weeks home from the Diplomatic Service every year staying there he fell in love with Centennial and decided that Wyoming would be the place for him in the end.

You'd imagine Wyoming to be all guns and god, but honestly Dan tells us its not like that, at least not in Centennial. His friends are former professors, world travelers, andex-pat foreigners. They are educated and have a thoroughly expandedworld view. Surprising, but true.

From Dan's one room cabin in the woodswe walked down a gravel path to his neighbors house Ron. Along the way was another bridge over a river so we had to stop for a quick trip-trop and game of billy goats looking for a troll. Anyhow, Ron soundslike a very interesting guy. I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to meethim since he wasn't home, but we did walk a bit around his property.Really a beautiful piece of land with a nice house on it. The mostimpressive part about it though was all of the man made waterfeatures around. He basically surrounded his home with lakes,diverting and corralling the nearby creek into a mini oasis. One ofthe ponds was stocked with huge fish that really impressed Alec. Whatimpressed me most though was Ron's bobcat. Yes that's right BOBCAT.Ron has a pet bobcat named Jim.

Apparently Jim had been found as a cubso small his eyes weren't even open, and was raised I believe Dansaid out at the University. When Jim got a bit older he got a bitunruly and they were looking to unload him, or I suppose I should sayher. It turns out Jim is a girl and she had ovarian cysts. Ron adopted the cat and had her treated, so now shes right as rain. Ofcourse I wouldn't trust her alone with my kids, and was glad she wasbehind a fence. It was very neat to see a bobcat up close like thatthough.

From there we hopped back into the carand drove into Laramie for a visit to the Wyoming Territorial PrisonHistoric Site. Yes we took our very young children to a prison museumto play. What?! There's nothing weird about that... Actually this isa pretty well set up museum for kids. There are apparently a lot ofthings they can play with. Mostly old prison equipment I imagine:shackles, stockades and the like.... all good wholesome stuff forkids to play with. Calum fell asleep in the car so I stayed outsidewith him while he slept and Alec, Erica, Dan, and my parents went into tour the prison. This particular prison is famous for once holdingButch Cassidy. Erica tells me Alec had a great time. He loved playingin the paddy wagon, as well as the multistory prison building. Hisfavorite part was a piano in the old dining room where he sat happilyand “played” Puff the Magic Dragon for several minutes. He wasalso fascinated by the broom making exhibit, which was one of the manytasks the inmates were put to work at. Overall an impressive exhibitwith a lot of great history.

When everyone came out Calum was justwaking up so we said our goodbyes to my parents there. They had tohead off to Denver for my mom's high school reunion; and we hadplaces to go ourselves. Namely for lunch. We headed into Laramieproper for one last meal with my Uncle Dan. We stopped at anotherbrew pub for a meal. It seems like lots of the food in Wyoming is pubfood. Not that I'm complaining, its just funny.

Erica had a very good crab cake sandwich, I had a pulled pork sandwich and Alec ate his favorite:cheese quesadilla. It was another excellent meal, and punctuated bysome home brewed Root Beer that seemed closer to true ginger beerthan what you'd get commercially as root beer, very nice kick. Alec also enjoyed "spicing" his food... he's taken to wanting to put salt and pepper on everything. like each individual french fry, or tortilla chip...

When we finished we said our goodbyesto Dan for being a wonderful host and struck out on the highway forall points East. We powered through Cheyenne, and made good time.We're pushing hard again today (well hard for us) and trying forNorth Platte Nebraska. We've got a few little weird timing thingswe're aiming for, and getting further on later in the night seems tomake the next day go easier. Also this is fun, but not totally avacation.We've got a ways to go and are a Big Move.

The kids we're starting to loose it inthe car after a while and we decided that we had to stop somewhere.We've had such great luck with Parks in Wyoming that we thought we'dtry it just one more time, at the border town of Pine Bluff. Unfortunately we were not as lucky this time. I'm sure Pine Bluffs isa nice town and all, it sits right on the border of Nebraska on thehighway 80; but the City Park in the middle of town is pretty sparingon the playground equipment.

The kids managed to have fun despitethe lack of equipment. In fact I think this was the first time Calumwent on a sea saw. Well maybe not the first time, but definitely oneof the first times he did it on his own with his brother. It was verycute. Then we sat on the side of the road and ate blueberries andcarrots.

After a stretch we decided to head outin search of more highway and hopefully a better playground down theroad.

We drove for a while then, another longstretch into Nebraska. The scenery here has gotten very flat, andpretty boring. Farming, lots of corn, and a few interestingramshackle old farmhouses. But really this is all flat farmland.There's not much to say. Check out the pictures...

We thought about trying to pushthrough, but thought better of it and eventually took a detour offthe highway for a quick 6 mile jaunt into the state of Colorado, andthe town of Julesburg. Maybe Colorado will have a better class ofPlayground.

Julesburg did not disappoint. The townplayground was very nice and we stopped the car for a stretch andplay just as the sun was going down. Alec and Calum enjoyed to bigslide and the sea saw again. We decided that we'd better make aneffort to give the kids some dinner, and thankfully had some eggsthat my parents had left us. We pulled out the little camp stove andstarted cooking only to discover that we were out of propane! So weall ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or bagelswith cream cheese instead. All good food, just not as nice assomething hot. Not to worry though, I mean we all had a big lunch andmanaged fine.

The kids got back in the car with milkin hand and despite dealing with another bout of Alec upset anddemanding only “kids music” and Puff the Magic Dragon to be puton repeat... by the time we were pulling into North Platte both ofthem were fast asleep.

We're staying at the roadside HoJo.Always a good choice. Clean, cheap, and they've always been known fortheir free breakfast. The kids transferred easily into the beds hereand I'm hoping for another good night. We certainly need it.

Tomorrow we're seeing my cousin Travis,his wife Denae and their brand new little baby girl Emersyn!

The Big Move - day 5

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Today is Aug 23^rd , day 5.We drove 90 miles today from Rawlins, Wyoming to Centennial, Wyoming.

Things started out well for us thismorning but then turned a bit sour. The kids had a good night, andonly Calum was up for a while. Our car didn't get broken into, alwaysa bonus. And we headed out for a hearty hot breakfast with our 50%coupon and the best of intentions to crush the day with awesomeness.

On the way to the attached restaurant,where our coupon was valid, we stopped by the pool. A quick swimbefore hitting the road sounded like just the thing. Alas, we werefoiled, the pool had no water in it! Wait a second, if you'llremember from yesterday we had actually called ahead to this hotel...We spoke to someone at the front desk about the amenities, and yesthey had in fact told us that they had a pool. Well technically Isuppose they're right, but come on!!! That's not acceptable.

