I know, I know.

First, let me start out by saying, I'm pathetic. I'm a simple, boring, childish man. I know this for one simple reason, and that is because I'm going to write about White Castle, again. I am now in Chicago, staying at a hotel I stayed at 2 years ago. This year, there is one important difference. That difference is, I did a search to find the closest White Castle to this hotel, and was happy to learn there is one .8 miles away. I all ready ate there and had only been in town for one hour. I think that because 5 of the past 10 posts have mentioned the WC, I have a problem. There would be no issue if I planned all trips around a disc golf course, which I love to play, but that I work everything around a fast food restaurant, is both sad and probably dangerous. I'm all ready not skinny, so these frequent trips to a place that is not only unhealthy, but also reeks havoc on my gastrointestinal track, is a sad state of my life. Will I change anything regarding this scary obsession? Not likely.

I decided to drive here, about 5 hours, instead of flying so I could avoid 2 airports, security and being trapped in a tube with sick people. It never fails that I end up sitting next to Carol Cough on every flight. My last trip from Akron, was finished off with a 45 minute flight next to a lady that sneezed and coughed the whole flight. I was kind of hoping those little masks would drop out of the bulkhead so I could breath some fresh air, but no luck. I'm not a nosey person, but I watched as this lady took breaks from her germathon to circle and highlight damn near an entire book. She kept underlining and circling and writing all over the book she was reading. At some point, don't you just give up on highlighting the entire book, and just say "The whole book is important." I hope it was her book or the next person to try and read it, will be confused and distracted.

While traveling by plane, I really like to people watch. It's one of the reasons I don't mind getting to the airport a little early. If you keep your eyes open, you can see alot. Here are a few things I remember from my travels over the past two months.

I heard a dad in the Houston airport, tell his kid that jet lag would go away in a few minutes. I'm not sure if he has no idea what jet lag is, or if he was just trying to calm his son.

I heard the same kid that was being duped by his father on the jet lag thing, call his brother a "Fucker" on two occasions. The kid was maybe 12 years old.

I listened to two ladies, probably in their 40's, try to figure out Angry Birds on their phone. It was funny to hear them discuss the strategy in flinging the birds, but they were way off. It was hard to listen to them, and not run over and take the phone away and show them how you REALLY do it.

A guy got on the plane in Houston and was so drunk, they tossed him from the plane. I knew he was in trouble when the medical staff came on board and asked him where he was, and he said Des Moines. Oooops. That is your destination, not your current location.

As I sat in one of my planes, waiting to taxi, it began to snow inside the plane. No lie, there were flakes of snow blowing out of the air conditioner and started to accumulate on my leg. Maybe it never got measurable, but still, it shouldn't be snowing inside.

One flight had the flight attendant slamming the overhead door 10 to 12 times, because it wouldn't latch. That's fun when it is right by your head and she decides she is determined to get this thing to close, but this method only. Not move things that might be blocking or check to see if the latching mechanism is stuck, no, lets just whack-a-mole this thing until it stays shut or falls off the hinges. It finally shut.

Question. When did flight attendants stop being friendly? I remember as a kid, flight attendants were nice, helpful and always had a smile. Today's flight attendants don't smile, seem to all hate their jobs and act like everyone on the plane is 2 seconds away from snapping and tossing their complimentary Coke right in their face. Can we crack a smile, or say something that is sincere and not the canned "Bubbye, bubbye, bubbye"? (I'm not sure how to punctuate that sentence, since the last bubbye isn't a question, so I put the question mark on the outside of the quotes, but that doesn't look right. Please pray for my kids, dad will surely get them an F in English class.)

