Friday May 28, 2010 - Hill City, South Dakota

Last night was very windy again in the tent, but at least the kids slept better. That makes such a huge difference! Today we saw the Crazy Horse Memorial that is being built a few miles south of Mt. Rushmore. It's a rather odd sort of undertaking - sort of a grudge movement against Mt. Rushmore. If it ever gets finished, it's going to be pretty impressive. But the original sculptor has already died, and it's a family affair keeping the work going. Very odd, in my opinion.

And expensive - it was twice as much to get into Crazy Horse as it was to get into Mt. Rushmore - and that's taking into account the fact that the woman selling admission gave us a 30% discount for some strange reason. I'm not going to argue with her, that's for sure. The kids weren't nearly as excited about seeing this as seeing Mt. Rushmore, perhaps because the work is a long way from completed, and to really see the work that's been done you'd be best off taking a bus ride to the base of the mountain - which we didn't do.

But we watched a movie about the undertaking and toured the museum briefly before going. It was turning out to be a scorcher of a day - in the low 90's according to some folks. Gena wasn't feeling well, so we decided that the kids could play at the campground in the afternoon while Gena watched in the shade. I wandered down to find a place to plug the laptop in and do some work. We regrouped later at our campsite, where Mika wandered around with the digital camera, snapping pictures of random things.

For dinner we had another campfire, this time with buffalo hot dogs and ground buffalo meat wrapped in foil with onions & mushrooms and cooked in the hot coals. We also roasted some ears of corn in foil in the fire, which Mika & Caedmon devoured. It was a hot day, but a good day. It was so wonderful when the sun went down and the temperature finally cooled off. We had thought we might avoid the wind, but it was windy again late at night, making the tent experience less than ideal.

Thursday May 27, 2010 - Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota

Our son Alec turns eight years old today. For a child who has been in motion literally since the moment of birth, it seems appropriate to celebrate on the road. I can't account accurately for how that tiny, wide-eyed baby grew to be eight years old. I'm only grateful for it, and I pray that he has many other multiples of eight to celebrate in his future.

Alec has been pretty much out of his skin with excitement for this birthday. More than any other, he seems keenly aware and excited of what it means and the fact that he's transitioning from being seven to being eight. He's excited to be camping and excited about the promise of a cookout tonight and excited about the promise of Mt. Rushmore today. If only all birthdays could be as wonderful and exciting as the one that burns most brightly in our minds.

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore around noon. The kids were ecstatic. We hiked a wooden platform trail that had a series of signs that gave information about the four presidents on the monument. Alec in particular enjoyed reading these, though Mika got some practice as well.

We left to go and find lunch, winding our way down US385 to Custer, Wyoming. We found a little diner there where we had lunch, culminating in a shared ice cream sundae that the kids thought was pretty darn cool. We drove back to Hill City to go to a supermarket and stock up for the big birthday dinner. I was so happy that they had some ice cream cakes in stock to round out the evening's culinary delights. Then it was back to our campsite to start the fire, cook the hot dogs & marshmallows, and then enjoy the cake and presents.

We ended the evening by heading back to Mt. Rushmore around 8:30pm to be on hand for the monument lighting ceremony at 9pm. There was a short speech by a park ranger, followed by a film highlighting the contributions of each of the presidents. Included in the film were shots of a variety of well-known locations in the US, such as the St. Louis Arch, or the White House, or Niagara Falls. It was an amazingly exciting experience to hear our kids squealing and shouting out with excitement "We've seen that!! We've been there!!"

The lighting of the monument itself was a bit anti-climactic, but a good ending to a very, very fun day.

Alec - May 27, 2010

It is my birthday - I have turned eight years old. I am very excited 'cause we are going to cook hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom and Dad are planning something fun for me. We are going to see Mt. Rushmore. I will get to see the statues carved from the mountains. In the morning I had a pizza breakfast! It was good. We are camping. We are sleeping in a tent. There's a river beside us and we get to throw balls of moss and tall grass in it. We are having fun camping. We are going to camp for three days. I love camping! We found where the river was coming from, over the tall trees.

Mika - May 27, 2010

Hi! We are camping. It's Alec's birthday today. We were in our sleeping bags. It was warm. I slept well. We are throwing moss in the river and rocks. We are having so much fun! Alec and Caedmon are eating cold pizza for breakfast. Love, Mika. Bye!

Wednesday May 26, 2010 - Lincoln, Nebraska to Hill City, South Dakota

This morning we faced the difficult prospect of leaving Lincoln and a nine-plus hour drive west across Nebraska and then north into South Dakota. While it promises to be a fun part of the trip, it was particularly hard this time (at least for me) to face the long drive. I can't imagine why.

We said our farewells to Michael as he left to make visits to his housebound parishioners. Then it was the open road. Driving through Nebraska is a lot like I expected it to be - relatively flat. But it's greener than I picture in my head. Lots of green particularly along I-80. We left I-80 240+ miles west of Lincoln and headed northwards on US26W. We had lunch in Ogallala, at a pretty poor Mexican restaraunt. However, Gena and I agreed that at least it was a different kind of bad food. As we approach the end of our third month of nomadic life, this begins to mean something.

