Wind Farms, 400 Miles, Dinosaurs, plus--a museum docent gets clobbered in Good Fun

Today was a very rich day. So much for da Creature to take in. We began at 5:30 AM in Wichita, through ourselves into the car and headed out. The Garmin said 411 miles to Denver. That's so far for such a little guy's mind. So we started with our Rosary, prayed for friends and family, saw a coyote running through a wheat field, saw lots of deer in the wheat fields, and blasted Star Wars' Main Theme as we opened the windows and flew across the great plains. Along the way, we were astonished to encounter wind farms...miles and miles of them. If you've never seen them, they are really MASSIVE. Just huge things as far as the eye can see. Ironically, as we were coming into Denver we saw tractor trailers carrying what were clearly wind farm blades (one per truck, and hanging off the end, to give you an idea of scale) headed toward Kansas.

We listened to the Bach B Minor Mass through the Credo and then da Creature decided it was time for food, so I pulled into the dreaded sign of the golden arches and we found ourselves at a McDonald's with a parking lot the size of Walmart's with at least 100 cars.  Yikes! But they fed us and we were on the road again, listening to Ruby and playing the travel scavenger hunt card game (this time da Sister managed to win one!).

We made it to Denver with plenty of time to go to the Museum of Nature and Science.  While we were there, da Creature touched too many things and made a few new friends.  He also clobbered this lovely woman who agreed to make his video of the day.

Below you'll find our pics (captioned for you convenience) and his interview and the cheesy snake shot from the Museum.  A good time was had by all and he is fast asleep now.  We go tomorrow to Cheley Colorado Camps for a tour and we'll go hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park and head up Trail Ridge Road.  See 'ya tomorrow night, if I'm conscious and have wifi in the mountains.   

My Tactile Box

da Creature wanted to show and share.

Day TWO: Driving Driving Driving

Today was a long day of driving.  How do you keep an eight year old with SPD, and Asperger's syndrome from destroying your car and your patience on a 72 hour road trip?   Well....let's see....um...oh, yeah, you have LOTS of things to do/listen to/touch/talk about...etc.

Today's playlist from da Road: 

• Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe (which we are finding is a little randier than I had remembered from the original radio show broadcasts in the 80's (90's) but still, a radio show is a radio show and it's pretty interesting and severely punny.  
•  Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" each time we cross a state line
•  I Robot (Alan Parsons' Project)

We played the Travel Scavenger Hunt card game for a couple of hours, trying to find things like blue cars and bald men and feel bumps in the road and smell things out the windows...it's fun and he LOVES it.  I keep winning though.  I guess it pays to be the driver, huh?

We ate ucky fast food for lunch, and ate from the ice chest for dinner.

The pool and hot tub at the hotel ended our sensory work for the day and he is fast asleep as I write this.  Tomorrow is another VERY VERY long day on the road to Denver, and hopefully we'll make it in time to go to the museum.

good night friends of da Creature

The Pictures from Yesterday (And Other Important Stuff)

The Pictures I could not upload (with captions)--- if you'd like to pause the slideshow and look at pics, just use the pause button. If you want to replay it, click along the bottom of the picture to get your navigation tools back.


da Creature's Very First Interview:

Just for fun...da Creature does baseball voice

Watch "daCreature does baseball voice" on YouTube

da TRIP Day One: Arkansas Crystal Mining and Hot Springs National Park

Crystal Mining was fun.  This is the haul from our morning's work.  There are LOTS more pics, but our connection is quite sketchy and uploading the niftier versions of the pictures is impossible, so I will muddle through.  When we get home, we will clean our new treasures with oxalic acid and make them bright and shiny.  I'll update that picture when they're super clean.  He did pretty good, but mostly da Creature played in mud and smashed pieces of shale.  da Sister got distracted and began playing with clay, but she is a budding sculptor, after all, so what do you expect her to do with perfect bright red clay?


Then, we went down the mountain to HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK.  We visited the Fordyce Bathhouse and I can't WAIT to share
all of those pictures with you guys.   da Creature like drinking the hot  spring water, and da Sister was fascinated by what PT looked like before it became so sophisticated.  There were a lot of PT devices that looked downright torturish.  

 The Gymnasium was especially interesting to da Creature, because it was all hard and there weren't any safety mats or harnesses or anything "soft" and the weights along the wall looked like the things jugglers use. 

We went outside and walked down the promenade to Noble Spring to finish his JUNIOR RANGER booklet and then we went back in and did his interview of the day which won't upload because of the connectivity situation, but you will see tomorrow!

In the meantime....he did earn THIS:

And until tomorrow night, when I will have super great wifi and upload capacity, I give you.....

the end.  :)

OT on the road

Even on vacation....we still crank out OT.  Here are da sister and da Creature doing "Tick Tock".