Congratulations, Brett & Louise!!

Road Trip - Colorado to New York

Click to see our trip...

Road Trip - Colorado to NY

Mind you, we dined at the finest restaurants in South Dakota, including one establishment owned by Dances-with-Wolves himself. The waiter there came up with this little gem: "...topped with a Holiday sauce." When we ask what we could expect from a Holiday sauce, she responded, "Well, it's not sweet, it's a creamy-garlic sauce." And she clarified it a bit with, "They usually put it on eggs." Oh. Here's another one: "And for dessert, we have Tiramizoo, which is a really, really good French dessert made with whipped cream, like, cookies, chocolate and..." (dramatic pause mine) "coffee grinds." So we ordered ice cream and asked if they had hot fudge.

Why did I bother laboring through culinary school when I could have simply moved to South Dakota?

We were all almost killed by this snake that tried to attack us from the side of the highway. I'm not sure where its head went, though. But if it had one, it coulda killed us with it.

Waiting for Stallone to close the deal in the Badlands.

The tour lady at the Mammoth Site really loved talking into her trucker-style walkie-talkie. We were supposed to be listening to her on those phones. What she REALLY loved, though, was not pluralizing anything she said: "Twelve to fifteen mammoth found their way into the lake." "They weighed 20 ton each." "We also found fossil of two bear and a tiger." I understand the colloquial appeal, but dang. We made a game of counting how many time she did it. 10-4, good buddy...over and out.

The Harley Davidson store in Sturgis had us bring Stallone in. Poor, broken-willed puppy. He routinely wears clothes.

Annie's latest tattoos match the design on the elevator door in a Deadwood casino. It's like she put planning or something into it.

Wind Cave. And that is all I have to say about that.

South Dakota sculpture of some sort.

We ate at a Hardee's, first time for all. I had a Mushroom Swiss Thickburger(tm), a fact I will remember for the rest of my life.

We swiped about 5 pounds of apples from the hotel lobby to feed to the tick-covered, feral donkeys. We broke down and gave them all of our snacks, too. Crackers went in kinda like a floppy disk. A drooled-on floppy disk.

But they got a little pushy.

The pets were superexcitedandumumneedmyadderall happy to see the South Dakota wildlife. The prarie dogs proved to be too much for Kitty to handle. He went catatonic. Ten pounds of rigid, dialated, wild-eyed feline fluid production. He had six inch bubbling tendrils of sticky, globby tuna-scented drool swinging from his jowls.

Annie got to him just in time to catch the falling glob in her outstretched hand. This, in turn, proves to be too much for me to handle. Commence projectile barf-fest. So we meet again, Thickburger. Stallone watched me barf. Don't look at my butt.

And then Annie started in. And then me again.

We finally made it to Mount Rushmore, but for the entire 40 minute trip there, I bitterly complained that all I could smell was retch. I'll end the vomit story here: after washing up a bit, trying to remove the apparent smell from my face, I blew my nose and nearly passed out when I realized that in the tissue was not any nasally produced object. Yep...it was a sliced mushroom. Thickburger:2, me:0

Despite Chicago commuter traffic, we made it back in time for Sarah's [some kind of pre-wedding function] in NYC.

Sweetwater

We spent the Fourth up in Michigan with Ken's Family at Sweetwater.

Ken's cousins had saved a baby squirrel... I wanted nothing more than to get my grubby little hands on it. I thought that perhaps the squirrel kingdom and I could resolve our long-standing mutual hatred and enter into a new era of peace and understanding. They would stop digging up my garden and eating every single strawberry without exception...and I would stop shooting the hell out of them...

And then the baby squirrel bit me. Someone pass the lima beans, I'm making Brunswick Stew.

Roasting the the turkeys on the grill was a big experiment that damn-near got completely out of control. The fire was so hot that the plastic basters melted from normal use. You can email me for the Baster Basted Turkey recipe. We did have some little venison sandwiches.

The campfires at night were really quite incredible. I don't even want to ruin it by explaining it. They couldn't have been more idyllic unless Norman Rockwell himself came by to light the dang thing.

Once it was really too dark for pictures, we started messing around with the moon and the shutter speed. It's surprisingly difficult to write upside-down and backwards. Ken demands 'props' for figuring out that it could be done.



Some creepies...the frog just might make the Biscuit Calendar this year...





Now that I know the official Michigan definition of 'two-track' - it's the road, apparently, and that makes the phrase "Be sure to keep it on the two-track" an important thing to fully understand - the golf cart experience was much more enjoyable this time. For me that is, not really so much for the woman that got creamed onto the windshield when 3-year-old AJ decided to resolve his urgent need to go for a ride.

I was unaware of this rope swing by the pond. Which is fortunate because I'm pretty sure I would have ended up with a broken bone. Plus, the aforementioned golf cart lady said that the wait time at the local hospital was beyond enormous. Disaster averted.

There was an IMMEDIATE separation of the sexes as soon as Ken finished building a massive potato cannon. "And what," you ask, "were they shooting at?" Why the Port-A-Potty (TM), of course.

Have you ever seen a homemade fireworks show? No? Well, here ya go...




...and some random pictures...