We passed through Oshkosh, which was nothing to speak of despite it's iconic name in childrens' wear. Eventually we continue straight north on US385. This was pretty uneventful, until I was pulled over just outside of Alliance, NE. I had just come over a hill and was accelerating a bit to regain momentum when our radar-detector lit up. I slowed down and identified the source as a patrol car headed toward me just a few hundred feet away. He quickly pulled off the road and did a U-turn behind me and flipped his lights on.

Fortunately, at this point in time (unlike earlier in our trip!), we have both proof of registration and proof of insurance on hand. The officer was very friendly. I had everything ready and hands in plain view with the window down when he arrived at my doorside. We had also discretely put the radar detector away. We told him where we were headed as he checked our documentation. He indicated only that we were going a "little fast". He eventually let us off with a warning after talking for a few minutes about how beautiful the area we were heading was. I thought it was interesting that neither he nor the printed warning indicated either what the speed limit was (I'm pretty sure it was 65), nor how fast I was going. However, I'm not going to complain since I didn't get a ticket! This is the first time I've been pulled over in almost 10,000 miles. Thanks again to Jim & Dianne for their radar detector!

We grabbed dinner in Hot Springs, SD. The drive up US385 beyond Hot Springs led through Wind Cave National Park, where we saw our first buffalo of the trip! In fact, we nearly hit a group of them that were grazing right alongside the road. In this little park, they roam freely, and Gena has memories of having to stop on family vacations to give the buffalo time to get off the road. There were also a lot of deer grazing, and the kids were definitely very excited at the wildlife.

We arrived at our campsite about 8pm. We were told we were pretty much the only tent-campers in our part of the park - which is huge. We drove out to our designated campsite, only to find the only other tent-campers in the area. In our spot. So back we drove to be reassigned to another spot. It shouldn't be irritating, but it was. However hopefully we won't have any other neighbors during our time here.

KOAs have sure changed a lot since I was a kid, or else this is just a really massive one! We were very grateful to still have daylight in which to put the tent up. Or at least dusklight. Whatever it was, it was adequate. There was a breeze going, but otherwise the temperature was in the mid-60's. This was only the second time we've set up our tent in the last two years, and it took a little bit of figuring out. Then it was time to get everyone pee'd an into pajamas and sleeping bags. We blew up the air mattress for Gena and I and settled in for the night.

The first time we camped, it was on a beachside site in Jalama Beach, California. It was incredibly windy, the kids were two years younger than now, and Gena and I basically got no sleep as the kids took turns waking up freaked out by the noise of the wind and the tent. So we were chagrined when the wind picked up and began blowing in gusts that would not just rattle the tent, but actually cave half of it in. The tension bars just weren't able to handle the strong gusts. While Alec and Mika slept pretty soundly through this, Caedmon was a lot less sure of things - especially when the tent started to get pushed in on top of him. After a great deal of reassurance and what seemed like hours, he fell asleep, only to be reawakened periodically as the winds would pick up and the tent would sway and thrash about.

I got dressed and went back out to adjust the tension on the cords holding the rain cover over the tent. This helped somewhat, but there were still moments when the winds were so strong that half the tent bowed in. However, we were able to sleep, if only fitfully.

I begin to understand better the appeal of fifth-wheels and camper 'camping' to my folks after years of tent-camping practice!

Tuesday May 25, 2010 - Lincoln & Omaha, Nebraska

The adventure for today was an outing to the Omaha Zoo, about a 40-minute drive away from where we're staying in Lincoln. It was well worth the trip! So far in our travels, the kids have been to the Phoenix, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and now the Omaha Zoo. This was certainly impressive. It was a warm day though, and humid. The kids pooped out a little earlier than I would have hoped, but it was still a good time.

We got back to Lincoln and decided to grill up hot dogs and pork chops for dinner. Paired with fresh strawberries, a salad, and topped off with banana cream pie, it was a great way to end our time in Lincoln!

Monday May 24, 2010 - Lincoln, Nebraska

A pretty laid back day. Mike worked 2/3 of the day, so we spent the time doing laundry and other such amazing feats. Mike has a beautiful little house, where we have the run of the basement. It was fun to see where he works and get a little taste of what his life is like post-seminary. It seems to be very good ;-)

Probably the most noteworthy aspect of the day is the fact that we have figured out our next couple of weeks' itinerary. We're leaving Lincoln first thing Wednesday morning to drive to Hill City, South Dakota. This is just a few miles away from Mt. Rushmore, the other iconic landmark (the first being the Statue of Liberty) that Alec was very interested in seeing. We'll be camping at a KOA nearby from Wednesday night to Saturday morning. Alec is thrilled at the prospect of celebrating his birthday and seeing Mt. Rushmore and getting to roast hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire and have a birthday cake and sleep in a tent all on his eighth birthday. We're thrilled at the prospect of actually being able to pull off all of the above without any major mishaps!

Saturday we'll continue the trek west into Wyoming. I'm hoping we'll be able to stop en route to Jackson and see Devils Tower. Apparently seeing that in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind left a pretty lasting impression. With less mess than it caused Richard Dreyfuss, hopefully.

By Sunday we'll be in Jackson, Wyoming. While we had originally thought this would be a brief spot, we may spend up to a week here thanks to the generosity of a friend from the student ministry in Tempe we were associated with. Lily owns a condo just outside of town, and indicated that unless it was rented out by tourists, we could stay there. No tourists have booked the place, so we're blessed to have a little more time to explore that beautiful area. Likely daytrips will include Yellowstone National Park and perhaps Grand Teton National Park.

