Just a hangin' and just a chillin' - October 30th & 31st

So here we are on our two day 'vacation' from sightseeing in DC.  Much needed I might add.

Turning to the weather for a moment, the first two days we spent here were some of the most humid I've experienced in my life.  And I've been through summers in Houston!  It wasn't all that hot, in fact, it was even down right chilly those first couple days.  But my oh my was there moisture in the air.  Even our plants grew mold!!  Not to worry, they have dried out and recovered since.  And yes, we travel with two little plants.  The first was a going away gift from our friends in Boulder.  It's a practical gift aptly named by my friend, the magic plant.  We refer to it as such as well.  Its real name, though not the scientific one I guess, is Hen and chick.  Yes, Hen and chick is the name.  It's sort of like an Aloe plant but better in the sense that it will cure practically every ill your skin may experience.  From bug bites to burns to rashes, this plant's juice does the trick, in an instant!  Like I said, it's the magic plant.  Aloe, btw, we ingest more than we use on our skin, though it's good topically too of course.  The second plant was a gift from one of our new 'Teton friends' from Minnesota.  It's a garlic chive plant.  At the moment it's not faring so well....but we're still holding out hope.  It's delicious!

Back to DC though.

As you can see from the double pajama layers the weather turned really cold that night.  But, the next morning the kids were up and writing in their USDA notebooks again!



While S and O (who spent the night in his tent at the campground) had their morning drinks.  And there are the plants! Attempting to dry out in the sun a bit....



This one was busy working on his White House.  After five days of getting up early and hitting the road, or the pavement, everyone was really glad to have the morning, and the day, to just chill.



O spent quite a bit of time teaching Analyzer how to use Wikipedia for her airplane and rocket research.  She was expanding her aerospace studies to beyond what she found at the museum.

And there's a plant again!  I think it's a recurring theme.....That's the Hen and Chick btw.  Hard to tell, but it has the 'mother', or hen, in the middle with all the little 'babies', or chicks, shooting out around it.  They will start their own new 'colonies'.



Lots of time for giggles and fun and there's the other plant!  The chives obviously, during better days....



Sunday came and we had a family related mission.  We were going to meet the mother and stepdad of my soon to be sister in-law, M!  They happen to live about 45 minutes away from where we were so we set out in the afternoon to meet them for the first time and have a nice evening together.

K, M's Mom, is a lovely lovely woman with a wonderful sense of humor to boot.  In an email she offered up this description as to how to find them.  She said, in the driveway are two cars, one black one white, the house is white with black shutters and the couple inside, is black and white! Love her :-).



Unfortunately I don't have a decent picture of O, M's stepdad to share.  He was so gracious, shared K's sense of humor and had some very interesting stories to share with us about himself and his family history.

We took a short walk down the street to play with the dog



and kick the soccer ball around.



Inventor helped out with the dinner and we all enjoyed a serene, lovely and delicious time.



Tomorrow, it's back to town to explore more museums....no more of this rest stuff!

Rain, books and oatmeal, oh my!

As I alluded to in yesterday's post, thanks to the rain and wind we ended up staying put instead of making our way to Devils Tower.  No biggie, that simply meant we had a nice restful day.  We kept busy making oatmeal volcanos and calderas -



And having further discussions about Native Americans and the history of this country thanks to a cute little activity wheel we picked up at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody -





We also visited the library and spent several hours there reading, playing, surfing and even buying some books at the used book sale they happen to be having.  We do try and pick books up for us and the kids that way since we can't keep every book we read and don't want to dump a new expensive book either!  We've found library sales, book swaps in coffee shops and just book drop off locations, where you can take what you want whether or not you've got one to leave.  It kind of forces us all to expand our horizons and read things we might not have picked up otherwise.  Good for the soul.

As the next day rolled around, the sun came out and off we went.

But first, we needed to make one important stop.  Well, two, if you count the dumping station.  Again.

We came to Gillette so S could shave, remember?  Well, that never happened since we were low on water, but we did make sure we got our photo op in as you saw yesterday. Now he can shave at some point down the road knowing he's got his picture! :-)

On our way out we got one last reminder that this indeed is quite more than a sleepy little town, it's one of the most important locations on this continent energy wise!  The power plant was RIGHT across the street!  They basically collect the coal and transform it right then and there, no commuting necessary!



And on the subject of large heavy equipment, as that's what Gillette ended up being all about for us, I was urged by the boys to take and share this photo with you -



That's our RV on the right.  It's big.  Really.  But that big ol' yellow thing, well, it appears to be bigger.  And apparently it isn't even the biggest they've got!  I learned this from chatting with the big yellow thing's 'wide load' escort while taking the pictures.  It's basically a scoop, that's it.   A massively large and massively expensive one, but a scoop none the less.  We ended up heading the same direction and ended up being stuck behind it for a while, but eventually we parted ways......Thankfully.

I don't know about you, but I've about had my fill of heavy equipment....shhhh, don't tell the boys (including the big one) I said that.

Rain, wind and ice............. 8/4/10

Yesterday we took the trip into town, Steamboat that is. It’s a 40 minutes drive, no not exactly a hop skip and a jump. Seems taking ‘trips into town’ is another set of skills we’ll have to perfect. Though this was not a food shopping trip per say (Walmart was involved however), a cooler would have been a good idea for any items we might decide to pick up not to mention packing food for the afternoon or day. The real reasons behind our excursion were access to wireless and taking Analyzer skating at the olympic size rink they have in town. She had a chance to practice and later S and I had a chance to access the real world (briefly) and plan our next stop. The kids were remarkably well entertained during that time with legos, books and Shape by Shape, one of Whirlwind's favorites. Oh, and Starbucks banana bread was involved, that helped too :-).

Obviously Analyzer's skating will not get the attention she has given it this past year while we’re on the road. It seems this will be a source of frustration for her (and a small source of heartbreak for me) as her skills won’t progress as fast as she’s accustomed to. You can’t really expect the same level of development when you practice once every week or two (if she’s lucky) as opposed to 4, 5 and often 6 times a week! It makes me sad for her. Yes, I know, she’ll benefit and gain so much in other areas of her life thanks to this trip, but still, like I said, a little bit of heartbreak.

Apparently while we were out yesterday, a huge storm blew threw our campsite. We were very lucky. We had left our windows, and worse, our roof window vents (or whatever the heck they’re called) open.....The storm was so bad it lifted our beach umbrella (that was in use over the picnic table and tied to it!) straight up in the air landing it right behind our neighbor’s camper. Amazingly enough our camper was dry inside, just a little dusty coating on the table.

This morning we were again blessed with another storm, though this one did not involve such winds. It’s our first day cooped up inside thanks to the weather and I have to say, the kids and I are fairing quite well. They’ve been in their room most of the day playing and I’ve made some miso soup, since it’s gotten chilly as well. S is back in town trying to figure out our wireless situation. Hopefully when he comes back we’ll have wireless up and running here, or wherever we may be.



Tomorrow we’ll head out as soon as we can get organized and start our way towards Dinosaur National Monument (DNM). Not a long drive, but we’re still not sure where we’re staying. Unfortunately due to the length of our RV, we can’t stay in the park itself.