Back in Montana

De Smet, South Dakota, is the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder. As every little girl knows, she is the author of the “Little House” series of books, which we all read when we were 8 or 9. At least, I read them all. I lived, vicariously, in those sod houses on the prairie for months when I was little.

We saw several signs along I-90 for "Dick’s 24 hour TOE Service" in Mitchell, SD. Rebecca and I had a pedicure on Saturday in Chicago. I checked to make sure the polish still looked good – nice to know that Dick was there in case I had a chip.

There are some serious problems with orange cone management in South Dakota. The cones are stored along the highway throughout the eastern half of the state, leaving the western half woefully under-coned. One poor work crew was attempting to fix a road sign with a mere 15 cones! Clearly, the Cone Manager for the State of South Dakota is having problems. Bob thought that perhaps the Department of Cones is undermanned. I’m guessing that they’ve just promoted someone from cone3 placer to cone manager, and the learning curve is still too steep. Could be that he needs to attend a couple of cone storage seminars.

Passed through Colony, Wyoming, which proudly proclaims that it is the “Bentonite Capital of the World.” (This may come as a surprise to the town of Bentonite, Michigan, which thinks that IT is the Bentonite Capital of the World, too.) The Bentonite Materials Company (a division of Halliburton) is hiring, in case anyone needs a job and wants to live in cowboy country.

US highway 212 through the northeast corner of Wyoming may be the loneliest highway in the country. It’s two lane, and almost devoid of traffic. It is also, apparently, the place where deer go to commit suicide. (Passing through Wisconsin we saw 4 fresh deer carcasses piled up together, as though they had followed Jim “Buck” Jones on to I-90.)

Tomorrow we're back in Washington. It'll be strange, having the same license plate as everyone else. I can't wait to get home to my new kitchen!

October 20

Yee haw! We're in South Dakota!

Back in the prairie……..

Chicago has maybe the prettiest skyline in the US. This view is from the street along “Museum Gallery,” where the aquarium and the Field Museum are located. The black building on the right is where Oprah lives, as nearly everyone in Chicago can tell you.

We spent a day at the Shedd Aquarium, checking out sharks, otters, moray eels and NEMO.

The Shedd Aquarium

NEMO (or Marlin)

The kids were on their best behavior, even without naps, so everyone had a good time.

Here are another two kids it’s hard to leave behind!





This morning we were on the road at 5:30 and into Wisconsin by dawn. We’re happy to be back on the open road – where the cars are fewer and the tolls are nonexistent. In continuation of our Stimulus Package Tour, we found that Minnesota may actually own more orange cones than any state we’ve visited so far. (They must have been in hiding on our way East.) It’s actually cone warehousing, since, again, there was little evidence of any actual WORK being done.

There are fewer trucks on the road here in the prairie. Those that are on the highway stay in the right lane, unlike the trucks in Illinois and Wisconsin, who drive in any old lane they choose, without regard to cars.

Chi-town

We're here, in Chicago, at Becky's. It was a long, cold drive from Maine....

On the road again (cue Willy Nelson)... we've noticed a big difference in drivers in the eastern states we visited. Pennsylvania drivers tend to be fairly considerate; Massachusetts and New York drivers are a lot more aggressive. When they pass, they cut right back in front of you, forcing you to step on your brakes (thus stopping the cruise control and making Bob curse). At first, we thought maybe it was just one or two people, but nooooooo, it appears to be ALL New York drivers.

We noticed a LOT more trucks on the highways the farther west we went. Almost no trucks in Maine and Massachusetts - maybe they're closer to the suppliers? Or maybe things are shipped via rail??? At any rate, a ton of trucks on the roads in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

We're getting lousy gas mileage on this leg of the trip. We did great on the way East, but now, westward, it's horrible. They add ethanol to their gasoline here, and we're wondering if that's the cause. We also bought new tires in Maine and had them filled with Nitrogen, so we're wondering if that's an issue.

In Indiana, the highway department is using their cones to great advantage, even though it's really no longer cone season. We're thinking that the old Beach Boys could've written a good song about it - "The Cones of Summer." And speaking of cones, we hereby hand out the Nelson's "Most Creative Use of Cones" to the state of Illinois at the Chicago Skyway, where the lovely orange cones direct traffic (in one lane) first to the left, then to the right, then back to the left, then back to center - all without any evidence of people actually working - just before you drive on to a very high bridge....way to go, Illinois!

Now, to complain a little about Illinois - they need to learn a lesson from their neighbor, Indiana. When they have a tollway, how about they give you a ticket when you enter the tollway, and then charge when you leave? Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York and INdiana all do this - works great. No slow downs. But Illinois? Nope. They stop all drivers every couple of miles so that they can charge you another $2.85.

A note from our night near Buffalo: If you are ever in that neck of the woods and are hungry for steak, go to Curly's in Lackawanna, NY. Fantastic steaks!

And now, we're in Chicago....It rained all the way here, and continued all day yesterday - Bob told me that it was just a quick walk to the Chicago Home Depot - he lied. (and it was raining, and windy)

Anyway, here we are, visiting more kids.....I've already posted wonderful pictures of these 2 beautiful grandbabies, so I'll cease and desist already.

We'll have an early birthday dinner with Becky (her birthday is November 1), and then we'll be back on the road again to Mitchell, SD, next Tuesday.

