The Big D

Dole Plantation in the rain

2012-01-15T19:13:00.001-08:00

Sledding and eating snow in the front yard

2012-01-07T09:23:00.001-08:00

Owen made himself a nice sled run with a hill at the end to keep from going into the street. Walt loves eating snow.

Walt loves his doggy

2011-12-18T21:00:00.001-08:00

Woodlawn Cemetery

2011-12-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

This is right by Kara's house. The Showman's League of America (a group for circus performers) has a memorial and graves here for its members.

In 1918, a horrible train crash killed over 50 performers en route to Chicago. Most were not identified, but they are all buried here.

Outside Costco

2011-11-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

Oct 24th 2011, Bountiful Elementary Halloween Parade

2011-10-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

Walt took forever to eat most of this apple, then Dexter stole the last bit from him.

Owen the ninja with a really nice Stormtrooper

Vinny had just bitten his cheek in this shot

Walt was tired and hot in his costume.

TRH

2011-10-22T20:49:00.001-07:00

We boys had our own table at Texas Roadhouse, while Toots, Shannon,
Lucy, Kara and Georgia were enjoying the girls-only table on the other
side of the restaurant.

Pack's Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-22T10:17:00.001-07:00

Pony Express cabin #2

2011-10-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

One of the boys relieved themselves from the porch during the night.

Pony Express cabin for UEA

2011-10-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tigger & ninja

2011-10-16T17:22:00.001-07:00

New phone, new camera

2011-10-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

8MP!

Hike to the pipeline

2011-10-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

Dinner in Layton

2011-10-09T10:32:00.001-07:00

Restaurant Manolo in San Telmo

2011-09-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

Hernán recommended this place and it was fantastic! Entrees are:
tallarines con salsa de cuatro quesos (noodles with a four cheese
sauce), sorrentinos caseros rellenos de jamón y queso con salsa rosa
(homemade "sorrentinos" stuffed with ham and cheese with pink sauce,
raviolis con tuco (with mystery sauce), ñoquis con salsa de estofada
(ñoquis with meat and sauce). Homemade flan with dulce de leche was
the best flan we've had the whole trip. Act 2 of the opera Logengrin
just started at the Teatro Colón. My mom wasn't feeling well and she's
missing this. :(

On our way to dinner before the opera

2011-09-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

Our walk thru El Calafate

2011-09-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

We got well off the beaten path and walked to a nature reserve of some
sort but chose not to go in. Dogs are roaming the streets here but we
don't think they're strays. Some are quite beautiful and they're not
aggressive at all. We ended up at this little market for lunch.
Ordered empanadas and milanesa sandwiches. The sandwiches ended up
being comically huge. It's been a very relaxing day. We're headed out
on an off-road trip next, and dinner will be at the hotel. They only
take one reservation every half hour and you order your food in
advance so the lone cook knows what to prepare. The hotel has been the
#2 highlight of El Calafate behind the Perito Moreno glacier.

This is getting ridiculous

2011-09-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

How can one country have so much good food?

Balancing out our food groups

2011-09-25T20:21:00.001-07:00

Just so you know we're eating something besides meat, here are the
ravioles, canelones, and lasagna we had for dinner. We had little
dishes of pasta just like these delivered by the hundreds for mission
conferences. Very tasty stuff. It's 12:20am here and I have to get up
a 3 for a 5am flight to Ushuaia. Had so much fun at the soccer game
tonight. Check out the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UYuNUKN4y0&feature=youtube_gdata

Good night all!

Facturas!

2011-09-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

First taxi ride of the trip

2011-09-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Was about 2 miles, cost about $2.35 US for the trip, with free thrills included.

Argentine beef!

2011-09-24T09:36:00.001-07:00

Almost thru customs

2011-09-24T05:56:00.001-07:00

Sept 21, 2011

2011-09-21T20:23:00.001-07:00

Sam's Club has this pre-cooked, sliced brisket and it is awesome. Our friend D'Nell introduced to it at her graduation party. You can eat it right out of the package or heat it up and make a sandwich that rivals any BBQ joint. $20 for 2.5 lbs ($8/lb) or if you buy the larger package it's $5.60/lb.

I bought this coat at Eddie Bauer today. Fall gets here in two days and I didn't want to be unprepared. And my old one was ginormous on me.

Saturday 9/17/11

2011-09-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Mountain biked to Elephant Rock with Quinn and Meg in the morning.
Quinn had a minor spill but was a good sport for the kodak moment.

Go Cougars!

2011-09-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

My new biker gang

2011-09-13T19:42:00.001-07:00

Back porch nudists

2011-09-12T10:57:00.001-07:00

Walt had his first haircut last night. It was a battle.

Test post with new Blogger app

2011-09-08T19:58:00.001-07:00

Testing out the official Blogger app for iPhone.

We've turned into bookworms

2011-09-04T14:33:00.001-07:00

Between the Kindle, the iPad, and regular trips to the library, we've
all been reading a lot. I'm reading book 2 of the series A Song of
Fire and Ice by George R. R. Martin.

Day 2 of momma being gone

2011-08-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Walt is my new running buddy. This stroller rolls very easy but it's pretty heavy. Two miles while pushing this takes me 2-3 minutes longer than usual.

I put this meal together all by myself.

Walt and Grandma doing bubbles on the back porch

After dinner we loaded our bikes up, picked up Blake, and headed to Legacy parkway trail

Walt didn't make a peep in during the 8 mile, 53-minute ride.

Vinny and Owen each crashed once. They're not sure why. No major injuries.

This is just south of the Pony Express RV park on Redwood Road and I-215. I swung from a tree right here into the Jordan River as a teenager. Gross.


I was a little surprised to find Walt awake at the end of the ride. It's a very smooth, paved trail and it was dark.

So far we miss Shannon terribly but we're glad she's having such a fun time.

Boys trip to Dick's

2011-08-11T15:23:00.001-07:00

Sent the boys to Dick's with $20 for buns, corn, and two hostess cupcakes (as in a package of two cupcakes). They called for help bringing the groceries home, which I thought was odd since there wasn't that much to carry. In addition to the corn and buns, they bought two BOXES of hostess cupcakes, two boxes of Captain America fruits snacks, and four rolos. They brought $0.68 in change home. I'll take them back up there tonight to return the unopened items. Maybe they'll learn something.

Front Sight Day 2, July 2011

2011-07-04T02:13:00.001-07:00

These yayhoos slept in till 10am, just in time to make the breakfast buffet.

The room is about $60/night. We use $70/day in electricity running the A/C, plus a pretty decent breakfast is included. I hope someone is losing lots of money in the casino to subsidize our stay.

O is a breakfast man. He loves his eggs.

After breakfast, I turned on the cartoons and went back to bed until noon. Thank you, Cartoon Network!

From noon to 3, we hung out at the pool. It was about 100 degrees out when we started, but the wind, clouds, and occasional rain cooled things down to the mid-90's.

You may be alarmed to find out that I've been doing some reading as of late. I'm a big fan of the Kindle.

Vinny went back to the room to get drinks and cheese sticks. He gave me a very thorough play-by-play of his two-minute walk via walkie-talkie.

O would have stayed in the water all day. I told him we needed to go eat lunch. He said the cheese stick was his lunch.

My dad gave the boys $10 each to get something on our trip. Taking them to the toy aisle with money burning in their pockets is torture. I had to give them a two-minute warning to pick a toy of lose the money.

For lunch/dinner, we went across the street to Wulfy's where they have a mini-bowling alley. It's $1/game per person and pretty fun!

The food was good there as well. Cheesesteak and onion rings.

Took the paved road to Front Sight this time around. Had quite a bit more sunshine today since we didn't spend any time in the classroom.

YouTube Video

Meanwhile in the kids' course, the boys each got to shoot a few magazines on an UZI! (bad pics--low light level and Vinny/Owen taking the pics is a rough mix)

At the end of the night, we met back up in the classroom.

Not long after, Dr. Ignatious Piazza took the stage!

He spoke for about 45 minutes on how awesome Front Sight is.

As soon as he was done, we got in line to shake his hand and get our picture. He was very nice. O couldn't handle the excitement and wouldn't get onstage with us.

With their certificates in hand, the boys begged to skip the fireworks so they could get in bed.

We watched the very impressive fireworks show on way to the car.

Happy Independence Day!

UPDATE: It's 3am pacific time. Just spent the last 30 minutes cleaning up V's barf. In his bed and all over O's special blanket (which is now drying on the railing outside our room). He must have eaten that whole bag of licorice by himself!

Front Sight Day 1, July 2011

2011-07-03T02:19:00.001-07:00

Made it to Pahrump and noticed it was a little warm:

Grabbed a couple pizzas at Papa John's to take with us into Front Sight.

For the first time, Owen was really excited to be on this trip.

We had about 30 minutes from the time we got into our room to when we needed to leave. We all laid down but no one fell asleep.

I set my gps for Front Sight and away we went. I thought we were taking the usual route (which I'd never actually driven myself) but the gps sent us on this unpaved road for about six or seven miles. Most of it was pretty smooth but there were a couple times I had to maneuver around some crazy ruts.

The car was a bit dirty when we finally got there. I've since set the gps to avoid unpaved roads.

We got checked in and through weapons inspection. The boys were loving the whole experience.

There were plenty of other kids there, maybe a total of 25 or 30.

Eventually I had to leave them alone and hope they could handle the class on their own until 2am MST.

