Back home. Ahh, our own bed. Ahh, two-ply toilet tissue. Ahh, real glasses to drink from.
Ahhhhh, a broken sewer pump. These issues are following and plaguing us even at home. Unbelievable. Must limit our water use.
Faced with a mountain of laundry and kids that need clothes for a week of camp, we drag everything to the laundromat. I decide to wash everything in our house since we are going: blankets, sleeping bags, everything. Just want we want to do on Friday night.
Laundromat by the numbers:
Number of washing machines occupied by the Shaw family: 11 super-sized
Number of quarters used: nearly 200
Number of hours spent at laundromat: 2
Number of times we say no to candy purchasing: 50
Number of victims who claim they are child laborers: 3
Mountain of clean laundry and no water down the sewer: priceless
On Saturday, we discover our hot water heater has decided to take a vacation. So now we have no hot water to run down the sewer anyway.
I am actually missing the RV.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
A New Reality?
I have a great idea for a new reality show, based on Iron Chef. Only you are in an RV and you must work with the equipment you have: two thin pots, both small. One plastic bowl. Five forks, knifes, spoons, melamine bowls, and four plates (one is broken), 5 yard-sale mugs and five plastic tumblers. Add to this one large plastic spoon, one spatula, two cutting boards and three knifes, all of which more closely resemble cave man tools that items designed to cut anything. Salt, pepper, garlic salt. Sporadic and unpredictable trips to a supermarket when you are starving hungry and have no idea when you will be going to a supermarket next. You must take starving husband and at least three children with you into the market and sometimes as a penalty you must take an entire additional family with you. You may or may not have at your disposal a BBQ facility, a grate, wood, or charcoal. You have no BBQ tools other than sticks for s’mores. You do have a microwave but you may only use it if you have a full power hook-up. You have approximately three cubic feet of refrigerator space to store food and that food will take a beating being bounced around for hours each day. You will use all these items, plus anything you find available in the camp store and one bonus item borrowed from another fellow camper, to prepare and serve a group of nine people up to three meals a day.
I tried this game for several days, and much to my surprise it was a lot of fun!
This is what you have to choose from in the camp store
I tried this game for several days, and much to my surprise it was a lot of fun!
This is what you have to choose from in the camp store
All good things come to an end…RV do’s and do not’s
Here we are at the end of this wonderful and long adventure. Amber and I feel as though we have been gone for months. We have been so removed from our daily lives and so not focused on the every day minutia that we can’t believe that it has only been 2 weeks!!
As we type this Ken is being his manly bear self and wrestling his boys in a space smaller than my toilet at home. The Zohan is watching Brokeback Mountain - that should be interesting. Amber’s boys are having farting competitions and Amber is begging to be let out of her Man Cave. SO, perhaps it is time to go home.
We have to say that the learning curve on the RV rental thingy is steep and we are no longer Virgins. But it was not gentle!! Especially for a first time. So here are some tips for those of you brave enough to follow in our footsteps. Oh by the way we are already plotting the next trip. I’ve already stated up front: the Class A RV all the way for Princess Five Star. I have serious RV envy.
Tip 1: You need to be a minimalist to be an RVer. There is just simply not enough space to store any thing but the bare essentials. Certainly no space for art, tchochkes, or any miscellaneous kind of decorating. There is however space for magnetic poetry (if you were smart enough to bring it).
Tip 2. You need to really, really love your family and travel friends. If not I couldn’t imagine how you would survive this kind of trip at all. You can not be shy. It will get personal. Very personal.
Tip 3. You need to let it all go. If it is important to you that your kids and yourself are clean and well maintained at all times Rv’ing is NOT for you. Same applies to all the OCD clean freak types out there. Let it go or don’t go. This was a HUGE lesson for me.
Tip 4. You will gain weight. Seriously. All you do all day is sit in your RV while going from place to place planning the next meal, scouting out supermarkets and making contingency plan upon contingency plan in case there is no supermarket. You would think Amber was Jewish.