We're looking forward tomorrow to a trip to the Omaha Zoo with Mike. Should be lots of fun!

Sunday May 23, 2010 - Minneapolis, Minnesota to Lincoln, Nebraska

Another day of travel. Fairly simple route south on I35S, then cutting over in Des Moines, Iowa to I80W, which led us eventually to Lincoln. Lots of rolling hills and green and farmland. The ride was fairly uneventful, but enjoyable.

We're headed to Lincoln to visit with a Seminary friend of mine, Rev. Michael Brown. He's now the Associate Pastor at Redeemer Lutheran in Lincoln, which seems like a match made in heaven. He has a beautiful home a few blocks from the church, and has been kind enough to let this party of five crash in his basement for a couple of days.

We had a good evening talking and reminiscing and catching up. The kids were immediately captivated by his Lady. Mike is single (as of yet!), but he has a beautiful 8-year old dog named Lady. She's every inch her name, and has been enjoying some extra attention and snacks from our kids, who can't take their eyes off her. A good partnership, to be sure!

Saturday May 22, 2010 - Minneapolis, Minnesota

Today was fairly relaxed. I spent the bulk of it running errands and working. We were able to get the tires rotated & balanced on the van at a Discount Tire Company store here. I swear that company is one of the smoothest running operations anywhere. The staff is always pleasant & professional, and there are never any glitches, attempted upsells, or anything else. They bumped up the tire pressure by about 1o psi to compensate for the heavier load that we're carrying around. Just need to remember to lower it back down once we're settled someplace and unloaded.

Gena and the kids spent the day at Carl & Andrea's. The kids were quite occupied with playing and watching SpongeBob Squarepants. Later in the day additional company arrived - more former classmates from Gena & Andrea's days at Lutheran Bible Institute (now known as Trinity College). I kept track of the kids while Gena had time chatting and catching up with her friends. Afterwards, we packed up and bid adieu to everyone so we could be on the other side of town in time for an early morning start.

Friday May 21, 2010 - Milwaukee-St. Paul, Minnesota

The kids enjoyed the breakfast included with our hotel stay. As with all children everywhere, they are convinced that the little tubs of sealed fruit jam are pretty much the best thing on earth.

We checked out of our hotel around noon, leaving us most of the afternoon to fill until we would show up at Gena's friends house to stay the night and the following day. I decided that we should continue the quest to find pizza. No problem. The night before I had found an entirely different area of the city that looked far more likely to hold a pizzeria or two. We headed that direction now.

No pizzeria.

Another hour of driving, cursing, squealing tires ensues.

Finally Gena spots a little pizza joint. It requires about six years to find our way into the parking lot, but at long last, we had our pizza. Outside, since it was basically a take-out joint. In an intermittent drizzle. Still, it was pizza. As per Alec, pepperoni and sausage pizza. I made, however, the minor error of asking for spicy sausage rather than regular sausage. Alec has very, very sensitive taste buds (apparently). Although he downed the pizza with gusto, it was also clear the spice level was well beyond what he thought comfortable. Ah well. A start is a start.

We kept driving around, finding our way into downtown. Gena had the idea to spend some time in the city library, which turned out to be an awesome idea. The main library is huge and spacious, with a large children's section we had the run of since all the other kids in town were in school. Alec & Mika read a few books to us. They also had fun stacking these vinyl blocks they found. I dozed off for a bit of time, and then we wrapped up by playing a game of hangman on these little chalkboards with the kids.

Hangman.

I don't remember anything particularly traumatic about this game as a child, but Gena thought perhaps it was a bit too graphic for the kids. So when I found them after my brief nap, they were playing hangman without the hanging part. They were just gradually drawing a stick figure without any impending doom. Where's the sense of urgency? I thought. Where's the motivation? You could guess through the whole alphabet with no repercussions other than a well-dressed stick-man with a variety of stylish accessories. How will our children learn that sometimes life and death rides on being able to solve a #@$!@^ puzzle??!!

I don't have the answer to that yet, but I plan on introducing the more time-sensitive aspect of the game very soon. If Gena will let me ;-)

We arrived at Carl & Andrea's house just after 5pm. After a quick grocery run, Andrea and I fixed bacon & eggs & pancakes, which were wildly successful. Carl got home from work a little after 10pm. Carl and Andrea are very big game-players. They have competitive streaks that can be seen from space, I think. So they introduced us to the card game called "Lowlife". While Gena and I jockeyed for position a few times between the lowest and second-lowest position, we were never much of a threat to Carl & Andrea. It was a nice way to end the day.

Thursday May 20, 2010 - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin to Minneapolis, Minnesota

We got up bright and early to pack the van up. Our system is working pretty well, and we were out of our place by 9:30am and on the road. It's a long, simple drive. Just over three hundred miles westward on I-94 to the Twin Cities. Just one stop along the way to give the kids a picnic/leftover lunch at a rest stop. They loved the opportunity to stop, eat, and run - more or less in that order. A bright and sunny day, and clear sailing all the way.

