(07/26/12 - 07/28/12) MidWest GeoBash

The last stop on our trip was one that very nearly didn't make it onto the schedule. We were not sure that George's fourth week of leave would be approved or not (thanks, Mike!) until June. That said, we also were not sure if we would be road weary and just sick of traveling and want to cut it off and head for home.

George's plan was for us to drive as close as we were able to the Fulton County Fairgrounds in Ohio and then make camp for the night where ever (on Wednesday 07/25/12). This turned out to be the parking lot of the WalMart SuperCenter in Bryan, Ohio. Oh. My. God. Never. Again.

George was so completely excited about getting a campground night for free by sleeping in the WalMart parking lot. Before we left, he had been all over the internet researching about people who do this and how it works. He kept assuring me it would be ok. I figured we could try it once and then in the morning I could just sit and look at him with my steady, even gaze until he broke and would swear through tears never to make us do it again and would buy me a Ferrari as a sorry present. THAT didn't exactly happen, but it wasn't pretty. Here is what went wrong:

Our WalMart SuperCenter SuperAdventure:

Good: We parked near the side of the parking lot.

Bad: Right where people enter.

Good: There were 2 other campers in the lot.

Bad: I think those people LIVE there full time.

Good: We went to the bathroom before tucking in for the night.

Bad: George has a bladder the size of a walnut and had to pee 30 minutes later.

Good: We parked at the back of the lot so we wouldn't be in the way of customers.

Bad: We had to walk all the way across the lot so George could pee again.

Good: There was an ok breeze and the night time temp was not too high.

Bad: We were sleeping over top of asphalt and roasted all night like two Costco turkeys in an oven.

Good: The night was free.

Bad: You pay for what you get.

So, he has agreed that perhaps it was not a great idea and we will not try it again. I did at least concede that there are WalMarts everywhere, so it is always an option in an emergency. Please note, dear friend, that said emergency will be I am dead and George will be by himself at the SuperCenter.

So, we made it to the GeoBash, bought a t-shirt and headed out to cache. We had a pretty good day and found quite a few hides. We know the area a little bit because we were here as part of the Anniversary Trip - Whirlpool Jet Boat - Niagara Falls trip from three years ago. The coffee place we liked, Red Rambler, is still doing well. While there this time, we have two new favorites: The Batter Market and Tiny's Dairy Barn, both of which we came across while on this year's Poker Run. We also ran into Danny and Danielle, friends from back home who were in the area for the 'Bash as well.

We found some nicely done caches, but the thing we like most about caching out here in the mid-west is the lack of heavy traffic. I can drive down a road for ten miles, stopping every 5oo-ish feet for a cache and I will never see another car. Paradise. This year's theme for the 'Bash was Halloween in July. Many people decorated their tents and RVs and wore costumes. 

Typically, George and I do not spend a lot of time chatting other cachers up. We seem to be "oddball magnets" and geocaching conventions are NOT good places to find "normal" people. We admit that we are also odd in our own way, but you get the whole spectrum of humanity at these things and it seems like the ones who are the oddest of all are the ones who want to be with us the most. I've written about this before... Usually, we cut a conversation short and hightail it for the hills. But there was one MWGB meeting that I PURSUED. That's right, I went after them. Poor George. 

It started with me being seriously deprived of fur. In the evenings, we might walk Sutter or play ball with him. I also sing original songs to my cats about them. (Yup, I do -- don't judge me!) I carry the girls around, pet them, brush them and shower them with hugs and kisses. As a result, I have got two sweet, intelligent, people-oriented cats (an oxymoron in itself). All of this activity has one thing in common: fur. 

So after 2 days on the trip, I started looking for things to pet. At Prairie Homestead National Monument in South Dakota, I tried to pet the goat and it butted me, hard. Yellowstone was difficult, because there was lots of fur, but none for petting. Some wack-o was even sitting on the patio near canyon lodge with his pet DUCK in a baby carriage and I petted that too. Look, people, I was desperate.