Tip 5. Not all campsites are created equally. So check and double check. Ask around. There must be websites out there like trip advisor for RV sites. Currently we are in a beautiful lakeside location after opting out of the working Bison Ranch. However, we are being massacred by giant mosquitoes from the artificial lake! Whose bright idea was this?
Tip 6. Your kids will love every campsite you go to no matter what. As long as there is a mini-golf course they are set. Children are just AMAZING! Nothing fazes them. Not dirt, not eating cereal 3 times a day, not mosquitoes, not being beaten up by their dad, not the farting in each other faces, nothing, nothing.
Tip 7. If you are rigid, uptight and inflexible or if anyone in your party is then perhaps RVing is not for you. Life is not static. Go with the flow. Even this uptight person knows that. Make a plan and be prepared to change it.
Tip 8. If you have just spent too much time with any one in your family then get out of your RV and go and sit in the other one. It really works. We have had more combinations than Bennett’s Rubik’s cube.
Tip 9. When all else fails go into the bathroom and call a friend or your sister. Vomit out your RV frustrations and move on. They will still love you.
Tip 10. Make sure your RV has air conditioning, a working can opener, at least one pot, working equipment, no leaky showers, and a good wooden stick that can unclog the loo is absolutely essential.
Tip 11. If you don’t like nature go on a different holiday. Perhaps a cruise is more appropriate for you. If you don’t like America or Americans don’t go to Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, or South Dakota. They live there. The real Americans (Yes, Sarah Palin one thing we can agree with you on).
Tip 12. Try not to schedule your trip when you have your menstrual cycle. Trust me, it’s just not that convenient- miniscule bathroom, moving vehicle, you get the picture.
Tip 13. If you are an Internet junkie, or have, have to be in cell phone range at all times, the mountains and the Plains are not your friend. You will go mad. Ken and Amber can verify this. The trip to the ER was a great source of Internet happiness for both of them.
Tip 14. Bring more reading material; less clothes than you think you need, and half the amount of toiletries. Bathing is just not all that important after a while and every one around you smells the same. Sweaty, campfire smoke, bug spray, car exhaust fumes. It’s just beautiful.
Tip 15. You might not sleep well for the first 2 nights, but after that sheer exhaustion will set in, the motion of the car will send you back to a womb like state and you will snore, your partner will snore, even your kids will snore.
Tip 16. Call us if you need more advice. This has been a fun experience blogging. Amber will continue with her own personal blog, I am going back to obscurity. Thank you all for your wonderful comments, email and friendship.
Love, TaliSpearfish Resort to Hot Springs Anti-Resort
Today Tali and I sadly waved goodbye to the Spearfish resort and drove off to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. Mount Rushmore was amazing, amazingly hot, and amazingly crowded. The memorial really tries to capitalize on American patriotism but I kept thinking about how some men are so desperate to make a mark on history that they risk their lives climbing tall mountains or spend a large part of their life carving up tall mountains. I just don’t understand how this guy got the idea to carve up a mountain in the middle of the Black Hills of South Dakota. I found it fascinating that there is even a time capsule in the mountain with a history of America and, of course, an account of how Borglum, the sculptor, created his masterpiece. I also learned that Mount Rushmore is not complete, a fact I did not know. And George Washington’s nose is 21 feet long, one foot longer that all the other ones. I also learned that Ken is a master RV driver now, because he was able to back out of our parking spot, maneuvering our behemoth within inches of the other Rv’s and cars without hitting or even touching another vehicle. It was only a four-point back-up too. No space to do a u-turn there but we did manage to go out the in driveway by accident. The Zohan did not follow us on that one. I am 100% certain that many vehicles receive dents from this Disneyland-like parking lot.
Tali has many more facts on Mount Rushmore since she purchased a book and absorbed all the info already.
