Favorite Moments of 2011

I have three favorite moments from 2011, and they're in order, despite that my family isn't first.  I suspect they'll understand, given that the first one is a.) bicycling and b.) with Ming.

1.) Bike the Border with Ming.
2.) Ride from Colorado to Montana with Grandma and Eryn
3.) Orlando with Jen and Eryn

This is not to say I like vacations with my wife the least, it simply points out that bicycling trumps all.

Vacation, Day 2: North Dakota to Montana

Grandma's 95th birthday wasn't until August 8, so we spent our first night not so far away in Belfield, North Dakota. I was feeling pretty ramped up in the morning, the start of a two week vacation and all, so I got up bright and early, just after sunrise, and headed out of the hotel on my bike to take the interstate to Medora. You heard that right, the interstate. I biked on I-94 between Belfield and Medora. My brother had told me this was the only road, although a subsequent inspection of Google maps tells me otherwise. I did do some web research first to see if I could pedal the interstate, and the answer was an absolute yes, although the information was incredibly sparse. I have this suspicion that very few people are willing to admit you can ride on the interstate because they think it's so stupid. For those of you who doubt, I refer you to the Federal Highway Administration, which doesn't tell you which states allow riding on the highway, but does assure you that if there isn't a big sign that says "no bicycles" (e.g. Minnesota), you're pretty much safe...perhaps allowed is a better word...to ride the big tar.

Despite everyone telling you you're pretty much a meat waffle (c'mon...name the movie!), it's not that bad. Wide shoulders, and if you go just after sun up, with the sun behind you so the drivers aren't blinded, you can be fairly assured a.) they've sobered up since 2 or 3 a.m., b.) they can see you because the sun isn't in their eyes, c.) they have to go really out of their way to cross over six feet of shoulder, and d.) you can hear them coming and get out of the way because in ND there's only about one car every 5-10 minutes at that time of the morning. It was absolutely gorgeous, fairly quiet, and a cool 65-70 in the sun-is-only-now-coming-up liminal. (flickr album).

I did slightly slower than the speed limit. Not because 75 is really fast for a bike, but because I was checking out the prairie dog town on the way into Medora.

I stopped at the first rest stop. Most of the people there had horses. I had an iron horse. Or a steel horse. Ooooo....it's all the same. Only the scenery changes. Every day. It seems like we're wasting away. Another place, where the roads they are so cold. I'd pedal all night, just to get back hom. On a steel horse I ride. I'm wanted. Dead or alive. Dead....or...alive! That's for Julie.

The wide version. Pretty cool if you click through. I like the bend I got in the panorama.

Proof I was at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Home of buffalo, snakes, and bicyclists!

I was going to go over here, and then it started crying.

I didn't see any wildlife. I'm glad. I hear they're bike thieves.

The wide angle without the bicycle, in case you're a bigot.

The womenfolk followed in my steps, three hours later. Eryn bought the dragon she's holding, "Puff", at the hotel in Belfield. She's still sleeping with it, despite grandma Ellen and Grandpa John giving her $100 to spend on vacation as she pleased, which was split evenly between stuffed animals and little golden guides (spiders, stars, minerals and more). We got an agreement earlier on that we could get rid of almost as many animals as she purchased during the trip.

A great picture of Eryn in North Dakota, home of dragons.

When I got to Medora, I ate breakfast at the Cowboy Cafe. Delicious. The smell of bacon and hashbrowns wafted into the street. There was a line by the time I ate and space was limited, so I offered to share my table with the three women in line behind me so I wasn't taking up space for four by myself. One of them was from the Twin Cities, but had brothers running the sheet metal shop in Sidney, Montana, which was where I was headed. We talked vacations, oil wells, housing booms, housing busts, and had a pretty good time sitting together.

Pooteewheet and Eryn were still quite a ways off after breakfast, so I decided I'd go look at the Maah Daah Hey mountain bike trail that was supposed to be in the neighborhood. It was outside of town and there was a sign, so I took off. Until that point, I'd ridden mostly long but manageable hills, but the road to the trail was up, up, up, up. Near the top I met a woman coming from the other direction who said, "Hey, the sign up to here said 8% and you made it! I hope you have another gear, because it's 9% from this direction!" Ugh. I headed down the hill anyway and took the dirt road to the Maah Daah Hey. As I was pulling up to the trail sign, I did a rolling dismount, only to have a rattlesnake slither under my tire, then under my foot, and into the weeds. Got my adrenalin going.

I looked at the sign, and it assured me I was an idiot for not watching out for snakes. Despite knowing a rattler was in the grass somewhere, I rolled down the trail to check it out. Some serious sand. I was tired after only half a mile. It would be cool to use Dakota Cyclery to do the trail ride where they drop off your food and water in lock boxes for overnight stays 2 or 3 times. If you had comfortable riding boots that came up to your ankles. Or could change a flat with a rattler embedded in it. Seriously...I'm tempted. I think I'd remember it the rest of my life. If you're a mountain biker and have an interest, let me know and maybe we can plan something a year or two out. I biked back up the 9% hill to town, my bike squeaking in an ominous way. I'll get to that in a later post. It started here.