It was close to 100 degrees when I headed to my range, but the sun was setting and it was getting cooler by the minute.

It took nearly an hour to go over the protocols for night shooting. As usual, there is far more to learn than you think.

At dusk, the kids made their way to the rope course right by my range. V & O did not do anything that would have put them over about three feet in the air.

Spent the next five hours learning how to properly shoot at targets in the dark with a flashlight.

I checked on the boys about midnight and they were doing fine. A little pizza and diet dew would help them finish the night strong.

Got back to the hotel about 2:30am after a quick stop at the carwash to eliminate any evidence of our off-road experience.

Vinny claims they get to shoot handguns, rifles, and an UZI tomorrow. I hope he's right about the UZI!

The real question for tomorrow is do we get meet the man...the legend...the founder and CEO of Front Sight...Doctor Ignatious Piazza!

I hope to have a picture of me with "The Millionaire Patriot" tomorrow.

Me V & O head to Front Sight

2011-07-02T12:05:00.001-07:00

The three of us are on our way to Pahrump, NV to go to Front Sight--I'm taking a handgun course and the boys are taking a kids personal defense class.

We arranged to meet with Bob & Liz at Cove Fort. They're on their way to SLC to see Bob's dad.

Liz took the boys on the "do you have a 15-minute version?" tour while Bob & I tried to make the auxiliary input work on their rental car. We failed.

They're moving to St. George soon. Maybe we'll be meeting up here in the future to swap kids?

My car is a very smooth ride on the highway. I've never had it outside of the Wasatch Front. Got us to Cedar City in no time. Lunch on the patio at the Cafe Río (the one with the drive-thru).

The boys haven't driven me nuts yet. Yet.

Day 10: Vernal, UT to Bountiful, UT

2011-06-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Leaving our ninth hotel in nine nights. 180 miles to home!

Gassing up for the last time in Heber . Ethanol-free is the way to be.

We came down Emigration Canyon to enter the Salt Lake valley. It was a great feeling.

15 minutes later I was in my driveway hugging my family. The first thing Vinny says to me is "Dad! Cars 2 is four-player!" (referring to the xbox game)

Walt didn't seem to be too happy to see me. He went down for a nap about 10 minutes later.

So nice to make it home to my wife. She really made this trip possible for me by being willing to watch all three boys by herself for 10 days. Thank you so much Shannon for letting me have this opportunity to see the country on a motorcycle. It really was the trip of a lifetime and it wouldn't have happened without you.

My total mileage: 3,363. Every one of them was great.

Dad and Tim, it was great traveling with you both. Can't wait to do it again!

Day 9: Denver, CO to Vernal, UT

2011-06-25T23:13:00.001-07:00

Met up this morning with Tim's brother Ken and his wife Lisa and headed to the rockies.

It didn't take long to get above 8,000 feet into thinner air and cooler temperatures. We had breakfast at the Sundance Cafe near Nederland, CO. A great view and great food.

Check out the French toast made from French bread!

We passed through the towns of Nederland and Estes Park before getting to the entrance to Rocky Mountain National park. Both towns looked like fun places to visit.

We just kept going up and up.

I actually got a nosebleed probably around 10,000 feet.

Around 11,000 feet:

I'm pretty sure this is the highest I've ever been on my bike. Over 12,000 feet! We were below sea level in New Orleans a few days ago.

We took off our jackets at the other end of the park. At the top, it got down to around 58 degrees. It was over 80 at the bottom.

Granby Lake. No one would swim with me. It was probably ice cold anyway.

We gassed up in Granby and parted ways with Tim's kinfolk. (pics of them are on my Gopro camera)

We decided here that we could make it to Vernal for the night, which was 240 miles. We had already gone 200 miles so it was going to be tough.

Lunch (at about 5pm) was at "Freshies" in Steamboat Springs. We could hear the Yampa river from our table.

Tim and I had steak tacos (don't worry, I didn't touch the avocado) and pineapple (instead of fries or onion rings). I'm trying to gradually prepare myself for the drastic reduction to my daily calorie intake when I get home tomorrow.

Doug had a bleu cheese burger with a salad.

The ride to Vernal was pretty--the sunset was nice and the roads were virtually empty. We would ride through very cold pockets of air, and then warm right back up. Stopped here to put my hoodie on and in the process got three or four mosquito bites on my head.

The bugs were so bad that we stopped to clean our windshields two or three times. My camera was covered in dead bugs.

It was dark when we rolled into Vernal. Nice to see a Maverik and be in Utah.

We had a quick burger at Sonic which was not worthy of being documented here.

In bed at midnight. So excited to get home tomorrow. We've ridden over 3,000 miles so far. Only 180 miles to go!

Day 8: Abilene, KS to Denver, CO

2011-06-24T22:16:00.001-07:00

Didn't hit the road until 9:45am.
Nice to get a little more sleep. We knew today was going to be a long day (450 miles).

Kansas' scenery wasn't ugly, but anything less than 75mph and you felt like you were crawling.

It was mostly flat farmlands. Lots of big harvesting equipment was being put to use. In the distance every so often, you would see a giant silo where I assume the area farmers would take their grain to be hauled away on a train.

Lunch was in Colby, KS, where we met up with the "fantastic four" for lunch at Mabel's. Joe has a piece of denim in front of him--it's the piece of John's pants that the paramedics cut off to look at his leg. We all signed it.

My chili was excellent.

The bread pudding was the best we've had this trip.

After lunch, I may have mailed you a post card.

On my way back to Doug & Tim, I ran into some fellow bikers.

I emailed their folks a picture of them and almost immediately got a reply from one of their mothers thanking me. Where were cool member bikers with smartphones when I was on my mission?

Next stop was just across the Kansas/Colorado border in Burlington.

The carousel here was made in 1906. Riding it was a trip back in time.

The organ scroll:

The organ pipes:

Real horse hair tails:

We got a behind-the-scenes tour of the inner workings of the carousel.

Eastern Colorado was exactly the same as Kansas. In the Harley-Davidson atlas we use, there were no scenic routes at all in this part of the country.

About 7pm, we rolled into downtown Denver.

I called Janelle on the way there to meet us for dinner on the 16th street pedestrian mall. She was glad to get away from studying for a test tomorrow.

I've lost track of how many times we've ordered nachos on this adventure, but these were among the best.

Tim's fish and chips:

Doug's Reuben:

Janelle's salad:

My sirloin (marinated in "jalapeño butter"):

Cinnamon/sugar donut holes with caramel dipping sauce. My pants still fit for those of you wondering.

Tim's brother Ken and his wife Lisa showed up after we ate. We're going on a ride with them tomorrow morning on our way out of town.

Janelle and I rode back to her car in a pedi-cab. I was too tired to walk, and the weirdos had come our en masse on 16th street.

Bret rode 783 miles today from Topeka KS to Grand Junction, CO. He'll get home Saturday. The other four guys are in Colorado Springs and we probably won't see them again this trip.

Day 7: Branson, MO to Abilene, KS

2011-06-23T23:12:00.001-07:00

Up and on the road by 7:30am--but just me, Tim, and Doug.

Bret was sleeping in over at the Branson KOA in his tent, and the other five guys left without us to go see the tornado damage in Joplin, MO. We were up early to make it to the Harley-Davidson plant tour in Kansas City. Bret again miraculously caught up with us about 30 minutes into our ride. We made it half way to Kansas City (about 120 miles) without stopping.

That's pretty good considering we usually can't go more than five minutes without stopping. We then went the other 120 miles, again without stopping, and arrived at the H-D plant in north Kansas City, MO.

We got there around 11:15am, and booked a spot in the noon tour. After the dude gave us our tickets, he says "you guys can have a seat on those motorcycles behind you." I replied, "No, thanks. We've been sitting on motorcycles for 2,200 miles."

It was good we got up as early as we did since they close at 1. I don't have any pictures of the actual tour--they were hardcore about no photography/cell phone use. But it was fascinating to see the various processes involved in building a bike.

After the tour, we were sitting near the gift shop when I get this text:

John (Joe Shaffer's Oregon friend) was going around 5mph around some curve--lost control of his bike which fell on his leg. Last I heard, it was his two lower leg bones in his right leg that were broken, not his ankle. Thank goodness Blair had the common sense to take pictures (after he called 911):

We met up with them for lunch near the hospital in downtown Kansas City, MO, which looked like a very lovely town. I found this place on my GPS' list of Diners, Drive-Inns, & Dives.

Each table had a display of art inside. Ours was made of Sweet 'n Low packets.

We ordered a little of everything and shared.

Nachos:

Chili cheese fries:

"Funky Dough":

Philly:

Great warning on the menu:

We only had the "molten" flavor. All good food here.

Now is where things really get confusing. I left KC on my own to get to the Topeka, KS dealership to fix my cruise control issue. Bret stayed behind to go to some art museum. Tim went to his employer's national HQ in Kansas City to get a picture. The other four (formerly the other five) headed for Independence, MO.

Doug followed them but never never caught up. I made it to the Topeka, KS Harley dealership, which was a fantastic place. They had their own little mini city: a restaurant, a coffee shop, a salon, and a museum of old bikes:

Waiting in the service department:

Diagnosed and a temporary fix took about 20 minutes and $35. Cruise control is back!

Tim caught up with me here, and we went another 80 miles to Abilene, Kansas. My dad got to the HIE right after we did.

Abilene is a cute little town. President Eisenhower was from here. His library was closed.

