Friday Morning EARLY

First things first:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMELIA.  Today she is 26 six years old.  Have a wonderful day, girl.



Well, I am editing and rewriting my post from yesterday. I realized after thinking about it and dreaming how boring it was, I should.  It worked out perfect that I had some extra time.  You see, we crossed into Mountain Time on Wednesday.  That means that we are now an hour behind home time.  Most people reset clocks and watches.  NOT STEVE.  He uses his mathematical skills to figure time and not mess with resetting.  Simple subtraction.  This is all fine and dandy unless you are still half asleep when you look at your watch.  If you have not guessed, I am now awake...one hour earlier than planned.  Mr. "I don't need to reset my watch" got me up before the wake-up call.  He was so proud of himself until I started to move around and noticed it was 3:45 not 4:45.  Needless to say, I got a good chuckle out of it and he didn't think it was very funny.  He is now out walking around to wake up and get some fresh air and I am posting to you.  What a start to the day!!!!!!

I am going to tell you more about yesterday.  I really don't like my post.  Sooooooooo here it goes.  I will leave the pictures on the post below, but I will add some new information.  Yesterday offered me the unique opportunity to listen to all 285 songs on my Ipod.  First things first, I would like to send a prayer of thanksgiving for Jimmy Buffett, Michael Bolten, Kenny Loggins, and of course, Queen.  You see, our car has some unwritten and understood rules.  It is divided into different zones.  Now these happened quite by accident, but are set in stone nonetheless.

Zone 1:  This is the very two front seats.  If you are in this zone, you are either the driver or shotgun.  You must never sleep in Zone 1.  Your job is to control the car, of course, the music or lack of music, and the GPS.  This is  the preferred zone if you are a control freak.

Side note:  Steve just came in from his walk.  His first words back were, "I'm not sure what kind of day this is going to be."  First, he walked out the front doors of the hotel and got blasted by the sprinklers.  Second, he looked over at our car and started cussing the girls.  He thought they took it out last night and parked it in the handicapped spot.  He walked up to the car, hit the unlock button, and the car wouldn't open.  Surprise, it was a car that looked just like ours.  What are the odds?  He said he felt like the woman on that TV commercial.  So then he had to "track" down our car to make sure it was still here and locked.  FUNNY GUY STEVE!!!!!  This is going to be a great day!

Zone 2:  This is the zone of choice or so I thought until late yesterday afternoon.  In Zone 2 you may sleep, read, listen to your Ipod, or watch a movie.  Sounds wonderful, but it is a little crowded.

Zone 3:  The first class spot of the car.  It is really about 1 1/2 seats since it is the bench seat in the back of the car.  It is ideal for stretching out and relaxing. It is the sleep plaza of the car.  You are far enough back that you can't hear the chatter from up front, and basically everyone forgets you are there and you may drift away into your own world.  The only draw back is you can only see out the left side window since suitcases are stacked to the ceiling on the right side.  No big deal if you are sleeping.  I was fortunate enough to spend about 3 hours or so yesterday in Zone 3 otherwise known as heaven.

We saw some of the most beautiful country yesterday.  It was extremes....flat to mountains, dry to wet, grasslands to nothing but rock.  Some of the pictures are on the original blog from yesterday.  I love the mountains, but probably could only live in a few of the places we drove through yesterday.  You see, most of the places were teasers.  You could see the mountains, but you were just on the outskirts of them.  You know the rule of three...in the mountains and dessert, everything is three times the distance away from what you originally think.  (This is from Cody Lundeen on Dual Survival.  The most authoritative show on survival you can find on TV.  His word is gospel at our house.  Just ask Steve.  Well, don't unless you are ready for a long, and I mean long conversation about all sorts of survival situations.  Don't tell me I didn't warn you!)  It is amazing that within 500 miles you see so many different types of landscapes.  One thing I did notice is that most everything has kind of a trashy feel to it.  I mean, there are very few green lawn and if they are green, they have old cars, campers .... in them.  It seems every driveway or yard has some kind of camper in it.   It also amazed me the number of mobile homes in the towns/cities.  Strange.  I used the word trashy because it seemed that they were not organized and that the outside of the houses were simply storage buildings for everything.  I know this is not fair to assume all the places we saw were like this.  I know I could only see things from the highway, but that is my impression.  It wasn't touristy like I thought it would be.  In fact, it was very tourist unfriendly.  There were several, and I mean several exits that had nothing but roads.  If you were an unprepared traveler, you would be bumming.  Luckily, we were prepared with full tanks of gas, a bag of snacks and a cooler of drinks.  We even had TP for the emergency stops (we haven't needed this yet).

Those of you that have been worried about us all traveling together can relax.  We are 2/3 of the way through the first part of the journey and no major fights or blow ups.  Now, don't get me wrong, I realize that today is a new day and we are all getting tired,  but I have high hopes that we can make it at least 9 more hours as a "happy family".  Seriously, this is the most together time we have EVER spent with each other.  You see, this is really the first vacation that we all have all been on together.  In the past when we went to Colorado to camp, Amelia did not want to go with us so she stayed at home.  Now we have taken weekend camping trips and stuff, but there has always been buffer zones where people could escape if they needed.  In the car there are no buffer zones, and you are simply stuck with each other for hours and hours at a time.  Maybe  we have all matured or we know how important this trip is to our family because everyone is getting along.  As most of you know, this does not happen all the time with families.  We have 5 very strong personalities and usually one or two don't get their way or take offense to someone's opinion or actions.  Oh, at this point I need to say a prayer of thanksgiving for drugs, Ipods, CD players in cars, texting, and the different zones.  HA   Seriously, how did families travel before all this stuff?  It must have been crazy.  Oh, I forgot.  Those were the days when parents whipped the kids and used words like shut up or said things like, "Don't make me stop this car!!"  Oh the memories from the vacations or our youth.

We did see a large amount of animals yesterday, mostly antelope.  We counted over 200 and then got tired of keeping track.  We saw prairie dogs and buffalos too.  It is amazing that there is so much open land and very few cattle.  I guess since there is not much grass you probably need only one cow per acre.  There were lots of herds of sheep.  They would be great teaching tools for genetics.  You know only a few black sheep in the herds.  Always thinking about school.  Yea right, not.  I do wonder where these kids that live in the middle of nowhere go to school.  They must have a forever bus ride.

Well, I need to get the day started.  Wish us luck, and I will tell you about our day's adventure when we reach Seattle.  Can't wait.

Good time!