We slunk off to breakfast with theintention of confronting the staff before leaving. Breakfast was donewrong as well. But with the best of intentions. The bar / restauranthad a few early morning hotel guests and what seemed like a nice butflighty waitress. She got our orders wrong, but really it wasn't ahuge deal. Hash browns instead of homefries is totally acceptable,and who needs bacon anyhow... and really cutlery is only necessary tothose fancy city folks.... ok there were a few things missing, but atleast they had a jukebox and Alec loved the rainbow decorationspainted on it. Eventually we all got a good enough meal and headedback to the room to pack the car and check out.

Erica made a stop by the Quality Innfront desk on the way out and was unfortunately met by Mr Kim, theowner and manager of the hotel (are these franchised?) I was with thekids in the car, but apparently he was very rude to her. He somehow implied that it was our fault that we were disappointed with theservice, and then tried to complain that he had done us a favor bynot charging us for the kids in the room. Come on man! They're onlybabies, and more importantly we told the hotel about them when wechecked in! Even if he couldn't have done anything about the poolissue and them telling us the wrong thing on the phone, there wasabsolutely no reason for him to be rude about it. Frustrated anddiscouraged we hit the road for further hopefully happier adventures.

And thankfully we found one rightaround the corner. In the little town of Sinclair just outside ofRawlins we drove through the main street only to find yet anotherawesome little park with great playground! Wyoming is really doingwell in the playground department.

This playground had a super high curlyslide, as well as a cool old Union Pacific train car off to the side.They had one of these at the Green River playground as well. Theyaren't open so I wonder if they're just used as storage for theWyoming parks department.... Anyhow, Alec and Calum ran around whileI wrote scathing reviews for the Quality Inn on Yelp and Trip Advisor;/

Good times were had by all and then itwas time to push on and make our way out to Saratoga for lunch. Weheaded east on the 80 for about 20 miles, then turned south onto the30 East (basically headed south at this point. Alec was happy to beoff the big highway. He's such a funny little guy. Sometimes hedoesn't want us to go too fast. In this case he was grateful saying“thanks mom. Thanks for getting on the little highway.” Then weplayed the animal game for most of the rest of the way down toSaratoga. The animal game basically involves someone describingthemselves as an animal then the rest of the players have to guesswhat animal it is. It's a pretty fun game. Alec has a lot of turns.

When we pulled into the sleepy littletown of Saratoga we were greeted by a charming main street full of amix between obvious shops for locals and a few places for passerbys.It's hard to tell what was real and what was a put on there. Meaningthere was a Gift Shop along main street that was obviously fortourists, but also some of the local stores, like The Wolf Hotelwhere we ended up having lunch were so kitschy and full of rusticcharm I wonder if just a little of it was a put on for tourists. Dothey get many tourists out here?

Today is an exciting day, especiallyfor the boys. We're meeting up not only with my Uncle Dan and AuntCarolina, but also my parents, their grandparents! My Uncle Dan livesoutside Laramie, in a suburb of Centennial, Wyoming; my parents onthe other hand live in Vancouver, Canada. They just happen to be traveling around the States at the moment and our paths are crossingright here. Pretty fun. The kids we're very happy to see theirgrandparents in Saratoga. We met them on the porch of The Wolf'sHotel around noon. We waited for Uncle Dan to show up since he wasdriving separately, and Alec got a popcicle with Erica, then blewsome bubbles with grandma. Soon enough we were joined by my Uncle Danas well. My Aunt Carolina had decided to stay back in Centennial, sowe'll see her later; but my Uncle's friends from Guadalajara werevisiting him so we all stepped inside the Hotel restaurant for areally great lunch of pub food.

Erica, Alec and I all had sandwiches.Calum ate a bit everything as well as some good chicken noodle soup.Thankfully the kids are eating well now. Its always a concern thatthey get enough veggies. Lunch was really wonderful and the kids hada good visit with their grandparents. We split an order of chocolatemousse and a vanilla ice cream for dessert,

After lunch we all hopped in the carand headed a few blocks away to the Saratoga Hot Springs, aka HoboSpring. These are natural hot springs that come up joining a river.Over the years the Spring itself has been built up, so now there's avery nice swimming pool area, that's been designed with kids in mind.Big shallow end, a water-slide, and generally a lot of fun. We stayed inthe pool for maybe 30 minutes while the kids played and swam.

Beside the swimming pool area are somemore rustic cordoned off springs coming out of the rocks. These weretoo hot for the kids, but beside that and not officially connected tothe hot springs facility officially was the river and a shallow areawhere the ho water mixes with the cool river water to make a nicewarm pool in the shallows of the water. After some time in the poolarea we moved over to the river and enjoyed a really relaxing timeresting in the warm spring water. Alec explored up the little sidecreek, while some big local boys hunted for Crawdads, and weeventually found a pool with just he right mix of spring and riverwater.

But all good things... before we gottoo wrinkly we decided that it was time to hit the road, the sun washot and crazy bright and despite the extra sunscreen, we didn't wantto kids out in it too long. They got a lot of good hard playtime tooand were both tired. We packed them up in the car and headed out.

My parents followed in what was once mygrandfathers car for trips to and from the store when they lived inArvada, Colorado. And Dan rode with Franklin and Alma, his friendsfrom Guadalajara.

From Saratoga we headed South and thenEast along the 130. entering the Medecine Bow National Forest andultimately through to Centennial. The kids both fell asleep almostimmediately but we had a few more stops we wanted to make along theway before we got into Centennial so at our first stop after about 30minutes of driving we got out for a fantastic lookout onto the rocksbeside Mirror Lake. Alec and I even walked out a bit to check thingsout for ourselves. I believe there is some sort of a hike here but wewe're not up for anything that big.

Pretty amazing rocks. In fact all ofthe landscapes here in Wyoming are beautiful. This is reallyfantastic country. Out on the rocks Alec and I saw a number ofchipmunks and not to be out-cuted by Calum refering to them asmonkeys yesterday, Alec kept calling them “chittermunks”. It waspretty adorable.

We all soon got back in our cars anddrove on a few more miles to the old mining trail and a short hike.The trail here went by an old (apparently not overly successful)silver mine. It was all closed down and boarded off now, but theForest service did some very nice work setting up a hiking path andsome good informational signage along the way. Of course with twoyoung kids there's never much time for reading things like that, but Iappreciate the effort. Alec was pretty cute again on the hike whenupon seeing the blue tipped Spruce trees e declared “I believe itsa Christmas tree!” The mining trail led eventually to an old cabinway off in the woods. Until last summer it was totally accessible andstill had hundred and thirty year old wooden bedframes inside youcould explore. Unfortunately the roof collapsed last summer and nowits a real hazard. Dan thought the forrest service would probably earit down :(

The walk was only a mile or so but ittook a long time and was pretty tiring. I forgot how tough hiking upin the mountain is. We're at something like 10 700 feet and itsdefinitely less oxygen here than we're used to. Although with thatsaid Alec and Calum don't seem to be having too much trouble runningaround. I chased Alec a bunch on the hike, and was mostly justthankful we didn't run into any bears. We did however see a grouse,and a pine martin!

