Yellowstone 3

After the flint hills, it was on to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. You can see how cooperative my family was being when I asked them to pose at the Wyoming state sign. Boys. Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em. At this point, we were all getting a little cranky and wanted to kill each other in the car, so we made a lot of pit stops. We saw some interesting Wyoming wildlife on the side of the road. HA! We finally made it to Devil's Tower. We stayed in a little KOA cabin which is on the first Yellowstone post. I have been there before, but Devil's Tower is always fascinating to see. Driving there, you come over a large mountain and there it stands, in the middle of nowhere, it really is awesome to see. The boys wanted to know how Devil's tower came to be. So, I began to tell them the story of how three Indian children were being chased by a giant bear. The children climbed onto a big tree stump in an attempt to get away. Of course, a gigantic bear can climb a small tree stump, so the tree stump rose out of the ground, higher and higher until the enormous bear could not reach them. My kids rolled their eyes toward Heaven, and asked me to tell them how it REALLY got there. Okay, Devil's Tower is an ancient volcanic core which, over hundreds of years, has been exposed by the erosion of the mountain surrounding it. Gee, that's just not as interesting as the Indian fable, but whatever.

That night, the KOA showed the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on a large T.V. outside. It was freezing, but fun. The boys had never seen the movie, and thought it was really hokey, but inside I know they loved it. What I loved about that night was the Milky Way. I haven't been able to see it for years since I live in town. The boys thought it was cloud cover, they couldn't believe that we were looking at our own galaxy. We were all awestruck. Well, I'm about halfway done with our Yellowstone adventure, and then I will start to update on some real time events. Here's a pic of the boys, they just LOVE posing for the camera!

Yellowstone 2

Luckily, nothing too paranormal happened to us while we stayed in the flint hills. The next day, we went to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments. If you have never been to either of these, you really should take the time to go. Pictures just don't capture the enormity of these monuments. There hasn't been much else accomplished on Crazy Horse since the last time I visited it almost ten years ago. I really thought that was a shame until I heard the story. Crazy Horse is being carved by one man and his family. A few years ago, that man died, so now it's down to two kids that are working on it. Those kids and a pickup truck are at the base of the statue right where the horse's head will be just beyond the first chunk of engraved rock. Can you see them? Apparently, beyond the visitor's center there will someday be a Native American museum and college at the base of the mountain. Crazy Horse is entirely funded on tourism and private donations, they refuse to take money from the government to build the monument. There is some controversy among the Lakota on whether or not they even want this monument. First of all, they say this guy looks like a Sioux. Others say they don't want the monument at all. I feel that no matter what your views are on this, what is being done is being done, and it would be a shame not to finish it. This is what it will look like when it is completed.

Yellowstone

This summer we spent our family vacation in yellowstone. Knowing how much I LOVE camping, my husband rented cabins at KOAs along the way. We also thought that it would be REALLY fun driving there. Nothing like family quality time with two grown teenagers in a Nissan Altima! Our first stop was at the Badlands in South Dakota. I wanted to stop at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, so we took an adventurous detour on a non-maintenance road. I thought it would be an interesting learning experience for the kids. Did I mention I have teenagers? Yeah. They were not impressed. Anyway, after that it was on to the Badlands. The boys tried to kill themselves by climbing everything in sandals. Here's some pics. If you are wondering what the sign says...it says, "Beware of Rattlesnakes". Isn't that great? Our cabin in South Dakota was really nice. It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a little living space. However, there was no air conditioner. That doesn't really matter in the flint hills, because it gets pretty chilly at night. Oh, the other nice part? Dead Indians in our backyard. Now, I told my kids they better knock off their nonsense while we were on the reservation, but of course, they don't listen. I was beginning to freak out a little.

In the Corn Business

This summer we purchased a roasted corn trailer. Because we purchased it pretty late in the corn season, we ended up going to smaller events, but we are hopeful that next year all we'll have to do is a couple of large ones, and make our money for the year. My husband named the corn trailer "Roasted to Perfection". His mother Sue, painted the name on the top and we were ready to make some extra money. You may ask yourself, "How and where does one purchase a corn trailer?" We searched the internet and e-bay to find an outfit in Texas that makes custom built corn trailers. However, they cost upwards of 20,000 dollars. That seemed like a lot of money to spend on a weekend hobby to me. Oddly enough, we found our corn trailer on an abandoned parking lot on 5th street, right here in Hutch. After that, I figured it must be fate. My husband wrote up the business proposal, and before I knew it, we had a corn trailer parked in our backyard! Here's a pic of my hubby at a car show in So. Hutch. The corn season has ended now, but next summer, everyone will be hard at work again. When you look at corn you see, well, ...corn. But my hubby sees green!

Hello!

Where do I start? I guess for those who do not know, I will briefly recap my year. In mid-March, my husband, my friend Christine, and I all went to New Orleans to do some hurricane Katrina relief. Before we had gotten there, FEMA had shut down a lot of the capacity of the "tent cities" so poor us, we had to stay at "Camp Sheraton" for the week. It was rough, but we survived. The rooms were generously provided by Sheraton for the relief workers, however, everyone had to have at least four or more to their room. Our fourth bunkie Jonathon graciously took the cot because he was such a gentlemen. Here is a picture of him. He also didn't seem to mind us badmouthing him, or piling all our luggage and souvenirs on him either...what a guy!

We got some down time from gutting houses, and took a tour of the lower ninth ward. Mind you, we went in March, some seven months after the hurricane, and it looked as though nothing had been touched. We talked to some residents who said it did look a lot better, but I cannot imagine having to live in these conditions day after day. A week was almost too much to handle. While in the lower ninth ward, we ran into none other than Ray Nagin! He stepped out of his car at the same moment Christine and I were walking by. He said a few words to us, but I really can't remember now what he said. Here is my pic of him. Umm... so I wouldn't make a good photojournalist...

More catching up coming...