Keith Urban Here We Come!

Tomorrow we leave to go see Keith Urban. Twice! And yes, I did buy myself a hat for the occasion. Briony says that as far as hats go, it's not the worst. She may have even gone so far as to say it looked good on me. For someone who hates all things cowboy (except in their natural habitat) that is quite the compliment. Happy early birthday to me!

Geocache Success.

This little guy eluded me once before, but I got it tonight!

Margarita Tuesday.

Yes, I am having a margarita from a sippy cup. In a bubble bath, while watching Dexter. Calgon take me away! Or, Mr Bubble, in my case.

First Day Of School.

At the last apartment, Briony and Cale rode the same bus. Now that we've moved, they don't. So we picked up Cale this morning so they could go on early and Briony could show him around and where his classes are.

They were not terribly impressed that I wanted a photo :-)

Last Day Of Summer...

Today is the last day of summer for the kids. It is also Taid's birthday (Taid is Welsh for Grandfather). I picked Cale up at 9am, and brought him back to the apartment. We tried calling Wales, but didn't get an answer, so they called their Auntie Tanya in England. We went on a couple of errands got Cale's back to school supplies.

After lunch, the kids called Grandma and Taid and then we watched Hot Fuzz, then went to Dog Days at Washington Park, where we met up with a couple of my co-workers. They had opened the pool up to the dogs, and it was pretty fun to watch them frolic.

We got ice cream at Sonic on the way home, and watched Paul, and at some point we all fell asleep during it. Cale was very happy about having his own reclining chair and a half.

The Kindest Gesture.

(This post has been sitting in my draft box for a while due to technical difficulties)

My co-workers are amazing. They ordered me this beautiful necklace as a remembrance of Bearette. With a little pearl and amethyst and a leaf with the letter B on it. I cried, it was so sweet. I am so lucky to have found this amazing group of people.

Eclectic Books.

I have always been a collector of books. I love books. I want to own them and admire them. When I moved to England, I had a major overhaul and got rid of books. When I moved back, I gave some to the children, and donated others. For this move to Wyoming, I again shrank my collection to the ones I love the most, and that has left me with a most eclectic selection of reading material.

First, there are my Veterinary books, of which I will keep always, because they are a great reference.

Then I have my childhood favourites, the Little House on the Prairie series, which are the first books I remember reading myself. I wanted to share these stories with Caitlin when she started reading, but I could not bring myself to leave them for her, I loved them so much. Aside from Little House on the Prairie, my oldest book is The Prophet, given to me as a 16th Birthday present.

I have a small collection of Virginia and Appalachian stories, which I treasure, and some classics, that are among my favourites.

 

Then there are some animal stories, one book was written by a cat that I used to pet-sit for,  one Patty Sue Wilkinson. She was a delightful kitty, and I was glad to get to know her.

I have all four of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide To Galaxy Trilogy. A Maya Angelo book that was well loved by both cats and dogs, who chewed the edges. I always keep my home repair book with me, given to me as a housewarming present when I bought my first house, back in 2003.

Among my series books are Game Of Thrones, and some Diana Gabaldon books, part of the Outlander series. I would like to own them all at some point, as they are one of my favourites of all time.

I recommend Not Left Behind, which is a mostly picture book about the animal rescues after Hurricane Katrina. I cry every time I flip through it. Celtic Wisdom is a cool book that I like to peruse when I have nothing else to read at the moment.

I am still working my way through Mark Kermode's book, and there is another that I will get at some point, and of course, I love to go back through Clinton Kelly's book. He has a new one out and I can't wait to get it, he is so funny and truthful, and I love that my copy is autographed from when I met him in Virginia.

I got rid of most of my cookbooks, but my goal is to start cooking more this year, and I do have some good books to reference.

These last books helped me get through two years ago, but they have also motivated me to write my own book with my friend Jen, because we can definitely come up with some interesting stories that other people might benefit from our experience.

And last but not least, I have some books on Leicester and England, that I got before we moved.

Family Holiday.

Friday

The three of us set off today for a three day road trip. We headed North East first, towards Rapid City, South Dakota.

We saw some of the Oregon Trail, and stood in the wagon ruts that are still visible.

 

We went to the Flintstones Village, but the admission was too high for kids of our age group, so we had a picnic lunch there and moved on (it was only 2 minutes out of our way)

We saw the Crazy Horse Monument, and I got a geocache in the parking lot (yay, first SD geocache).

Then there was Mount Rushmore. This was a favourite for Briony. We took a guided tour, and went to the museum. There were a lot of stairs, and it was hot hot hot. So much for summer lasting a week out here, it was over 80 every day of vacation and has been for nearly a month now.

On the way to the hotel from there we stopped at Bear Country, a drive through wild animal sanctuary. The Arctic Wolves were amazing and beautiful creatures. We looped around their section three times, I just couldn't get enough of them. There were various other animals, and tons of bears. We even followed two that were fighting. I will get the video uploaded soon. They came within a few feet of the car, it was pretty wild to see.

After dinner we made it a pretty early night, as I'd been driving for about seven hours at that point and was exhausted.

Saturday

Today we went to the Air and Space Museum at the Air Force Base. There were a lot of cool decommissioned planes outside, and an interesting museum inside. Of special interest (to all of us) was an old flight simulator. We all took a turn, and I filmed Cale, which I will upload soon. It was awesome.

 

We went downtown to see life sized bronze statues of Briony's favourite presidents, and it turns out we were there just in time for their parade. We had great seats and Cale got lots of candy, which for him is the indication of a good parade.

We made a stop at Dinosaur Land, home of some life sized dinosaurs. More steps!

We stumbled on another museum, which lead us to the Geologic Center of the United States. This was pretty cool, although it was a long boring drive to the middle of nowhere. I had thought we already were there, turns out we weren't. The geologic center is determined by balancing a cardboard cutout of the US and wherever it balances, that is the center. It has moved three times now. First it was in Kansas, but when they added Alaska, it was moved to SD, and then when Hawaii was added, it moved a little further North to where we were in SD.

 

From there we entered back into Wyoming and on to Devils Tower. The view was amazing from miles away, and we took lots of photos at different distances and angles.

We spent the night at a cabin just feet from the entrance to Devils Tower, and the kids made smores from a fire with the Tower right next to us. We also went on a BUMPY hour long hay ride over through fields next to the Tower that the owner of the KOA also owned (20,000 acres) and got to see many different, beautiful views of the Tower as the sun set.

Sunday

We woke up early to a thunder and lightening storm behind the Tower. What a view to wake up to! From our front porch we could see it all, and it was glorious. We took our time getting ready to go, as the Tower and home were all that was on our schedule today.

We went to the visitor's center and headed on our hike around the tower. There were a couple of virtual geocaches that I wanted to get, so we took breaks often to re-access our location and information I needed to gather from the informational signs. We saw several climbers on the Tower, and it's hard to believe that they were going to make it by night fall (this was about 10am). There is an old wooden ladder that was visible from one side, that the first climbers used to get to the top. It is hard to imagine someone attempting this without modern safety equipment. It was just amazing to stop and sit and look at it, which might sound weird if you haven't been there, as it is just a large rock, but in actuality, it is so much more.

Climbers on the Tower - not zoomed

Climbers on the Tower - zoomed

After the storms passed we entered the park, and the first thing (and last thing on the way out) was a big field of prairie dog dens. They weren't very active on the way in, but on the way out there were hundreds you could see. I have a video of that too.
 

 

We made as direct a trip home as was possible (another five hours for me!) and got a quick dinner before dropping Cale off at home.