Most of you probably discerned that I've been on vacation. Because this is The Daily Eudemon, I make sure I post something every day, but I'm not about to ruin family vacations for it ("Honey, we got to pull over, I gotta get some blogging done and that coffee store has wi-fi. You and the kids sit still for 35 minutes in the van"). Hopefully, the various pre-programmed posts were entertaining enough to justify your jaunts over here these past two weeks.
It was a hard-driving eleven days, longest vacation we've taken as a family: The Black Hills, Deadwood, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, plus overnight stops in Mitchell, South Dakota (pheasant capital of the world (don't know about their nobility), and home of the incredibly lame Corn Palace--holder of the highest advertisements-to-lameness ratio in the world: signs for the Corn Palace all over I-90; we get there, and it was like, "You gotta be freakin' kidding me"), Nebraska (including the Shrine of the Holy Family), and Iowa.
We had a great time. A few observations, in no particular order:
1. Consider a bus tour. We took bus tours in the Black Hills and Yellowstone. They hit all the main attractions, plus many side ones and provided lots of local commentary that brought the places alive.
2. Yellowstone was my favorite and I recommend it to anybody, but two criticisms:
* Claims of abundant wildlife were overblown. We saw plenty of animals (lots of bison and elk), but I was led to believe that the wildlife would be all over the place. We were there for three days and didn't see any cougars, moose, wolves, or foxes. We saw two bears, but both were real far away ("See that black dot? That's a bear"). When we were in Jackson Hole, a river raft guide said, "You're the second family that's made this complaint about Yellowstone this week". Maybe it was the heat. I wanted to get up at 5:00 a.m. and trek into the park to see more wildlife (prime time, I was told), but it simply was not feasible with The Seven.
** Too many people. I hear it's far less crowded in May-June and August-September. I highly recommend you stay away from July. Then again, on the third day, we parked the van at a couple of spots and took less-travelled hikes. For long stretches, it felt like we were the only family in the world, so even at such peak times, Yellowstone can be enjoyed. If you're going for Old Faithful and the prime hot springs, though, keep away in July.
3. Take a whitewater rafting trip. Some of you may have figured out that I'm kind of the bookish sort, but we needed something to spice up our last day in Jackson, so Marie and I took the five older kids whitewater rafting on the Snake River (I took the three older boys in the morning shift; Marie took the two older girls in the afternoon). Man, it was a blast. A tour guide from the previous day told us that very few people actually fall in, and she kind of made it sound like only dorks actually fly out of the boat. Well, I'm a dork. We hit a rapid called "The Cajones" (sp?). I bounced up and out of my foot hold, tried to regain my position, then a wave knocked me off. I didn't have a prayer. To my credit, I was a "point paddler" (at the front, where the waves crash hardest) and was riding bull (one leg off the side), but it was still kind of embarrassing, though it was more fun than humiliating.
4. I may have eaten Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise. He owns a house in Paradise Valley, which is where we stayed in Yellowstone. Our bus tour guide said that Buffet likes the burgers at Helen's Restaurant, which is a little drive-up diner just a few blocks from our hotel. She said that Buffet supposedly wrote the song with Helen's in mind. She hasn't been able to verify it, but Buffet apparently hasn't denied the local lore.
5. Dang you, Georgia! My family kept track of license plates. We got every single state--even Alaska and Hawaii--except Georgia. Do they let you people out of the state these days? I guess Flannery O'Connor might be proud, but me, I was frustrated.
