Frogger

When I was a kid there was this game called "Frogger" where the whole point was to move your little green frog from the bottom of the screen to the top without getting squished in the process.

It was more difficult that it sounds, trust me.

I hadn't thought about this early arcade game in years, possibly decades until we drove through North Dakota on our way to Minnesota. (Yes, I said Arcade not Video. Because back in the early 80's we didn't have personal entertainment centers. We had to go to the arcade to play games. And the fact that "Arcade" sounds suspiciously like "Archaic" does not escape me.)

What does playing frogger have to do with driving, you might ask?

Well, I have an answer - I just wish I had pictures to go along with it.

Having experienced (and survived relatively unscathed) deer in the road in Montana, Meg and I were understandably skittish about driving through rural areas in the black of night. Especially since we figured out that the large number of deer and elk present was the result of our trip coinciding with peak mating season (damn those randy bucks!). Finding ourselves several hours away from our destination as the sun began to set was not comforting in the least.

Most of you who actually know me, know that I am not one to speed excessively. I try to keep the speedometer within a reasonable range of the posted speed limit.

As we approached Fargo and then crossed into Minnesota on our way to Hawley we noticed that as the GPS indicated a water source nearby the roads turned this eerie luminescent whitish-grey color.

It didn't take long for us to realize that this was due to the millions of frogs on the roadway. Whether it was hearing the scrunching noises or seeing them hop in a futile attempt to make it to the other side, we were understandably squeamish.

Hence the mental association of driving and frogger.

Meg was riding shotgun and we slowed our rate of speed to try to miss squishing as many as we could.

We couldn't help but emit a series of "Oh!" and "Oof" and other exclamations of remorse as we decimated the frog population of Northern America. Then (and I don't know if this is a sign of mental illness or other defect) we began laughing hysterically.

Meg chanting "Go little froggy Go!" followed immediately by "Oooo, you smooshed him" didn't help much either.

Note to self: it is not okay to crash your vehicle because you're trying to dodge an amphibian obstacle course at 75mph. It's just not.

I didn't point out at the time that there were several semi's and other vehicles behind us that weren't exercising such prudent caution and likely smashed those that escaped my tiny tires. Oh well, at least their little green souls aren't on my conscience.

For some reason I just had a mental image of Miss Piggy donning ninja attire in an attempt to avenge the lives lost on that dark and narrow stretch of road. Yeah, that must be another sign of mental illness or other defect that I mentioned earlier. heh.

Memories

When we were in SLC for our family reunion, I had the chance to sort through a bunch of old pictures that my Uncles and Cousins had. I then proceeded to scan them and turn them into a little movie that we watched before everyone went their separate ways.

These pictures, in addition to a few I have collected over the years have been taking up all of my time lately. So, I won't be posting again until Friday - because of a cookie swap tomorrow and the fact that I have to get all my holiday presents in the mail by our departure for California.

Lame, I know. But tis the season of busy!

Landscapes

One of the most amazing experiences we had while on our trip was seeing the changes in the landscape. Crossing from one region to another, seeing the tightly woven vines and trees give way to beautiful hills and forests of boulders is both gradual and stunning.

We saw the sky open as the trees became scarce and the landscape changed from shades of green to shades of red and orange beneath a blanket of brilliant blue. Hills became mountains, mountains became wide open plains marking the transition from east to west, north to south.

It was hard to pick a favorite when we got to see it all;

the dense foliage of Pennsylvania:


the hidden dangers of the Bayou:


the barren desert of west Texas and New Mexico:


the misty ocean side cliffs of Oregon and Washington:


the wild beauty of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas:


Journeying between city and country, mountain and valley along the highway gave us the chance to see the changes that we often take for granted. Flying from one place to another is quicker, more convenient; but if you have the opportunity to drive to your destination it will be a richer experience by far. After all, the journey is about more than reaching an end point, the journey is an often neglected part of the adventure.

Do family visits count as vacation?

I've always had that question in my mind - probably because I have lived away from family for so long. When I get vacation time at work I always spend it with family. Now, I am lucky because the majority of my family are cool-cats with only a few loony-tunes thrown in for color.

While we made our way across this great country, we had the chance to see new places, experience things we will never get the opportunity to experience again and broaden our horizons.

We also had the chance to catch up with family that we haven't seen in quite a long time.



This is a shot of the Salt Lake clan at an impromptu family reunion that was held while we were there.

It was great to get to spend time with the cousins that I grew up with. I think the last time I spent any real quality time with them was when I was 15 and spent several weeks in SLC one summer. Since then it's been the requisite wedding and funeral appearances when everyone is too emotional or stressed out to really get into any trouble.