We hit traffic big-time once we got into St. Paul & Minneapolis, though. Google Maps (which I've relied on almost exclusively for navigation on our trip) kept us on I-94 all the way into and through the downtown area. What I realized afterwards was that it would have been equidistant almost, and certainly a lot faster, to have routed us on I-694 to skirt the north side of the city. Our hotel ended up being at the first exit after the 694 and the 94 converge. It would have saved us at least 30 minutes in stop and go traffic.

Once we got our room, I decided to give Gena a little breather and took the kids to the indoor pool. They were ecstatic, to say the least. They swam for about an hour. Alec was practicing some of the swimming strokes he remembered from his swimming lessons earlier this year and last year. Mika and Caedmon are not interested in "getting their eyes wet" and so I was able to coax them into jumping to me from the steps leading into the water. They had much fun with this after a great deal of initial trepidation.

After drying off and dressing, we set off to find dinner. I had promised the kids pizza. Partly, this was based on their discovery of Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel over the last couple of evenings. The kids were absolutely mesmerized by this guy and all the food he could and would eat. I took this as a learning opportunity with our more finicky eater (Alec) of all the possibilities that would open up to him as he learned to like different foods. That guy is pretty cool, isn't he? He goes all over the country and eats all sorts of different foods. If you eat lots of different foods, imagine the places you might go?

As an editorial aside, I'm grateful for the still-limited cognitive abilities of our children. Alec could have easily pointed out that he's been in 23 states in less than three months, and by the end of our travels will have traversed the nation from coast to coast and back again. All without the unpleasant necessity of trying very many new foods. Fortunately, he did not make this connection.

Instead, he immediately vowed that he was going to try new foods, and that he would begin with sausage pizza. It took some convincing for him to believe me when I told him that he had already eaten sausage pizza and liked it, even though his go-to pizza is a basic pepperoni. Not to be deterred from his new goal, he declared that his first culinary escapade would then be a sausage and pepperoni pizza. I gave up attempting to remind him that he had indeed already had this sort of pizza as well and liked it. After all, if we want our kids to have broad tastes, starting them off with a guaranteed successful experience seems like the wise thing to do.

So it was that we found ourselves in northwestern Minneapolis searching for pizza. How hard could that be? I thought to myself. You can't hardly throw a stick in most cities without hitting at least one pizza joint. Oh, how foolish of me. We drove around the greater northwestern (and central) Minneapolis area for an hour without finding a pizza place. To be more accurate, we found immediately the one advertised in our helpful hotel in-room information, but decided it looked a little rougher than we thought we needed to settle for.

An hour. Of driving around and not finding a pizza place. My frustration was epic. Ask Gena. We decided to settle for the BBQ place next door to our hotel - but that was going to be another 30-minute wait. We hit the road again. Our eventual dining option?

Denny's.

I can't adequately express how sick of Denny's Gena and I got on our many, many trips between St. Louis and Tempe during seminary. Denny's was the kids' favorite option, and I think we memorized the menu - and not in a good way. But this seemed to be truly the only option we could find that seemed reasonably clean and available.

But it gets weirder.

Mika & Alec opted for pancake kids meals, which is an easy choice since they love breakfast as dinner. Caedmon apparently was not to be deterred from the promise of pizza, though. He ordered the kids cheese pizza with the side of grapes. When it arrived, I nearly hurled. The Pit Stop Pizza did not resemble a pizza in any sense of the word other than it had a crust. The sauce was a very strange dark maroon color - darker than any normal tomato-based sauce has a right to be on a kids pizza. The cheese looked plastic-y and melted on unnaturally. It was even oblong instead of round.

Caedmon decides that he's going to eat his pizza with mustard. Skeptical, I put a squirt of mustard on his plate. He proceeds to dip & eat the abomination-of-a-pizza dipped in mustard. It was getting harder and harder to keep my own dinner down. He decided to sample the grapes in mustard, and found that to his liking as well. I gave him more mustard, and he continued to sock away the pizza. Gena suggested, mockingly, that he might like a little drop of maple syrup in his mustard to dip his pizza in. He immediately agreed that this sounded great, and proceeded to eat every drop of it. He finished the whole disgusting pizza.

Certainly that's enough of an evening right there, is it not? Oh, but gentle reader, it does not end there. Oh no.

One of the soundtracks to our massive family vacation of doom is the Dr. Demento CD. I through it into our CD-changer at the last minute before packing up the last of our CDs in Camarillo. I figured it would be a humorous change of pace from time to time. Little did I know at that point that my grand plan to upgrade the van's stereo system was going to be delayed by 7000 miles, and that the only music we'd have consistently available was in our CD-changer. I might have opted for a different selection to round out the other nine, more musically oriented CDs.

The kids definitely grew to enjoy Dr. Demento's collection of classic bizarre songs. A lot. Mika became obsessed with "Marvin I Love You", mostly because it annoys the heck out of Alec. They like "Star Trekkin'" despite not being able to decipher 80% of the words and none of the actual references to the TV series. And they very much, very very much enjoy "Fish Heads". Alec and Mika particularly enjoy changing the words randomly to 'Mika heads' or 'Alec heads', which inevitably results them doubling over in laughter. All well and good when you're sealed in a mini-van cruising down a freeway at 80 mph. Not quite as well and good when you're sitting in a Denny's trying to finish your meal and get out without puking at your youngest son's bizarre dipping predilections.