OK, back to the GeoBash... We were walking back to our camp spot when I spotted the most gorgeous dog. I could not tell if it was an akita or a german shepherd or a mix... George saw it too and breathed out, "oh wow look at that dog," in one breath. The owners were sitting in their lawn chairs outside of their camper and I called out asking if we could pet the dog and say hi. THIS was my mistake. They invited us over. We petted their beautiful pet and learned her name was Shasta. And that she is not a dog. She is a timber wolf. Ummm... that's nice! Inside I was wondering if the event organizers had insurance for exotic pets in the campground. Oh, dear Lord! But she really was extremely mellow and chill and they had totally trained her. 

 

 

So, they let me put her through her tricks and reward her with Bacon Strips (dog treat kind) and I prayed that after I was out of treats her wild side would not kick in and she would eat me. I was surprised when she gave me her paw for the "shake" command. She was very strong, much stronger than any other canid I have met before. Her nails were long and they were big and sharp, which scared me. Her tongue licking the bacon remnants on my hand was not soft like Sutter's but had a rougher surface like the cats' tongues have. Her coat was luxurious and at one point, I was teary because her fur felt just like the wolf pelts that we had felt in Browning, Montana, at Indian Days. It was a great experience and the cachers seemed pretty nice; petting Shasta was a very neat way to end our time at the GeoBash.

(07/25/12) Jelly Belly and The Field Museum, Chicago

Yesterday, we had seen a sign for "Jelly Belly" on the highway and I KNEW it was for factory tours. So, George obligingly took the exit ramp and we went to go check it out. Turns it, they had closed an hour before. My kind husband, just announced that he would bring me back in the morning. I was very squeal-y. I do not love Jelly Belly beans because I never know what they are and invariably end up eating the ones flavored like shoe leather, calamari or earwax. But they are still candy, and THAT, I love.

So, we got up this morning and headed to the factory. To my surprise, I learned it is not the actual factory. It is a shipping and receiving plant. I was still happy to be in candyland, real factory or not, and happily rode around the outside perimeter of the warehouse in a giant electric train/ tram watching videos of how the beans are made. I do not think George was as happy as I...

 After our tour, we got a free sample bag of beans. And then we were led into the store where candy was flying hand over fist and I had to get mine, so I started grabbing and loading up George's arms. Twenty minutes and more dollars than that later, we were done and back outside. Before we left, we found a cache outside the plant in the woods. I have been happily munching on beans since then and have found only 4 flavors that I cannot stand: grapefruit, mint chocolate, cake batter and licorice. Shudder.

And now, we were on to Chicago. Man, the roads are bad! Potholes everywhere and uneven surfaces. Both of us remarked that we were glad we were not driving the convertible, as it would have been swallowed up whole. We were concerned about where we were going to park because we were towing the Joey and traditional parking decks in cities were not going to be an option. As we wove our way through the Museum Campus area, George was reading signage and I was using the Google area maps on the iPad. I had a hunch, so we tried it. We pulled up to the Marina parking lot for Burnham Harbors and it worked! There were more than a few cars towing empty boat trailers and parked in long, bus-sized spaces. Perfect! I knew there had to be a day-use boat launch and somewhere for those people to leave their cars and trailers while out on their boats!

Happily, we exited our vehicle and began the long haul all the way back to the museum. And on the way, we passed... Soldier Field. Oh, no. Now we have seen two stadiums, but George still swears it is not going to become a "thing". I don't know if I believe him: 

We finally made it to the Field Museum. And I got to see her. Sue. What is it about a formerly carnivorous, Jurassic skeleton that makes every little girl's heart skip a beat? Named for the archeologist (Sue Hendrickson) who uncovered her, Sue is not only the largest T-Rex skeleton ever found, but it is also the most complete. Bones from this skeleton have not been found as part of other skeletons, leaving our understanding of a Tyrannosaur's anatomy and mobility incomplete. One of the missing bones was the furcula (wish bone) -- I'd love to battle my sister at Thanksgiving with that! She sets the record for length at 40 1/2 feet. Her bones alone weigh almost 4,000 pounds and are preserved so well that scientists can see where tendons and ligaments used to be attached.

Sue was not the only reason we came to the Field Museum, but she certainly started the idea. The Field Museum was one part of the World's Fair that was held in Chicago in 1893. Back then, many people donated things for display or donated money to help the growing collection. The Museum is known for its specimens, some of which were curated for the World's Fair. These items are still in the collection and we had fun looking at each item's accession number to see if was from that time. (Hint: 000-350 and 15,500-15,700 are the magic numbers!) We saw some very weird critters. Do you know what these are?