For dinner went to Kuntz's drive-inn. Exactly what you'd imagine a small town drive-in to be like.

I had a corn dog kid's meal. Possibly the least nutritious meal of the trip so far. That's fried cheese on the left.

Tim & Doug had the "fat lady", which I think was a chili cheeseburger. Fried mushrooms...

Fried cauliflower...

Fried cheese with cheese sauce.

Can't say I'm real proud of this meal! Homemade root beer was good though.

Back at the hotel, I did a couple loads of laundry while watching several people try to use the broken coke machine, then ask me if it worked. I should have made a sign.

We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Probably not much scenery to see either. Until then...

Day 6: Hot Springs, Arkansas to Branson, Missouri

2011-06-22T22:05:00.000-07:00

Started out the day with a bike wash. They were all getting pretty grungy.

The car wash attendant let us use his leaf blower to dry off the bikes. Very handy.

Across the street from the carwash was the Hot Springs Harley dealership. I was there right at 9am to see if they would work on fixing my cruise control. Usually dealerships are pretty good about taking care of travelers ahead of locals, but these guys had no interest in working me in. Blair (one of the commuter rail guys with us) gave it a valiant effort but we need to try a few different parts to see what the fix is.

We killed a couple hours there hoping Bret would catch up (he spent the night in Shreveport, LA).

At 11am, we decided we better press on without him and let him catch up later. We were in the driveway waiting to turn out into traffic when Bret showed up! It was truly miraculous timing.

From Hot Springs, we went north on highway 7. Lots of fun turns and pretty scenery. I think this stop was in Russellville:

I introduced Tim to the scratch-n-win cards. I lost about $5 total--I lost track because you usually end up winning your dollar back, which you spend on "just one more ticket" until eventually you lose.

I had the clerk pick my tickets for me. Come on, big money!

Tim used his beginners' luck and won $14.

Continuing north on highway 7, we entered Ozark national forest. This may be the most fun I've ever had on a motorcycle. Turn after turn, blind vertical drops, speeds fluctuating instantly from 15-75mph, all for miles and miles. I took some video on the Gopro that I'll have to post once I get home.

There were so many turns and different possible routes on all these backwoods roads that we got split up for the last hour of the drive today. I ended up with Joe Shaffer and John (a childhood friend of Joe's) in Kingston, AR, which had a cafe, a post office, and antique shop. We went into the antique shop and luckily they sold drinks. Out of an antique fridge. The cokes were fresh though (I checked--never drink an expired diet drink!).

Joe bought a couple really old license plates.

I found the largest collection of jadeite I've ever seen.

I sent Steph Bird this pic and she left her baby with Joe and got in the car to drive straight here. It was priced a lot higher than the DI sells it.

3-D stereo vision! There was a whole box full of cards to look at exotic places of the world in full 3-D.

Downtown Kingston:

Glad I didn't run into this bug at 70mph:

Made it to Branson and checked into the HIE with the rest of the group. We have a nice view of the Branson valley.

Dinner was at the Outback Steak & Oyster Bar--not to be confused with the Outback Steakhouse chain of restaurants.

Doug and I split the one pound sirloin. Very good.

We never had lunch (too busy negotiating turns on Arkansas country roads) and it was 7pm by the time we got our food.

Branson is a really interesting place. Tons of live shows...music, comedy, magic, etc...all family friendly and very affordable. I had my heart set on Yakov Smirnov (No! He's not dead!), but we got to town too late. What a country!

Instead we decided to go to the Eagles tribute band. $28.

Tim is a huge Eagles fan, so he was pretty excited:

They were really good and played for almost two hours!

After the concert, we drove down the main strip to get gas when suddenly my eyes were as wide as dinner plates when I saw this:

That's not a parking garage--it's a go-kart track! The "Wild Woody"! Almost all wood, very slippery, and lots of fun. I wonder if my dad and Tim would do this kind of thing if I weren't here. I think I had a grin on my face like this for the duration of the race:

After the Wild Woody, we did the fast slick track which required a drivers license. The dude let us ride this one twice instead of just once. So fun!

Tim and my dad put another racer into the wall. Video may show up on my blog in a day or two so stay tuned. Here I am talking to my pit crew:

And now it's midnight. We have a very early start tomorrow so with that I conclude another entry in this epic journey.

Day 5: Zachary, Louisiana to Hot Springs, Arkansas

2011-06-21T22:40:00.001-07:00

Woke up in Zachary and went for a two-mile run outside. It was beyond hot. But nice to see the town up close. Here's their train station:

I ran down their main street--probably the first white guy visiting from out of town to do so.

Here I am thinking I was going to evaporate any moment about 1.5 miles into it:

Some crazy-looking guy on an adult-size tricycle yelled "faster, boy!" to me. Thanks, pal!

Waiting for everyone to load up outside the hotel. A fly landed on my head right as I took this pic.

We split up the group again today--not our idea but I was very pleased to only have Tim & Doug with me for the day. Leading a group of nine was a pain. We pulled over here under a gas station canopy to check the map, and a few minutes later a huge rain storm came in. Good timing! Always nice to put rain gear on before you're wet.

The rest of our group actually drove by us at this point and waved to us. Then they missed the turnout for the NTP (Natchez Trace Parkway)--what may very well be the prettiest stretch of road we've been on the entire trip! That's what happens to my little baby chicks when they don't follow their mother hen.

The NTP was surreal. We only rode on it for 50-60 miles but it goes from one corner of Mississippi to the opposite corner. It's a two-lane road with hardly anyone on it. I'd like to go back some day and ride it from end-to-end. A few Gopro pics:

We didn't mind the rain at all. It was nice not to be so hot for a change.

My cousin Jeff who served his mission down here somewhere told us to have lunch at Rowdy's in Vicksburg, MS. The rain and wind were getting pretty wild right as we got there.

I wish you could hear her accent. Very charming place.

Doug and Tim had their house specialty, fried catfish. Also on the plate was fried shrimp, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. They said it was great.

I had a country fried steak with fried pickles. Fried pickles are really growing on me!

We waited for a half hour for the rain to lighten up. Sam texted me that Vicksburg was the site of a critical confederate loss due to its control of the Mississippi river. The museum there was shaped like an ironclad ship.

They had a full display of the battles there.

My favorite part was the display of ironclad ship models.

Vicksburg is still bitter about the loss. They didn't celebrate the 4th of July for 80 years after the Civil War ended!

From Vicksburg, we crossed the Mississippi back into Louisiana and headed north at Tallulah on the US-65. We were quickly in Arkansas, which I absolutely loved driving through. The skies cleared up and the temperature was around 75 degrees the rest of the day.

Our hotel tonight is in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which is the boyhood home of Bill Clinton. Right next to the hotel is the Bleu Monkey Grill. This may be the best food we've had so far!

Nachos:

Caesar's salad:

Mushroom burger:

"monkey shrimp" (those are fried bananas in the back, mangos down the middle, black beans on the left)

And then what I ordered...chicken and cheese wontons dipped in buffalo sauce and bleu cheese! Amazing!

For dessert, we got an apple crisp, which came out sizzling on a skillet:

I skipped that to have some chocolate cake:

Doug complained that the apple crisp tasted funny, then pulled his lighter out:

It burned! It was covered in liqueur!

After dinner, I got in the hot tub for 10 minutes until we got kicked out. Did another load of laundry before bed. What a day!

Day 4: Pensacola FL to Zachary, LA

2011-06-20T22:17:00.000-07:00

The minute we walked out of the hotel, we were ready for another shower. So hot and nasty.

Lost another hour at the Pensacola dealership so some of our crew could get t-shirts.

Driving near the Pensacola Naval Air base, where the Blue Angels are based.

In the distance here you can see all the tall beachfront hotels along the coast. I knew a beach would be nearby.

I turned into a public beach somewhere along the gulf coast. 4 of us jumped in and cooled off in the waves.

No sign of the deepwater horizon polution here!

We felt some skin irritation on our legs while we were swimming. Then I saw a jellyfish in the water. Freaky! The stings were annoying, but I really was creeped out by the idea of swimming with them. They're freaky enough watching them through aquarium glass.

Click on this picture and spot the jellyfish!

This may have been the highlight of my whole day. It was SOOOOO hot outside.

Continuing westbound, we made it to Port Morgan, AL and caught the ferry to Dauphin Island.

It was about a 30 minute ride. No shade on the boat in 100 degree weather.

Finally getting off the boat! So hot!

20 minutes after we got off the ferry, we gassed up and found this dumpy looking place:

It took us a while before we were sure they were even open.

Fried pickles and ranch dressing. Pretty hard to screw up.

Sausage po'boy. Not that great.

We were able to park our bikes under the shade of a big tree. Thank you to whomever planted that thing a hundred years ago.

We crossed from Alabama into Mississippi and it was nothing but unbearable heat, traffic, and stop lights. We pride ourselves on avoiding interstates, but we needed to pick up the pace so we got on the I-10 after getting a drink here:

90 minutes later, we were in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Doug stayed with the bikes. Apparently one trip here is all you need.

Mom and any other tender-hearted readers--don't look too closely at this picture of a dude either passed out or dead on the sidewalk.

The architecture was cool to see. The rest of the French Quarter smelled like the dude above (again--don't look to closely!).

Bourbon Street is the main drag of the French Quarter. There were a lot of people. And a lot of really scummy places. Doug was right--once is enough.