Alec and Mika engaged in a rousing and at times quite loud performance of one of the song's verses and of course the refrain - which is easier to remember. "They can't play baseball, they don't wear sweaters, they're not good dancers, they don't play drums". We hushed and shushed and attempted to keep their voices down, but as many of you know, Alec's voice in particular does not default to a discrete volume level. We finally left after about 10 minutes of this impromptu and unmufflable performance.

Almost makes you wish you were here, doesn't it?

The evening ended on a brighter note, though. I was able to meet up with my friend Kjel for a beer at Grumpy's. It was a nice time together after a year of pretty major transitions for both of us. Someday, when we develop the bizarre/unusual ministry that we hope to, Kjel will be a regular visiting artist/lecturer. For now, we settle for roughly annual meet-ups for beer and theological and artistic discussion. It works well enough.

Wednesday May 19, 2010 - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

A day of preparation for departure. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at the lakeside 'beach' in Oconomowoc. The kids had fun with that, throwing sticks into the water and playing on a playground in the sand. People were beginning to work on their summer tans. I can't say however, that I was particularly enthralled with the guy who showed up mid-lunch to lay out a few dozen feet from us. Shirtless, and he rolled the legs of his shorts up as far as he could before rolling the waist of his shorts down over the top of his butt-crack. Truly. And I'm trying to eat. Can't you save that sort of extra-enthusiastic sun-bathing for the privacy of your back yard?

Tonight we completed the rearranging of our clothes - again. This time we were packing away our heavy winter clothes. The timing of this trip made it really hard for us to determine what clothes we would need, exactly. We've had pretty cool weather most of the way thus far - but never cold enough to really justify the heavier winter clothes we packed. Now we're beginning to consistently hit temps in the 80's, so it's nice to shift to our lighter summer clothes.

Our basic packing strategy is to keep 4-5 changes of clothes readily available for each of us, doing laundry every three days or so. This way, we only have to lug two bags of clothing out of the van at each of our stops. The rest of the clothes stay packed away in longer term 'storage' - available if and when we need them, but not something we have to lug around on a day-to-day basis. There's pride in being able to wrangle a family of five around with only two bags of clothing plus my work/laptop bag.

So we rearranged everything again, managing to come up with another small bag of clothes to donate (this time to the friends we'll be staying with in Minneapolis). There's a sense of progress in being able to purge little bits of things we no longer need along the way. We find an odd (perhaps) satisfaction in determining what we can do without, what we aren't going to need again - and let go. Pieces of our lives float around this country now in a very literal sense. We hope that others will benefit from them as we have.

Tuesday May 18, 2010 - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

Another quiet day. Laundry day, schooling, work. Such excitement! I took the kids to the grocery store to pick up a couple of odds & ends and drove into the town of Oconomowoc proper - a cute little place with a small beach and playground next to Fowler Lake.

Frank & Jan came out for dinner at our 'place' tonight. It's the first time (other than in St. Louis) that we've cooked and hosted somebody else. It was a nice feeling, one we've missed during our time of nomadic life. We made mostaccioli, one of our tried and true simple dinners. They brought their granddaughter Jorja with them, and the kids had quite a time running around and playing together. Our kids also had a great time swapping dog stories with Frank. Good times!

Photo Alert

I've gone back and posted photos from the last week of our travels. Thanks for your patience!

Monday May 17, 2010 - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin & Chicago, Illinois

Today we drove 2.5 hours each way to visit good friends of ours in the suburbs of Chicago. Harold & June were volunteers at International Friendship House not long after Gena began that ministry in Phoenix in the early 2000's. They became staunch supporters & advocates of the ministry, and later of Alleluia as well. We've remained close after we left for Seminary, where they were very kind supporters of us in many ways. They've suffered health issues over the years, but remain active in supporting ministry in many ways including volunteer hours and involvement and support at the congregational and Synodical levels.

The trip was pretty, mostly a drive through rural and small town areas of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. It struck me as we were driving there and back again (now that's a great title for a book. Hmmm...) through spatterings of intermittent rain that we've seen a great deal of country in the past two and a half months. Twenty-two distinct states (some twice) as of this moment, with probably half that more in the coming weeks. Yet we aren't your typical tourists by a long shot. We've seen some cities, but by and large we find ourselves spending much more time in out-of-the-way places. Dictated by economics primarily, but also in keeping with our approach to travel and seeing the world around us.

Cities have a lot of the same things - museums and zoos and all sorts of impressive architecture. There's history and the bustle of people going and doing things. We've seen the back-sides of a lot of places. Not in a gross, anatomical metaphor sense, but in the sense that we've spent a lot of time on back roads as well as major interstates. We've seen a lot of local spots, roadside bars and pubs and taverns that we have the time to take in a bit more at the slower speeds of back roads. At the end of our travels we'll be able to say we've been a lot of places and logged a lot of miles. But when it comes time to compare what we've seen and done with what most other travelers see and do when they visit a certain state or city, we're likely to be handling apples and oranges.