(Answers: top -- Aye Aye, middle --Siaga, bottom -- Indian Gray Mongoose) While I disagree with the practice of killing animals to study them, I do recognize that zoos simply cannot house a pair of specimens of every creature on this Earth. The Field Museum preserves million of specimens from around the world in dry storage from insects shells, to fluids, to tissue, to bones and feathers. And, it does not get its specimens by hunting animals that are alive and well, but by recovering animals that have already died from zoos, state wildlife groups and nature centers. They re-use their specimens, remounting them if necessary. Most specimens in their collection have been dead for more than 50 years, and some for more than 100 years. We also got to see the Tsavo Lions and learn about the story behind them. We had a great time and stayed almost until closing.

(07/23/12) Minnesota and Wisconsin

Today was another long driving day. We are in middle America, folks! What else should we expect?!?! We woke up in St. Cloud, Minnesota and drove all day to get to Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Our plan is just to drive down the coastline of Lake Michigan to see what there is to see. We have no planned stops, but as we passed through Green Bay, Wisconsin, George chose a stop. I always thought it was just the name of an NFL team. Apparently, I am wrong and the team is the Packers and they are from Green Bay, the town.

As we drove, we saw a lot of fields and actually not a lot of traffic. We were on a four lane divided highway to… somewhere. Car bingo today was a doozy. Few road signs and no livestock made each game a half-hour long marathon in which we contested each other’s sightings of stop signs and birds.

We passed over a bridge and I realized we were crossing the Mississippi! I don’t know what it is about rivers and me, but I like to put my feet in them, not for any other reason than I can say that I did. It started when I was a teenager, traveling with my family and we would stop at rivers as we went and dip our toes and my dad would take a picture. I have more than few already. On this trip, I made a point to put my feet in the Missouri (in South Sioux City, NE) and now, the Mississippi (in Monticello, MN). I was surprised and impressed at the rate at which the river flowed. I am used to seeing rivers back east that tumble through cataracts and barrel on, but the Mississippi was mighty, flat and calm. The water was the color of flat Coca-Cola and the mud where I stood, sucked on my flip flops. I don’t think the water was dirty with pollution, but that it was just picking up the high amount of silt along the bottom, and stirring it into broth.

Green Bay was a neat town! There were many buildings with great architecture, made of stone like buildings in Washington, D.C. I enjoyed looking at the columns on some and identifying which were Doric, Corinthian and Ionic (thank you high school Humanities class!). We saw more than a few nightclubs, interesting restaurants and we even crossed the Fox river and one point and I could see a tugboat and a dock for power boats. We were on our way out the far side of the city when I asked George, “Do you want to go see the stadium?” I need to learn to not ask these things! He responded, “Sure.” He sounded pleased and interested, so how could I tell him I would rather go noodling than go see this thing? Actually, I don’t think you could pay me to go noodling because I am way to squeal-y and the hillbillies would get annoyed. But I still was not at all interested in the stadium.

I was a good wife and did not accidentally navigate us back onto the highway and out of town, but it did occur to me. I got us right to the stadium and into the parking lot right in front. A few fancy statues out front of the entrance of coaches and players, it looked nice. Imagine my joy when I discovered there was a geocache hidden in the bushes out front! Now there really is something there for everyone! We located the cache, signed the log, replaced it and zipped back to the car. The parking lot had more than a few cars in it because apparently today was some sort of fan day.

Before we left, I asked George if he wanted to get a t-shirt rf something. He laughed and said, “I am a Redskins fan, we don’t wear Packers gear.” Oops. Duh. I remarked that I hoped we weren’t going to start a trend of visiting every NFL stadium in the country. I was assured that we are not, and I will be holding George to his word!

On our way out of the Green Bay area, I asked George to let me navigate with the iPad for a few minutes. About 10 minutes and fifteen turns later we arrived at… Sonic! It was just in time because George said he was having a craving for tots. I am so glad that I could save the day.