And my favorite story from the airport, involved this couple:

I saw this couple in the Houston while I was waiting for my flight back to Des Moines. What caught my attention was, firstly, they looked so cute. So nicely dressed and both looked so sweet I just wanted to give them both a hug. I learned my lesson last time, unsolicited hugs in an airport gets you a visit with the TSA. I tried to explain that a hug is not the same as a bomb in your underwear, but they weren't hearing it. I watched as Dorthy pulled out a bag and began to divide the contents inside between the two of them. There were two sandwiches, a bag of apple slices and some cheese. I watched as they shared their lunch together and again, wanted to give them both a hug. I know her name was Dorthy, because it was hand written on the bag they were eating out of. As they ate, they whispered to each other and he was obviously funny, because she giggled repeatedly and he smiled, knowing he still had it. Again, my mind is screaming to run over and hug them. Finally, Dorthy noticed that I was watching them and said to me, "Stop staring at us, you fucking pervert!" So sweet. But I decided against the hug.

OK, maybe she didn't say anything to me, but I so wanted to hear a second old lady cuss that I almost coaxed it out of her. Honestly, I got a warm feeling in my heart as I watched them. I imagined that they have probably been married for years, and obviously still love each other. It made my day. I hope that when I'm there age, which doesn't seem to be that far off, that Marcy and I will look that cute, as we board a plane for destinations unknown. Mainly because my mind will be numb by then and I will have no idea where I am going. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

Hey granny, watch your mouth.

When I travel, I love to watch the people. I’m always fascinated to see what people will try to get through the security check. In LA a few years back, the TSA people were very interested in what a lady had in her bag, so I watched as they opened it and pulled enough electronics to open a Radio Shack, including one of those old fax machines with a phone receiver on the side. Not sure why that material couldn’t be shipped, or checked in with her other luggage, but it amused me. Almost every time I travel, I see someone get busted trying to get a bottle of water through. Even with 30 signs and recorded voice messages blaring every five minutes throughout the airport, they feel this rule doesn’t apply to them. Today, the lady in front of me INSISTED she didn’t have a bottle of water that they just saw on the x-ray. They started pulling her bag apart and showed it to her. She claims she didn’t know how it got in there. OK, is this one of the people we need to go over the “Did someone, other than you, pack your bag?” I always thought that was a stupid question, but now I want this lady pulled aside and strip searched, just to be sure she doesn’t have any explosives she “didn’t know about.”
My favorite thing from today was when the airport personnel wheeled a little old lady to the terminal and parked her just across from me. She appeared to be in her 80’s. She tried to strike up a conversation with a lady sitting near her, but the lady said she spoke very little English, just French. That didn’t stop grandma from continuing her conversation with Frenchy. Grandma said, and I quote, ”This is the first time they let me leave my shoes on at security. They usually make me take them off and they are a bitch to put back on.” Now maybe your grandma cusses, but mine didn’t, so I damn near shit myself when I heard her. My grandmas were very sweet and proper and I don’t think I ever heard either of them say anything stronger than “shoot.” This little tidbit made my whole trip.

I usually roam through the gift shop of every airport I’m in, if I have time. That includes the Des Moines airport, as I leave. I’m usually at the airport way too early, paranoid I will miss my flight, so time is rarely an issue. Today I watched as a man, probably in his 60’s, moved every black cover from the dirty magazines so he could sneak a peek. He didn’t choose one, but that would have made a good photo if I could have got him to pose with it. I always buy a Coke after the security checkpoint, since they find the bottle I’m trying to sneak in every time. The rules shouldn’t apply to my precious Coke.

The last couple of times I have flown out of DSM, I went out of the B terminal, but today I got to depart from the A terminal, which was recently redone. I think they did a pretty good job. They added a bunch of chairs that have power outlets built in. They have network USB outlets as well, but I’m not risking my work computer by trying it out. Not sure what it does, but curiosity is not going to kill this cat. I looked to see if they had free wireless, but no go. I did find a “Hotspot” that was unsecure and thought about trying to connect, but I’m too chicken.