The roads less traveled usually aren't featured on post cards or Travel Channel exposes. We'll have to explain that while we stayed a week in Wisconsin, we didn't see the Dells, or even the major city of Milwaukee less than 30 miles away from us. Yes, we ate some cheese. But we mostly went on little walks or spent hours working in a freezing Starbucks. We spent time and effort forcing semblances of normality and routine into our travels, instead of seeking anything and everything out of our normal routines. For us the novelty of our travels in some respects is cooking the meals we would normally make at home, if we had a home. It's doing the laundry and overseeing schoolwork and doing things associated with home and being settled and having a sense of stability.

We lunched at a Mimi's Cafe in Naperville, IL, which is a western suburb of Chicago. We talked about ministry and concerns for the future and plans and possibilities. Mostly it was an affirmation of friendship and mutual respect and concern and love. Little things that mean a lot when everything is up in the air, or when health is suddenly changed drastically. When the future is a stretch of pavement into the horizon, and the horizon continues to retreat as your tires eat up the road. We are very blessed to have so many people in our lives providing anchors for us as we travel.

Sunday May 16, 2010 - Oconomowoc & Waukesha, Wisconsin

This is really one of the more social weeks (outside of the weeks where we're actually staying with people) on our trip. Today we go worship at the church where Gena's dad's best friend from high school & college has been pastor for 34 years - Ascension Lutheran Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin. We go to the 10:45am service, which is their contemporary service, because Frank's (the pastor) son leads the worship band. Ben is an accomplished guitarist, and we wanted to experience that.

After worship, the kids helped dispose of the remaining communion bread (tearing it up and leaving it outside for the birds). We then had a brief tour of the facility by Jan (Frank's wife). Then we followed Jan over to their house for a taste of Wisconsin hospitality - brats and hamburgers hot off the grill. Delicious! We spent the afternoon outside on a picture-perfect day. Their daughter Rebecca, her husband AJ and their daughter Jorja came by later on. It has been probably 15 years or more since Gena has seen Rebecca, so they enjoyed getting to touch base and catch up a little bit.

One of the highlights for the kids was the formation of a 'marching band' of sorts. They much enjoyed parading around with a variety of loose musical instruments and marching around where we were sitting on the patio. My preferred iterations of the band were those which did not include the recorders - since the kids managed to get only one, high note out of them, but with great gusto.

We returned 'home' - stopping to pick up microwave popcorn for the requisite Sunday night ritual. The kids were EXHAUSTED after running around for four or five hours. What a great day!

Saturday May 15, 2010 - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

The kids do school work in the morning and I make the commute to Starbucks to keep track of my class. In the afternoon we go for a walk around our unit. The kids are thrilled with the abundance of dandelions that have gone to seed and are ripe for the picking and blowing. There's a small pond behind our unit. It is the recipient of some very bizarre warnings against going swimming or fishing in it.

We notice a small hill behind us, and are bemused at the three - count 'em, 3 - ski lift systems on it. We decide to climb this hill together. The grass is green, it's breezy enough for sweatshirts for most of us, and even Caedmon makes it to the top, though not without a fair bit of complaining towards the end. The view is nice. We're higher than we imagined we'd be, but still hardly high enough to warrant three - count 'em, 3 - ski lifts. And three separate runs we note on a sign on the way up - easy, intermediate, and advanced. Wow. I've never skied in my life but I can't imagine the advanced run being terribly different from the easy one, considering it's just one little hill.

But it's clear from the top that we are at the highest point for MILES. Everything as far as the eye can see is lower than we are. If you want to ski, apparently this is the closest place to do it. After enjoying the view for a while we begin the trek back down. The kids have warmed up enough to want us to carry their sweatshirts for them. In taking Mika's from her, I notice a tick crawling around in it. Joy. We are not fans of ticks. But hey, one tick. No big deal.

We get back down to the bottom and walk to the van to drive over to the grocery store to pick up dinner fixin's. As usual, the kids are obsessed about cheesy noodles. That seems reasonable, so we get the makings for that (pasta, parmesan cheese, a little milk, some salt and pepper) along with a pre-cooked chicken and some asparagus.

On the way out, Gena calls Alec over because she noticed something in his hair. This isn't very difficult, since I buzzed both the boys' heads while we were in St. Louis. She finds another tick crawling around, which I remove & dispatch. We're a bit paranoid now. But we don't find any other ticks before or during the kids' showers, which is a relief. Maybe we'll keep the traipsing through uncut grass to a minimum.

Friday May 14, 2010 - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

Friday is a nice calm day. The kids do their school work, I go to work on the World Religions course that I'm now teaching, and not much else happens. The weather is very pleasant - in the 70's and mostly Sunny, but also breezy which keeps things cooler than otherwise.

The setup here is wonderful, except for Internet access. They're very proud that they now have wi-fi access, but it's only available by going down to the basement of the building, walking across the underground storage area to another basement area where the laundry facilities are and setting up shop there. Hardly inviting or comfortable. So I opt for doing my heavy-duty work at a Starbucks that's not too far away. It's small and seating is limited, but it's adequate for my sanity and feeling of not being in some sort of low-budget horror movie.

Thursday May 13, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

We drove about seven hours north to this community just outside of Waukesha, Wisconsin - which is in turn a suburb of Milwaukee. We had a little rain on the drive, but otherwise it was uneventful. It was only later that we learned of severe weather in St. Louis and Chicago. Fortunately, we missed all of those problems. We took I-39 North out of Bloomington, IL rather than continue on the 55N to Chicago. No traffic problems, and thankfully no weather issues.