Back on the road, we found a campground for tonight in Two Rivers, WI. Right down the street from here is a public beach on the shore of Lake Michigan. We drove over tonight to check things out. There were actually waves and the town has sanded an area for playing and walking. If these kids never make it to the real ocean, this is a pretty surprising approximation, minus the salt water, of course. We plan to head there in the morning and hunt for sea glass. My teacher friend of mine, Nicole, does this with her family and it sounds right up our alley, peaceful and purposeful. We shall see how it goes.

(07/22/12) Roadside Attractions

George has this obsession where he likes to take pictures of himself with places and things with “George” in the name. You can probably think of more than a few just off the top of your head. More than once, our car has screeched to a halt on the side of the road, so George can jump out and take his picture with the road sign for “George Street” or “George Road”. In Utah, we laid down rubber so we would not miss our chance to take a picture with “George Rock”. I’ve asked George when all this surname hunting started. He told me “really just with you”. It is so ridiculous, but so funny and sweet that I’ve always just gone along with it.

Perhaps it is my penance for the need to dip my feet in big rivers and my obsession with roadside attractions. Yeah, I am one of those people. One of the legions of tourists who see an billboard advertisement for the world’s largest spoon and insist that we must stop. I hit the jackpot today, baby! Not only did I visit the world’s largest sandhill crane, but I also saw the world’s largest buffalo; both animals, to boot! No cutlery on this road!

The world’s largest sandhill crane is located in Steele, ND, not even half a mile from the town’s exit off of I-94. “Sandy” (named by a local student) is about 40 feet tall and weighs in over 4 tons. She was completed in 1999, built entirely by one man, James Miller, a North Dakotan. The statue stands in an area of the state befitting the subject matter. The south eastern corner of the state is referred to as the Prairie Pothole Region – so called for the overabundance of small lakes created by glaciers. I posted a screenshot of an aerial map so you can see just how abundant these lakes are. Smack dab in the middle of the birds’ migration route, this is one of the world’s best areas for birding. Real sandhill cranes stand 3-4 feet tall with a wingspan of 6-7 feet, making them pretty big in my book. Their body type reminds me of an ostrich with the gangly legs and periscope neck. The sandhill crane is an awesome bird, my favorite birds are hawks, owls and herons (specifically the Night Heron). Of course, there was a geocaching hidden at the site of the World’s Largest Sandhill Crane and we found it.

Back on the road and down (over? across?) I-94 we went, watching the flocks of birds flying and ducks paddling and knowing that these were hundreds of thousands of birds nesting in the grasses. On and on we went, until we reached Jamestown, North Dakota, and the home of the world’s largest buffalo. The unnamed buffalo is the brainchild of then Chamber of Commerce President Harold Newman and was brought to life by Jamestown College art instructor Elmer Paul Peterson in 1959. It weighs over 60 tons, stands 26 feet high and 46 feet long. The statue presides over an entire area created for tourists called “Frontier Town” where you can see what it really looked like inside each of the buildings (a school a saloon, etc.) The Buffalo Museum also maintains a herd of about thirty buffalo on site, one of which is extremely unusual. “White Cloud” is a genetically verified albino buffalo that has calved albino offspring. There are actually a number of reasons that buffalo can be born with white fur, but “White Cloud” was genetically tested and she is the real McCoy – an albino buffalo. The chance of a white buffalo birth for any of the possible reasons is still only 1 in 10 million. Many Native American tribes have legends surrounding the birth of a white buffalo calf. The Lakota Sioux believe that the birth of the calf “Miracle” in 1994, symbolizes “the coming together of humanity into a oneness of heart, mind, and spirit”.You can feel now, their sadness, their despair when they learned that “Lightening Medicine Cloud,” a non-albino calf born in 2012 was found killed and skinned on the Texas ranch where it was born. We were lucky enough to get to see White Cloud from fairly nearby (albeit behind a big fence) while we visited the Buffalo Museum and Frontier Town. Although I must admit, we both thought White Cloud was male. I don’t know why I assumed this, but there it is. Come on, people, you don’t just ask the buffalo to turn around so you can check things out! Bluck! And yes, there was a geocache at the world'd largest buffalo, and we found that one too!