It’s was a beautiful day in Des Moines, sunny and in the 40’s, which is fine by me. It was a little windy, so my hair was a mess by the time I got to the terminal. I forgot that the DSM airport is also in the midst of a major redo in other parts, so now they have a second floor enclosed walkway to get from the parking garage to the terminal. Now it won’t be nearly as cold getting inside during the winter. I have to say, for a small airport, it is really nice. If I had to compare to the other airports that I have been in, to this one, DSM would be in my top 5. Another nice one is the Minneapolis airport, which I was in a few years back. The other airports I was in today were Chicago and Akron/Canton. Yes, I’m in Akron Ohio, don’t be jealous. It’s rainy and cold here and the temps are supposed to be lower than at home. That sucks, would like to be home on the nice days. I’m only here for a few days, so I better soak up Ohio.

Father of the Year, and other crap.

I told this story to my sister-in-law the other day, and she felt it was worthy of a post, so here it is.

Makiah is really into playing football right now. He plays with his friends every day after school. He loves to go in the front yard and play catch, so we do it often. The neighbor kids come up and I'm throwing the ball to 5 kids, who are knocking each other out to get the ball. They play during recess at school, so one of the neighbor kids took his ball to school. I happen to be picking the kids up from school that day, all three of mine and the three neighbor kids. While I'm on the playground, waiting for all six to show up, Makiah gets the football and wants me to throw it too him. He takes off across the playground, and I do the typical guy thing, and have him go deep. I can throw it far, right? He runs about 20 yards out and I give the ball a chuck, and drill him right in the eye. Now he is trying to not cry, all the while holding his eye and walking back to me. He holds back the tears, and we load up the van and head home. He thinks he needs an ice pack, but I distract him with the promise to play catch in the front yard. We head out, the neighbor kids show up, and we start to play again. It's a lot of fun, and the game is going well, until I plunk him in the eye again. Again he holds back the tears, but if he ever goes blind in one eye, you might be able to look back on that day as the cause. My Father of the Year award has been put on hold.

Just to prove that I will point out my own dipshit moves, as well as those around me, I will share one of my biggest dumbass moves in quite awhile. I went to lunch with a few coworkers on Friday, and one of them drove. I volunteered to ride in the backseat of his truck. It is usually difficult for me to ride in backseats because of my long legs, but I seem to always end up in the front, so I figured it was my turn. When we arrived at the restaurant, I was trying to figure out how to pry myself out of the truck and knew I needed leverage. I grabbed the door jamb and started to pull myself out, when the front seat rider closed his door, which shared the same jamb I'm currently using. Yes, now my hand has been slammed in the door. I think I yelped like a beaten puppy, but I can't say for sure. I tried to pull my fingers out of the bear trap, but nothing. I have now began my "My fingers are in the door" cry, which my front seat mate hears and begins to pull frantically on the door, which is locked. The driver has begun his walk into the restaurant, keys in his pocket, when he hears the front seat guy yell to unlock the door. The driver is fumbling for his keys and not really sure why, so I reach into the front seat to free myself. I try to grab the lock to manually undo it, but it's one of the new cars that when locked, the knob is virtually inside the door. This makes it hard for a thief to use a coat hanger to unlock, but when you are an idiot with your fingers slammed in a door, it's a bit frustrating. I'm able to get enough of a grip on the lock, lift it and my front seat mate finally releases the metal death grip on my phalanges. From the get go, I didn't think anything was broken, and I still don't, but the "bad finger" is purple and sore. The other fingers had deep grooves on them on Friday, but they all seem fine now. I felt like a 5 year old, getting their fingers closed in a door, which I have seen. The difference? Their fingers are small and their bones aren't brittle. I got lucky.

Houston, we have a, well, a sight.