These are people that not only share my family history, but some of the greatest childhood memories I have.

It was wonderful to see them and now that we're back in Arizona maybe we'll get to see them more often.

Not Really a SciFi Geek

I don't know what category I fall in, I'm not a super Star Trek, Star Wars or Babylon 5 junkie. I'm not all that jazzed to catch Avatar opening weekend (and I certainly wouldn't stand in line to see it).

But I am a geek of sorts.

I think I'm a supernatural geek. I'm all about the vampires, witches and hobgoblins. I enjoy watching shows about paranormal, supernatural and the all around unexplained.

I like Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural, vampire Diaries, Twilight, Harry Potter and The Craft (to name a few).

Not long ago our little trip around the country led us to our neighbours to the north. Canada. Vancouver to be exact. For a convention of Supernatural fans (the show, not the genre in general).

We had never been to a convention before, except for BlogHer back in '07 but that is a different animal entirely. To be clear, we had never been to a fan convention before.

Boy, were we in for a surprise.

Seriously.

Going into this we knew that the majority of fans are female. One fear that I had was that, at age 34, I would be older than the majortiy of the fans.

WRONG!

Scary as it is (and I can't imagine it from the actors perspective) the majority of attendees were in their 30's, 40's and 50's. One woman we saw was clearly AARP eligible and proudly wearing leather pants, sequined top and hair extentions in addition to her orthopedic shoes.

Okay, they were more like hooker heels and we had to give her props for being able to balance on them without breaking a hip.

Anyway, the occurance of normal people at this shindig was few and far between.

There was the girl we referred to as the Typhoid-Kiwi. She flew all the way from New Zeland to attend and seemed to have given up showering for lent back in the mid 90's. Her pungent aroma combined with a cough that sounded like it was coming from a teburculosis patient with a three pack a day habit was enough to make most of the sane people keep their distance. She was easy to find with her unique wardrobe, hot-pink dreadlocks and creative tattoo/piercing combinations. We think that her generosity with germs is what brought on Megs illness.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking her appearance. I've seen people with dreads and body art that are normal. However, when your hygene is lacking you are opening yourself up for criticism. Nothing excuses the lack of regular bathing and use of deoderant. Nothing.

In addition to the Typhoid-Kiwi and Granny-Glam there were the usual amount of super fans who admitted (yes, we had a discussion about this with a few of the attendees) to having escaped the boundries of their parents basements or guest rooms to attend.

As wide as the variety was, there was one woman we just couldn't figure out. She was seated in the front row center so we know that she paid well over $3000 for her admittance ticket at auction. Yes, it's obscene. We also know that she paid an additional $2500 for a backstage VIP pass and purchased private party tickets at auction (which sold for anywhere from $1500 to $250 per celebrity).

So she paid FAT bank to attend.

We think that she was somewhere in her mid 60's and wore the same outfit the entire convention. Ankle length black skirt, long sleeved white button up shirt, black vest. Her long iron grey and black hair was pulled back into a severe pony tail secured at the nape of her neck with a black band. She didn't wear any make-up or jewlery. Her shoes were servicable black flats and may have been orthopedic.

Who was she? Why did she spend so much money to meet the actors, up-close and personal? She certainly wasn't in the shows target demographic.

Of all the things that I remember about this convention, all of the awkward and disappointing, she will be the most interesting simply because she blew the expectations I had for attendees out of the water. Off the planet, actually.

Montana Part Deux

We arrived midmorning at the Glacier Meadow RV Park and Campground. It was MUCH better and more in line with what we were expecting for a campground in freakin' Montana. There were trees and meadows and wildlife.

The site itself was located in a grove of trees with a nice little footpath that lead to a bathroom with flush toilets, hot showers and electrical outlets. Each site had its own outlet and wifi (though the signal was weak at best).

My kind of camping!

We pitched our tent and the screen tent that I like to use for a kitchen/food area and got a fire going in the fire pit.

Once all of our things were settled we noticed something missing from our tent. Well, not our tent because we borrowed it from a friend, but the tent was missing its rain cover. The open mesh top allowed in light and a nice breeze during the day and freezing cold air at night. Yay! (No, not really Yay.)

So I went in to MacGuyver mode and rigged up a little something I like to call "Gladd I'm so Crafty" with trash bags, a table cloth and clothes pins. Yes, a true MacGuyver moment.

And the best part is that it worked.