I really need to find an app that alerts me when an attraction is on my route. As of now, we have just stopped as we have stumbled across (or past) these sites. I would have missed “Sandy” had there not been a need for gas and a bathroom break! There are more than a few websites dedicated to cataloging, describing and promoting roadside attractions. I like the RoadsideAmerica site, which promotes itself as “Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions”. National Geographic and Time Magazine had some slow news days when their writers submitted articles about these things and they were published!

We finally cruised in to Fargo, ND to get some nibbles and get out of the car. Again, I used Google Maps, UrbanSpoon and Yelp to find us a restaurant that would work. This time, I stumbled upon The Drunken Noodle. Sounds funny, but tastes yummy! What sold me were the gluten-free menu items listed online and a review praising their gluten-free rice. It was a neat-o hipster joint, sparsely decorated, but painted with bold colors. The counter where you order was branded with carvings and graffiti of customers past. Before we left, I added our names. We split a rice entrée and it was so good, we ordered a second one “to go” for later when around 9 PM, we would inevitably get hungry. It was just as good the second time!

(07/21/12) Saskatchewan and Manitoba

Today was a very chill day. We woke up in Miles City, Montana and got an early start on the road, pulling out at 7:30 AM. We were on a mission to make it to the top of North Dakota, cross the border into Canada again in Saskatchewan, grab a cache, cross over to Manitoba, grab another cache and then drop back into the states. This required two border crossings, one out of the country and one back in within about ninety minutes. 


We faced far more scrutiny getting into Canada and back into the US this time than we did earlier in the trip. The first time, the Canadian agent had a sense of humor and wished us a safe and happy trip. The US agent just took away my oranges in the cooler and sent us on our way. This time, the Canadian agent detained us with questions for over ten minutes, while the US agents asked us to open the Joey. They claimed it was so they could just check it out for themselves, but had we refused, I have a feeling that would not have gone over well...


Amusingly enough, both sets of border patrol agents, Canadian and American, knew what geocaching was! I like to think that in the end, caching greased the wheels of travel for us because perhaps in their minds, we were just techie hikers. George and I both have pretty vanilla backgrounds, with only me ever crossing the wrong side of the law. It was a speeding ticket. I was given probation before judgement. It is long gone now by a decade and surprisingly, was not in my Celica, but my Subaru.

The drive itself was long, long, long. The scenery, while pretty beautiful, was pretty barren of anything man-made. We played at least 20 games of travel bingo on the iPad with the "RTBingoHD" app. I think there must be something wrong with the game. I only won 2 of the 20 games we played. I don't understand how that is even possible. Bingo is a game of chance. I would be willing to accept a 75% loss rate, but 90%? Something is amiss... This barren scenery made it incredibly difficult to find things like gas stations, motels, restaurants, railroad crossings, and road signs in general. Many a game was won with some combo of a sun, cloud, tree, bird, cow, horse, speed limit sign and big rig.

The first/ Saskatchewan cache was "Workman Cemetery Cache". Rated a 2/1.5, our only concern was whether or not it would be missing and if we could actually find it. Thankfully, we had seen this exact hide type done a few times before and did not get stumped. The cemetery was started by a group of homesteaders back in 1895. We did not explore, as the cache was outside the fence, but I would have loved to poke around to check out the tombstones for old interesting ones.

I have said more than a few times that since caching so often takes us to old cemeteries, that I need to get a spiral pad of thin paper and start to do rubbings from some of the designs on the old gravestones. We have seen some really beautiful ones. People even do rubbings of loved ones' names when they visit the Vietnam Wall; it is a memento of their visit. The Farber Gravestone Collection consists of photographs of gravestones - over 13,500 of them. There are some amazing, wacky, touching images in there. Have a look and try searching for your last name to see what comes up. * There are no stones from Maryland in the collection.


The second/ Manitoba cache was "Cacti Congregation". Rated a 3/3, it was not as bad as we feared it might be. The terrain might have really been a 1.5, maybe a 2. There was high grass, and a boatload of grasshoppers in all sizes. We were foolish and walked to and from the cache through the tall grass in flipflops. Of course, this meant little hoppers were boinging all over the place and one or two may have gotten between the sole of a foot and a flipflop... Crushed grasshoppers between one's toes is neither a delicious nor exquisite feeling. It is awful.
We found a lock-n-lock container hidden in the ruins of a 100+ year old church on the prairie. It actually is part of the Turtle Mountain-Souris Plains Geocaching Heritage Tour. All of the caches' sites are places that have stories from the past that are begging to be told.