So here I sit in my luxury Hilton Hotel room, eating my room service pizza and watching Sunday night football. There are no kids, so it is quiet. Marcy isn't here, so the thermostat is set at 65 degrees, and I'm considering moving it down to 63 degrees. Do I like to travel? Yes and no. Yes, because of the things above, but no cause I actually miss my family. And, because I like to go into work. I keep caught up on my work and I like my co-workers. The main thing I like about my work trips is, I get to meet the people I normally work with via email and phone, in person. I get to get my hands on my inventory, so I can be certain that all is good in the world. Most people complain about the travel part, but I have been pretty lucky. I did miss a connecting flight in St. Louis once, the last flight to Des Moines for the evening, and had to drive home at 3am. That wasn't fun. I have never lost my luggage, knock on wood, and haven't been bumped and my plane has never crashed. What I have gotten, is entertainment.

My trip started off at the kiosk you now have to use to check in to your flight, since there are only 3 people working in the entire Des Moines airport, they typically focus on fueling up the planes and throwing luggage around. When I got to the kiosk, there was a couple, man and woman, who were traveling together, but were each at a different kiosk. I waited as they struggled to figure it out. I was about to push them out of the way, but the lady finally gave up and let me go, while the guy raised his hand like he was in kindergarten and the teacher was going to ask him what he needed. I checked my bag and got the heck out of there before he started looking over my shoulder to see how to work the dang thing. DON'T CHEAT! Figure it out on your own. I got up to security, which in Des Moines, is typically a 10 to 20 minute process, but usually 10. They only had one line open so we were headed for a 20 minute line, when a miracle happened, they opened a second line. Wow, that was a first. The people in front of me poured to the new line, so when it came to me, I had to decide, move to the new line or stick with the old one. I chose old one. Wrong choice. Not because the line was slow, but the lady in front of me was showing me parts of her anatomy I didn't need to see. When I got into the line, she was wearing a coat, like a suit coat. I was busy taking my shoes off when she removed the coat, so I missed the tease part of the strip tease. When I looked up, I saw that this lady, who was a bit overweight, had removed the coat and was wearing a "shirt" that didn't have a back. It had like straps that were holding it "closed" but there was a ton of skin. How do I say this? She had back boobs. I hope I'm not breaking any news to you, but if you get overweight, you can develop boobs, on your back. They aren't real boobs, so I don't think she was breaking any laws, but wow, that is a shocker to look up to. Who the hell wears a shirt with no back, let alone on a plane? People watching is my favorite thing to do at an airport. What people choose to wear, fascinates me.

My flight is on time, so we board. I have to almost crawl to get in this tiny plane, but I find my seat and sit down, just as my window mate shows up so I have to get back up and bang my head on the roof again. Flight takes off, seat belt light goes off and my seat mate has to pee. I let him out, cram my legs back into my seat and wait for him to get back. I pry myself out of the seat to allow him back in, then squeeze back into my seat. About 10 minutes later, he decides he needs something out of the overhead, so we go through the routine again. It's a 2 hour flight dude, get the shit you need and sit down. No upsie downsie. The other problem with these tiny planes, the dude next to me was about my height, so we played footsie all the way to Houston and his hairy ass arm was hogging the arm rest. This plane has 2 seats on one side and one seat on the other. I try to get the one seat whenever I can, but couldn't on this trip. On my flight back, I have the single seat.

Before you take off, the flight attendant always gives you the safety speech. I stopped listening to it years ago. I think I know what to do. If the mask drops, scream "we are all going to die," remove your seat belt and proceed to run up and down the aisle ripping all the masks out. I might have mis-understood the directions, but that is the gist of it. I'm not listening to the lady today, but out of the corner of my ear (is that a saying?) I thought I heard her say something about asparagus. Surely she didn't, but maybe she was trying to see if ANYONE was listening. There was no reaction from the rest of the plane, so she either didn't say it, or nobody was listening.