October 13, West Seneca, NY

Left Maine this morning at 5:45am in a downpour. We drove through Massachusetts and New York, ending up here in a suburb of beautiful downtown Buffalo. We thought we'd managed to evade rush hour because we bypassed Boston - Ha! The entire state of Massachusetts is a Boston suburb, evidently.

We told the kids goodbye last night before they went to bed. Laila is going to miss her Papa (and Papa is definitely going to miss his Laila). Before we left, we celebrated Philip's 4th birthday a couple of weeks early.

Portland, ME, has some wonderful parks - it's a really pretty town. The park we went to has a terrific playground, and since yesterday was a school holiday, it was packed with kids. Laila loved the big-kid slide! Philip just had all-round fun. It's hard to leave these kids!

Sunday, October 11

Fall has definitely arrived here in Maine. The trees around Ross' house are magnificent. I think the sugar maples are the trees that get the prettiest - and, of course, we don't have sugar maples at home. I suppose that's why we don't get the different colors....at any rate, it's cold enough at night now that the leaves are really bright red and orange. Just beautiful. I think we'll probably consider this the ideal time to visit Ross and his family from now on (not including baby watch next spring).

We'll take off on Tuesday morning early and head back to Chicago, stopping for the night in Buffalo, NY. I'm hoping that we can find the same wine that we bought there on the way out here. It was really good, and I'd sure like to take a few bottles home with me!

Bob is really ready to be home with Nellie....he's jealous of the time that Step is spending working on Saratoga Sue. He's also envious of the class that Step is taking at the college.

It may be difficult to leave the kids - it's been great getting to know them better - but we're both ready to be home again.

October 9

The Maine Turnpike was built in 1947. Bob thinks that maybe it's time for them to resurface it. Maine is not spending much of their stimulus package - there are potholes in Maine streets that could hide an SUV.

Yesterday, after Philip's soccer practice, we headed south to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.




Action shots of Philip on the soccer field........and his cheerleader, Laila.

Portsmouth is a pretty town, much like all the other New England towns we've been through. We missed the best part because we were afraid to get lost(having gotten lost once on the way IN to town), but we did find the old North Cemetery. That may not be interesting to many of you, but I think that old cemeteries are fascinating. We found resting places of people from the 1770's through 1901 (at least, that was the newest one I saw). VEry interesting.

New Hampshire seems to be a passionate state. They have lower sales tax, LOTS of political signs, and a state slogan that is on every license plate: "Live Free or Die!" (We find that a little hostile and threatening, frankly.)

We noticed that as we went south to New Hampshire (only an hour away) that the leaves aren't as colorful. Surprising that there's a difference this close.

October 5

All you Microsoft devotees, just cover your eyes......Streets and Trips is a worthless piece of software. There, I said it. It may not be COMPLETELY worthless, but as far as its abilities to get you where you need to go, fahgeddaboudit. I was about ready to toss the computer out the window today.

October 4

Today was the Maine Marathon (cue the "Rocky" theme).....Ross did well. He ran the 13.1 miles in 1 hour 54 minutes. That meets his time from the Chicago Rock n Roll Marathon, so he was satisfied. We managed to position ourselves so that we could see him finish. Philip and Zakia and I yelled "Go, Daddy, Go!" as he passed us toward the finish line. Unfortunately he was listening to Michael Jackson's "Criminal" at the time and didn't hear us.


Great run, Ross!!

Friday we visited a dairy farm and played on their cool toys.....Laila liked the baby goats and Philip liked feeding the ducks. Bob liked the mocha chip ice cream.

Cool toys!

You've gotta love these baby goats!

I learned something today. You can get your hair cut at Wal Mart for $14.95. That gets you a haircut, a shampoo, a whole lotta STUFF in your hair, and a Marge Simpson "do." On the bright side, my hair is no longer in my eyes, and I'm pretty sure most of the stuff will wash out. (Zakia wanted to put a picture of my "do" on this blog, but she'll have to take up blogging herself to do it.)

Bob loaded Streets and Trips on our little notebook computer, and it works as well as the GPS did, so we're all set for the trip back home.

Back in Portland, ME

We drove the 3 1/2 hours back to Maine yesterday, with stops in Hyannis, Mass. and the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory. I had pictured Hyannis as a really wealhy enclave (hey, I'm a child of the 60's, I remember all the tv pictures of the Kennedys), but it's a working town. What we saw was fairly blue-collar, even though it's on the Cape. We managed to get to what we think was the town's marina, where Bob walked along one dock, doing a little boat-looking. All he was, though, was fishing boats. We didn't see a single coastal cruiser anywhere. Too bad. Bob was looking forward to teasing Steppe that he'd found a cheap Krogen. There just aren't all that many boats, when you consider all that water!

The Cape Cod Potato Chip factory was a stop for snacks, pure and simple. They have a self-guided tour, followed by a shop where they give you two bags of chips each. I confess to my fellow WOWies that I ate the chips. Mea Culpa.

As we drove North we noticed that the leaves are really turning up here (not so much in Massachusetts). The orange leaves come first, then the red.....the news reported that this is the peak week in northern Maine, and that the Portland area will reach its peak later. All depends on the weather. It's gotten chilly, so I don't think it will be long........