Sunrise at Yellowstone

As the sun begins to rise we are already out and about in Yellowstone National Park. It's a great time of day to see wild life and you feel like you have the whole place to yourself.

Yellowstone is huge. It covers more than 2 million acres and expands into 3 states. My husband and I have both agreed it is one of the most beatiful places we have ever been, and we've travelled many places over the years. It's just so pristine and even though millions of people visit, it is just maintained so well that it appears to be untouched by human hands.

There are grasslands, mountains, forests, lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, waterfalls and cascades, not to mention the geysers, steam holes, mud pots, natural springs, paint pots, and so much more! In our short time here we only scratched the surface of what there is to see and do. One of the best things about it, however, was the lack of t.v., cell service, and internet connection! That alone is worth the price of admission!
The animals you can see in Yellowstone are just as impressive as the land formations! We literally saw buffalo(a.k.a. bison) crossing the road, trotting along a river, and herds of them making their way across a valley.

One gentleman was so kind as to let us see through his monocular and showed us long horned sheep up on a mountain top, as well as both an adult bald eagle, and a juvenile bald eagle. We were also lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a black bear cub on the side of a hill! That was just the icing on the cake!

For those of you that don’t know, Elko, NV is home of White King, the world’s largest dead polar bear. If you’re ever in Elko you have got to stop at the Commercial Casino and get a picture with White King. He is an awesome specimen. While there enjoy a delicious breakfast in the coffee shop at the Commercial Casino too, it was very good. Doug and I each dropped a quarter(yes, you can still use coins in some of these machines) into a couple of slot machines. It was worth the fifty cents just to say we did it.

Today our plan is to drive nearly 500 miles from Nevada to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. We pass through Idaho where there are fields and fields of potatoes and sunflowers. Then we go back into the nowhere; barren land with double-wides dotting the landscape. Before entering into Wyoming we pass through a small corner of Montana. We're just seeing so many beautiful sites that it's hard to keep track of where we are when we see them. We actually passed over the Snake River at one point and stopped to take some pictures:

We are discovering that the landscape of this country is on a scale we are just not accustomed to; everything is just so much bigger and bolder than on the east coast. It's just so grand! Even upon entry into the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park we are greeted by our first animal encounter:

We think this is a young moose. It has a collar on it for tracking purposes. It was right by the side of a river right on the main road. This was very exciting for everyone!

More spectacular pictures from Yellowstone to come!

Hittin' the Road

As I write this today, we’ve been in a car, airport, plane, monorail, and again in a car. This car will be our home on wheels for the next 14 days. I have to say everything is going very smoothly. We didn’t have to wait in any lines, there were no delays and the weather is just perfect. Today we flew from Boston to San Francisco, so that we can now 518 miles to our first one-night-stand in Elko, NV. Ultimately we will be driving through several states along our trek to Yellowstone National Park(Wyoming), Little Big Horn Battlefield(Montana), Mt. Rushmore(South Dakota), Grand Canyon(South Rim), Las Vegas(Nevada), Disneyland(CA), and finally up the California coast back to San Francisco. We have the route planned out and reservations were made months ago. It is an aggressive plan to see as much as we can in the next two weeks. For all of us this will be our first time at almost all of these places. This family adventure is one none of us will ever forget, and our kids are just at the perfect age to remember it all!
The route we follow through Nevada will bring us through Reno, to Elko, ultimately exiting into Idaho. We call this drive, “into the nowhere.” Literally this route is dotted with little except small gambling towns, infrequent rest areas without “services” and vast areas of NOTHING. Just dry desert. When we landed in San Francisco the temperature was about 60 degrees as we drive into Nevada the temperature climbs into the 90’s.
Along the drive “into the nowhere” we needed to stop to use the “services.” The first road-side rest stop we came to was a necessity as we could wait no longer. A couple cups of coffee, and some juice on the plane, followed by lunch at a “quick” fast food joint, is the perfect recipe for pee’ing in your pants. In order to avoid that embarrassment in front of my kids, I had no choice. The rest stop was literally a brick s#!t house as my husband came to call it. It was the absolute worst, most disgusting “bathroom” I have EVER been in! EVER! As we were driving in and parking the car you could smell the stench coming out of this building. I was gagging, it was so gross. If anyone ever came to clean this place they’d have to bring a fire truck and blast the s#!t off the walls. I didn’t think I would ever get the stench of that place out of my nose and off my clothes! (No pictures were taken; you’re welcome.)
Of course, once you pee, you need more coffee to keep you awake and so we stopped to get gas and coffee. Now when you order two coffees through the drive thru of your local golden arches, and you ask for both with cream and one with sugar, you’re not expecting to get asked, “which one would you like the sugar in?”. And, thankfully, the drive thru attendant caught herself just as she was about to say it! And when you drive up to get the two coffees, you also don’t expect the associate handing you the coffee to attempt to determine which has sugar by opening the lids and taste-testing them! And thankfully, my husband grabbed them away just before she was about to! You just can’t make this stuff up! As this just followed the s#!t house of horrors, this too was scary and disgusting, yet full of hilarity for all of us. Again, better to laugh than get angry or cry; just another story to share.