When I travel, I try to dress to be comfortable. I watched a show years ago that said you should always wear long pants and tennis shoes on planes. The long pants protect your legs if there is an accident and the tennis shoes so you can do wind sprints on the movable sidewalk that is in so many airports now. OK, that isn't right, it's actually because a sandal exposes your toes, if there is an accident, and flip flops can come off and if you have to run over fiery wreckage once you have been de-flip flopped, it can hurt. All of this is to cover your ass on a worse case scenario, but jeans and tennis shoes is how I want to dress anyway. Since the weather in Houston is in the 90's, I wore short sleeves. I also don't get could easily, so I'm usually good. A lady who sat two rows up from me, apparently, doesn't have the same temperature tolerance that I do. She was wearing a stocking cap that looked like one of those sock monkeys. It was pulled down over her ears and it was hilarious. Looked like she was heading to Alaska in February.

When we got to Houston, I was waiting for my luggage when I watched a guy grab a suitcase and moved it a bit, so he could get the handle of his suitcase. A guy right behind him, angerly told him not to touch his suitcase, seeing as the case that guy one touched, was guy two's. It seemed a little harsh, seeing as how guy one didn't chuck the case across the airport, he barely moved it. I guess travel makes some people a bit edgy.

I had a little luck on my side as well. I was standing in line for a cab to go to the hotel, when a van pulled up with one of those scrolleing message boards on the side that listed my hotel. I knew my hotel had a shuttle, but when I tried to call from the booth, I sat on the phone for 5 minutes and nobody ever picked up. I decided to take a cab, until this little miracle pulled up. I checked with the guy, he said he did go to my hotel, so I skipped the long taxi line. I'm glad I was able to find the shuttle, my hotel was farther than I thought and it saved my company some money.

All in all, a good trip. I'm off to my warehouse in the morning and will probably sweat like crazy in the 90 degree, un-airconditioned, Texas warehouse, so wish me luck.

Random pictures, hilarious comments

I always new there was a reason I had three kids. Now don't get me wrong, I love the them, but normally, they spend most of their days at home making messes. Their idea of cleaning them up, isn't on the same scale as mine, but they try, sort of. The reason I had kids? So someday, they can do the jobs around the house that I don't really want to do. That is why my parents had me, but as a kid, I never really appreciated all that they did, so I never quite got the whole having kids thing. I thought they were lazy, turns out they were just smart. My kids aren't very old, but they are just old enough to think helping daddy around the house is fun. I'll milk this until they are fully trained, then BAM! it's their job. My plan is moving along just swell. Here is Makiah mowing the grass.

You can see that he appears to be struggling, which he was. I keep cheering him on, and pulling the mower back into line. It seems that when you push with all your might, you tend to lean to your strong side. The lines in the yard aren't exactly straight, but if you look closely, half of the grass is dormant, so whatever. I didn't take very good care of the grass this year, so it's a bit weedy and a lot dry. Hey, Iowa is the Alaskan tundra in the winter and the Arizona desert in the summer. Just so Makiah didn't feel like he was having all the fun, I had Max working as well.

This is our pool, that he is power washing the mud off the bottom so I can roll it up and put it in the garage for the winter. Then, next spring, I will roll it back out and spend several hours looking for holes that happened when we power washed it and rolled it up. WTF! Mason hasn't exactly jumped on the bandwagon yet, but I'm dreaming up some jobs for him.

I found this picture from earlier this summer.

Now this picture cracks me up. Mason is holding my BB pistol and Makiah is holding my Red Ryder, single pump, BB rifle, the same gun from A Christmas Story. I have not shot my eye out, but the kids will at some point and Marcy will give me the "I told you so" speech. Bring it. I'm working with them on gun safety, with guns that probably won't kill them if they break a rule. Since both guns are single pump, that means two things. One, they can't pump either one of them, so I have to do it, so I always know when we are live. Two, since they are both single pump, not a lot of power. We shoot cans in the backyard, with my wood privacy fence behind the cans to stop the strays. The first time we ever shot them, two summers ago, Makiah was a dead eye. He hit the cans with every pull of the trigger. The cans were about 30 feet away, so not bad for his first attempt. This year, his eye is no longer dead. We could have thrown a handful of BB's and had the same result. Oh well, they haven't shot me or each other, or an animal, so we are good.

