Niagara Falls

The

I’ve been meaning to post some about our trip to Niagara Falls for a couple of days now, but it’s still been busy around here with the in-laws and such. Anyway:

Annette and I had a two night/three day getaway to Niagara Falls while Annette’s parents watched Will and Sophie. Interestingly, Sophie warmed up to the strangers pretty quickly. Hopefully, the same will happen when my parents come to watch Will and Sophie at the end of the month….

Niagara Falls was a lot of fun, but also a lot of money. The main attraction is pretty impressive, one of those things it’s worth seeing live and in person at least once in your life. I’ve never been much of a fan of video cameras, but this is one situation where having a video camera would have been pretty handy because you just can’t capture the motion or the sound of the water in still images.

View of the

There’s two basic ways to get the “falls experience” (though there’s a package deal that includes a walk along a section of rapids and a tour of a butterfly conservatory, I guess a building with a bunch of butterflies– maybe if we go back with Will, we’ll give that a shot). The most famous is the “Maid of the Mist” boat ride, which, as you can tell from the picture, takes you into the mist of the falls on the Canadian side.

Me

Slightly less famous is the “Behind the Falls” attraction, which takes you to tunnels literally behind the waterfall and also to an observation platform right at the base of the falls (which is where I’m standing). We did the “Behind the Falls” thing first and decided that that was enough. Besides, neither one of us was in the mood to wait in another line and we didn’t feel like being bounced around in the boat, either. Though, for the record, I want to point out that I was willing to do the “Maid of the Mist” ride, despite my lack of enjoyment of boats.

Anyway, there was a lot of fun stuff for us at Niagara Falls. The park around the falls was quite lovely, we had a great hotel room with a spectacular view, we had a lot of fun at one of the big casinos, and on our drive out of town, we had a chance to go through the wine country and Niagra-on-the-Lake, which reminded me of Ashland in some ways.

Tourist trap central

But man, there’s a lot of tourist-trap crap there! It may be because we had just spent nearly two weeks being tourists out west, but there just seemed to be no end to the opportunities and obligations to spend money. Just about every bill included about 20% worth of tax, more or less wiping out the value difference between the American and Canadian dollars, and everything cost too much money to begin with. You get a couple blocks away from the falls and you run into a strip of arcades, haunted houses, wax museums, etc.– we went into the “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum.” Again, maybe this would be fun with Will, but it didn’t take much of this to hurt our heads.

Happy July 4 (more or less…)

Will watching the fake calliope

You know, it’s kind of a scary time right now, if you ask me. Sandra O’Connor retiring from the Supreme Court prepares the way for a potentially ugly political battle and it will give us a chance to see W.’s stripes clearly. If he’s a “uniter,” as he claims to be, he’ll pick a moderate kind of like O’Connor. If he’s not, he won’t. Guess which one I’m guessing on.

And Iraq goes badly and the trouble with Social Security reform and the rest of the world hates us, blah blah blah….

But hey; let’s have a parade!

The annual Ypsilanti July 4 parade featured all the usual sorts of things and was lots of fun for one and all. I’ll just offer three quick thoughts for now:

  • They should have had a lot more candy throwers and they should have had them earlier. The kids were getting pretty antsy that no candy was being tossed until about 45 minutes into the thing.
  • The theme this year was “salute to the military” and here’s one particularly disturbing image:
    Marching kiddies
    These are members of the “junior Marines,” kids of about 10 or so marching in fatigues and (presumably) being convinced to enlist when the time comes. Right when they marched by us, an old B-17 or some such plane flew right over us. Annette said later “Gosh, I felt like we were at war or something; which we are.”
  • But I don’t want to dwell on the negative here– really, it was overall good and clean American fun. And because he said he wanted it to be on my blog, here’s a picture of Andre and family:

Andre et al

Western Vacation, Part 8: The Badlands, Wall Drug, the end.




Will studying

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

As I’m typing this, I’m happily sitting in my living room after watching The Wizard of Oz on Turner Movie Classics (followed by a 13 minute a silent version that was made in 1910), thinking about Dorothy’s famous words, “there’s no place like home.â€? Ah yes….

Anyway, a quick recap of the last couple of days of our western adventure:

After a start later than we would have preferred, we toured through Badlands National Park. Annette and I both remember our last trip through the park quite vividly. It was 1996, on our way out to my first tenure-track job at Southern Oregon, and we drove through the park from Wall, SD very early in the morning. It was a spooky and ethereal drive with odd colors against the sand/rock formations and birds that kept dive-bombing us and getting smacked by the windshield of the car.

This time, not as much, but it was still pretty cool. Will liked a ranger’s lesson on fossils and the fossil trail (notice him studying the model of a fossil under the plastic dome along the trail in the photo) and the views through the park were still pretty cool.

And then it was to Wall Drug. For me, it was the perfect way to end the trip: a kitschy tourist trap that has risen to the distinction of “historic� destination. I’m guessing that a good half of the people reading this message have “dug� Wall Drug at one point or another, and I’m here to tell you that it certainly hasn’t changed much since you’ve been there. I do think there are a lot fewer billboards than there used to be.