Welcome to the Family

Weddings are an easy way to grow an extended family very quickly. One day, in a matter of minutes, you are hitched, and are now a member of a whole other family(like the one you had already wasn’t enough!). And so, like with a wedding, we are inviting you to become a member of a whole new family. We will meet and come together around the laughing table as stories, opportunities, adventures and day-to-day “stuff” come up.

Our first adventure of the next 15 days actually does start with a wedding. As we began to plan this trip that will ultimately take us over 4000 miles and through at least 9 states, we were excited to take into our plans the wedding of Ty & Heather. Once the date of the wedding was secure, then planning the trip could start. Would we venture to drive all the way across the United States from Massachusetts to California , seeing sights as we went, and then fly home? That was the original plan. Yet after some deliberation, we decided to fly to CA and then planned out a route that would take us from San Francisco to Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Disney Land, and up the California coast. Just as the bride and groom took several months to plan their wedding, so did we. And if our trip turns out to go as beautifully as their wedding, we’re in for a fantastic time. Sure it was hot; what wedding in July wouldn’t be? And there was a torrential downpour with lightening and thunder that threatened to flood the dance floor and drive everyone to scurry for their cars, yet in the scheme of things that didn’t last too long and there was plenty of dancing and fun to be had. And, in just a matter of hours, our family had grown! How many new friends will we make on this trip, and how many will reconnect after being disconnected for too long?

Our first day is a long and busy one. Getting up at 4:30am to depart and get to the airport for a 6 hour flight and then immediately grabbing our rental car for a 6-7 hour drive so we can make it halfway to Yellowstone by tonight. It’s an aggressive way to start a vacation; it’s going to be worth the effort. We can’t wait to see the majesty that awaits us.

What's the "laughing table"?

If you could ever imagine a place and the people I will attempt to describe, then you will know the "laughing table," and you will be as fortunate as I am.

First, I will attempt to describe our family. The family matriarch is our 80+ year old widowed mother of 5, grandmother to 8, and great grandmother to 1. Mom recently told us that the current size of her family(including pets) is all she can handle at her age, and there should be no more; sorry to the young newlyweds, that means no kids for you until grandma kicks the bucket! Mom is a character that has certainly gotten riper with age; like stinky cheese. She's from a generation that was blitzed in London during war with Germany, came to America on her own following WWII, married a Navy man, and had 5 children, including me at the age of 42. She is very independent and both married, divorced, and re-married the same man in her life (our beloved dad). Much of the laughing we do around the "laughing table" is due to the fodder Mom provides. We're not laughing at her antics so much as we are laughing because we prefer to find the humor in the fact that Mom is now sometimes forgetful, hard of hearing, stubborn as a bull, uses her age as an excuse to speak her mind, and "doesn't care what we're all doing, just as long as we tell her first."

The rest of our clan is composed of myself, my 3 sisters and one brother, all of our respective spouses, exes and "friends," and all the kids, their "friends" and our littlest kid-of-a-kid that wants to know if "you got a duck in your pants?" Our family is as dysfunctional as the next with marriage, divorce, addiction, mood and anxiety disorders, various family turmoil, and, of course a love that holds us together. You name it, we've probably gone through it at some point. Yet through it all, we have often come through scathed and still able to smile.

One of our favorite places to come together is at Mom's because it's our family summer home in a gem of a location that I will not reveal yet. A dozen of us will literally sit around a kitchen table meant for 4 and talk, joke, tease, laugh and listen for hours on end, and if we're not eating all that time, we're planning what we are going to eat (and drink) next. When the weather is warm or there's a fire pit ready to burn, we'll take our stories outside and circle around again.

It all sounds so mundane and normal. One day I had the gaul to chastise us all for being so lazy for "just sitting around laughing" that I was immediately put in my place and thus the "laughing table" was born. What could be better than to be in a place where we are all accepted for who we are, and we're expected to enjoy ourselves too? Even when our memories are not so fond, we often find cause to chuckle at the random absurdity of life's curve balls. To me this is what family is all about, and I hope you have as many fond memories of sitting around your dinner table as I do.

You got a duck in your pants?

Laughter is such a free commodity when you're young. Giggling, gufahing, the occasional snort, a full blown belly laugh, or laughing 'til you cry, seem so easy for a child, and why shouldn't it be? We could say that children don't know any better, they don't have the same worries or concerns or experiences that have jaded them. But I would disagree and say that children have the same base concerns for their own safety and welfare as adults, some even more so. And yet they still know how to laugh. I would say laughter for some children is even a safety mechanism; a way to gauge a situation and learn which responses are acceptable and which aren't.

And the simplest things that sound ludicrous or inappropriate to an adult are fair game for kids. So when you say to a 2 year old, "you got a duck in your pants?" and you start quacking, of course they're going to start laughing and you could say it over and over and still get a good chuckle. How refreshing! The genuine and sincere laughter of a child is pure joy. We should enjoy it as often as we can. Not only does it make for a happier child, it will make you happy too!

Why do some of us lose our sense of humor? Is being serious going to add years to your life? I think not! So think back to a funny story in your childhood, or what used to make your own children laugh, and share it here. I'm sure you have a great story.