We'll be here for a week, and are getting to be very adept at quickly settling in and getting geared up to make a 'home' wherever it is that we're staying. The place is nice - probably the roomiest of the condos that we've stayed in to date. With not much on the schedule for the next week, it should be a good time of preparing for an accelerating travel schedule for the next couple of months.

Wednesday May 12, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

Our last day in St. Louis. Gena was able to get together with her friend Rachel at the St. Louis Science Center while I stayed home and worked. Sounds as though everyone had a good time! Otherwise, we're packing and preparing for our departure Thursday morning.

Tuesday May 11, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

Another relatively quiet day. I ran errands in the morning, including vacuuming out the van and getting the exterior cleaned up a little bit after our last few weeks on the road. amazing how psychologically comforting it is to have the van swept out of crumbs and the collective residue of three snacking children! A small thing that makes a big difference.

By a coincidence of timing, Gena's dad was coming into St. Louis for a week-long conference he was helping to lead. We were able to pick him up at the airport and spend the afternoon together before taking him to the friends' house he was staying at. The kids opted to lead a sing-along with the whole group, which was kind of fun.

Monday May 10, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

Since space is a bit at a premium on our voyage, the issue of handling birthday gifts for Caedmon and Alec has taken some reconsideration. The kids have loved the books that they've received, as well as very useful things like t-shirts and shorts. Since our kids aren't too obsessed about gifts (at least yet!), this all goes very smoothly. I'm sure it would be different if they were all about 3-5 years older.

G & C got us passes to the Museum of Transportation for Caedmon's birthday, and we went there today. It's a nice little place with a collection of classic cars and trains that the kids can look at or, in the case of the trains, walk through. There's a small train that the kids can ride on, which they thought was pretty neat. They really got a kick out of some of the vintage trailers that were on display.

The weather was pretty chilly, and our timing was very good - we were there after a series of school groups were there, and had the place mostly to ourselves. As we were preparing to leave, we were chatted up by a group of telegraphers who were there for a luncheon. They spent some time showing the kids how to do their names in Morse code on their telegraph machines. One gentleman talked with us for a while - he had been a telegrapher for the rail lines for 15 years or so. It was interesting to hear his story of his time riding the rails and sending and receiving messages and how the system worked.

The rest of the day was rainy. Mika & Gena had haircuts so I stayed home and sat on the boys. And that's about all there is to that.

Saturday May 8, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri (out-of-order entry!)

Saturday was mostly a work day. Gena had school with the kids. Christine and I went to a local coffee house to work on our laptops for a few hours. Gary spent the day in the office preparing for an auditor visit the coming week. Not exactly a relaxing weekend! Not much more to say about this day.

Photo Alert

Just to let you know that we've posted photos for the past week's worth of blog entries. You may want to scroll back through, though I think we only have photos for Monday 5/3, Wednesday 5/5, and then today, 5/9. Thanks for being patient!

Sunday May 9, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

We worshiped at Timothy Lutheran again this week - our first time in church since Easter Sunday in Maryland. Depressing, but a step back in the right direction. It felt really good to be in worship despite the distracting married couple in front of us who couldn't refrain from smooching throughout the service. You'd think that you could hold off for an hour or so, right? And we worry that our kids are too distracting. Sheesh.

Fortunately, we had enjoyed a hearty waffle breakfast, a surprise from Christine for Mother's Day, and thus were able to at least deal with distractions on a full stomach! The authentic maple syrup we had brought with us from New England was a great counterpart to the waffles!

This afternoon we had an impromptu cookout with friends of Gary & Christine's from Timothy. Both work for the LCMS in different capacities. It's always nice to get a glimpse into other people's worlds, however briefly. Afterwards, Gena and I walked the kids down to a nearby playground to goof off for an hour or so. Much merriment was had by all, whether it was my lousy hopscotch, or the family balancing together on a piece of playground equipment and trying to shake the others off. It was really, really nice to laugh like that as a family.

The kids had their traditional Sunday night popcorn, followed by the excitement of helping to break in Gary & Christine's brand spankin' new firepit they created in their yard around 4pm today. It looks like it will do the trick, and the kids had fun throwing sticks into the firepit until they went to bed smelling like campfire.

Gena and I tried to go out for coffee after the kids were asleep, but everyplace closes by 9:30pm here, and our plans were foiled. At least there was tea back at the house!

Mother's Day 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

I have a moment in time from this week stuck in my head. I pray it stays in my head for the rest of my life. Perhaps writing this will help.

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know we stayed here in St. Louis with Gary & Christine about five weeks ago, and that our kids met some of the neighbor kids and got to play with them. Well, I think it was the evening of our arrival here this past Tuesday. We're scattered around the living area of the house when Mika comes running into the room. "The friends are here!" she excitedly exclaims. "The friends are here!"

The neighbor kids must have recognized our van (what are the odds, considering the California plates and the oh-so-stylish car top carrier?) and come over to see if our kids wanted to play. Alec and Caedmon were occupied and uninterested, but Mika lit up like a proverbial Christmas tree, bouncing up and down and ready to pop with excitement to get outside. The joy and excitement in her voice is indescribable. In that moment of exuberance, I thought to myself this is what my job is as a parent.

