Gadget geeks gone wrong…

You all know I’m a total gadget geek.  I love all kinds of gadgets…phones, computers, game consoles, you name it…we’ve got it.  Xbox, 360, Wii, PSP, DS, DS light, iPhone, iPad, in-car-MP3… All of it.

I love all that stuff.

But today on the way home from church, I saw the dark side of our collection of goodies.

On the way home from church this afternoon I was driving through the canyon with a car full of gadget geeks…

• Michelle trying to get the maximum score on Words With Friends on the iPhone
• Marcus squishing the pigs with Angry Birds on the iPad.
• Madison playing with her newest PSP game

All of us, driving in silence all the way home while each was immersed in their own little world.

It sort of reminded me of a trip a few years ago when a group of my buddies and I drove to Vegas in my van.  As we were in the car several of us were on our phones/email/facebook chatting back and forth WITH EACH OTHER in the same car. 

What a strangle little socially connected, and simultaneously isolating world we are creating.

Yes, I’m ignoring you!

 

Tonight as Michelle and I were downstairs reading the newspaper and relaxing, we called up to the kids…

Time to get ready for bed!

Of course, our perfect children all responded “OK” and we went back to reading and relaxing.  About 10 minutes later, we realized that we hadn’t seen any of them actually heading down to get ready for bed.

So, we repeated…

Time to get ready for bed.

And again, they replied with the familiar consent. 

But a few minutes later, there was still no movement towards the bedrooms.  So Michelle called up and asked…

Are you guys ignoring us? 

To which, our first born said, unsurprisingly, “No.  Sorry, Mom… I’m just finishing this level. (on the xbox, of course).

Our third-born, unsurprisingly said,

Yes.

But he said it in such a sweet, and kind way that we laughed rather than actually disciplining him or explaining that it was not OK to ignore instructions from Mom & Dad.

Ahhh… the life of the youngest…

Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde and Home!

We had a wonderful time Wednesday with our dear friends the Vaughans.  It’s hard to believe how big the boys are getting and they all are doing well.  Here’s a group shot.

 

Then we drove down to Pueblo for the night and hit the Great Sand Dunes NP the next morning.  It’s really neat, and it was my first time to see this phenomena.  It’s really odd…the largest (tallest) sand dunes in North America, right out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.  So weird…

 

We wanted to hike to the highest dune (nearly 800 feet up), but the sand was about 140 degrees!  So, we decided to just hike up to the first summit and slide down. (BTW – If you’ve seen “Lawrence of Arabia”, they filmed some of it here.)

After playing in the sand for a few hours, we took off to Mesa Verde NP, where we had reservations for a deluxe room.  Unfortunately, when we checked in we discovered they had not cleaned our room and housekeeping had already left. So we were stuck in the two oldest rooms they had…no windows, no AC, and no view.  Iccckkk!  It was so hot and nasty none of us slept at all.

But the next morning we woke and explored the Mesa Verde Ruins.  This was awesome.  These are cliff dwellings that were used by native peoples from about 550 AD to nearly 1300 AD.  For some unknown reason, the inhabitants left around AD1300 and the dwellings are still intact.  Truly fascinating.

 

We left Mesa Verde about noon.  We were thinking of going to Vegas for a couple of nights on our way back to LA.  But after the miserable night of no sleep and insufferable heat, we decided we were ready to head back to our condo by the sea.  So we drove straight for 14 hours with two gas stops, and two bathroom stops. 

When we reached the CA border at 9:30 it was still 110 degrees!  When we reached Barstow at around 11 it was still over 100.  Of course, when we pulled into Malibu at about 1am, it was a balmy 65. I love our home. :-)

It was another great summer vacation for our family.  We’re already looking forward to next year where we plan to do the Pacific Coast…Redwoods, Crater Lake, Olympia, and Glacier National Parks.

Wind Cave and Rushmore

We spent our last day in South Dakota today and will have our final night at the Alex Johnson Hotel in Rapid City, SD. 

We first went to the Wind Cave National Park, which was very interesting. 

The cave is the 4th longest in the world (and possibly the longest since they believe it is connected to the second longest cave in the world, the nearby Jewel cave).

It’s hard to get a good photo in a cave, but here are two.  First, notice the intricate “boxwork” structure of the rocks in Wind Cave.  It’s estimated that 90% of the world’s “boxwork” is located here. Second, notice the relatively cramped space here.  It’s not a giant cavern like Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.  It’s pretty narrow and small throughout.  They offer a 4-hour tour with strenuous climbing and undeveloped routes.  That would cool.

 

After this, we headed over to Mt. Rushmore, where we planned to stay about an hour, and wound up there about four.  We enjoyed the Visitor’s Center, the movies about building the monument, a hike around the “President’s Trail”, and then stayed for the lighting ceremony.  It was great!

 

Next stop…Parker, CO to have dinner with the Vaughans and spend the night in Denver.  Then two more stops before we get home… Great Sand Dunes NP, and Mesa Verde NP, both in CO.