After making our finds and getting back into the states, we made a beeline for Minot, North Dakota to get closer to the Interstate. When we arrived in town, we decided to look for some food. Using urbanspoon.com and Google reviews, we chose Big Time Bistro, and man, did we strike gold. Neat atmosphere -- they have TVs and play nothing but music videos, novel, since we never see them on MTv any more! Delicious food that we have to try to copy once we get back home -- a Big Cheese for me and a Hawaii 5-0 for George. We each loved our sandwiches and tasted each other's. We decided to switch plates halfway through and each have a half of each sandwich. Perfect.

We made it to Bismarck, North Dakota to sleep tonight. Tomorrow has more driving coming, so it's off to dreamland now. 

(07/20/12) Driving

Lots of driving today. We woke up in Great Falls, Montana with plans of getting as far across the state as we could. We had two planned stops, one in Columbus, Montana and one in Billings, Montana. Both stops were the result of two issues of a magazine, Distinctly Montana, that I swiped from The Plains Hotel in Cheyanne, Wyoming last summer. Here is a link to the Yogos article and here is a link to the consignment article I liked.

Columbus Montana is home to the Montana Gem jewelry store. During the end of the 19^th century, there was a gold rush going on in the states and Montana saw its own share of prospectors hoping to strike it rich. The mining town of Yogo City was basically deserted by the 1880s and had turned out to be one of the least productive areas in the entire state for gold. Miners used sluice boards to separate the gold from the other pebbles and gravel. The sapphire pebbles would sink to the bottom of the gravel and clog up the sluice boards. Miners threw away these nuisance pebbles.

Enter Ed Collins, a gold prospector who discovered in 1865 that these little translucent pebbles were sapphires. He sent two packages to New York, one to Tiffany and Co. and the other to M. Fox and Co. Collins' pebbles came from a mine near the Missouri River and his stones were not consistent in color. They ranged from cornflower to royal blue and require heat treatment (which was not invented until the 1970s) to enhance their color. Because of the pale color palate, these sapphires were judged to be lesser in quality, giving Montana sapphires a bad reputation.

Enter Jake Hoover in 1895, another hopeful prospector. Like many who had gone before him, he noticed the little blue pebbles in the gravel beds while he was panning. But Jake Hoover was different from other prospectors gone by – he saved those blue pebbles. At the end of the mining season, he sent a box of the pebbles to New York to be evaluated by an expert. Dr. George F. Kunz (of Tiffany & Co.) evaluated the stones and identified them as rare sapphires or great quality. The royal blue color and quality of the stones has held up well when compared to those from Europe. Hoover was prospecting in a different location than Collins. Remember, it's always about location, location, location!

What makes the Yogo Sapphire so expensive is that the larger stones are not often found. George and I share a casual interest in mining, gemology and geology, so the process of the stones' formation and eventual recovery is neat to us.

I love thrift store shopping, but rarely have time to go. Friends and I would go to the thrift store in college, but usually only to get a couch for our dorm room. My sister got me seriously hooked. I had a ball this fall shopping for "Football Friday". We have a day where we dress up in NFL gear, watch game clips on the big screen at lunch and have a pep rally where we give stuff away to the kids. I went on a hunt to all three Frederick Goodwill locations with Dreda Kelley, a BES coworker, and we came away with the mother-load: shirts, sweatshirts and jerseys in all sizes from tons of teams!

My sister in Law, Amy, made my month when she told me what Atlee wanted for her birthday -- dress up clothes. I thought surely stuff from Toys 'R Us was where this was headed. Nope! To my delight, Amy suggested Goodwill. Oh my, Amy, you have no idea what you just did. You let the monster loose! Of course, I called my sister so she could keep her eyes peeled too. I cannot wait to get home so Atlee can open this box of found treasures!

We had three different Montana stores on our schedule including this one in Billings, The Bourne Again Shoppe, was the last one. Wouldn't you know it, but the first two were closed by the time we made it to their towns. One was on the day that I mis-navigated us and resulted in an extra two hours of driving. Today, by the time we got to Billings, the shop had been closed for twenty minutes. I KNEW we had spent too long at Montana Gem! Darn it!

