Small Bathroom

It has been a while since I've had a bathroom-inspired post. It's about time. I wasn't going to write about this, but after being in the same room for the second week, it begs to be said.

Could the toilet be any closer to the wall? There is no room, and you have to hyperextend your elbow to reach the toilet paper. I can understand if it was just small and cramped, but there must be three and a half feet between the toilet and the bathtub.

Airport Obstacle Course

Today as I was passing through General Mitchell for the second-to-last time, I realized how much it seems like an obstacle course. From the parking garage, I go up the elevator to the third floor. Across the sky bridge, through the lobby. Bypass the couple with the books – “Free book on Jesus. He died to save you.” Down the escalator, past the baggage screening area, to the kiosk, back to the baggage screening area to drop off the bag, up the escalator. “Free book on Jesus. He died to save you.” Through security. Shoes off, sweater off, laptop out, zip computer bag. Walk through. Shoes on, sweater on, unzip laptop bag, laptop in.”

Past the shoe shine guy “Shine ‘em up, shine ‘em up. We do ladies shoes too!” [Can you polish patent leather?] Down the hall past the credit card hawker. “Midwest Mastercard – get a free round trip.”

Finally, arrive at the gate. Whew! Next week, repeat!

Goin' to Kansas City... Aren't We?

Last night on my plane home, the pilot came on and made his usual announcement. Sort of. "Hi folks - we're about 22 minutes from landing in the Milwaukee. The weather there is..." Of course, I had just departed Milwaukee so was definitely hoping we weren't landing back there.

The flight attendant announced when he was finished that we were in fact headed to KC, not Milwaukee. A few minutes later, the pilot came back on and said he had been informed that this plane was headed to Kansas City. "That's the way the plane's pointing, so that's where we'll go." That's a relief!

The Frosty Malt Threshold

A frosty malt, served with a wooden spoon, has always been my treat of choice at sporting events, especially baseball games. This is despite a strong campaign for fried cheese curds that my friend has spent this summer running. I firmly believe that ballpark food is overpriced. I know this, but I am willing to splurge for such things on an occasional basis.

However, Saturday night I learned that there is a price threshold for what I will and won't pay for a frosty malt. In my recollection, the last one I got cost around $4. Obviously a markup, but I price I could stomach. Now, however, the price at the K is $5.25, and I have learned that this is a price I'm not willing to pay. This 30% price increase may cost me my ballpark frosty malts.

Maybe I'll learn to live with it. I had a similar experience when I was in college. I always preferred to buy cans of pop from machines. They are cheaper, and I never wanted 20 oz of pop anyway. When my school signed a deal with Pepsi, along with that came the replacement of all the can machines with bottle machines. I boycotted for a long time, around a year or so, but eventually accepted they were there to stay.

I still miss pop machines that sell cans.

Day 9 - Home Again: The Summary

It was completely calm when we woke up this morning around 6. No sign of what went on last night. Luckily it was just wind and no rain, so everything was dry, and there was a beautiful sunrise. After our 14 hour drive on Saturday, we had a much shorter day ahead. We were on the road by 6:30 and quickly passed into Central time. We passed huge fields of sunflowers and tried to see the world's largest prairie dog but you can't see him behind the wall anymore.

We stopped for gas and I wasn't sure I could get back in the car anymore. We drove into my driveway about 1:45 p.m. As you all know, I like data, so here's a little summary of our trip:

• Miles driven: 3766
• Hours driving (according to my GPS): 55
• Times we bought gas: 13, for $374.57
  
• License plates found: 46, plus 8 Canadian provinces
• States traveled: 7
• Nights camped: 8, at a cost of $153.69
• National Parks visited: 3, for $50
  
• Moose seen: 5
  
• Bears seen: 0
  

Day 8 - Driving, Driving, Driving

We got off to an early start this morning. We had a long drive, and besides, it was cold so there was no need to linger. I'm not sure it was as cold last night as they said it would be. This morning we were out by 7:30, which was good because it took us about five hours to drive the first 200 miles. Luckily we did not run into Obama on the way out.