I needed to try some jambalaya here, knowing it would be next to impossible to be better than the Gumbo Pot's in Los Angeles. I was right. Nowhere near as good.

I tried deep fried alligator. Takes a while to chew...imagine chewing on a chunk of tire.

Bret ordered these shrimp. I don't do shrimp.

I do do bread pudding though. It was ok. I was a little disappointed not to have banana pudding a third day in a row.

(napkin photo booth courtesy of Tim)

Bret stayed in New Orleans to get his bike serviced at the dealership there. We headed to Baton Rouge and I alone killed several thousand bugs. Cleaned the windshield in Baton Rouge and drove in a nice and cool 80 degrees to our hotel in Zachary, LA.

Nice to be here after a long, HOT day.

Planning on making it to Little Rock, AR tomorrow night. Please comment if you read this!

Day 3: Chattanooga TN to Pensacola FL

2011-06-20T06:14:00.001-07:00

Woke up in Chattanooga way too early. Bret's slept out there in his tent again. Sprinklers came on at 3am and he had to relocate.

We drove from Chattanooga through the northeast corner of Georgia and on into Alabama. We avoided the interstates and saw some very remote roads and towns, along with 10,000 churches. We ran across what looked like recent tornado damage. Might have some pics on the gopro. Gassed up in Albertville, AL, where we found "Granna's Goodies" inside the gas station. They called these "chess bars" and they came in lots of flavors.

I got the banana pudding flavor. It was just as good as the banana pudding I had the night before. Bret bought the same flavor and offered to let me have a chunk of it. I didn't tell him I had just bought one myself.

Next up was the Talladega Superspeedway. We took a tour in a shuttle bus around the interior of the track. It was so hot. Those bleachers are one mile long!

Shake & Bake!

"The Intimidator" Dale Earnhardt Sr. has a shrine here.

Loading up in the heat after the tour of the track:

We went 100 miles from there without stopping in 95+ degrees, ending up in Montgomery, AL. Shannon guided us to this BBQ joint downtown. The food was good, but the real highlight was the A/C. We didn't want to go outside. Cheese fries:

Wings:

Ribs:

The official dessert of the south; banana pudding:

Dreamland BBQ in "The Alley"

Baby powder. Don't go to the south without it.

Staying off the interstates completely, we took some great back roads. Rehydrated several times. Didn't seem to have to go to the bathroom much considering how much we drank.

Got to the hotel about 8:45pm, winning a $10 bet with Bret that we wouldn't arrive until after 9.

Hauled our crap in and immediately hit the pool.

By the time I got out, it was too late for dinner anywhere. This is what I came up with for a meal:

And that's it for the day. We went over 400 miles--hopefully that's the longest day of our trip. New Orleans tomorrow!

Day 2: Hickory NC to Chattanooga TN

2011-06-18T23:03:00.001-07:00

Slept great at the Holiday Inn Express in Hickory. Bret slept in their yard. No charge.

Got up early enough to be on the road at 8am. Then lost an hour waiting for the same guy who got lost yesterday. When he turns his brights on, a fuse is blown and none of the lights work. My solution: don't use the brights. His solution: waste an hour of everyone's time.

Fortunately, this ultimately lead to us splitting the group of nine guys up into 4-3-2. Tim, my dad, Bret, and me were on our own, which for me made things exponentially more fun. We drove along I-40 for about 100 miles. It was very pretty, and the temperature was perfect. We went two hours with no stops, then gassed up in Bryson, NC (view as seen from pump #1):

Another half hour or so and we were getting into more winding roads. Tim and Doug did lunges to prepare for the upcoming roads.

We got sprinkled on a bit here and put rain gear on. As soon as we were all geared up, the rain stopped.

Our lunch stop was at the Fontana Village Resort. We sat on a big porch overlooking cabins, a pool, mini golf course, and our bikes.

The food was outstanding. Potato skins:

Blackened chicken and bleu cheese salad:

Cheesecake:

The rain came back with a vengeance. We killed an hour waiting for it to lighten up to the point that we could ride in it.

YouTube Video

Another few miles from our lunch stop was the beginning of the route that brought is to North Carolina: the Tail of the Dragon, which is on highway 129 bordering NC and Tennessee. Google it and you can see a map along with locations and causes of motorcycle fatalities.

We saw this bike getting loaded up after a non-fatal crash:

It rained hard on us for the next 100 miles, but we made it to Chattanooga and our first stop was Rock City.

You can see 7 states from here: Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.

Watching Tim and Doug squeeze through these gaps was comical.

Doug was not happy when I was doing some serious bouncing on the swinging bridge...giving me lessons about vector pulls, torsion, blah blah blah let's bounce!

After Rock City, we drove to the top of Lookout Mountain to see some Civil War sites.

We were right on time to catch the sunset. Gorgeous.

We checked into our room and went downtown where there was a giant festival going on. Took us forever to find a parking spot, then we walked a half mile to Sugar's Ribs.

It smelled terrific and a live blues band was rockin' the place.

We opted for the "little bit of everything" meal. Chips and queso dip:

Stuffed peppers:

Pork, chicken, brisket, and ribs:

There were 7 or 8 kinds of sauce. It was all great food. The banana pudding at the end really sealed the deal:

There were some homemade vanilla wafers hiding in there. Very tasty.

We walked back to our bikes, and were back at the hotel a minutes later.

It's 2am here and my load of laundry just finished. I'm going to be dragging tomorrow. I think we'll end up in Montgomery, AL.

Day 1 of June 2011 bike trip

2011-06-17T22:04:00.001-07:00

Note--I'm blogging from my phone--please click on the pictures to see them in a better resolution.

Caught the 7:00am flight to Chicago, where I had been just a week earlier. Very disappointed that Kara didn't bring us combo sandwiches from Portillo's. There are nine of us total. I don't know three of the guys at all--the rest are my dad, Tim Smith, Bret Walton, and a couple commuter rail guys.

North Carolina is so green! Trees everywhere. About to land in Raleigh here.

Joe Shaffer (center, holding the wad of cash) had a shuttle bus hired to take us approximately 20 miles to the Harley dealership where my dad delivered the bikes last week.

The bikes were cleaned, lined up, and ready to go. The dealership didn't charge anything to store them for a week since several bikes had service done while they were there.

It took an hour to load up our gear and work out a few kinks, but we finally saddled up and headed for a gas station about two miles away.

I've got some new tech on this trip. The Gopro camera (mounted on top of my helmet), and a Scala Rider G4 communicator which lets me listen to music and talk on the phone wirelessly via Bluetooth. It's been great so far. And I feel like Justin Bieber with the mic in front of my mouth. Only problem is if I start singing along to music, it activates the walkie talkie and other riders that have the same hardware hear me sing. Oh wait, did I say that was a problem? I meant that I can sing for the next 3,000 miles and they have no choice but to listen.

Five minutes later, we're at the gas station and we realize we only have eight riders. One guy took a wrong turn and didn't answer his phone for the next 45 minutes while we tried to find him. Finally we decided to shove off, hoping he'd meet us at our destination for the night.

We drove from Raleigh, NC to Asheboro, NC via the US-64.

Great scenery along the way. Once we got out of Raleigh and off the freeway, it was a pleasant temperature and very little traffic. These are pics from the Gopro camera on my helmet.

My view for 3,100 miles:

Bret on his new Ducati:

Doug:

Tim:

Chasing the sunset:

We arrived in Hickory, NC around 10pm and found our lost rider. In addition to being separated from us, his headlight and tail light weren't working. Bret got right to work on it-hopefully it's just a fuse.

A late dinner at Applebee's was really good. 2 for $20 special.

Tomorrow...tail of the dragon road and Chattanooga. Hopefully with no rain.

Location:Catawba Valley Blvd SE,Hickory,United States

Flying to Raleigh, NC

2011-06-17T05:53:00.001-07:00

Flying to Raleigh, NC (with a layover in Chicago) to ride our motorcycles over 3,000 miles to get home. SLC-CHI flight is completely full. I don't think I'm going to get much armrest space with this seating arrangement. TSA made me mail my Smith & Wesson pen back to myself. Guess I won't be doing any Sudoku puzzles on the flight.

Location:June 2011 Motorcycle Trip

Day 2 in Chicago

2011-06-10T19:53:00.001-07:00

Nick and I made breakfast featuring Tillamook cheese and Costco hash browns (thanks, Kate!).

Good traffic got us from Nick & Kara's to downtown in only 20 minutes.

We spent another 20 minutes to find a parking garage close to where we wanted to be. A short walk later we were on Michigan Ave.

A year ago, Owen barfed on me here. No such misfortune this time around.

For a solid week, Owen has been asking if we could go to the Lego store. He'd never forgive us if we didn't stop.

Stopped by the Ghiradelli and Hershey chocolate stores. Reese's flavored cupcake at the Hershey store was the best.

Lunch was at the famous Pizzeria Due.

We re-enacted the Dark Knight chase scene on lower Wacker drive, purely by accident.

Our flight ended up being delayed by FOUR hours, but luckily we got the alert right before Nick dropped us off at the airport, so we went back to their place to kill a few hours.

I brought my gun with me for our little adventure, and was a little nervous about declaring it at the luggage counter at the airport in one of America's most gun-unfriendly cities.

The Southwest employee was much less cooperative than the TSA agent, who even brought me an ammo box (in the correct caliber!) from the lost and found. The TSA agent said he and a few other guys there were "gun people" and he took great care of us.