We finished and then it was time for asnack and back in the car. One more stop on the way took us to whatwe shall call the Castle. Actually it was more of a circular stoneplatform with what could be interpreted as battlements, and in thecenter of it was a mounted set of binoculars. For all intents andpurposes this was another fun lookout point, only with a bit morebuilt up design work :)

Alec ran around the castle lookingthrough the “spyglass” and generally being in a good mood, whileCalum started getting pretty cranky for food.

We packed back in the car one last time(almost) and headed back along the 130 and over to Centennial.

We arrived and “checked in” to ourhotel. The B&B in town. The only hotel in fact. It may seem weirdbut there was no checkin desk, no processing, this was really just uswalking up to the door, finding a charming note for us and walking upto our ready and waiting room. And what a nice room too. More on thattomorrow though. We dropped our gear with the kids still in the carand headed 5 more minutes driving away to North Fork where my UncleDan lives.

When we got there the first thing wesaw was the beautiful and massive wooden house. My Uncle was in theUS foreign sservice for his professional career and I always wonderedwhy he ended up living out here in the middle of what a lot fo peoplewould call nowhere. But I'm sure the cost of land and building wereattractive incentives. I found out later that the state mandate forzero income tax also helped make his decision.

My parents as I mentioned have been traveling around the States in their camper. The kids really lovetheir grandparents and seeing them, and their camper was a lot offun. Alec almost immediately clambered up inside for a poke aroundand Calum soon joined.

My dad, being my dad, decided to giveAlec a gift of a fly swatter. A very touching, if odd gift. The “flyswapper” as Alec puts it lasted about 15 minutes before Calumdropped it down between the deck floorboards and below the housewhere we couldn't get it. Perhaps that's for the best though. As muchas Alec would like swatting flies in the car, I predict we wouldn't haveended up getting swapped a few times ourselves.

Aunt Carolina greeted us at the doorand kindly invited us into their really nice home. Its great to be here,and wonderful to see our family that we don't get together withenough.

We headed out onto the back porch for aquick glass of champagne and a visit, but our boys were gettingreally overstimulated and overtired. We did finally get a load oflaundry into the wash. Our first load in 5 days, I'd say we're doingpretty well on that front so far.

Since the kids we're loosing it, weheaded back in the car really really for the final time today andback into Centennial. We parked at the hotel since our dinner restaurant was literally right next door at The Trading Post.

We thought abut eggs for the kidsdinner but it was just too much to deal with so both kids ate cheese sandwiches and yogurt for dinner in our room. Erica and I tookshifts heading over to the Trading Post for food for us.

Its a nice local town pub and restaurant. And even though it took a long time for the food to beready, they were very nice and we had a great dinner. I ate a buffaloburger and had a 1550 dark beer. Erica ended up with a broiledchicken dinner so we all went home happy.

Walking between the buildings at night,the stars are out in force here. I guess this really is out in thewilderness. Bedtime for us, this blog is getting too long and I'mnot going to post it until tomorrow anyhow... Too many pictures todeal with now.

Looking forward to a good day tomorrowthough as we head out somewhere with my Uncle Dan and parents foranother adventure in the morning and then drive on out to pointsunknown tomorrow night.

The Big Move - day 4

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 06:19:00 +0000

Today is Aug 22^nd , day 4. We drove 314 miles today from Salt Lake City, Utah.to Rawlins, Wyoming.

Well last night in Salt Lake was definitely a bit more relaxed than the previous evenings. The kids both slept mostly well. Yes they were both up a little but I give them some slack. I mean they're only 3 and 1 years old, and this is all very new.

We were surprised to see the time when we woke up until we realized that we've entered Central Time... or is it Mountain I always forget which is which. Either way it was an hour later than we expected, so we tried to pack up and hit the road quickly.

Before we left though we had to get our included hot breakfast! Waffles, cereal, fruit, and yogurt. We all had a very good meal and then headed out to see the world.

Before we made our way down to our first stop for the morning we decided to do a drive by through downtown Salt Lake City. Erica has never been here before but even with that it seemed like we should move quickly. We drove by Temple Square and saw the LDS Convention Center, drove through the arch on State St, and then down past part of the university. Its really a nice town. If it weren't for all the religion I think it would be fantastic. Then again, we were talking about it as we left the city: would growing up in SLC with all the religion be worse than growing up in a super poor town? Or growing up somewhere in the south where its overrun with Evangelicals? I doubt it would be worse, in fact it'd probably be much better. Then again, we could all be born street kids in Bangladesh, so really we're all pretty fantastically lucky to be where we are.

Our first real stop was for a really nice little hike. This was another recommendation from Erica's friend Chase who lived in Salt Lake City for a while. Donut Falls is off the main Canyon Road on the southern side of SLC amid the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The drive thankfully went well and wasn't too windy, but the last little bit was on a very bumpy gravel road. The kids really loved that and laughed their heads off at the bumps.

We eventually got into the parking lot though and started on the small mile long hike to a waterfall. This is a hike apparently well known to locals and rated highly for kids. Even though it had some reasonable ups and downs it wasn't too steep a grade, and there were lots of fun rocks and treeholds to grapple up. Calum and Alec both walked for most of the trip.

It's amazing to see the change in environment from yesterday to today. I mean this is really right in the wild woods! It's was nice to see birch trees again since they're so uncommon in California. We followed the path along the sounds of rushing water. Winding up and down we soon came to a bridge where Alec took the opportunity to trip trop like a billy goat and check for trolls.

Up and down a bit more and eventually we wound up at Donut Falls. The last stretch involved scrambling over rocks and trees through the stream until we got to the actual base of the tumbling waterfall. I read on one of those tourist Hike Utah websites that the falls we're called Donut because the way the water emerges through the rock. Frankly I didn't see it.

We didn't stay long because the falls at the base were really a better place for big boys. Our kids may be adventurous little boys but they're still little and tend to fall a lot. So we started back. Calum rode on my shoulders a bit and in the front carrier some and Alec ran a lot of the way, of course he took a tumble and scraped his elbow, but that was probably to be expected.