Words defy how crazy visiting the Crazy Horse monument was. The monument itself is really interesting to see in person and the story behind it’s inception and sculptor, especially when contrasted with Mt. Rushmore, is fascinating. The crazy part was that we saw someone we knew there. If you could pick the person you would most want to avoid running into in the entire world, a person incredibly unpleasant and litigious (I am trying to be fair here), that’s who we saw. Luckily Ken spotted him before he spotted us. Ken donned his best disguise; baseball hat, sunglasses, and old t-shirt, (oh wait, that’s what he had on anyway) and slinked around avoiding him. I managed to get a picture with both Ken and this person, who shall remain un-named because he is litigious. If you know Ken, you can guess who this person was especially if I tell you the initials: T.M. Ken spent much of the rest of the day marveling at the crazy odds of this chance encounter.
Having changed our original route yet again (RV tip: have a plan, but know you are going to change it), we headed south from Crazy Horse and decided to stay at the KOA in Hot Springs SD to cut down the mileage we need to travel the next day toward Cheyenne. Hot Springs is hot but there is no spring, at least that we could figure out. There was a pool and minigolf, and a $1.99 all you can eat pancake breakfast. There was no internet or cell reception. There were German tourists and assorted fellow kampers from Connecticut, Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado, who did not get along together at all when faced with taking turns with the two washers and dryers at the kampsite.
The Internet connection in Hot Springs, SD
Girl stuff in Crazy HorseThere was a spa here however, which you can see from the picture Bennett enjoyed very much.
When faced with making hamburgers for nine people for dinner without a grill, I went to work. I found Cliff, the older man who I think manages the place, and asked about the possibility of finding a way to cook outside our Rvs. He thought there might be one around the kampsite, and after a slow-paced conversation during which he was thinking about where it might be, he said he would go out and look for it and bring it to the kampsite. A short while later I watched him drive slowly down the three isles of kampsites on his Gator, looking for the grill made from the rim of an old tire. Sure enough, it was shortly delivered to our site and The Zohan got busy grilling burgers.
Funny Rv Moments by Amber & Tali
Funny Zohan Moments
Driving near Devils Tower, there is a large prairie dog colony on either side of the road. Apparently the Zohan has never seen such things. He shrieked in a very un-zohan like manner (I am not allowed to say "like a girl" but I heard what I heard) and exclaimed, “There are otters all around me!”
There is a tombstone in Deadwood that reads “I told you I was sick.” The Zohan says his gravestone will read, “It was a black bear.”
Funny Ken Moments
Ken does at least one U-turn per day in the RV, forcing the Zohan behind him to also do a u-turn. Ken’s favorite factoid of the trip is that Cody WY has such wide streets because Buffalo Bill laid out the streets so that six horses and a wagon could turn around. It turns out this is the same amount of space required for an RV to turn as well.
Ken and his constant cleaning up and reorganizing in the RV has now driven even the kids nutso as we cannot find anything. If you put it somewhere, it has been moved in the last 12 hours and you have to ask Ken where it is. This is maddening when everything you have is in 200 square feet. And they make fun of me (Tali) being OCD!
Ken and the Zohan can have one hour analytical conversations about which route to take. They derive endless pleasure analyzing the road, the conditions, and the overall plan. Another sign that women should rule. There are two ways to get there. Just Pick one.
Funny Bennett Moments
Before this trip he didn’t know the Levy family at all. Now he says feels he knows them almost too well.
Funny Ronan Moments
One morning Ronan went into the Levy RV, took off his shirt, and demanded that Dani give him a massage. She didn’t want to do it. He kept asking her. She declined. So he tried Alex. He declined. Ronan announced “I’m not going to do anything until I get a massage.” He sat in the Levy RV without his shirt, waiting, for about an hour until something else distracted him.
Ronan has also completely memorized the Southwest Rap he saw on YouTube and recites it at funny times, for example, on the bus to the Cody Rodeo where people are not accustomed to any kind of rap music, especially from a little white boy with enormous green eyes.