The flight delay gave us a little time to make one more stop at Portillo's for a combo sandwich, which I enjoyed after we made it to the gate. I watched the end of the Heat/Mavs game with a large crowd, most of whom were cheering for the Mavs.

Remember that old computer of Nick's? Yeah we hauled that thing through security, on the plane, and out to the parking lot in SLC.

We landed in Salt Lake about 1:30am. Walt did great on the flight but wasn't happy to be woken up. Shannon is looking up at the overhead bin to make sure the computer is ok.

Careful with that computer!

Our pack mules were tired.

That's it! Trip over. We had such a great time with each other as well as the friends and family we visited. I hope the boys will remember this one.

Wes Des Moines to North Riverside

2011-06-10T18:56:00.001-07:00

That sign is looking good! This was our last sight of our favorite West Des Moines peeps. Soon they'll be our St. George peeps!

I set the GPS to Nick & Kara's place. About 30 minutes later, we realized we were heading to their old place in St. Louis. Luckily it was only a minor detour.

We passed some outlet stores in Williamsburg, IA, and Shannon got herself a Coach bag. It's kind of a big deal.

While she shopped, the boys and I took a lap on the courtesy shuttle. The driver was thrilled to have something to do.

A few hours later, we made it to Nick & Kara's place.

Walt was very happy to be out of the car.

Obligatory Georgia shot:

Nick was on paternity leave for a couple weeks. It was fun to have him around

I took Nick & Kara a new computer I built for them. Counting the cost of the parts, gas, food, hotels, and entertainment, it was still cheaper than Geek Squad.

Lunch and dinner were at Portillo's.

I had the same thing for both meals: the "combo" sandwich (Italian beef, Italian sausage, peppers, cheese, and a jus).

The next morning, all nine of us loaded up in the van and went to Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry. Enjoy this sneak preview of the Bodyworlds exhibit--that's a real giraffe's body preserved with plastic!

We spent the whole day there. The highlight for me was the German U-boat. Nick was great to have there to read all the original German labels inside the sub.

The boys manufactured their own toy gyroscope for $5. It's fun to see the robots putting it together.

From the museum, we headed to Bridgeview, IL for the St. Fabian's Church festival. Got combo sandwich #3 from "Nick's Barbecue" (no relation). It weighed at least a pound. More beef, TWO sausage links! I think it beat Portillo's.

The band playing is called "Maggie Speaks". They only cover other bands' songs and they are really good. This was the third time I've seen them and they did not disappoint.

Owen & I went inside the church and played a round of bingo. We were by far the youngest people in the game.

After we got all the kids in bed, Shannon and I went to the Walmart by Nick & Kara's place. Scary! But Shannon found some fabric she liked on clearance, but it took some shrewd bilingual negotiating with the two women working the fabric department to get it at the marked price.

Coming up next...day 2 in Chicago!

Des Moines is des bomb!

2011-06-06T23:20:00.001-07:00

Woke up this morning to Liz's home cooked breakfast. Bob had just finished an eight-hour shift at the hospital after getting two hours of sleep and somehow was in a good mood.

Such a good mood in fact that he took me to Ashworth Park where we ran two miles in some brutal heat and humidity.

We met Shannon and Liz at the end of the trail and got the "route 44" diet cherry limeaids from Sonic. Next up we loaded all the kids in two cars and headed to the pool.

The slide you see here was great--a tube connects you to the giant toilet bowl, and you get flushed out the hole at the bottom.

Walt is getting some new teeth and was not in a happy mood. After a few hours at the pool, we showered and went to the Iowa Machine Shed restaurant. A very fun place--just what you'd imagine a good Iowa-themed joint to be like.

I ordered the bacon-wrapped filet mignon, and requested bleu cheese crumbles on top (which weren't on the menu).

It was quite possibly the best steak I've ever had. The bleu cheese was way more than just crumbles, but not overpowering. Delish! Everyone else had great food too:

No room for any dessert, but their pies looked very impressive. The restaurant is adjacent to a living history farm, and free tractor rides were offered every evening.

After the tractor ride, all 11 of us went to Stella's ballet rehearsal for her upcoming performance. I didn't see any of it myself as Walt fell asleep in the van so we gassed up and enjoyed the A/C.

After ballet, we headed to downtown Des Moines to see an Iowa Cubs game at Principal Park.

The stadium was beautiful. Not very crowded, and the temperature was becoming much more tolerable as it got later.

Since it wasn't very crowded, we were able to get on the jumbotron, Owen got a free shirt from the shirt gun, and Vinny & Creed caught hot dogs from the hot dog cannon.

On our way home from the game, we visited the Iowa state Capitol building and an outdoor sculpture exhibit.

The last thing on today's agenda was to get Bob & Liz's house up for sale. It was almost midnight, but it's officially on the market.

An exhausting day but so much fun for kids and adults. I can't believe we did all this in one day!

Location:Ashworth Rd,West Des Moines,United States

Rapid City, SD to West Des Moines, IA

2011-06-06T17:24:00.001-07:00

After Crazy Horse, we drove 30 miles to Rapid City and stayed in a Country Inn & Suites. The room was cheap, comfortable, and the boys had their own room and slept in (even Walt!). We hit the road about 9:30am an once we hit the I-90, we began seeing dozens of signs for "Wall Drug". After 50 or so miles of signs, we knew we had to stop.

As soon as we got inside, we could smell the fresh donuts and couldn't resist.

The store was about a block long--sold all kinds of junk.

But the animatronic singing cowboys really sealed the deal for me.

From Wall Drug, you can either get back on I-90 or take a detour through Badlands National Park--we went for the latter.

Badlands is appropriately named.

Several hundred miles later, we made it to Buffalo Ridge, SD, where Harry suggested we stop for a buffalo burger.

This place was right out of the Twilight Zone. They sold buffalo skin, heads, jerky, sausage, and burgers. I asked for a menu, and the old guy says, "the only thing we have is buffalo burgers." Fair enough.

They also had a fairly impressive selection of fireworks:

But like momma always said, "ain't nothin' better than some old freaky animatronic piano playin' gorilla!"

Yes folks, Sam the gorilla was the true gem of Buffalo Ridge. For $0.25, you get his best rendition of "Pop Goes the Weasel", plus he will haunt the dreams of your children for months at no extra charge.

We still had several hundred miles to go at this point, and Walt was not feeling good and not happy about being strapped in the car seat. But we motored on, seeing lovely scenery between South Dakota, Nebraska, and finally Iowa. At 9:45pm, we arrived at the Roses.

We stayed up till 2:00am talking, then Bob got paged to go to the hospital at 3:00am. What a day!

Crazy Horse

2011-06-06T16:44:00.001-07:00

Crazy Horse Monument is a few minutes from Mt. Rushmore. If you're close, it deserves a stop. Make sure you look at a paper map though, as this is the road our GPS thought we should take:

We got there at dusk and watched the laser light show.

It was cold but we huddled together and the boys loved it.

Before arriving we were a little skeptical of the whole monument, but we caught the vision of Crazy Horse. Owen said, "So, we'll all die before it's done, right?" Yes we will son, yes we will.

Mt. Rushmore

2011-06-06T11:01:00.001-07:00

Next stop after Deadwood was Mt. Rushmore. Shannon and I had never been there before. There is a cool visitors center and an easy trail to walk close to the base of the sculpture.

Location:Keystone SD

Wyoming to South Dakota

2011-06-06T10:46:00.001-07:00

After Devil's tower, we drove to Sturgis, home of one of the biggest motorcycle rallies in the country. Everything in the town is made to appeal to the bikers.

I bought a shirt here and we headed out. Next stop was Deadwood. It's a small town in a narrow canyon that looks like it hasn't changed a bit in the last 150 years.

We found a great place for a treat at Chubby Chipmunk's chocolates:

Truffles of all flavors:

We saved the truffles for later and had ice cream on the porch. Delightful.

Location:Deadwood, SD

Devils Tower part 2

2011-06-05T22:59:00.001-07:00

After our hike, we stopped at the Prairie Dog Town to make our lunch. There were hundreds of the little critters running around everywhere.

They knew as soon as we got our food out that it was time to get close and look cute. Did you know that some prairie dogs carry the plague? As in THE PLAGUE?!

Liters have been 2 for $3 at every gas station.

Location:Devils Tower, WY

Devils Tower

2011-06-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Stayed the night in Gillette, WY at the Motel 6, then drove about an
hour to Devils Tower. Had a great 1.3 mile hike around the tower with
all of us. We saw 5 or 6 climbers at various heights going up and
down. The top of the tower is grassy and as big as a football field.
Very cool to see in person!

Styrofoam is evil

2011-06-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

Styrofoam cooler was a necessity due to one-way drive but I'm gaining my dad's hatred of the stuff. And Owen likes to pick little pieces off.

Sent from my iPhone

Midnight in Gillette, WY

2011-06-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone else is asleep. Walt is ready to party!

Memorial Day Eve Midnight Beto's Run 2011

2011-05-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

Vinny and Owen were so excited to stay up till midnight for this tradition. I tipped the cocinero a fiver and taught Justin the phrase "ponga más bacon por favor". We were overwhelmed with bacon. It was freezing inside the restaurant. It's raining very hard here with flooding in some parts of Utah. Happy memorial day!

Weekend #3 May 2011

2011-05-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

We've got a new nephew! Sam and Megan's baby, Jameson was born a couple weeks ago. Walt looks on curiously here.