Along the way back Alec showed us a lot of trees that were Lorax trees, and he took the time to thoughtfully draw arrows and lines in the sand along the path for the next people to follow. Of course the worry if anyone actually followed his lines would be that they'd get terribly dizzy.

Calum on the way back decided that chipmunks were monkeys and chased after then squealing “monkey! monkey!”

Eventually we got back to the car and took off again. We decided to drive straight through the National forest. Logistically today was a big kafuffle. We struck out east leaving Salt Lake City on the 190, down the canyon and into the woods, once through we dropped onto the 224, 248, 189, and back on the 80. From there it was straight north east and into Wyoming.

But I should back up a bit. Driving out of the Wasatch Forest was pretty cool, we scaled the mountains over a few large switchbacks and got some great views of the pines. We passed more than one ski resort, a few with the ski-lifts running. I wonder how many people they get out in the wilderness during the summer?

Back onto what passes for the highway we drove through Park City. Nice town, not as ritzy as Aspen but definitely a destination for hipsters. Erica ate a lot of snap peas as we drove. She loves those. And Alec has started requesting songs be sung for him. If you've met Alec before you probably know he LOVES music. If he hasn't yet he will probably sing Puff the Magic Dragon for you at some point. Well now he's started wanting more complicated music. I think he's trying to learn the lyrics, so he needs it sung a lot. Today he's had me sing both “Hotel California” and “After the Goldrush” about 20 times. Admittedly I enjoy it for the most part, but it does get a bit much after a while.

Getting back closer to highway 80 we started to see some farmland as the hills evened out. Cows, horses, and even sheep were grazing. Soon the land grew more sparse again. Not like the Nevada desert, but closer to it. And the earth took on the classic red tint of the American West. I suppose this is a bit more than I usually imagine it, but there's definitely a Wile E Coyote vibe to the area that only got stronger as we got closer to Wyoming.

We passed some trains along the way East much to Alec and Calum's delight. This is really beautiful country. Honestly since most of my experience with it has been on film, it feels somehow old timey.

Eventually we crossed the border into Wyoming and decided that everyone needed a break. We stopped at Evanston, WY for some run around, grocery shopping, and a walk up Main street for an ice cream. We tried to find the river walk but got a bit confused so ended up just parking in the downtown. Sure it may have been Wednesday afternoon, but I was surprised at how few people were on the street. A number of the shops on the main street we're actually shut down or boarded up, including the ice cream parlor:( Seems like the economy falling apart may have had some effect on Evanston. And fortunately for us the Drug Store had a great ice cream counter.

Alec had Chocolate, I had Cookies and Cream, Erica had Mint Chocolate Chip, and Calum had Vanilla. From there, since we couldn't find a park Alec, Calum and I hung out in a little park-let beside the fire station while Erica ran off to the Walmart for groceries for dinner.

The park-let had a cool old piece of fire equipment. No plaque explaining it, but it sure looked like fire equipment... there was also a huge buffalo statue that the kids crawled under and around for a bit.

Erica came back with some good food to cook. And we took off once again. It was around this point that we decided not to stay in Rock Springs for the night, instead we're pushing on to Rawlins, WY. That's one of the nice things about not having anything specifically booked beforehand. We drove fast and kept a good pace for a while, both kids fell asleep for a nap and we drove through some beautiful country. We passed a row of windmills along a ridge slowly turning. Eventually the kids woke up and we ended up stopping for our dinner in the lovely town of Green River.

What a stroke of luck finding Green River, and stumbling upon a fantastic spot for the kids to run around and us to BBQ. The town doesn't seem to be very much, sitting just on the outskirts of Rock Springs (you've got to think there are probably 100 towns called Green River across America). My mind of course always goes to the classic CCR album, and song :) Anyhow, this was exactly what the kids needed. A very cool playground, with a water play area, and other kids to run around with.

We set up the BBQ after a little while and cooked up some pork, and corn on the grill. We also had a nice bag salad, and cheesy bread sticks to make a solid meal. All told the kids got something like 2 hours of run around time at Green River, and we had a very nice time.

With the kids in their PJs the only thing left to do was keep heading east on 80, past Rock Springs and into Rawlins. There were a few cool rolling hills with... um what are they called again.. you know those lines delineating different types of rock, and different time periods. Star..stra.. something. Anyhow there were a few of those in view as we drove, but mostly the ground evened out totally and it was just flat. We caught fleeting glimpses of oil drilling machinery, and passing trains as the sun set. Certainly very pretty, but in a barren kind of way.

With the time difference kicking in we really aren't even running too late. We pulled into Rawlins with the kids still awake around 8:30pm, and checked into the Quality Inn. Double bed, smoke free, a pool somewhere, crummy internet, and a coupon for 50% off breakfast. This is definitely budget, but not bad budget. And while the area seems a bit sketchy, but for my money all of the people I've seen seem fine.

The kids are in bed now sleeping soundly and we're hoping for a good night. We've got a trip out to Saratoga on the docket tomorrow and a rendezvous with my Uncle Dan and Aunt Carolina planned. Hopefully we'll get to those hot springs too.

-----

Striation. That was it. Totally striation...

The Big Move - day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:34:00 +0000

Today is Aug 21^st , day 3. We drove 228 miles today from Elko, Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Last night we pulled into Elko, NV pretty late. It was dark, the kids were already asleep and we were all tired after a long day. The hotel was a really nice little place, despite being in the same 'power center' off the highway as a Raleigh's supermarket, a pizza place, and a Del Taco.We we're fortunate to have two beds in the room and I think it made all the difference. The kids transferred asleep and despite Calum being up a bit in the night we did pretty well considering.

A hot breakfast was included with the hotel at a restaurant nearby. Essentially it was a family place, think Swiss Chalet, Kelseys, Applebees. They had decent breakfast food, especially considering it was free. Erica let Alec have some of his favorite flavored milk while we were there (vanilla creamer). Am I wrong in thinking its weird for kids to drink creamers? I mean I'm sure I did it, but I don't think I was ever allowed... Then again I let him do stuff that Erica thinks is questionable all the time... so we're pretty even on the parenting stuff.

Hitting the road we had some really beautiful views of sun filtering through fluffy clouds with grey bellies. The landscape slowly changed from the barren desert of yesterday to a greener more shrub filled desert. It was for the most part still flat but we could feel a transition starting to occur in the landscape. When I lived in Africa, they called this kind of land around the Sahara the sahel, and it speaks of change, good and bad, with the growing or shrinking desert.

Logistics we're straightforward today. We drive straight East along highway 80 all day.