For the most part. When the rain began late Saturday night we all huddled in the tent Sid and the boys brought because that thing was HUGE with a capital Roomy! It also had the manufacturer rain cover. So there's that.

We played cards and told a lot of jokes. They are super entertaining and I think that the best part is that Sid is just as much a goof as his kids are.

They went fishing and caught dinner (we had mac-n-cheese because we are fish wussies), hunted the worlds most annoying squirrel to no avail and kept the campsite in hilarious stitches of laughter.

It was sad to see them go but we knew it had to end eventually.

On Tuesday morning we packed up and headed south to Salt Lake for a family reunion.

That is when Montana launched its final attack.

As we pulled out of the Glacier Meadow campground a passing Subaru (I HATE SUBARU'S) kicked up a huge rock and cracked the windshield.

Awesome.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Montana had a piece of rebar awaiting our arrival at the Wendy's we stopped at for lunch that took a nice bite out of the fender.

So we couldn't get out of that cursed state quickly enough. As we passed into Idaho we heaved a sigh of relief and prayed no other states would hold a grudge against us as we made our way east again.


...

Do you know why Montana hated us? Because we don't.

It's big sky country - that's for sure. Beautiful mountains, broad plains of amber colored grasses. Truly a beautiful state.

But Montana set out to kill us from day one. The fact that we survived mostly intact is a miracle in itself.

It all began as we were driving to a KOA we had selected based on website information, user reviews and its proximity to Yellowstone's famous geyser Old Faithful. We had met our cousin Sid for lunch in Idaho and knew we'd be arriving pretty late to the campsite. Too late to do much more than pitch our tent and crawl into our sleeping bags.

We drove through those beautiful mountains and vast fields of grain. As night fell we found ourselves on a winding and precariously perched two lane road leading to Helena. It was nearing 10pm and the GPS said it was only another 30 minutes to our destination.

As we navigated the switchbacks at a steep downgrade it happened.

Montana's first attack.

It threw deer directly into our path. Meg was driving and did the best she could (thankfully we weren't going more than about 20-25mph due to the steep road). Avoidance would mean plunging to our deaths down a sharp cliff or slamming headfirst into the rock wall on our left.

The brakes screeched.

*thud*

I'm not sure who was more dazed me, Meg or the deer. It hopped up, shook its head and darted off down the cliff with its friends (yes, there were more than one).

I remember driving back to Phoenix from Fresno one Christmas and hitting a dog. I bawled like someone had just punched me in the face and killed my cat. It was awful. The dog was fine then, as was the deer now. Meg handled the whole thing much better than I had back then. She cried and I took over the driving.

We were filled with sadness, remorse that we couldn't have done anything else and wonder about how the deer was fairing.

Then we pulled into our KOA.

That somber mood quickly turned into shock, horror and absolute dismay. We had driven that far to a KOA that thought it was acceptable to place its tent campers at the end of the rows of its RV campers. What?

I don't know about you but I am not one to camp on what amounted to a median at the end of a parking lot full of noisy generators, RV's and a general store. To top it all off, it wasn't located along the lake as its website indicated. Oh no. It was located along the back wall of a residential neighborhood about a 1/2 mile from said lake.

Ugh. Last time I plan on staying at a KOA folks. Last.Time.

So we decide that we should just proceed along into the bustling metropolis that is Townsend Montana. (Yes, I didn't GET the name when I saw it on the map but quickly realized that Townsend is just exactly the right name for it. Why? Because the Town ends just where you'd think it would begin.)

We spent the night at the illustrious Mustang Motel. Where they advertise TV, Heat and A/C in every room. Don't believe them? Well, there's photographic evidence to support their claims.

The door to the room didn't have a dead bolt, there was a kamikaze fly that kept dive bombing our heads and the trains.

Oh. God. The. Trains.

It is helpful information to note that in the state of Montana it is a requirement that trains sound their horn at each and every road crossing. Each and Every Single One.

The trains run every 45 minutes at night. Guess where the illustrious Mustang Motel is located?

If you answered right next to the train tracks and near no less than 6 road crossings, you'd be correct.

We didn't notice this when we checked in and it sure was fun to be awoken by a blaring locomotive horn that sounded like it was coming from the bathroom it was so close.

Nice.

We checked out at 6:45 because spending 7 hours in that room would have been too much.

From there we decided to trust the nice lady that I spoke with at a campsite near Glacier National Park (a 5 hour drive north after our 4.5 hour drive south the previous day, YAY!).

It ended up working out nicely. Sid and his two boys came to stay with us for Labor Day weekend and we had a blast. Then Montana tried to kill us again. Twice.

(to be continued...)