And then he was just plain mad that his mom would hold another baby.

Vinny's getting new glasses. It had been about 10 months since his last eye exam and his prescription has changed enough to justify it. Poor kid has Shannon's eyes.

Saturday morning, Kristy, Vinny, and I did the triathlon put on by the rec center. I'm all orange, baby!

After the 350-yard swim, I set out on a 12-mile bike ride. I borrowed Bret's road bike, since my Costco mountain bike wasn't ideal for going fast on pavement.

Kristy and Vinny set off on their 1.5-mile run

I think I'm about a mile into my 5k run here. I was hurting and didn't think my playlist was going to be long enough for the run.

We finished and got our medals. Our times weren't anywhere near the top, but we had fun doing it.

I'm so proud of Vinny for finishing his triathlon!

We celebrated by going to the Pi for pizza. Took us forever to find a parking spot. That pizza was nearly two feet in diameter and served as lunch and dinner for Saturday AND Sunday for all of us. Owen barfed in the bathroom here.

On the way home, we circled Temple Square twice looking for a parking spot. We finally stopped in a "5-minute zone" and took a very quick walk by the church office building so Shannon could see the flowers.

Owen by the tulips

Vinny was walking backwards and collided with the garbage can here. We got it back up before church security came out to see what was going on.

Hernán made empanadas on Sunday. Owen loved them.

Shannon got this brand new Fisher Price bike/rocking horse toy brand new in the box at the D.I. for $5. We put it together and Walt loves it.

Front Sight May 2011

2011-05-22T23:03:00.000-07:00

In early May, we (me, Harry, my dad, Justin, Guillermo, Mont, Tim H, and my dad's attorney Randy) loaded up in the big red van and headed to Pahrump, NV to attend gun courses at Front Sight.

Me, Guillermo, and Tim getting comfy in the van

Mont reading the instruction manual for his new pistol. He'd never fired one before and violated several safety rules before we even left the driveway.

Dinner at Steve & Evelyn's house in Cedar City.

Rooms in Pahrump were only $45 (including tax!) with our Front Sight discount. What a deal!

Buffet breakfast included with the room. So cheap!

Orientation in the morning

Headed to the range for my class, "Practical Rifle".

Justin and Doug also took the rifle class. Everyone else was in the handgun class.

We brought our own lunch into the lecture hall. Much cheaper than buying it on-site.

Justin and I evaluate our accuracy.

$10 dinner buffet at the Pahrump Nugget. Fresh banana waffles there are great.

Justin joined me in playing $2 roulette. We played for almost two hours! It was so fun to play with $0.25 chips instead of the usual $1 chips.

Morning 2 from 200 yards. After shooting, they'd load us up in the trailer behind that pickup to go see if we actually hit anything.

All done! I have a lot left to learn.

Look at the confidence on the faces of Tim and Guillermo!

Mont cleans the windows just north of Vegas

Late dinner in Washington, UT


My gun wound. (hot casings flying out of the gun next to me landed on my neck and I couldn't do anything but let them sit there sizzling)

Front Sight was great. Can't wait to go back!

May 2011

2011-05-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

It's been a while! Are you still here? Tax season ended a little over a month ago, and it was another good year at the office. We're very fortunate to have you as clients and friends. I just discovered that blogger/blogspot has an "updated" post editor which makes adding pictures much less aggravating, so maybe I'll post more now. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:

In March, little Walt turned 1. We love this little guy and we're pretty used to having three kids now. I hardly ever leave him in the car anymore.

Nom nom dog food!

Shannon and I took a quick (less than 24 hours) trip to Los Angeles after our last appointment on a Saturday:

Anaheim Ducks at LA Kings (Ducks won in overtime)

Bacon chili cheese dog and fries at Pink's

The Getty Villa

ROSS Dress for Less (highlight of the trip for Shannon)

I ran every day (except Sundays) during tax season. Can't say I enjoy it, but I am very happy with the results.

Sometime during March, my cousin Quinn talked us into going on a cruise with him and his wife. Shannon and I flew to Jacksonville on her birthday and spent a little time at the beach there waiting for our cruise to depart the next day.

The next morning, we slept in, bought a few things at Wal-mart, then headed to the boat. Once on board, the first order of business was buying all-you-can-drink soda cards. I'm not sure they'll offer them any more after seeing how much I used mine over the next week.

We met up with Quinn & Meg on board where they were taking a nap, recovering from their red-eye flight. The Jacksonville port is quite a ways from the open sea--it's several miles inland via a river. We headed out around 2pm, enjoying a corned beef sandwich while looking at expensive waterfront homes. Each one had a private dock:

I saw a recreation boat going the opposite direction with five or six guys in it, and then I saw 10 or 12 cheeks.

Corned beef on ciabatta available 24/7!

Quinn, Meg, me, & Shannon first night in dining room

Creme brulee on the right was the best dessert of the trip by far

First port was Nassau, Bahamas


Fort Fincastle--this fort was at the highest point in Nassau. Canons were never fired other than for practice.

This is called the Queen's Staircase. It's a man-made canyon intended to serve as an escape route if things got ugly up in the fort.

Nassau didn't have a whole lot going on, but they did have a Coach store where Shannon was hoping to get a necklace. They didn't carry necklaces.

The "Straw Market". Lots of junk, and lots of people selling said junk, in very tight quarters. All the people selling their junk were very polite though.

The only thing better than Coach brand merchandise is counterfeit Coach merchandise!

Quinn supporting the local economy

Buying conch (pronounced "konk") shells

This is the Atlantis resort. Imagine if the Las Vegas strip had an ocean running through it---that's Atlantis. Huge hotel/casino with private beaches, waterparks, aquariums, etc.


One of several Chihuly glass sculptures on display at Atlantis

Rather than pay $40/person to use Atlantis' private beach, we walked to "Cabbage Beach". Great sand, quick dropoff into the water, and huge waves--lots of fun. Cab ride back to town was even more thrilling.

We were on the boat the night before when I saw on the news that OBL was gonzo. It made my day!

Next stop was Half Moon Cay, which is Carnival cruise line's private island. Picture perfect beach with warm clear water.

We rented a canopy for $20. Well worth it to have some shade. My aforementioned drink card was valid here on the island, complete with a waiter to bring it to me.

Our final port was Grand Turk, part of the Turks and Caicos Islands, which is a British territory. Steering wheels are on the right side, and you drive on the left. Had a few terrifying moments, but we survived.

This is a replica of the Friendship 7, the capsule in which John Glenn became the first human to successfully orbit the earth in 1962. It splashed down near Grand Turk.

Conch World! Took a horrible unpaved road to get here. Was it worth it? Probably not.

Towards the end of the tour of Conch World, you see what a live conch looks like hanging from its shell. It looked like a witch's foot (see the giant toenail on the left, that's how the conch moves itself around the ocean floor). Retractable eyes and mouth on the right. The next stop on the tour, no joke, was a cafe where you could voluntarily pay money to eat one of these freaks! Ask Quinn & Meg how it tasted.

Grand Turk is only 7 miles long. Lots of loose donkeys and cattle right on the roads.

The lighthouse at the north end of the island was suspiciously not used at full brightness, causing ships to crash into the nearby reef. "Rescue" crews were always ready to help "recover" the goods aboard wrecked ships.

After driving around for a while, we found a beach and snorkeled there for a few hours. I dove down about 20 feet and got my very own conch shell souvenir, which stinks really bad and has all kinds of crap on it still. It's sitting on my back porch now drying out. Pics later. We dropped the rental car off and headed back to the cruise port, which is the only nice looking part of the whole island. I don't think most people even left the cruise port to see all of Grand Turk like we did.

The only restaurant on the whole island was a Margaritaville in the cruise port, where the service sucked and the tip was automatically added to the bill. But the nachos and wings were good. And there was a pool with a swim-up bar (no free refills though--remember, British overseas territory)

Shannon's $9 virgin piña colada

Wings!


Back to the boat for 2 fun days at sea

We went to karaoke every night on the ship. The DJ was great--Jay from south Philly....pines

I read "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption", a biography about Louis Zamperini. First book I'd read voluntarily in several years.

I ran a couple miles on the boat's track. Against the wind for half a lap, with the wind half a lap. Repeat 800 times.

This was our second "formal" night

Chad and Jennifer Casey from North Carolina were at our table each night and they were a lot of fun.

Our last day at sea was a little cloudy but we had great weather all week. Took a huge nap this day.

Quinn did his first karaoke song ever


Shannon and Meg at walmart. It was too early to check their luggage, so Quinn & Meg had to drag it around with them the rest of the day.

Shannon got in one more Ross store in Jacksonville before our flight home.

We got home around 10 and had to hold our little Walt even though we was asleep. He was far more annoyed to be awoken than glad to see his momma.

The boys didn't miss us a bit, as Toots took great care of them. Their primary concern was thesouvenirs we brought them.

The cruise was the longest Shannon and I had been together without kids present since before Vinny was born almost ten years ago. It was so fun to spend time with just the two of us, as well as spending time with Quinn and Meg. We couldn't have done it without Toots' help. Thanks Toots for putting up with our boys for so long!

The end. More to come soon.

Early February 2011

2011-02-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

We're two weeks into tax season and still surviving. Walt is hard to have at the office, but nothing compared to this circus act:

I had a horribly embarrassing experience at the grocery store last night. I briefly made eye contact with someone I vaguely recognized, but couldn't remember a name, time, background, etc...I quickly looked away and tried to avoid running into him. Much to my horror, he came right up to me and it's "HEEEEEEY!!! DALLAS!!!!". What to do...what to do...