The drive went well. Both kids we're in good spirits, and then Calum had an early nap. It seems like he might be taking two naps these days with all the driving. Probably the combination of no stimulation then 110% stimulation, then back to none again. It must be tiring. Anyhow, we got our first taste of rain as we drive through the flats and into some hillier areas. But it only smattered and we pushed through for quite a while and then stopped for lunch right on the border town of Wendover. Actually we stopped in West Wendover on the Nevada side of town. The playgrounds are just better there :)

This was a really big playground, with a lot of varying equipment some looking basically brand new and other pieces scattered about seeming to be from the 1950s. There we're some very old looking licensed bouncers and sea saws, but I think they may have been knock offs...

And man was it windy! The kids had a very good run around while Erica put together sandwiches for lunch. Although it looked like rain it never actually broke, and Erica asked one of the few locals we saw in Wendover only to find out that this weather is commonplace.

The kids had a fun play and we all ate a little lunch and then headed back into the car to finish our much more relaxed day driving into Salt Lake City.Before we left Wendover for good though, we had to stop by and see Woody. Yes, that woody, the one from Toy Story apparently lives in Wendover. Oh and apparently he smokes now...

...

Almost immediately across the Utah border we could see the ground flatten out considerably. And within a few miles we could see the coloring even out and grow paler and paler. If you know your geography you'll realize where we we're coming up to. The Bonneville Salt Flats we're calling, and we couldn't get by without stopping to check out the Speedway where so many land speed records have been broken!

We peeled off the highway and made out for the nearby outlook where we could get out feet down onto the salt. We thought better about driving on the salt flat itself. The last thing we need right now is any car trouble and it looked pretty gnarly out there. We made it out to basically where the main raceway starts though and stopped for some time on the flats.

Its really amazing to be there in this expanse of white salt mud and earth. To see the cracked ground where you know the fastest people on earth have traveled. The one thing I wasn't expecting about it. The salt is really fine on the top. Its all been ground down to a sticky fine powder. It got on us pretty much everywhere but I didn't really mind, and the kids we're suitably impressed. I think... Its hard to tell with them sometimes.

While we were there we met a man named Stacey. He was a pretty cool dude who said he'd been out there for speed week and was more or less just bumming around waiting for friends to show up for more drinking and racing action. He was an old time bike engineer and actually worked on two motorcycles that broke speed records on the salt flats. This is the kind of guy that belongs out on the salt flat.The kind of guy you totally imagine would work on motorcycles all his life just to get that little bit more juice, just to go a little bit faster. He was a very cool dude.

As we left the salt flats there was a pretty funny incident. Well two really. First I caught Alec licking the salt off his shoe. Yup, pretty gross, but he seemed to like it :( But then we also somehow managed to get a fly in our car. Alec has taken to very loudly shouting “shoo fly shoo!” whenever he sees a fly. Event though we opened the windows this fly didn't want to leave though so eventually Alec gave up and told us that we'd have to get a new car. I guess the fly won ours through a fair fight...

As we headed into Salt Lake City pulling through that last 100 miles we decided to call ahead to our hotel, the airport Super 8 and ask them to see if we could have two beds in our room. When called though they informed us that to upgrade to a two bed room would be an additional $5, more importantly though we'd have to pay an additional $15 for a non-smoking room! What?! We ordered this through Priceline, and they are giving us a smoking room?! And a non-smoking room is more? Shouldn't it be the other way around these days??? Well we called Priceline customer service and apparently there wasn't anything they could really do about it. We got the room at a very good rate by doing this “name your own price” thing, and when you do that apparently you get what you get. So we had nothing to do but cancel. Priceline was as good about it as they could be, but we were not impressed with Super 8 at all. We ended up booking through Priceline again, only over the phone this time and found a really nice place that was more or less comparable in price and gave us tow queen beds and a guarantee of a non-smoking room. Look I'm no hater on smokers, I used to be one, but I can't have my kids around that; and you can't tell me those rooms don't smell.

To cheer things up a bit Alec decided to pull all of the clothes and diapers out of the bags packed around him and bury himself in them. He kept telling us how dressed up he was. It was very cute.

He also very cutely randomly shouts "Hooray Mummy!" at the top of his voice.

Finally we pulled into our hotel off the highway in Salt Lake. Its still an airport hotel and we haven't made it into the city proper yet, but we expect to do a little (a very little touring tomorrow). I've been to Salt Lake before, and while its got some impressive buildings to admire, unless you want to take to time to catch the Tabernacle Choir I don't know that there's much I'm super excited to see here.

Oh thank heaven!

This is nice though, we arrived mid afternoon and had some time on our hands, as opposed to pulling up after the kids are asleep. The whole family dropped our bags in the room and then went down to the outdoor pool for a swim. It was a bit chilly at first but fine once we got used to it and the kids had a great time. Then we spent a very short time in the hot-tub, and headed back in for cleanup and prep for dinner.

A friend of Erica, named Chase, who lived here in Salt Lake a few years ago had recommended a good Mexican place to eat that was more or less a local joint. So we headed down the block to the Red Iguana. At around 5pm it was already very busy with locals so you could tell it was going to be good. Thankfully they proved us right with some truly excellent Mexican food. Erica and I both had Enchiladas and Alec stuck to his favorite of cheese quesadilla. Calum ate some of everything and then generally made a mess. That's one thing we always have to be prepared for at restaurants with little kids. They are terribly messy.

Two points specifically at the Red Iguana, they had this really great non alcoholic Apple Beer that I'd definitely recommend and when Erica asked them about the mole they promptly brought us a sampler plate with all six or seven different varieties they offered and let her pick what she wanted on her enchilada . Pretty great, we'd definitely recommend it if you're in Salt Lake.

After dinner we crept home to the hotel and the kids went more or less quietly to bed. We've got a little patio looking out onto the highway and Erica and I are working through a few logistics now, getting ready for tomorrow, and our trip out to Rock Springs, Wyoming and beyond.

The Big Move - day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 07:21:00 +0000

Today is Aug 20^th, day 2. We're driving 335 miles today from South Lake Tahoe, California to Elko, Nevada.

When last we left you we were just pulling into South Lake Tahoe for the night. The Blue Jay Lodge was pretty nice. It was nestled among about 7 other low end hotels that all looked pretty much exactly the same. I'm sure in the ski season it gets pretty insanely busy. But we didn't see too much of the town really. Since the kids were asleep already when we arrived we worked to get the room set up (with Calum in a playpen and Alec on a thermarest on the floor). It mostly worked...

After a bit of a difficult night Erica and Alec had a sleep in while Calum and I went for a little walk. The Blue Jay Lodge is literally half a block away from the Nevada border, and what do you suppose is immediately across the border? The Casino of course! Its totally weird seeing this nice respectable little ski town and then just at one edge of town there is suddenly these monstrous buildings for gambling. It definitely spoils the charm. Fortunately Calum didn't seem to notice.