Anyway, it was fun, though by the time we got there, Annette and Will were both sick of me taking pictures of them, which is why you won’t see much of them in the pictures I have of Wall Drug on Flickr (part of the whole trip group). Except for this picture:

After that, it was drive drive drive drive. South Dakota is a big-assed state with not a whole lot there, and even going in the low 80s pretty much the whole way, it took us about six hours before we were through it all. We stopped in Albert Lea, Minnesota for the night last night, and then got up first thing and came into town tonight. And here I am.

Just a few of the things I learned from this trip:

  • I am feeling way WAY out of shape and I’m looking forward to getting back into a regular workout plan sometime very soon.
  • It is surprisingly easy to get Internet access. All three of the hotels we stayed in had it in our rooms, and it was easy enough to get at the YMCA camp, too.
  • Altitude can really mess with you a lot more than you might think.
  • I think snowglobes aren’t as popular as they once were; I was only able to find four ones that I thought were cheap enough to justify getting.
  • If we can ever get back into decent shape and deal with the altitude, I’d love to spend some time hiking around the Rockies in the summer.
  • I have a fun family and a lot of cool nephews and brothers-in-law and sisters and parents and such.

Western Vacation, Part 7: The Black Hills

I would have liked to have been on the road by now, but considering the day we had yesterday, I suppose it’s reasonable that all of us are a little slow moving this morning. Let me tell ya: we did the Black Hills yesterday, did it as much as it could possibly be done, wrung it dry, and a good time was had by one and all.

I’m not sure why– maybe because we did so much– but I don’t have a lot of scenic photos to post here. Oh well; you’ve seen most of the things not in the pictures.

After toast and doughnuts in the hotel, we headed off to Mount Rushmore with a first stop in the touristy-junk town of Keystone. Lots of gift shops and rock shops and such; Will spent some of his own money, carefully choosing some taffy.

Here’s Will and Annette on the street at Keystone.

Then on to the star attraction, Mount Rushmore. I don’t have any good pictures of Rushmore, at least on the digital camera, and, as much as I like taking pictures, I thought about not taking any at all. I mean, haven’t all of us seen Mount Rushmore enough, even if you haven’t actually been there?

The last time I was here (which was in 1996 when Annette and I were moving out to Oregon from Bowling Green), we only stopped at Rushmore for about 15-20 minutes, long enough to park, fight the big crowds on the main viewing platform, and have a full-frontal view of the four heads. This time around, we took the hike around a trail that takes you by the artists’ studio and many other viewing sites. That was pretty cool, and we managed to get some exercise, too.

From Rushmore it was on to the Crazy Horse Memorial, the never-to-end family business mountain carving project. It’s been going on for around 75 years, and I don’t think there’s any way that they’ll finish it in the next 75 years. Regardless, it’s still a pretty impressive site, a memorial for Native American peoples and the work of a very stubborn family who have refused government assistance.

Here’s Will standing by a cool display of glass beads in the museum part of things.

Rushmore has been done for a long time obviously, so that’s all about product. Crazy Horse is all about evolving process. Annette is certain that the progress on the mountain has been noticeable, but don’t ask me to tell you the difference between what we saw in ’96 and now. Well, okay. the face is done. But the cool part about Crazy Horse is the idea of it, and also seeing the process evolve, with the visitor center buildings being added on to in any which way. It’ll be interesting to see this thing in another 10 years.

Then it was lunch at the Mount Rushmore Brew Pub in Hill City, which was slow service but good food and very good beer and it was raining and hailing out, so it was a good time to sit around inside. Funny story: Will and Annette ordered sweet potato fries, and high school kid waitress and the young groovy couple sitting a few tables away were both fascinated by the idea that one would eat something like that.

Then it was on to Reptile Gardens, which is a private zoo sort of thing just off of the road that features a lot of (guess what?) reptiles. They had a lot of snakes and such that I hadn’t seen in other zoos before, including komodo dragons and (what they claimed was) the largest salt water crocodile in the Western Hemisphere, an 18 or so footer named Maniac. Let me tell ya, that was one big assed crocodile. They had prairie dogs and giant tortoises (in the old days, they apparently let the kids ride them), and we saw a pretty good snake handling show.

Oh yeah– they also had these trained chickens who would do stuff like play basketball (as the one in the picture is doing at the top of the page), or play tic-tac-toe or give you answers to a series of yes or no questions. It was all skinner box kind of stuff– the chickens peck at a target and then they get a reward– but it was pretty funny, and no, I don’t think it was all that cruel. They had a sign explaining the care that they give the chickens, and they pointed out that these chickens actually live a “full lifeâ€? (in other words, they aren’t dinner).

Then we managed to get kind of lost around Rapid City, which actually wasn’t that bad because we got lost in the good part of town. My impressions of Rapid City improved a great deal.