So I say "Hi! How have you been?" as I'm scanning my brain for any info amongst the thousands of people I've known through elementary school, junior high, high school, BYU, my mission, hockey, various wards, tax clients at Mont's office, tax clients at my office, grad school, etc. etc. etc....and drawing a complete blank. Meanwhile, he's doing some type of cool-guy-brutha-man secret handshake thingy. I don't think they're going to be letting me in that club anytime soon based on my performance.

My next move: "Remind me your name again?" And he tells me his name. Still nothing. Awkward silence follows. I can't take it anymore, so then I ask "Remind me how I know you?" Turns out it was in grad school! A few more pleasantries were exchanged, then I searched desperately for a large rock to hide under. It's going to be very inconvenient to never be able to go to the grocery store a block away from my house for the rest of my life.

I think I had one or two classes with him, including one in which Travis Landry and I were held after class by the instructor for disciplinary reasons (possibly the only time this has ever happened in any grad school). I can only assume that's why he remembered me.

When you're greeting someone you haven't seen in a long time who may be a little fuzzy on the details of your relationship, please begin by saying something like "Hey! (insert your name) from (insert where you interacted with the other person)! How have you been!"

January Update

2011-01-19T20:38:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a fun-filled week in Disney World with my family.

The first pic is in Downtown Disney. The night we got home, I shaved my beard, but not before experimenting with a few different looks.

Back to running this morning in the rain/hail/snow to make up for excessive eating in Disney World (and the previous 32 years of my life). My face was so cold! I ran once in Disney World. About 40 laps around the hotel pool. It got boring fast.

Today was also the first day of my office being officially open for tax season (call me at 801-295-6789 for an appointment!). Shannon and Walt were there for part of the day. He is going to be a big challenge there. I may have to replace Shannon so he can go back to his normal
routine at home.

I got home at 8 and everyone was ready for bed, still accustomed to the eastern time zone I suppose. Owen and I started this Disney/Star Wars puzzle and now I'm working on it by myself. It was more fun when Owen would place the pieces that I found for him.

December 2010 Post #2

2010-12-29T14:38:00.000-08:00

I know this is way ahead of schedule, but here's another blog post for all three of you.

Owen was struggling to get the right answers on his math assignment a few weeks ago, and rather than figure out the correct answers, he just signed off on it for me.

Here I am with Liz running along a trail in North Salt Lake. I've been doing two 2 miles a day, six days a week very faithfully. I don't eat as much anymore, either. I sure miss a 4,000 calorie meal.

The Sunday before Christmas, my mom had a "Christmas Open House" (for lack of a better name). Lots of good food and friends were there. If you're reading this, you were either there or invited. If you were invited but didn't come, you'll have to earn your way back onto "the list".

As part of a perk for a radio ad deal I did for my tax office, I was given some tickets to watch a Utah Grizzlies game from a luxury suite. We had it catered, and made a huge mess of the place with the "bottomless" popcorn basket. Vinny loved using the house phone to call for more popcorn.

Ordering Christmas cards from Costco's photo department is really easy and cheap. Unfortunately, that means that everyone else is ordering theirs through Costco, and this might happen. Next time I'm going to pick the ugliest one.

With all three of my brothers-in-law in town, we went to Brewvies for some food, diet coke, and a movie.

This was on our way to the Vegas Bowl, where the Utes got spanked by Boise State. One of the highlights of the trip for me was the drive through the Virgin River Gorge. It had been raining for days in the area, with flooding in St. George. There were dozens of waterfalls along the canyon walls, and the river was running very high and fast. The mist was low, concealing the sky throughout the whole canyon. I felt like I was driving through some exotic, foreign location used for filming Lord of the Rings.

You are looking at the steak/chicken combo nachos at Margaritaville. I'm pretty sure nachos don't get any better than this.

I think the Utes were up 3-0 during this picture. Their lead didn't last long.

After the game, we went to a place called The Burger Bar inside the Mandalay Bay casino. They had some pretty exotic burgers, one was $60! It had kobe beef, foie gras, truffles, and a bunch of other stuff I would never eat. We were there for ice cream though. Liz and I shared this banana split. The banana was cut down the middle, coated in some kind of candy and then fried to make the candy crunchy. So good.

After ice cream, Liz (who recently turned 21) wanted try her luck in the casino. We played my game of choice, roulette, and Liz won $80.

On the way home, the waterfalls were gone, but the river was still raging. You could smell the mud in the water everywhere.

Here I am bringing a second vehicle to Costco to help my mom bring home even more Christmas decorations. She has a disease.

Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's was very nice as always. All my siblings were there except for Kara. I'm not sure she's even had Christmas yet--waiting for Nick to have a day off.

Scott Wait, who only a few hours earlier had been Elder Wait, stopped by on his way home from the airport.

After dinner, we put together three Toy Story 3 puzzles...

...and the dogs made themselves comfortable at the dining table.

This was Santa's cookie plate. What is it about a child's poor handwriting that is so adorable?

My parents got the boys three DVDs of Tom & Jerry cartoons (40+ episodes) for Christmas. They had watched them all by December 26th.

To keep them from becoming totally sedentary over Christmas break, I took them with me to the Bountiful High track where they ran a few laps.

Yesterday, I took my boys and met up with two of my brothers-in-law and father-in-law at the gun range here in Bountiful. My brothers-in-law didn't even know their own dad was a gun owner!

The boys love their new .22 rifles.

The end.

48 Hours in Chicago

2010-12-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

It's been almost four months since my last blog post. Is anyone still here? Last Saturday my mom texted me while I was still in bed to see if I wanted to go with her to Chicago for a couple days. After Shannon enthusiastically approved, I told my mom I was in. The primary purpose of the trip was to smuggle a Christmas tree to Kara, as Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's Office of Holiday Decoration Permits was booked solid until St. Patrick's day. My mom pulled one of her boxed trees from her inventory of hundreds, and checked it at the luggage counter. It arrived unscathed in Chicago:

After dropping luggage off at Nick and Kara's, we picked up Nick and Henry and headed on what seemed like a three-hour drive to their chapel for the ward Christmas party. I'd go inactive if I had to drive that far to get to church. It seemed just like a ward Christmas party in Utah. Lots of ham and potatoes, and a few desserts.

In a sign of just how small our world is, Shannon's cousin Shaun and his wife Emily are in Nick and Kara's ward. He's at Loyola in his first year of medical school:

The ward dinner was fine, but as we were in Chicago, I ate VERY light at the chapel knowing full well we'd end up at Portillo's. There are several locations throughout the Chicagoland area ready to satisfy your craving for Italian beef and sausage.

This masterpiece is called the "combo" sandwich. Italian beef, italian sausage, and peppers with a "gravy" poured on the meat. Other options include dipping the whole sandwich, bread and all, into this mystical "gravy" sauce, or you can get a cup of "gravy" in which you may dip your sandwich.

A rare sighting of Nick and Kara together. Nick's eyes are mostly closed because he's secretly resting for his upcoming 30-hour shift at the hospital.

After Portillo's, we dropped Nick and Henry off and drove 45 minutes in rain/snow to get to the Harrah's casino in Joliet, IL to see Maggie Speaks, a Chicago band that does nothing but cover famous songs. They are very talented and a lot of fun--we've seen them a few times before.

After the show, we ventured into the casino and played roulette for about 20 minutes. Kara is the ultimate gambling grinch. We won $30 on our first roll and she wanted to walk away right then. After 20 minutes, we were down $5 and walked away. On our way out, we discovered what is hopefully a sign of things to come in casinos worldwide: complimentary self-service soft drinks! (yes, I know it was Pepsi products, but they had diet Dew so they get a pass)

My mom and Kara admiring the Christmas decorations in the casino while waiting for the valet to bring the car out:

Rather than go back to Kara's place (it was midnight already), we drove to downtown Chicago and enjoyed the Christmas decorations and lack of traffic.

Kara's garage is a bit of a tight squeeze for two cars, and getting out of the back seat in such a scenario can be tricky. She says she falls to the ground like this two to three times a week.

Sunday morning, we went to a little shadier suburb of Chicago where Al Capone lived just out of reach of the Chicago police. Breakfast was at "The Depot", which was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The food there was awesome.

After breakfast we went to Wal-Mart and I bought some snow bibs and handwarmers as I was going to be spending several hours outside in some extreme Chicago weather at the Bears game! Here I am heading inside Soldier Field:
Free oven mitts were handed out on the way in. Lots of people were taking two and using them as gloves.

I had an awesome seat (singular--I was there by myself). 9th row in the north endzone.

When I first got there, I thought I'd brush the snow off my seat, but couldn't as that is actually ice you see below. After warming it up for a few minutes with a precision tool, I was able to clean off my seat.

Here you can see a tractor with a large spinning brush clearing snow off the field. Between that and several guys with leafblowers working at every stoppage of the game, they were able to combine forces enough to not make any difference at all in the field conditions. But you could at least see where the field boundaries were.

Tom Bundchen-Brady and the Patriots took the field from the entrance right by my seat. Tom's hair was all bundled up inside of a wetsuit he wore to stay warm. Very disappointing to be so close to him and not see his flowing locks of golden brown hair.