After a continental breakfast we all hopped in the car and headed off for a short drive up the Lake to the Sand Harbor State Park, and Beach! Arriving at like 9:30am on a Monday morning is definitely the time to go to Tahoe; it wasn't too busy and we got a great chance to enjoy the sand in relative peace.

Alec and Calum promptly made friends with the two little girls beside us, and proceeded to help them dig a hole to China. The lake itself is beautiful, and we all went in the water event though it was a bit chilly at first. Alec is a good swimmer, but is happy to be wearing his new water wings. Calum went in with me and had a good time watching the inexplicably ever present Canadian geese.

We played and swam and dug, and built sand castles, which Alec promptly trampled. Everyone thoroughly had a good time. And then all of a sudden it was time for food. We headed off to the picnic area in the nearby woods.

While the coals got hot Alec and Calum explored the trees, rocks, and stumps. They collected pinecones, and went for a walk.

We cooked sausages, and made cous cous with brocolli. Pretty nice for a BBQ lunch :) Our plan for food as I mentioned yesterday is to avoid too many restaurants. We're hoping to stay at hotels with breakfast included, and then do at least one meal a day on the BBQ. Hopefully the other meal will be cold (maybe sandwiches, or whatnot). We're not trying to avoid restaurants per say, it can just get pricey, and this way is really better family time. Even if it takes a bit longer and means more cleaning.

The kids did well, although after lunch Calum refused to listen to us one too many times and got is first ever time out. Its a tough thing, and I don't think he actually got the message, but at least we're trying. Instead of getting upset at his timeout, Calum just giggled through it.

Then it was time to pack up and hit the road. Elko is a real trek and this may be our biggest driving day overall. Since we're also stopping for beach time, this is going to be a long day!

Logistics: Today we drove through the El Dorado Forest up I50 straight to the 431, and the 395 leading in Reno, NV. From there we struck out on the 80. We'll be on the 80 for quite a while so for the next day or so its a drive through the desert.

Driving through the mountains to Reno was beautiful. We hit an elevation of some 9000' and wound our way back down to Reno. The mountains we're pretty spectacular and there were a few amazing vistas as we drove. Also Alec was really amused to see a truck carrying porta-pottys on the back. He really wanted to try one out!

Our next stop came on the outskirts of Reno. The kids we're getting squirrely and we needed gas and a bathroom break. I took Alec briefly into a Super Walmart to use the bathroom and immediately remembered why I dislike those stores. Just ICKY. Instead we went to Target to take a break and let the kids stretch their legs... hey there wasn't much else around and we needed to pck up a few things. And no, Target and Walmart are totally different. Just go to one vs the other and you'll see. Our kids like hanging out in the toy aisle in target, and they know that we never take anything home. Its kind of like a toy library for them. That's normal right...

Anyhow, after a stretch we got back in the car and decided to push on and get as far as we could before we needed to stop for diner. Lots of flat desert driving followed. Overall the kids have been good in the car, even playing with each other. Calum's still a bit young to engage too much but he has fun on his own and Alec just talks up a storm.

Alec was impressed wth all of the trucks. They we're all very weird to him. He saw a truck with laundry on the back, a truck hauling a boat, and a truck hauling another truck. While this part of the States is nice in its own hellish way, I'm not sure exactly why you'd want to live somewhere so crazy hot and dry. Sure its beautiful, but its also also such a harsh climate. Very tough to figure out.

While we wanted to get further we ended up stopping in the little town of Lovelock, NV. Small town NV. I'm not sure what there is to say about it... they had a nice playground by the courthouse though, even if it was a bit old and rusty,

We set up shop and let the kids romp around for almost two hours while we slowly put together dinner. Some local teenage boys came by and started doing a few cool parkour moves around the playground and really impressed Alec. Calum couldn't care less, but I thought it was cool!

Later we ate soup and pasta cooked on a little camp stove we brought, and the kids did pretty well. Although expectedly Alec did not want to leave when it was time, and Calum took a bit of a tumble, doing a faceplant into a metal bench (only a cut lip though). It was very nice to stretch, but of course soon enough it was time to get the kids in PJs and head back to the car for the final leg of our journey.

The sun set beautifully over the desert hills. We passed not one but two prisons along the way. Probably a good idea to put them out here.. I mean where could you escape to? There were signs along the road indicating that hitchhiking was illegal in the “prison zone”...

We're maybe 50 miles outside of Elko at the moment. The kids are asleep and we're driving in the dark beside tumbleweeds. And at least tonight we'll be in a room with two Queen beds. Hopefully the kids will fare a bit better than last night. I'm looking forward to another fun day tomorrow. We're headed straight east into Utah and Salt Lake City. It should be fun :)

The Big Move - day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 04:59:00 +0000

Well we've finally made, or more accurately started the big move. That's right the entire clan has packed up and I on our way East. Its bittersweet. We're sad to leave our friends, our life, and the city that we've called home for thee past 10 years behind but we also know this is the best move for everyone.

Erica and I have loved our time in San Francisco. We moved for jobs, for lifestyle, for a better climate :) But we found a place that's been more than special, its been our home. Its where Erica and I met, its where we fell in love, and had two wonderful children. Its also where we made so many lifelong friendships, living in San Francisco has shaped who we are, emotionally, and spiritually to the core. I'm so glad to have lived there, and we're very sad to see it go.

Life changes though, and not to put too fine a point on it, but no matter how much support we've gotten from our friends we miss our family. We want our kids to grow up knowing their cousins, their grandparents, and to have the opportunities they deserve. The Bay Area is wonderful in so many ways, but its not cheap, and if we really want to live in an urban environment SF is one of the most difficult places to live. Add to that issues like evolving US politics, health care, and other government services and ultimately we came to the difficult decision to make the move back to The Great White North.

YES that/s right, we're not just headed East, but North. To the Toronto area specifically. The house in SF is rented out, our stuff is on the way with the movers, and we have just hit the road! We're driving, nice and slowly across the country with the kids and a VERY full car.

There are (of course) lots of other details, including a wonderful goodbye party with our friends, and yes a few teary farewells with friends here but now we're resolved to look forward. We are genuinely excited to start this next chapter in our lives and today is the first step.

Today is Aug 19^th, day 1. We're driving 229 miles today from San Jose, California to South Lake Tahoe, California.

Logistics first, before I forget them. We started out this morning headed north on I680, then after the Martinez Bridge (I think that's what its called), and we hit Fairfield we took the 80 E up through Sacramento, and onto the 50 in to El Dorado National Forest and to South Lake Tahoe. Since we didn't start until midday our timing was a bit skewed today/ Our plans will fall a bit more into place over the next day or two and I expect we'll be onto more of a routine so we can break up the driving into as manageable chunks as possible.