We headed toward Sidney, with only a brief stop in Glendive to look for petrified wood and check out Glendisaurus, the triceratops who lives in Glendive, Montana (where I have/had relatives).

Here eyes burnt out quite a while ago, but otherwise she's holding up well. The park is a pleasant place to stop, although it felt like 100 in the sun.

Eryn and I inappropriately touching her. Isn't the cloaca somewhere near here?

Vacation, Day 1: North Dakota

If you're a Facebook friend then you've probably seen quite a few of these, although without the commentary. I was too lazy to do a write up there. But here you can get some insight into why I took some of the strange photos I did. The whole set is out in my Vacation 2010 set on Flickr, but I'll try to cover highlights. We went to my grandmother's 95th birthday in Sidney, Montana, for vacation and, as icing on the cake, just kept traveling through Montana to Glacier, then to Idaho and the Hiawatha Bike Trail, and then back through Yellowstone and South Dakota. I can't remember the last time we went on a two week vacation, so it was very different.

This is a bit self explanatory. I asked her to stand there. It's funny. I bet they're using the term to refer to firewood or kindling.

Eryn was obsessed with Spiderman while on vacation. She spent a lot of time under a blanket shielding her portable DVD player from the sun. I didn't realize this was the primary intent behind burkas. We were watching for a copy of Spiderman 2 throughout most of the trip, but the lack of Targets and Best Buys west of Rapid City proved to be a problem. Kmarts and Walmarts weren't cutting it, although we did look. On the way back through Rapid City we finally found Spiderman 3 at the Best Buy and she switched to that for the rest of the ride.

We took our first real stop in Jamestown, North Dakota, to visit the giant buffalo, see the real white buffalo and visit Frontier Village, where I've been going since I was a kid.


Either I missed some exhibits before, or they've been adding. This is a pretty nice TRS-80, although it paled next to the calculator collection. They may not be part of the Old West frontier, but they're part of the computer frontier. I bet that was the logic involved.

I'm still valid to marry people in Minnesota, but I have no abilities to marry a mother and her daughter in North Dakota. I couldn't have even married the fugitive cousins who were headed to Canada via all our stops. My rights stop at the border. CAN I HEAR A YEA!

yea. sure.

DO YOU FEEL THE SPIRIT?!

sure dad. whatever hon.

ARE YOU MOVED TO REPENT!?

can you repent going on vacation with you? what's repent, dad?

I like bike art, even when it's sort of cheesy. I just won't buy it if it's cheesy.

I didn't remember the law office and doll house (a strong and) from the last time we were there in 2005. I could have taken this picture without ever leaving work. I was primarily interested in the remote possibility that Eliza Dushku was hidden down the boardwalk dressed in a sexy lawyer outfit.

But the dolls in the dollhouse looked nothing like Eliza Dushku. Boo! BOO!

Can you hear it singing to you?

Dolly dolly rocking lightly

Dolly dolly rocking nightly

Dolly dolly softly sweet

Dolly dolly kill you really dead.

I don't know what the hell was going on with these two. I considered that it might be racist, but that didn't seem to make any sense. Despite flat head infants being on the rise, it just occurred to me that maybe he'd once had a colored cap that's since lost its shine. Or, maybe he's Basketcase. What's in the basket little dude with sort of normal head.

my brother...

Part of the Old West Frontier was the fact that we had 50 states. And lesbian bartenders.

Eryn and I took this picture five years ago and it was great. Pooteewheet and her took it this time and it's great. Big smiles. What's that hand?

Eryn was a little big for the horse. What Pooteewheet failed to capture was when the horse had to relieve itself and, because Eryn was heavy, spread its back legs very slowly, staggering into the splits until it was almost whang to ground, and then let loose a nice stream.

This horse thought Eryn was very funny.

Mrs. Klund, what is this dentist doing? Do the dentists of Jamestown practice good dentistry? Will you do this if I come to you to get my teeth checked? Is it dangerous? Does it vibrate?

You'll have to click into this one if you want to see it. Way back there is the giant buffalo. Even further back is the white buffalo (live), but you can't see him. Pooteewheet managed to spot him when we were trying to pat the fake buffalo on the belly.

Holy buffalo balls, Batman! Pooteewheet is all GQ. If girls can be GQ. I wish I had thought to use c:geo to look for caches here, but that didn't occur to me until we were almost fully round trip and in Wyoming. There's probably one under a hoof.

After Jamestown, we hit Salem, North Dakota, to see a real cow, not a bison. This is me, milking Sue. Last time we visited Sue Eryn had a total screaming meltdown (she was two, it was late). She was better natured this time, although perhaps she'd have been a bit more ornery if she'd known the amount of exercise ahead of her in the next two weeks.

Eryn and Pooteewheet on Sue.

I particularly like this one as it looks like Sue is singing into an appropriately sized microphone.

I like cows
And they like me
I like cows
Just wait and see

When they go 'moo'
Hey, move over!
Oh yeah!
Uh uh uh

Well, I like cows
I like to watch them eat
I like cows
They don't move when they eat
And I'm a lone cowhand
From Rio Grande

I like cows
They've got skinny feet
Unlike their friends, the shaved sheep
They've got skinny feet (Cows, by the Suburbs)