We are in Miles City, Montana now, getting ready for bed -- off to dreamland.

(07/19/12) Our Anniversary

On this day four years ago, George and I promised to love each other through thick and thin. We exchanged rings, shared a dinner with those who came to witness our vows (the exact same dinner we ate the night we got engaged), ate a few kinds of cake and took some pictures. We have made it a practice to always do something unusual, unique, different, exciting, etc. for our anniversary, close to home or not.

2009 found us travelling with caching friends, Danny and Danielle, up through New York state to Niagara Falls, where we rode the thrilling (and cold) Whirlpool Jet Boats. We also hosted a “Meet and Greet” geocaching event at Table Rock, the very brink of the falls, where we met our friend, “RockHarder” Dave for the first time.

2010 found us at one of our favorite restaurants, The Melting Pot. We always share Fondue for Two: cheddar cheese, house salads, “The Surf and Turf” and finish with milk chocolate for dessert. Inevitably, this leaves us stuffed to the gills.

In 2011, we spent our day in Yellowstone National Park as part of our 19-day trip that summer. We ate a fancy dinner that night in Canyon Lodge and returned to our room to find a surprise gift on our bed courtesy of the park – Huckleberry Truffles. We have carefully rationed them out to last for this past entire year. (Yes, George is wearing a cowboy hat he bought on that trip!)

This year was no exception! 2012 was rung in with equally unique activities. George and I love hot springs. We have soaked in Arkansas and Idaho, and we make twice yearly pilgrimages to Berkeley Springs in Bath, West Virginia for divine soaks just an hour from home. On this trip, we added British Columbia, Canada to the list when we stopped at the hot springs in Radium, but we had something else up our sleeves… Today, on the advice of a local, we drove south toward the US border and turned up a dirt logging road. We were entering the “back way” into Whiteswan Provincial Park, driving about 6-8 miles to get to our stop, the Lussier Hot Springs. 

We parked our car, changed in the parking lot (with the other watching and listening for cars), and then headed down the trail to the springs. Lussier Hot Springs is unlike any springs we have visited before. All of our previous spots have been commercial with concrete involved in the structure. Here, there are four natural pools, one higher and three lower. The spring water feeds directly into the upper pool at a maximum temp of 110 degrees. Gravity makes the water from the upper pool feed into the lower pools. At the time of our visit, the Lussier River, which flows past and against the lower pools, was running very high, making the three lower pools unusable. So, we stuffed ourselves  into the upper pool with some locals. Water temp at the time of our visit was nowhere near 110, but was probably about 85 degrees. We soaked for about 20 minutes, but the low water temp and locals everywhere (with their kids) made us cut our time short.

Back at the top of the trail in the parking lot, we changed back into street clothes and drove off. We were itching to get to Billings, Montana, for the evening, no small task given the ten hour drive! We had to get to Billings, we had to! I had big plans for us! We found a campground, dropped off the Joey and locked it up tight and then went to the Sip ‘N Dip, a bar. That’s right, me, in a bar. I had very good reason – this place was a hoot! I first learned of this spot while reading Distinctly Montana – yup, that magazine again! It is located inside a motel in downtown Billings. You go in the door, up the stairs, get carded, get a wristband and go inside. The inside is decked out like a South Seas tiki hut on steroids. There is a little old lady playing an electric organ (or something) and she is singing Katy Perry and Metallica songs. It was like watching the little old lady from the movie The Wedding Singer (you know, the one who paid Adam Sandler’s character for singing lessons with meatballs) but this was LIVE. The bartenders seemed normal enough but the main attraction was behind the bar. The motel’s pool had two glass walls so you could sit in the bar and see who was swimming in the pool. There were two girls dressed up as mermaids, complete with tails and all, swimming around and going through the hoops placed on stands in the tank. You could tape money to the glass if you liked their tricks and wanted to tip them. I ordered a ginger ale and George had Pale Ale with an orange garnish. Poor guy had one beer and said it went straight to his head. 

I drove us back to the campground where we curled around each other and laughed at the strange, strange world we live in. All in all, another one to remember, surely.