Traveling with a 3 and 1 year old will be a challenge. Even though our boys are great, and honestly very seasoned travelers Erica and I are both anticipating a few trying times. So we're doing what we can to mitigate the issue before any real problems arise. The kids have toys, snacks, and a lot of breaks planned. With a few exceptions we're planning on driving for around 4 hours a day. That should be totally manageable... right?

We're also planning a lot of stops, or maybe I should say we're not planning our stops but just letting them happen. We'll be staying with some of my family along the way at a few stops, and we've got hotels booked for the first two nights of this trip but other than that we're panning on playing it by ear as much as we can. Yes we have to cross the border into Canada on the 31^st, and we have a general idea of where we'll stop for the evenings, but we don't know where we'll be spending our days. That's all part of the fun here. This is a real world, genuine adventure!

Our first stop occurred some 20 minutes in. Despite having been asked before we left, we received a frantic call of “I have to pee!” from the backseat... This isn't even the time it would've taken for us to get from San Jose back to our house in San Francisco. So somewhere around Danville we pulled into a Denny's parking lot and Alec got his relief. At least it wasn't in the car. Our younger one Calum was thankfully sleeping, so we decided to push through.

Our next stop was for a snack. Roadside fruit stands are always awesome, and today's was no exception. I think we must've been somewhere near Dixon, California; at least that's what it said on all the in house dried fruit and candy packaging. We picked up a few treats, dried pineapple (YUM!), some Sour Cherries for E, and a basket of strawberries for a snack later on.

We've decided that the kids need at the very least a time to run around everyday. They are VERY active boys and Sacramento seemed like a good idea. If anyone out there knows how the Yelp mobile app works please let me know cause I am having a tricky time figuring out what parks and playgrounds rate best (the full site seems so much better). Something I expect to be looking up a lot as we drive.

Ultimately I found a CBS Sacramento listing for their park picks and we took the coolest sounding one for their word. Rausch park may technically be in Citris Springs, and not Sacramento, but it really is very nice. The playground is guarded by these wonderful stone lions and there was some solid play equipment. The boys climbed and slid, and did exactly what we were hoping for the next hour.

Alec has definitely proven that he won't forget his friends in San Francisco quickly. When approached by Spanish speaking kids on the playground he immediately started singing Mandarin songs he had learned with Alyssa at daycare :)

After some playtime we sat down for a snack of strawberries. The kids love strawberries, and Alec is always considerable of his brother. He specially found all of the smallest ones in the basket and gave them to his brother. What a guy.

Back in the car and onto the road again. We had thought to stay in Reno tonight, but changed our mind, deciding that spending some time at the beach tomorrow morning then pushing through to Elko would make more sense. I'm glad of it too. This area is beautiful! Even from the road, as you get in closer to Tahoe the trees get bigger, the vista more majestic, and everything just feels cleaner.

We decided that tonight was an exception to the plan and stopped at a restaurant off the highway for dinner. That's one of the unfortunate tings we have to deal with here, these kids operate on their own time frame. When they are hungry they are hungry. And being stuck in a car with a grouchy 3 and 1 year old who haven't eaten is not a place I want to be. So into the belly of the beast we went and supped at one of the great American staples: Denny's.

To be honest dinner was pretty good. Its been a long and very hot day out here. It seemed like as soon as we left the Bay it got hot, REAL hot. Now though the sun is going down and so is the temperature.

Back in the car and the kids have a spirited game of hide and seek from the car seats. Its pretty adorable. They've both got their blankets and Calum is in his PJs so the only place they have to hide is under their blankets. They think this is hilarious!

Erica and I have just pulled up to South Lake Tahoe after some more spectacular hills going over the southern Tahoe mountain summit. We're a few minutes away from the hotel taking a quick stop at the Safeway for supplies. (We've been so busy getting ready for the move we didn't have time to even get groceries for the trip!)

I just saw the lake a minute or two ago and am certainly happy to be here. On our way. On our adventure. The kids have as expected fallen fast asleep in the backseat.

I'm looking forward to day 2. This is going to be fun.

BBQ at Ocean Beach!

noreply@blogger.com (Erica) — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:25:00 +0000

We decided to try something new the week before last and as it was beautiful weather in San Francisco we headed over to Ocean Beach. We often go to the zoo and decided to check out the beach right beside the Zoo, just at the intersection of Sloat and The Great Highway.

There is a parking lot right on the beach but you have to basically be lucky to get a spot. We happened to be looking just as someone was leaving and it was definitely worth waiting for the spot. From the lot it was a short walk down a steep hill and you are right on the beach!

There were lots of signs posted letting people know there were no fires allowed. We assumed this did not include BBQs and cooked our lunch anyway.

One thing that immediately struck us was the amount of shoot on the sand. It seemed that everything was covered with a thin layer of black dust and as a result our children were quickly covered as well. Despite this a good time was had by everyone and while the Ocean was cold it was not freezing and we all enjoyed playing in the waves.

Overall a great day but if time is limited would suggest checking out other beaches like Half Moon Bay around for your sand castle building and BBQing enjoyment!

Egg Decorating

noreply@blogger.com (Erica) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:36:00 +0000

Egg decorating might not have taken us outside but we did do it in the bright sunlight steaming in from the window so I figure it counts. :)

While I don't have strong memories of decorating eggs for Easter when I was younger (I think I was just too focused on the chocolate) I love the idea of doing this type of thing with my kids. Last year Alec and his grandmother decorated eggs at their house and while we would have loved to do it with her again this year they have moved so we had to sort it out for ourselves.

We hard boiled a dozen eggs and the kids were off to the races. After a quick taste test of two eggs that had cracked during the boiling the dyes came out and the fun began. The results might not have been award winning but they were unique to each of the kids and brought smiles to everyone's faces. Only a small amount of egg dye was ingested and a fun time was had by all!

Swim Lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Erica) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:00:00 +0000

We recently restarted swim lessons for both boys and as G’s parents moved last summer we decided to forgo lessons at the PJCC and try La Petite Baleen Swim School in San Bruno as it is a bit closer to home. This week will be our third class and so far we are really happy with it. It is different from our previous lessons as the focus is very much on learning to swim rather than just getting used to the water.