Funny Kieran Moments
This is only funny to Tali, not to Amber
Poor starving Kieran. Can’t get enough food. He is so sweet about it too. He waits until everyone is almost finished or finished and then very politely asks if he can have the left-overs. If we go to a restaurant, he orders the largest meal he possibly can and then finishes up everyone else’s. Amber is trying as hard as she can but I think she is in for a huge teenage boy appetite surprise in the next year or so. Costco and military style buffet lines will be her new best friend.
Funny Dani Moments
Wrapping Bennett around her finger and insisting he become her personal robot for the day. She says it so sweetly with such a cute smile that he obliges and thinks it might be nice to have a little sister.
Funny Alex Moments
Poor, starving Alex. He points out each Dairy Queen we pass. If his meal does not involve a plain hamburger patty or a slice of cheese he is not eating.
Funny Tali Moment
When in all seriousness she looked at the Zohan and said, “Rob, why don’t we own an RV park?” It must have been temporary insanity.
Driving near Devils Tower, there is a large prairie dog colony on either side of the road. Apparently the Zohan has never seen such things. He shrieked in a very un-zohan like manner (I am not allowed to say "like a girl" but I heard what I heard) and exclaimed, “There are otters all around me!”
There is a tombstone in Deadwood that reads “I told you I was sick.” The Zohan says his gravestone will read, “It was a black bear.”
Funny Ken Moments
Ken does at least one U-turn per day in the RV, forcing the Zohan behind him to also do a u-turn. Ken’s favorite factoid of the trip is that Cody WY has such wide streets because Buffalo Bill laid out the streets so that six horses and a wagon could turn around. It turns out this is the same amount of space required for an RV to turn as well.
Ken and his constant cleaning up and reorganizing in the RV has now driven even the kids nutso as we cannot find anything. If you put it somewhere, it has been moved in the last 12 hours and you have to ask Ken where it is. This is maddening when everything you have is in 200 square feet. And they make fun of me (Tali) being OCD!
Ken and the Zohan can have one hour analytical conversations about which route to take. They derive endless pleasure analyzing the road, the conditions, and the overall plan. Another sign that women should rule. There are two ways to get there. Just Pick one.
Funny Bennett Moments
Before this trip he didn’t know the Levy family at all. Now he says feels he knows them almost too well.
Funny Ronan Moments
One morning Ronan went into the Levy RV, took off his shirt, and demanded that Dani give him a massage. She didn’t want to do it. He kept asking her. She declined. So he tried Alex. He declined. Ronan announced “I’m not going to do anything until I get a massage.” He sat in the Levy RV without his shirt, waiting, for about an hour until something else distracted him.
Ronan has also completely memorized the Southwest Rap he saw on YouTube and recites it at funny times, for example, on the bus to the Cody Rodeo where people are not accustomed to any kind of rap music, especially from a little white boy with enormous green eyes.
Funny Kieran Moments
This is only funny to Tali, not to Amber
Poor starving Kieran. Can’t get enough food. He is so sweet about it too. He waits until everyone is almost finished or finished and then very politely asks if he can have the left-overs. If we go to a restaurant, he orders the largest meal he possibly can and then finishes up everyone else’s. Amber is trying as hard as she can but I think she is in for a huge teenage boy appetite surprise in the next year or so. Costco and military style buffet lines will be her new best friend.
Funny Dani Moments
Wrapping Bennett around her finger and insisting he become her personal robot for the day. She says it so sweetly with such a cute smile that he obliges and thinks it might be nice to have a little sister.
Funny Alex Moments
Poor, starving Alex. He points out each Dairy Queen we pass. If his meal does not involve a plain hamburger patty or a slice of cheese he is not eating.
Funny Tali Moment
When in all seriousness she looked at the Zohan and said, “Rob, why don’t we own an RV park?” It must have been temporary insanity.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Deadwood is...Dead
After another long, long, long day of driving from Cody to South Dakota we find ourselves in a very fancy (I can't believe these words are coming from moi), clean, well organized R.V. Park. The kids were thrilled to get out the car! They just scattered all over the place. It was so sad that it was funny.