We did see a lot more buffaloes and two mooses. There was a ton of construction after we got to Grand Teton we spent a lot of time stopped and waiting, staring at the back of an RV. We ate lunch in an Alco parking lot in Lander, WY because all the tables were wet and we were cold. We had some mountain views as we were driving and saw some of the red rock in Wyoming, but a lot of nothing along a two lane highway. By this point we had listened to almost all of our CDs at least once and were trying to tune in radio stations, but we couldn't keep one for very long.

We finally got to the interstate and got on I-80 in Rawlins, WY at 3:00. We stopped at the Colorado sign and took a pictures because I wasn't for sure I had one. We are trying to get all the way to Goodland so opted to eat dinner at Quizno's rather than cooking our macaroni and beanie weenies. We stopped and ate a little north of Denver.

After we got on I-70 and it got dark, we could see a big lightning storm off to the northeast. We debated stopping in Limon or Burlington to stay behind the storm but decided to go on. The radar showed the storm was off to the north. We got into Goodland about 9:30 and set our tent up in the dark. Just as we were getting ready for bed, a huge wind storm came up and nearly blew the tent away. The rain fly was clear up in the air and flapping and the tent was nearly flat to the ground. We stood there staring at it trying to figure out what to do. We debated going to the holiday inn across the street, but decided there was nothing to be done except get in, so we did. The wind kept at it for about an hour I think, with huge gusts and then eventually must have died down. Of all the things I wish I had taken a picture of, it's the tent that night, flat to the ground. But it came away with no injuries (us too!).

Editor's Note: Apparently I took no pictures this day!

Day 7 - Yellowstone in One Day

Today we saw everything in Yellowstone we could see in one day, which turned out to be a lot. We woke up to a very cold but dry morning. I added socks and a hat to my winter sleeping gear and was reasonably warm. It is supposed to be colder tonight with a low of 37. Hopefully we will sleep better without a man snoring loudly in the next tent a few yards away.


We packed up and headed out first to Old Faithful and did a hike around there to see all the geysers near there. We saw Old Faithful erupt about 10:35 and then headed over to Yellowstone Lake. We stopped near West Thumb and looked at more geysers along the edge of the lake, then headed up the shore.


We had lunch at Gull Point where we had a very scenic picnic table. There was nobody there when we got there, but several people came before we left. There were some huge swarms of gnats, which ruined the atmosphere a bit. After lunch, we headed north toward Canyon Village. We had heard Hayden Valley was the place to go to see wildlife. We spotted two buffalo so walked over to see them, but they weren't very close.


Across the street was the mud volcano so we stopped there and hiked up the hill to Sour Lake. Most of the trees near there on the hillside died after and earthquake in the 1970s heated the ground to 2700 degrees. Once we got in to Hayden Valley, we saw several buffalo off by themselves, then rounded a turn and found the whole rest of the herd.


We went out to the Upper Falls lookout where we saw a rainbow, then down to the Lower Falls, which was really cool. We saw Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, then headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs and hiked around there a little. On the way there, we drove through a lot of the forests that have reseeded since the 1988 fire. Near the edge of Mammoth, there was a group of elk just hanging out so we took a few photos.


We drove the five miles to the park's north entrance, which was the original entrance, to see if there were any good souvenir shops but didn't find much. Lisa bought a stocking hat to keep warm in the tent tonight. We cam back in the park and drove to Canyon Village by way of Roosevelt Tower but didn't see any wildlife. All we hear about is bears and bear safety for five days now, but we have seen no bears. Our campsite in Canyon Village is nice and secluded, but it is cool here already. The low tomorrow night is supposed to be 29, so we'll be glad to move on.


Dinner was spaghetti again. We had a few sprinkles while we were doing the dishes but they stopped. We opted out of showers tonight and instead got organized and repacked the car. We just heard from the people next to us that Obama is coming to Yellowstone to visit Old Faithful tomorrow so we missed him by one day. Hopefully that doesn't cause any traffic delays for us getting out. We used the rest of our wood for a campfire and had s'mores again. Overall today we drove 168 miles in the park and saw just about every part. Not bad for one day.