The Badlands

What a wonderful day to tour the badlands in South Dakota.  A few years ago we planned to visit here, but it was about 106 degrees so we changed plans and went due East to Rocky Mountain National Park (here’s my blog post from 2007). So, we were worried a few days ago when a fellow traveler in Yellowstone told us that their family had a miserable time at Badlands due to the heat. 

However, today was perfect.  It was occasionally cloudy, a light breeze and a high near 90.  In other words, perfect.

We left Rapid City for Wall, SD around 11am, and spent an hour or so at Wall Drug Store.  What a fun place.

I have way too many photos to post them all, so here are a few funny moments.

We all tried to read this sign, but only Marcus got it.  I guess it helps to be a 1st grade reader sometimes (the last letter is a backwards “S”).

The kids were officially introduced to the “Jackelope” on this trip.

For once, I was the Chief (no offense, Dad).

We always think of Matt as “Malibu Matthew” but clearly, he’d be a good cowboy too…

Then we headed out to the Badlands National Park.  I find that this park is one few people are familiar with, but its one of my favorites. Even as a kid when I first made this trip to the great western national parks, the Badlands was one of my favorites.

The stark contrast between the open, green prairies and the bone dry, colorful, desert hills of the Badlands is one of the starkest in North America.

As you can see, the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands seems to go on forever.  It’s easy here to imagine the Lakota and European settlers fighting over this open, fertile land.

Again, the light was better on the “leaving” side of the sign, so on our way into the park, we posed for this photo.

The kids and I loved climbing around on the hills of the Badlands.  Michelle could only watch so much of it, then she had to turn away out of nervous concern over everyone’s safety.  Fortunately, she got some good photos first.

  

We are all trying to create something artistic this year to express our own experience with the sights, sounds, and smells of the west. It can be poetry, haikus, drawings…whatever.  We’ve all enjoyed working on it.

Here Madi & Marcus work on some sketches of the Badlands from one of the overlooks.

We ended at the Visitor’s Center where the kids found some great books on American Indian history and the National Parks.  We stayed reading for a few hours then relaxed at the Sioux teepees nearby.

One major change at the park since my first visit in app. 1980… now there is a Minuteman Missile silo on display near the park.  Of course, in 1980 these were still protected and confidential.  Unfortunately, we arrived a bit too late to view the silo.  But maybe we’ll go back.

When we got back home, we left the kids in the room with a pizza, and Michelle and I walked across the street for a dinner date.  The Firehouse Brewery in downtown Rapid City had a live band playing swing, blues, and some rock while we enjoyed local cuisine.  It was a great night to end a wonderful day.

Driving to Devil’s Tower

Today we spent most of the day driving across Wyoming.  We finally reached Devil’s Tower.  We spent an hour or so exploring the odd formation (but didn’t see any signs of alien life!).

 

Then we headed out to Downtown Rapid City, where we found the cutest little boutique hotel called the “Alex Johnson Hotel'”.  It’s in the heart of downtown and was built in 1927.  It’s adorable and our “deluxe double” room has two rooms each with double beds.  It’s really adorable.  We’ll use this as a home base for the next two nights while we explore the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, and Wind Caves National Park.

Leaving Yellowstone into the Wild West

The hope this morning was to leave our cabin early to see wildlife in the Lamar Valley.  However, after a long day and late night last night, I simply didn’t want to wake everyone up early.  So we didn’t get up and get going until around 9am.

We then explored the Canyon Visitor’s Center and learned all about the volcano activity around Yellowstone. Then we spent a bit of time in the gift shop looking for just the right souvenir.  We wished we had room for this moose in the car.

Next we headed to a picnic spot where we cooked up some hot dogs on the grill.

Then on to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  So beautiful!

I had hoped to take a hike along the rim, but we decided not to because of the threat of rain.  It didn’t rain on us for a while, but when it started raining, oh boy!  It rained hard for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, we were getting gas at the Eastern exit of the park, so we just hung out at the gift shop.

We didn’t really have a plan for the night since we didn’t have Internet or Cell service in Yellowstone.  So we actually had to (UGHH!) look at a paper map to get out of the park.  We made it to Cody, WY for dinner.  There we found it was Rodeo Night (in fact they have a rodeo every night in the summer).  We simply couldn’t resist.  So we ponied up for the Cody Night Rodeo.  What a kick!

We saw bareback riding, barrel riding, calf roping, and of course bull-riding.  It was a lot of fun for the whole family.  The best part, was the clown.  Despite several offensive, misogynist jokes, he put on a good show.

When it ended at 10pm, we still didn’t have any plans for lodging.  I couldn’t get AT&T service out here (apparently they don’t really do Wyoming), so we flying blind.  We pulled into a local hotel and they only had a “vacation house” left.  We took it and found it was a “double-wide” about 7 miles outside of town.  A bit scary to pull up to this strange home in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.  But the kids liked it and it was a cozy night’s sleep. Plus, it has laundry facilities, so we got caught up on the dirty laundry.

Hopefully we’ll get AT&T reception somewhere today.  It’s been weird being completely “unplugged”.  It’s not so much the email/news that we miss.  But it’s the travel planning tools that we’ve come to rely on like Google Maps, Kayak, & Priceline.  How did they take vacations in the old days?