the gookins dot net

what part of these mapquest directions make any sense?? If I want to go from Altoona, Ia to Lamoni, Ia without taking I-80, It won’t let me take the 65/69 bypass directly…I end up going in circles.

Turn RIGHT onto NE UNIVERSITY AVE/IA-163 W.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Take the SE 64TH AVE exit, EXIT 73.
Turn LEFT onto SE ARMY POST RD/SE 64TH AVE.
Merge onto US-65 N toward MASON CITY.
Take the E UNIVERSITY AVE/IA-163 exit, EXIT 79, toward PLEASANT HILL.
Turn LEFT onto IA-163 W/E UNIVERSITY AVE.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto US-65 S/US-69 S/HIGHWAY 69 via EXIT 70A toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto IA-5 S toward CARLISLE/MASON CITY.
IA-5 S becomes US-65 N.
Take the SE 64TH AVE exit, EXIT 73.
Turn LEFT onto SE ARMY POST RD/SE 64TH AVE.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto IA-5 N.
Take the 85TH AVE exit, EXIT 97, toward FLEUR DR.
Turn LEFT onto 85TH AVE/85TH ST.
Merge onto IA-5 S.
Merge onto US-69 N/HIGHWAY 69 via EXIT 70B toward DES MOINES.
Merge onto IA-5 N.
Merge onto I-35 S toward KANSAS CITY.

That is so screwed up.

I’m so proud of my little sister. Over the weekend, she bought this:

Charles will be along for company and protection. Certain people worry about a young single woman traveling alone but I don’t because of Charles:

He’s a good dog and very protective of my sis. I’m sure he’d do some serious damage to anyone he thought was a threat.

Sometime next fall she’ll be starting out on a little adventure before heading back to Iowa. What keeps us all coming back here?

We got home yesterday after a loooong night of driving. We came all the way from Pueblo when we decided that the hotel we went to was just too dirty to stay in. Don’t we have the worst hotel luck? We did stay in a good one in Salida, the Days Inn. It was clean, well kept, and the manager was very friendly and helpful. The beds were extra firm, but after the mushy saggy one at the Marriott it was just what my back needed - I woke up feeling much better.

So besides the sucky hotels, we had a great time, saw some awesome scenery, and took hundreds of pictures, which we will subject you to shortly.

Two laptops don’t do much good when you can’t find a good wireless connection. We checked out of our overpriced, shitty downtown Marriott (do they all suck that much? More on them later) and are on our way to see some stuff down by Colorado Springs.
Don is currently in Bubbles Liquor World while I “borrow” internet service. This may have been a mistake to let him go in there alone, but it would have looked bad if we left the kids in the car or took them in, don’t you think?

All this reading about our previous adventures had us longing for the road, so we’re taking off. Seriously.

Okay, we’ve known about this for a while. Don is speaking at a conference in Denver, so we’re tagging along and spending the week wandering around Colorado. I love his job.

Don’t worry, we’ll keep you up to date. We’re not taking one, but two laptops.

We actually made it back on Wednesday with 80% of us having caught a cold somewhere along the way. We had tentatively planned a stop in Chicago to meet up with the Relaxed Homeschool clan, but we postponed due to the aforementioned colds and just being somewhat exhausted in general.

As Christine mentioned before, we packed a whole bunch of stuff into the three days or so we were in the Northern Michigan area. We drove out to the end of the peninsula in Traverse Bay to see the Old Mission lighthouse. We stayed at the Sugar Beach Hotel in Traverse City which is right on the lakeshore so you just walk outside and you’re on the beach. We also spent an entire day at Sleeping Bear Dunes where we saw some cool sights, climbed the dunes, and spent more time at the beach. We even camped at one of the campgrounds in the National Park that night. The next day we visited the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan and waded in the cold water next to another old lighthouse. As we drove South toward the town of Holland, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand and bought some awesome apples, peaches, and cherries that had been picked just hours before. I also took the opportunity to pick up several varieties of Michigan-brewed beers while there. We took a ton of pictures, and have posted a bunch to our flickr account.

We basically spent Thursday and Friday bumming around the house, trying to recuperate. Yesterday and today we tried to do some of the stuff around the house that we’ve been meaning to do for awhile, but we ended up with like five projects started and none completely done. We have fun stuff planned for tomorrow and then it’s back to work for me and home edjamacashun for Chris and the kids.