We had a slight gas situation toward the end of our journey - no not that kind! The kind that you see the little light go on, and you know in your heart that you are going to spend Sunday night on the side of the road in Aladdin, Wyoming becasue your gas station attendant is at one of the 4 churches that serve the population of 50 (no joke); and anyway who needs gas on a Sunday except some stupid out-of-towner who didn't think ahead blah blah blah. A lot of praying, encouraging the Minnie, and some driving on nuetral down the hills we made it to the only gas station that was open on a Sunday. Ah, the power of positive thinking...
Today we visited Deadwood. And the Zohan and I are disappointed. I must watch too much T.V. becasue this was not an old Western mining town. This was a tourist trap of the highest order. Kevin Costner owns most of the town and it's gambling revenue. But we found Jews. Yes, lots of them. The little town of Deadwood had a large and extremely prosperous Jewish community. In fact the Jews are buried in the cemetery along with Wild Bill Hickcock and Calamity Jane, while the Catholics were banned and sent to another part of town. The largest home in the town (which is now a museum) belonged to a Jewish family (Finkelstein who became Finkel). Other than that and the two-headed calf (we kid you not) it was truly a disappointment. Not much going on unless you are into corny, fake saloons, slot machines and lots of Hollywood paraphenilia - clothes from movies, cars etc.,
After Deadwood we made our way over to Sturgis where we walked around and watched people packing up the remnants of the motor cycle rally. Ken bargained hard for his already very discounted T-shirts, and the very high strung lady actually obliged him. Why am I not surprised?? The Zohan has fallen in love with the Honda Gold -Wing. He must think I am 20 or something and I have to keep on reminding him that no I am NOT spending my vacations sitting on the back of a bike, no matter how tricked out it is. Alex and Ronan are lobbying hard for the position.
In all it was a fun day - Martha-Amber made fantastic grilled cheese and then proceeded to stick a pan to the picnic table. We laughed so hard I almost fell off my plastic picnic table seat. Ken to the rescue!! We only broke one plate today - the apple connector located above our heads made a spot on landing when we took a hard turn. More laughter. At this point I am getting nervous about Wayne the RV guy and having to explain the state of our RV's. I'm sending Rob and Dan in. Amber and I are going to hide out in the super shuttle with the kids (holding them hostage to keep them silent). Tomorrow Mount Rushmore. Wahoo!!
We had a slight gas situation toward the end of our journey - no not that kind! The kind that you see the little light go on, and you know in your heart that you are going to spend Sunday night on the side of the road in Aladdin, Wyoming becasue your gas station attendant is at one of the 4 churches that serve the population of 50 (no joke); and anyway who needs gas on a Sunday except some stupid out-of-towner who didn't think ahead blah blah blah. A lot of praying, encouraging the Minnie, and some driving on nuetral down the hills we made it to the only gas station that was open on a Sunday. Ah, the power of positive thinking...
Today we visited Deadwood. And the Zohan and I are disappointed. I must watch too much T.V. becasue this was not an old Western mining town. This was a tourist trap of the highest order. Kevin Costner owns most of the town and it's gambling revenue. But we found Jews. Yes, lots of them. The little town of Deadwood had a large and extremely prosperous Jewish community. In fact the Jews are buried in the cemetery along with Wild Bill Hickcock and Calamity Jane, while the Catholics were banned and sent to another part of town. The largest home in the town (which is now a museum) belonged to a Jewish family (Finkelstein who became Finkel). Other than that and the two-headed calf (we kid you not) it was truly a disappointment. Not much going on unless you are into corny, fake saloons, slot machines and lots of Hollywood paraphenilia - clothes from movies, cars etc.,
After Deadwood we made our way over to Sturgis where we walked around and watched people packing up the remnants of the motor cycle rally. Ken bargained hard for his already very discounted T-shirts, and the very high strung lady actually obliged him. Why am I not surprised?? The Zohan has fallen in love with the Honda Gold -Wing. He must think I am 20 or something and I have to keep on reminding him that no I am NOT spending my vacations sitting on the back of a bike, no matter how tricked out it is. Alex and Ronan are lobbying hard for the position.