Our three year old is in the pool with a teacher and three other kids and has learned to be comfortable without a parent in the water, hold his breath (balloon face) and swim around 6 feet on his own. He looks forward to going to the class and also enjoys the train table he gets to play with while we are waiting for his younger brother. Our one year old is in the water with his dad and by the end of the class is exhausted. He spends his time in class getting used to being in the water, and putting his face underwater. A lot of the focus is on safety and learning the basics a simple repetitive nature. For example, he learns to climb out methodically, elbow - elbow - tummy - knee - knee; and while he can't quite do it on his own he definitely is getting the idea.

One funny thing is that they have the kids wear goggles and fins, have to admit it is pretty darn cute to see them in their gear ready to go!

Photos from Mexico!

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 03:24:00 +0000

Click here to view this photo book larger

Half Moon Bay State Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Erica) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 03:44:00 +0000

We have close friends who live in San Jose so one of the things we are often looking for is fun places easy driving distances from both San Francisco and San Jose and one of our recent favorites is the state beach at Half Moon Bay. The beach is never crowded, the sand is great for building castles and our kids love playing in the waves. Be warned they are stronger than they look and we all got at least the bottom halves of our pants wet when a stronger than expected wave hit!

The last time we went we spent a few hours on the beach and then headed up the hill to enjoy some BBQ at the tables overlooking the ocean with a great view of the surfers. Be warned that the seagulls are fierce and are determined to get your food at any cost. We had the toddlers running circles around our table and that still was not enough commotion to keep them at bay!

It costs $10 per car to get in for the day but with lots of picnic tables, bathrooms (and showers if you brave the water) and BBQ facilities it is great value for a super fun day. They also have camping, we’ve never stayed overnight but should try one day!

For more information you can check out their website here!

Magic Mountain Playground at Coyote Point

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:00:00 +0000

We decided to try a new playground a few weeks ago and as it was foggy and cold in San Francisco we decided to head south. We thought that Coyote Point would be a good option and after looking online found information on what sounded (and proved to be) and amazing playground called Magic Mountain.

Magic Mountain is basically designed and based on a gigantic purple dinosaur and castle. It consists of big and baby swings, at least 6 slides and a ton of other things to climb. The ground is covered with that soft rubber materials a lot of modern parks are using these days which is perfect as our boys both tend to take a lot of tumbles. As soon as we arrived our three year old was up the multistory structure and while he would not go down the long tunnel side on his own he had a great time climbing and expended a lot of his energy. Another of our kids favorite things was the dinosaur’s mouth where they could actually get inside and climb on the teeth.

The only downside of this trip was the cost. It was $6 to get into the conservation area which was totally reasonable but there was an additional $25 fee to use one of the picnic tables beside the playground which we needed to BBQ. Had we known about the cost we would have just brought sandwiches and had a picnic on the grass but we were excited to use our Cobb BBQ and had been looking forward to the idea of hot food on a slightly chilly day.

Overall a great day and a really fun playground!

Why we love the zoo!

noreply@blogger.com (Erica) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 04:52:00 +0000

Friends have often heard me profess the benefits and value of our San Francisco Zoo membership. For $95 a year a family of two adults and upto 5 children get to go as often as they want and have access to the member only benefits and events.

Since we bought our membership we have met Spider-man, Captain America, Elmo and Cookie Monster as well as the Easter Bunny (ok – it was actually the Nesquick bunny but our kids did not know the difference and were excited none the less). We’ve seen musical shows featuring Fisher Price’s Little People and been present for the arrival of Santa’s reindeer two years in a row.

In terms of set up and animals SF Zoo does not have the awe of the San Diego Zoo (which is amazing) but as a family with two very energetic toddlers the open space, good sight lines and lots of things at their level it is the perfect day out. We generally spend a lot of time in the children’s zoo which includes a bug house and a petting zoo along with a bunch of kid type animals. One of our favorites is the muir cats and prairie dogs who are usually out and about doing their thing and happy to show off their entertaining personality. We also love the petting zoo, the main attraction are the goats and sheet wandering around who are pretty mild mannered and used to kids throwing themselves on them. There is also a building within the petting zoo where they raise chicks and you can see the eggs in the incubators, we’ve been lucky and actually seen one hatching one morning during our visit.

Another advantage is free parking on Sloat Street. It may require a bit of extra walking but we’ve never had trouble finding a space less than 10 minutes walk and appreciate the chance to save the $10 parking fee.

The Return

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:43:00 +0000

The Life Outside will be returning to activity in the coming days.

While our life has changed A LOT since the initial posts on TLO, we still have a passion for all things out in the great wide world.

We've been joined by two wonderful children, two boys (aged 3 and 1) and are probably spending even more time outside now than before. Sure we spend time at a lot more playgrounds than in years past but it's all been a wonderful journey and we really wouldn't have it any other way.

Stay tuned to The Life Outside for more from the wild world inside, outside, and all around San Francisco!

- Geoff

Biking the distance!

noreply@blogger.com (Erica) — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Distance is a relative term, in large part based on your mode of transportation. This weekend we decided to try something new and went on a bike ride. To be honest when we set out I had very little conception of the distance we were going and was pleasantly surprised that I was still (albeit barely) standing at the end of it!

We started from Noe Valley, ventured to the Cal train station to pick up our friends and basically followed the road along the water until we got to the Golden Gate Bridge. The ride towards and across the bridge was a bit tedious not just because of the elevation change but also the sheer number of people. Renting bikes over the Memorial Day weekend was a popular choice for a range of tourists navigating the city.

Once across we enjoyed a brief break (and the view) before getting back on the bikes and making our way towards Sausalito. If you don’t know Sausalito it is a quant little town across from San Francisco, a bit touristy for my taste but a good place to bring visitors looking to experience something beyond the boarders of the city but not up for some of the more hardcore outdoor activities in the Bay Area. After a quick stop to check the ferry schedule we were back on our bikes moving at high speeds (or so I like to believe) towards Tiburon. I particularly enjoyed this part of the bike ride, I thought it was cool to see the area we have driven through on the highway at a more civilized speed and actually notice more of the scenery.

Once we got into Tiburon we found the ferry dock and boarded for Angle Island. It was a short 15 minute ride across but gave us time to enjoy sandwiches and recharge. The Island was beautiful, we biked along the perimeter road which was a 5 mile loop. There was definite elevation but nothing too drastic our tired muscles could not handle.

We stopped along the way to check out some of the abandoned military buildings and finally ended up at the island’s café. The ferry took us back to San Francisco’s Ferry Building and the start of the final ride home…

By my rough estimation we were on the bikes for around 4 hours and covered just over 34 miles! It was an awesome way to spend part of the long weekend!

Pinnacles National Monument

noreply@blogger.com (Geoff) — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:56:00 +0000

Here are the pictures we took on our trip to Pinnacles National Monument this past weekend. It was a great time and a beautiful day to hike around. Check out the pics!

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