The kickoff from my point of view (note that the ball gets blown off the tee prompting everyone to line up again):

The Bears were down 33-0 at halftime. The Patriots were playing like the cold and snow made no difference at all. I headed to get a pretzel and hot chocolate. Tried to pump some mustard for my pretzel, but it was frozen solid.

Game over, Bears got spanked at home. Snow seemed to stop right as the game ended.

Soldier Field is right by "Museum Row", where you can see the Field Museum (below), the aquarium, and the planetarium all very close together.

A nice view of the Chicago skyline. The Whatchoo Talkin' Bout "Willis Tower" (formerly the Sears Tower) can be seen with the red and green antennae towards the left.

Michigan Avenue. Not snowing anymore, but the sidewalks were not groomed at all. Exhausting to walk in.

Famous Chicago Theater sign

Two miles of walking later, I was at Daley Plaza (named for Mayor Richard Daley, Sr., because his name isn't in enough places in the city), home of Christkindlmarket from November 24-December 24. Lots of little shops selling German stuff, sold to you by real Germans.

Der Pretzelmaker

My hot cocoa "viss cream" and pretzel. Way better than the stadium version.

Unfortunately this eternal flame is fenced off. I wonder how many pigeons were kicked onto the fire before the fence went up.

Kara picked me up at the Christkindlmarket, and we headed for Mt. Sanai hospital where Nick was patching up a woman who had been shot in the leg with an AK-47. Chicago has the tightest gun control laws in the nation, yet some of the highest gun crime rates in the nation. Forget about getting a concealed carry permit here--you couldn't even own a handgun until a recent Supreme Court ruling stating Chicago had no right to outlaw them. You can have one now, but only after jumping through a myriad of hoops. There were even cases of people using handguns in self defense in their own homes being prosecuted for illegal handgun ownership (oh, and did I mention that President Obama was in support of their prosecution?)?

The hospital is in a rough part of town. Nick spends a lot of time treating "puncture" wounds, which are primarily bullet and knife wounds.

It was a total maze inside. Had Nick not guided us in and out, we would probably still be in there looking for the exit.

I think this was called the "intern call room". Nick can take a nap on that bed there during his 30-hour shifts if he gets a moment to spare. What you see is all there is--it was a very small room, but Nick has made various improvements to make it a little more livable.

This was some kind of break room with a few couches and a really old TV that Nick says is about to be replaced. The A/C unit in the wall next to the TV is frequently turned on in the wintertime because the room gets so hot. It was Kara's first time in the hospital as well as mine, and it was fun to see where Nick spends so much time.

Kara's car had a headlight out, so we made one last stop at Wal-Mart for a few bulbs and swapped it out in the parking lot.

Dinner #2. See Portillo's captions above.

My hand and footwarmers were still warm from the game earlier in the day. I was quite comfortable at the stadium thanks to these.

Monday morning I went for a run through Kara's village of North Riverside. It was -7 with the windchill. I've become a bit of a runner lately, and didn't want to miss a day.

Nick and Kara's house.

Monday before our flight home, we had lunch at Giordano's, a famous deep-dish pizza restaurant with multiple locations throughout Chicago.

It's a good thing I don't live in Chicago, because the food really is amazing and before long I'd look like this:

Had a great time with my mom, Nick, Kara and Henry. Can't wait to go back again. Thanks for reading!

Vinny's Pinewood Derby

2010-09-23T17:46:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Sam for their help in designing the car and Brad for melting
the weights to get us to 5 ounces!

Caravan to Pahrump

2010-09-09T14:53:00.000-07:00

Kasota Park in Burley, Idaho

2010-08-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

413 S 1250 W
HEYBURN, ID 83336
(208) 438-5500
(208) 219-9565 CELL

2^5

2010-07-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

Had a very fun and memorable birthday today. Started out at my cousin Amy's in Portland where we spent the night last night after a LONG day in the car. She has a great back yard and the boys had some good fun with their cousins. Then we loaded up in the cars and had breakfast at Camp 18. Their cinnamon rolls are amazing. From there we continued to the coast, where we checked into our hotel and immediately went to the adjacent beach, where Walt took a nap. It was overcast and chilly--pretty typical for Oregon. Once the kids started shivering, we headed to the hotel's indoor pool and spent another hour in there. Amy and her kids headed home, and we got on the rental bikes which we rode for 1.5 hours. Lots of fun and we all survived. Finally we had dinner at a low-key Cajun joint where Joe, Stephanie and I had really good jambalaya. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in an old fashioned ice cream joint where I had my birthday ice cream soda (complete with a candle in the whip cream). Owen was sleepwalking at that point so Shannon took him and Walt back to the room while Vinny and I hit the arcade for $5 worth of guitar hero and pinball. Back at the room, Shannon had a few birthday presents for me that she had hauled all the way from home to give to me. If you made it this far, leave a comment and I'll send you a post card!

Biking in Seaside

2010-07-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

Penman Express

2010-07-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

Cul de Sac of Fire IV

2010-07-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone have a 64oz sippy cup lid?

2010-06-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

Cheap A/C

2010-06-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

Parts needed:
20' copper tubing, 1/4" outside diameter
10' nylon tubing, 1/4" inside diameter
Zip-ties
2 buckets
2 hose clamps
A fan

Cold water syphons from the higher bucket through the copper coil,
transferring its coldness to the coil where the fan blows over it to
cool the room, and the heated water ends up in the lower bucket.

I was impressed how cold the copper got just from using tap water. A
bag of ice in with the water would really get things cooled down. This
wouldn't cool an entire house on a hot day, but could probably handle
a bedroom pretty well. Vinny and I had fun putting it together.

End of a long day in Chicago

2010-06-10T21:55:00.001-07:00

Dessert at Ghirardelli
Escaping the Joker in Gotham City
Chicago Theater
Exhausted Boys
Nick and Kara sitting at recently assembled table

Grant Park/Buckingham Fountain

2010-06-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

We're on a bench in front of the Buckingham Fountain with a gorgeous
skyline in the background. Check out the Blackhawks logo on the last
picture, far left. We love this town!

Mag Mile #2

2010-06-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

No piggyback rides for O this time.

Seismic Lego testing

2010-06-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

More Legoland Discovery Center

2010-06-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

Nice view of the Sears Tower, O showing his opinion of the president,
O on a ride you have to pedal to change your altitude, V making a Lego
creation.

Look what we found!

2010-06-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Shannon and Walt landed at 2AM last night, having been delayed in SLC
for their flight to Vegas, which meant she had to catch a different
flight to Chicago. We're at the Legoland Discovery Center in
Schaumberg, a suburb of Chicago.

"Maggie Speaks" at Saint Fabian's Fest

2010-06-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

A great cover band, Maggie Speaks, was playing a the St. Fabian's
festival, a big carnival put on by a local Catholic church, so here we
are. We're watching game 6 at the bar in the festival while listening
to the band. Lots of fun!

Farewell, trusty U-haul

2010-06-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

We didn't put a scratch on it. Nick was very pleased with his U-haul
experience. We were barely under the mileage limit, even with our trip
to Ikea and Sam's Club.

In Nick & Kara's TV room

2010-06-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on a couch watching N&K's new tv (I'm kicking the new
Karate Kid in the face in glorious HD). The U-haul is empty and I'll
be sleeping on a new bed from Ikea/Sam's Club, freshly assembled
today. Nick and Kara have a lot of unpacking to do. I'll do a few
wiring projects and hopefully take the boys somewhere fun. The
Brookfield Zoo is only a few miles from here so maybe we'll end up
there.

Millennium Park, Magnificent Mile

2010-06-07T22:37:00.001-07:00

The boys and I took the train from Kick's place to downtown.
Millennium Park was happenin'--lots of people, a concert, etc...we saw
bean and walked by the art museum lions (which had giant hockey
helmets on in support of the Blackhawks' quest for the Stanley Cup).
Then we headed up Michigan Ave for some sightseeing. Owen was walking
slower and slower after we'd been walking a while, so I lifted him up
on a bench and had him jump on my back for a piggy back ride. 5
seconds later, he barfed today's pizza lunch all down my neck, chest,
back, and arm. Nice. So after a moment of "what do I do?!!!" I pulled
his shirt off and used it to wipe him down, then wiped most of the
chunks off my arm, neck, and front of my shirt. We were right across
the street from a Columbia store which luckily was still open at
8:30pm. So there I am covered in barf, and O with no shirt on (it was
about 60 degrees, a little chilly for the shirtless look). We headed
into the store, shirtless and barfy, and asked which way to the kids'
section. I grabbed the first shirt I could find that would fit O, put
it on him and yanked the price tag off. Then I went to the mens
clearance rack and found a lovely t-shirt for myself as well. Grand
total: $32/priceless. The girls at the Columbia store were very
helpful to a daddy in distress. We'll never forget the experience of
shopping on the world-reknowned Magnificent Mile. Nick was our hero
and drove 30 minutes to pick us up so we didn't have to walk to the
train stop. I gave Owen a little sprite while we waited for Nick, and
he barfed that up in the car. It was a great relief to get to Nick and
Kara's new house and put the poor kid in a hot bath and throw his
clothes in the washer (which came with the house!). Tomorrow we'll buy
a bed at Ikea/Sam's Club for you to sleep on when you come visit.

Cloud Gate (The Bean)

2010-06-07T17:55:00.000-07:00

Took the train here from Nick & Kara's. So fun!

House video #3

2010-06-07T11:46:00.000-07:00