I found this shot that I took as I passed a car on the way home.

If you see that white dot, just to the bottom left of the gas door, that is her gas cap dangling there. Not sure why I thought this was funny but I did, and do. Maybe because I have never done it. I never lost a gas cap, when they weren't attached, back in the day. Now that I've said that, this will happen to me. There appears to be something under the wheel as well, but I'm not sure what it was. I would have gotten a better look, but I hadn't looked at the road in a few minutes trying to get this shot, so I thought I might take a gander at where I was in the traffic. Safety first.

Another shot happened near my office.

This is probably hard to see, but it is burned into my brain, so let me describe. This truck is all decked out. It has the huge CB antenna. It has large wheels. It has fricking smoke stacks on both sides of the cab. It sounds like across between a Harley motorcycle and a funny car. A deep rumble. Then, to top it off, it has a Rascal Scooter strapped to the back. Hilarious. At least if his truck breaks down, he can continue his trip and a whopping 3 1/2 mph.

And finally, I took this picture on my last trip to White Castle and was going to sign off my last post about the WC with it. Well I forgot, so let me sign off this post, with a very sad shot.

That was close!

Have you ever had something that shook you, and I mean shook you to your core? Well I had that happen to me last Sunday. Marcy works with a lady who lives on an apple orchard. They have about 1000 trees on their property, but don't pick or sell the apples. I got the impression that they have a lot of family and friends that come out and pick them, but they must leave a bunch that just don't get eaten. It was Sunday morning, and we decided to head to the orchard to pick some. Now the weather outside was frightful, OK, not frightful but as I was typing the first part of that sentence, the song just jumped in. It was a cloudy day, appeared to want to rain, but we were determined to get a bunch of apples, the rain be damned. We found the orchard, about 10 minutes from our house, and hit the trees to get our bounty. It started to sprinkle, but what I've always tried to teach the boys is, a little rain won't hurt you, it's the lightning that will sting a bit. There were apples every where. I tried to convince the boys, that just because the apples were low enough on the tree that they could reach them, didn't mean they needed to be picked. The first bunch of apples picked were the size of golf balls. I reminded them, the bigger the better. (glad I said it and not Marcy) They started passing on the golf balls, and started picking reasonable apples. Then we went over the condition of the apple. "Don't put an apple that is half rotten in with the other apples," I said. All three boys had either a bag or bucket to carry their treasure, and they were starting to fill up, well, some were. After walking around for about 15 minutes, I noticed that Mason had one lonely apple in his bag. I asked him why he only had one, and he said it was perfect, and he was only picking perfect apples. I wished him luck. The friend of Marcy's said that there were bigger apples on the other side of the road, so we headed over there, and she was right. As we crossed the road, the rain picked up. We were all ready soaked, so why stop now. After just a few minutes looking for bigger apples, it happened. My memory is a little foggy, but what I remember is a flash of light. Not from a flashlight, or from a camera, but more like the sun just landed in a farm field in Iowa. It was bright. That scared me, but the BOOM that followed just about cause my bowels to release. To say I was startled, would be an understatement. Like saying Katrina was a big storm, yeah, no shit. As soon as the boom happened, I knew that lightning had just struck nearby. My first reaction? RUN!!!! I yelled to the kids, who were now all crying, RUN!!!!!! And they did, but the little bastards dropped their apples, so I yelled to get your apples. Looking back, was that wrong? Should I have nearly sacrificed one of my offspring so I could pack an apple in my lunch? Huh, maybe, but at the time, "Get your apples." They took their hands off of the ears just long enough to pick up their apple bags in their now shaking hands, and run, still crying, to the van. Now my sprint, which wouldn't exactly be one for the books, consisted of a 6 foot 4 inch, slightly over weight, 42 year old, slightly frightened man, running at full speed, bent at the waist to get under the branches and trying not to turn an ankle on all of the previously fallen apples. I was doing my best to get around the trees and not running into one of my kids and knocking him down in his terrified state, loosing any chance of father of the year. BUT, they were on their own. I can't run my 6 foot 4 inch, slightly over weight, 42 year old, slightly frightened body, running at full speed, bent at the waist to get under the branches and trying not to turn an ankle on all of the previously fallen apples AND carry a crying 5 or 9 year old. Mason was at the van, so one kid was safe. Marcy was running at my left, van to my right, so her chances of beating me to the van were next to zero. I love her, but I'm not above smashing her to the ground so I get my butt into the van before the next lightning strike. I knew I had a little time, but mother nature has no rules on the amount of time between strikes, so I wasn't going to rely on history. I'm happy to say that we all made it to the van and I didn't have to sacrifice any kid or my wife, to be safe. We drove up to the house, and were greeted by Marcy's friend and her daughters, who had been riding a four wheeler around when the strike happened. The pointed out where it had struck, since they had a front row seat to the actual landing zone. It appears the strike hit about 300 yards from where there are now 4 or 5 pee stains. A little too close for comfort. As a storm rolled in today, Makiah was in the house at the first flash of light. I think he has a new respect.