We’ve done so much I haven’t had enough time to digest it all yet.

Don spoke at the conference on Sunday while the kids and I were stuck in the room with some maintenance and security guys trying to fix our door. It was done just in time for me to have a quick soak in the jacuzzi tub, pack up, and check out. We didn’t even make it anywhere for breakfast or back to the pool. We were glad they didn’t have a room available for us for Sunday night too.

We’ve been to the beach, the dunes, the beach, a brew pub, the beach and camped out. Despite things not going according to plans we’ve had a lot of fun. We’ve taken a couple GB of pictures which we’ll be wading through and will put on our flickr account when we finally get home.

We’re in Traverse City, Michigan tonight. I’m speaking at a conference tomorrow morning, and the organizers were kind enough to put us up in a swanky hotel and pay for my travel costs. Traverse City is in the pretty much northern part of Michigan, although certainly not as North as you can get while still in the state. To get here from Des Moines you basically go to Chicago, then around the lower part of Lake Michigan and then straight up to the top-ish part of Lake Michigan. (Although it’s not actually UP since that would require us to get off the ground somehow; but since North is usually “up” on your typical map, I’m saying you go up.) According to MapQuest it should be about a 10 hour drive. “No problem” we thought, “it’s a little shorter than going to Denver, and we’ve driven that plenty of times.” Huh. Well, 10 hours might be right if you don’t get stuck in complete standstill traffic on the interstate South of Chicago and then have to take a detour that takes an hour because there is so much traffic on that route, that it’s a near standstill too. Plus throw in stops for eating, bathroom needs, etc. and add on another hour or so for that. The kids were generally well behaved through it all, but Allison did ask “how much longer” maybe a couple too many times. I was crabby when we left this morning because I haven’t been sleeping well. I got crabbier when we were stuck in traffic. We finally got here and checked in after about 12 to 12-1/2 hours of travel time. The pool is open until 11:00, and the kids needed something active to do after that ride, so we decided to go down for a swim. When we were leaving the room, I double checked the door, and found that it doesn’t automatically lock behind you like it should. That made me, to put it mildly, very intensely crabby. As we weren’t about to carry our laptop, camera, gameboys, wallets, purses, etc. all down to the pool, we decided that Christine would take the kids down to swim while I called the desk and waited for someone to come fix it. So here I am. Sitting and waiting. At least they have free wireless so I can get my angst out a little bit. I’ll be done with my work by around noon tomorrow, and then we have a few days to go exploring before we head back, so hopefully things will go a little better from here on out.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. The audience I’ll be speaking to will be mostly politicians. State legislators from all around the Midwest. So yeah, I’ll be the smartest guy in the room

We made it back from Vegas yesterday, but we’re still recuperating. We’re not hungover (drinks are too expensive, and the casinos don’t really comp you drinks unless you’re in the high roller areas). But three days of staying up way too late, overeating, getting up way to early to catch our flight, and walking miles along the strip has taken its toll.

At first, I hated Vegas. It’s hot, it’s dirty, it’s crowded, and everything there is fake. All I could think was that it was like a combination of three of my least favorite places: Walmart, the Iowa State Fair, and Prairie Meadows (the casino that’s like a mile from our house). It’s like Disneyland in hell.

But I did end up having fun and I have a better appreciation for the place now. You just have to embrace the cheesiness of it all. From all the flashing lights, to the billboards advertising Carrot Top or the Producers starring Tony Danza, to the guys promising free stuff just for going to see the new condos they’re building. And I like the fact that you can walk down the street, going in and out of shops, while enjoying a beer the entire time. So, essentially my take on Vegas is that it’s a fun place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Here’s a few highlights in pictures. There are more in our flickr account too.

Our hotel (the Riviera):

This is at Canonita, the restaurant we went to after the wedding. It’s inside the Venetian Hotel. The ceiling is sort of dome-shaped and has very realistic clouds painted on it. You can take a gondola ride through the canal the runs both inside and outside of the hotel. Very cool. And Canonita has great food. If you go to Vegas, I highly recommend it.