My job is to let her go play with her friends. To peek out the windows to keep sight of her. To worry about her getting too close to the street. To encourage her and teach her and equip her. To give her the skills she'll need as friends come into and leave her life. To be the support and base for her adventures in whatever neighborhood we find ourselves during any given year, with whatever group of friends she finds or who find her - friends that I'll pray will be good and safe and worthy of her joy, her exuberance.

My job as her father is ultimately to ensure that she can move out into the world without me keeping her company at her side or reassuring her from behind or blazing the trail confidently ahead of her. The measure of my success in some regards will be her ability and willingness to continually meet the people in her life with that exuberance. My job is to hold her and comfort her when those friends don't turn out to be the wonderful or reliable or trustworthy people she assumed them to be, and to celebrate with her when they do. To teach her about our world, about whatever I can regarding people and most importantly about the God who envisioned her before the creation of the universe, who chose to place her in our life and we in hers. To challenge her to make that Creator God the center of her world, the plum line by which she determines her choices and actions and friends. To witness to her to the best of my ability - which will never be enough - what a friend and a male ought to be like in her life by how I am in her mother's life.

All so that as the years continue to accumulate about my feet like so many spent leaves that she will race and jump through, she can continue to cry out in joy "The friends are here!", and I can continue to let her run down the sidewalk and through the neighbor yards to laugh and play and grow and learn and come back rumpled and grass-stained and knee-skinned and fairly glowing with the joy and sorrow if it all. So that when it's time, I can walk her down the aisle to the young man waiting there who will cause her face to light up with joy the way it did this past Tuesday. So that someday, it will be her turn to hear small voices call her Mom and begging to go outside to play with the friends.

It's a big job and a lot of work ahead. I thank God for the best partner in the world in this task - my beautiful wife and Mika's mother, Gena. Happy Mother's Day, baby.

Happy Mother's Day to my mother who helped prepare me for this life. To Gena's mother who helped prepare her for this life. To all the mothers out there who dream and plan and worry and hope and pray for their children. Happy Mother's Day. And thank you.

Friday May 7, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

Another day of running errands, working on course development, teaching the kids, hanging out, and late night discussions.

We received letters from the two families in Ghana that we support through World Vision. They were thanking us for some small gifts of stickers and other doodads that we sent to them a few months ago. Alec was very excited by the letters, since they answered some of the questions he had asked in the last letter. This prompted him to write a one-page letter back to one of the families asking more questions and telling a little about his own travels. It was wonderful to hear about him getting so excited about something that he wanted to do more writing on his own - rather than having to be prompted and poked into it. That's what I like to think that education can be - in large part driven by the interests of the child. I just haven't seen it happen yet. Hopefully this is the first step in instilling that life-long passion for and interest in learning.

We made home-made pizzas last night. Pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, onions, black olives, jalapenos (for me), mozzarella cheese and freshly blended up tomato sauce & seasonings. Yummy stuff! Gary & Christine and I played a new card game of Gary & Christine's last night called Five Crowns. It's basically gin rummy with a modified deck (no aces or deuces, jokers are utilized, and there is an additional suite - Stars). We weren't keeping score for this inaugural game, but I'm pretty sure that I won. Maybe Christine. But probably me.

As we usually do, Gary and I got involved in a long theological discussion. The four of us also discussed the interesting passage from Ephesians 5 about wives submitting to husbands. Funny how a single sentence can raise such concern and confusion and anger in people. Not us, per se, but more in general.

We suspect that we've seen the last of the really cold weather for a while. That means we'll take the opportunity here in St. Louis to purge some of the kids' winter clothes that they won't be able to wear next year. This will lighten our load a little bit, and allow us to reshuffle our packing job. Non-stop excitement, right?

Thursday May 6, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

A quiet day today. I spent the morning working on course development while Gena worked with the kids on their lessons. We had fish for dinner. Nobody got sick.

After dinner, once the kids were safely showered and snoring and Christine had done some work that she needed to attend to, we got down to a game of Texas Hold 'Em. Gary had recently taught Christine to play, so I gave Gena a brief primer and we settled in to learn by experience. I'm not sure how excited Gena was to be learning/playing the game - but she hopefully enjoyed herself. If she didn't, I'll leave that for her to describe to you if she ever makes another entry here ;-)

Wednesday May 5, 2010 - St. Louis, Missouri

Some of you will note that I did not mention Caedmon's 4th birthday in yesterday's post. Since it was a travel day, we opted to celebrate Caedmon's birthday today instead of Tuesday. He seems none the worse for wear for this choice, thankfully!

We opted to go with a Mexican theme for dinner, since it's also Cinco de Mayo. We had some great beef & chicken fajita makings. The beef was marinated in whiskey, salt, and pepper. The chicken was marinated primarily in cumin, garlic, salt, and rosemary. Both turned out pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. This was augmented by Gena's homemade beans, my homemade guacamole, my homemade margaritas (for the big folks only), tortillas, chips, cheese and yum.

Afterwards, Caedmon enjoyed an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery, since Gena and I didn't have time to put together one of our traditional birthday cakes. Afterwards it was presents and then time for bed. Caedmon seemed happy, though it was surprising to see our little ham somewhat shy as the center of attention for a change. He was particularly ornery about not talking on the phone to the friends & family that called to wish him happy birthday. Perhaps he takes after his father after all. Hmmm...