Bucket

So I mentioned awhile back that I didn't have an actual bucket list, but I think they can be good ideas, as long as you don't see your life as a failure if you don't accomplish your list. Marcy and I started discussing our mental lists on the way to MN and realized that most of our list was comprised of travel, which is probably common. Although I don't actually have the list written down yet, I'm thinking I will just add a menu choice of "Bucket List" on this blog and add as I think of them. Seeing as how my memory isn't always what I want it to be, this will help me to remember my choices.

First off, I want to take a 2 week vacation, with no agenda, no destination and not even a direction. Load up the car and roll the dice. Roll a one, you go North, roll a two, you go east and so on. You say there are six sides to a dice and four directions, well then, plug something into the other numbers regarding roads that leave from your current spot. Is there a road that goes NE from where you are? That's a five on the dice. I think you get the point. Now, to figure out where to go, hit the next visitors center and start pulling brochures, or cheap hotels have the brochures as well, like the Super 4 we stayed in the other night. Ask the kids, what do you want to see? The worlds biggest ball of twine? Lets go. Can you imagine the blog posts I would have for a vacation filled with the worlds biggest this and the worlds smallest that? If you don't have an agenda, there isn't as much pressure to be "there" or see "that." Would it work? No idea, but it sounds like fun to me. My kids might not see the thrill in it, but if they are helping in the decisions, maybe they would enjoy it. "Where are you going on vacation?" Where ever the road, and dice, take us.

There are several places in the US that I want to see, the Grand Canyon from the ground, Glacier National Park, and Alaska. Those are the ones I have thought of so far, but I'm sure I will remember more that I have read about before and have just forgotten.

I've all ready cleared some off my list, and even did a few things that I would have had on my list, if I had had one. I've been to Hawaii, which definitely would have been on my list. I went to South Africa and got to ride around in an open air jeep with lions all around. I walked up to a Cape Buffalo, one of the big five African animals, and didn't shit myself. OK, maybe a little, but we were close and that was one big ass animal. That was probably something I never would have put on my list, because I would have though it was out of reach. I guess that isn't the point of the list, maybe you should shoot for the moon. Maybe not the moon, although that might not be out of the question soon. I was excited to hear what Marcy's list would look like as well. I was happy to hear we both had Grand Canyon and Alaska on our list and she had a different national park, but we are in the same category anyway. She liked my roll the dice vacation, so maybe I will start to refine that idea, so if we ever have the money to do it, we can. Now that I'm learning her list, I hope to be able to make some of those come true. I hope my surprise trip to Hawaii knocked a entry off her list. I know she would love to go to South Africa, and since I now have a connection to make that happen, the money is all that separates her from a pant load of crap after she sees what I saw.