The happy couple. Christine’s brother, Anthony and his bride Jeana:

The Bellagio Hotel:

Ceaser’s Palace:

The Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel and Casino:

The Luxor:

New York, New York Hotel and Casino:

Don playing a giant slot machine (C’mon big money!):

Christine and her sister, Sarah, on the Coke Bear at the Coca-Cola store:

Checking out of our room using the automated system. It makes it look like I shared a room with Christ. It’s a completely platonic relationship, I swear.

We leave for Vegas tomorrow morning so we’ll be incommunicado for the next few days. Unless of course you’re one of the lucky few who know our cell phone numbers. (Actually, I don’t even know my own cell phone number since I just got it yesterday.)

We’re not even taking a laptop with us, so I’m sure Christine will be having major internet withdrawal by tomorrow evening. She’ll probably be checking all the video poker machines to see if they have Firefox installed.

By the way, if you were wondering, we’re flying. From Christine’s previous post, it kind of sounded like she has a fear of flying. She’s flown before and doesn’t have a phobia about it. She just had one of those “gut feelings” about flying for this trip. We went back and forth on the issue, mainly because of the cost of flying vs. the time it takes for driving, but we ended up getting a good deal on a flight/hotel combo through Allegiant Air.

As Chris said, we went to see Carbon Leaf play at the Saturday in the Park music festival. We’ve become huge Carbon Leaf fans over the past 6 months or so, and the kids really like their music too, so we all loaded up and made the 3 hour drive to Sioux City (now I know why it’s also known as Sewer City). I wanted to take the RV and make it an overnight trip, but the gas alone would have cost a couple hundred bucks.

The show was really good. We got there to see most of the set by New Monsoon before CL played. It was the first concert the kids have been to, so they were all pretty excited. I think Jessica in particular thought it was cool. Carbon Leaf sounded great and played quite a few of our favorites (including Allison’s all-time favorite song, “The Boxer”). After their set, we bought 3 of their CDs and met the singer, Barry Privett. Jessica and Allison got their picture taken with him (Matt didn’t want to be in it). We also got some pretty good pictures during the show. Click on our Flickr dealie over there on the side to see them.

Since our concert plans for last night were cancelled we decided to road trip with the kids to see Carbon Leaf play at Saturday In the Park in Sioux City today.  If all goes well, we’ll post pics when we get back.

Last February 3rd we were on our way south. We had finally gotten the RV and us ready enough to leave (well, sort of) and headed out about 4pm. You can read about our first few days here.

Unfortunately, the gods conspired against us (the gods of money and bad luck being the primary conspirators, among others) and our adventures did not last as long as we hoped. So for now, we will cherish our happy memories of our trip and anticipate our next adventure, which involves a few acres, a trampoline, a few goats, some chickens, and maybe even a real live cow.

And yes, we will live in an RV again. Eventually.

We spent the past week camping at Thomas Mitchell park.

It had been a while since our poor RV had seen us. We had some cleaning to do and had to tote lots of stuff back over to it, and without a mini van, it was a pain in the butt!

But it was worth it. We hiked, tried to catch frogs in the pond, played on the playground, had campfires, and examined every kind of tree in the park. We read some history and Harry Potter.

I had taken all of the school books. Think we used them? Not a chance! We did tons of reading though, (I’m a bit hoarse), and Matt announced to us while drawing in the dirt that 4 minus 100 is -96, so we decided that we could count all of the subjects as being “done” for the week

Every time our screen saver kicks in, I find myself watching our travel pics and wishing we were still out there on the road. Don feels the same. Now that gas prices are on their way down, we have decided that it wouldn’t be too bad to take the RV out for a week in the Des Moines area (Don still has to teach at Mercy) and pretend we are somewhere else.

So I finally kicked myself in the butt and finished the dinette cushions - I had previously lost all motivation when we called off our fall travel plans. I must say, they are beeeuty-ful! We took them over to the RV and cleaned it up a little.

On the way home,we talked about how it would be cool to go up to Maquoketa State Park or Effigy Mounds and NE Iowa for a long weekend, as the trees will be changing and it will make for a nice mini road trip.

Sing with me now, “On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again…”
Yeah, okay, now we all have Willie Nelson stuck in our heads.