In all it was a fun day - Martha-Amber made fantastic grilled cheese and then proceeded to stick a pan to the picnic table. We laughed so hard I almost fell off my plastic picnic table seat. Ken to the rescue!! We only broke one plate today - the apple connector located above our heads made a spot on landing when we took a hard turn. More laughter. At this point I am getting nervous about Wayne the RV guy and having to explain the state of our RV's. I'm sending Rob and Dan in. Amber and I are going to hide out in the super shuttle with the kids (holding them hostage to keep them silent). Tomorrow Mount Rushmore. Wahoo!!
Deadwood SD or RVs Should Come With Hot Pads
The day started with one exceedingly sleep-deprived, hungry and grumpy 9 year old. He spent the drive to Deadwood impersonating someone dead by laying in the very back of the RV, still in his pajamas, desperately wanting some alone time and trying to get as far away from everyone as possible. Not so easy with nine people in one vehicle but he managed.
By the time we took our tour of Deadwood, he had a smile on his face. Of course, it took a completely crazed tourguide with a joke a second (thank god no Walmart jokes) and a severe case of verbal diarrhea. Just the sort of thing Ronan loves.
I met the nicest local resident, a man who was just walking back through town from his daily hike, who stopped to chat and tell me how great Deadwood is. He lives in an old house that was once occupied by the first woman doctor in the town, who treated many a gunshot wound. He feels he is a caretaker of history. He made my day.
I have to admit that I don't think I ever even heard of Deadwood before, and I've never seen the TV series. I had no idea what it was we were going to see. We checked out the celebrity museum owned by Kevin Costner, which I found so misplaced, something you would find in Hollywood. I was thrilled to see Herbie the Bug though, and the boys loved the baseball jersey from Field of Dreams. Just strange to see it in Deadwood SD. We ate lunch at the restaurant just above the casino/museum and I have to say we could have done better eating a bowl of cereal from the RV. Oh well. All around, it was a fun place to visit and I found the connection to the Hearst Family and Hearst Castle interesting as we were just there this summer as well. I got the distinct feeling that if you really want to see Deadwood, you don't bring your children with you.
We toured from there to Sturgis, which has just emptied out, to buy a T shirt for my dad. He's always wanted to go to Sturgis, and I think after having visited this little town with a whole lot of garbage to clean up, I think it could be pretty fun. Even just to people-watch. Kieran came up with the idea to bring his grandpa back to Sturgis in an A Class RV. What do you think Dad? I know a nice RV park. Sorry, your pop-up tailer is not going to work here.
After a swim and a soak in the hot tub back at the RV park, I cooked grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and brought the last one to the table in the frying pan. We have no hot pads, and Dan had to use his underwear to carry a hot plate from the convection oven to the table too. Unfortunately, the hot pan then became one with the picnic table made of composite material. We had a good laugh but then Tali freaked when I told her it was the frying pan from her RV. She is afraid of Wayne the RV guy. The frypan was melted to the table, and I could not get it off. Ken to the rescue! He came out and whacked it off the table with a piece of wood. This was a tough day for our equipment. A plate also bit the dust when the power cord from my computer fell from it's lofty position above the table (who the hell thought to put a plug there?).
Just then some FANCY Harley dudes came rumbling in to the RV park. They looked over at us sitting at our picnic table with distain. Tali said they must think we are white trash. I told her we are. She said they shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. Then the Zohan said you shouldn't judge an RV by it's slide-outs either.
Our high-class RV park neighborsWe hate to leave this awesome RV park but tomorrow we are off to see Mount Rushmore and learn about the crazy egotistical megalomaniac that created it on land considered sacred by the Native Americans. Should be interesting to explain to the kids.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