Then we went to the Black Hills Caverns, one of the many cave tours in the Black Hills. This was Annette’s idea, but Will and I liked it a lot too. The thing that was most, well, cute about the whole thing was the “mom-and-pop� nature of the operation. For example, our tour guide (and Annette and Will and I were the only people on the tour) was a high school student from Sturgis who told us stories about bike week and living in the Black Hills in between her rehearsed tour banter.

Then it was time for mini golf (always fun, of course) and then for later dinner at a place called Boston Pizza, which is actually a Canadian chain and has as much to do with Boston as Outback Steakhouse has to do with Australia.

Whew. That was a long day.

Now it’s time to get ready for the road.

Western Vacation, Part 6: Top of the world (and then in South Dakota)

We said goodbye to the rest of the family and left the YMCA camp first thing Thursday morning and started our day off with a drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. (Note to self: if we ever head back this way during the summer, it might be worthwhile to think about staying at Grand Lake Lodge). The park was definitely one of those places where I wish we had more time and where I wish I was in better shape to hike because it was unbelievably beautiful and “sublime.�

We took the “lazyâ€? tour, the Trail Ridge Road, a white knuckle driving experience open only from Memorial day until the fall which crosses the mountains at over 12,000 feet. According to the Rocky Mountain National Park web site, it is the highest paved road in the United States. I guess that’s true; all I know for sure is that you are way the hell up there when you are on this thing– I mean WAY up there, way above the tree line, thick snow drifts on either side of the road kind of high up there. The road itself, which is kind of bumpy and a bit suspect in spots, is all switchbacks and sheer drops of God only knows how many feet with no shoulders and few guard rails. Annette spent much of the ride saying “height issues, height issues!â€?

But like I said, it was really beautiful. If we ever come back to Colorado, especially for a summer trip, I think one of the best places to go would be to Estes Park (which is on the eastern side of the park) or the previously mentioned Grand Lake, and one of the best things to do would be to hike around the national park. Of course, I’d need to be in much better shape and many pounds lighter (as the picture here would suggest)….

After the park (and its fine gift store where I bought a lovely snow globe), we drove along a pretty mountain stream and pretty much all downhill for about 40 miles and then started north to Rapid City, South Dakota. I have only three things to say about this six to eight hour part of our drive:

  • For some reason, I found Cheyenne, Wyoming to be about the most confusing and misleading place to exit off of the interstate ever. I saw signs that suggested a variety of lunch options right off the road at a particular exit, but none of them seemed to be there. We ended up driving through Cheyenne, much of which struck me as a dreadful place.
  • I suppose there was some beauty in the quintessential “Western Range Landâ€? scenery that is eastern Wyoming, its wide open spaces, rolling hills, grasses, and cattle. But after about 20 minutes of driving through this, I kept wondering who in the hell would voluntarily live in the middle of nowhere?
  • This is Dick Cheney country. Sorta.

Anyway, we’ve ended up in Rapid City, our staging ground for our tour of the Black Hills Friday. It promises to be a fun albeit “touristyâ€? filled day– Mount Rushmore, Reptile Gardens, some mini-golf, some caves, etc.

I’ve already found Rapid City kind of frustrating and skanky. We got to our hotel after a longer than planned drive (and it’s a nice hotel with a pool and good Internet access, though there are some people above us who seem to think that a good way to have fun is to stomp around loudly and repeatedly shower), and I went shopping for some food and beverages in our room while Annette and Will went to the pool. My most obvious shopping option was as Wal-Mart “Super-Center.� Now, I think that Wal-Mart is a very very evil corporation, and I cannot honestly remember the last time I was in one of these places. Seriously, it may be about 5 years. But like I said, with no Target or Whole Foods in site, my options where limited.

My Wal-Mart shopping experience was dominated by two thoughts. First, “wow, is this place ever tacky and just unpleasant.� Second, “holy shit, the stuff in here sure is cheap!�

Unfortunately, South Dakota is one of these stupid states where you can get beer in a grocery store but to get wine, you have to go to a liquor store. After some dicey directions, I found my way to a liquor store that had fewer wine selections than the Farmer Jack in Ann Arbor (and that’s saying something, believe me!). It was in a neighborhood of check cashing stores, pawn shops, and “casinos,� which in South Dakota seem to be seedy little operations that look from the outside a lot more like porn book stores than the kind of more glitzy casinos I’m used to in Las Vegas or even Detroit. Kind of weird, though with a seven year old in tow, I don’t think we’ll get to find out the mystery behind these South Dakota casinos.

As before, the pictures are at my flick site, at least for the time being.

Western Vacation, Part 5: Breathless




My mother is a fish…

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

I’m typing this on Wednesday, the end of our third full day here at the YMCA of the Rockies, though I am sure I won’t be able to post this until Thursday or later. It’s been an incredibly busy day and lots of fun. It started with a trip to Bill’s Trout Pond in Winter Park, an operation run by an ex-ski bum named Bill. Bill was quite a hoot; he ran this trout pond in the summer and drove a shuttle van from the Denver airport and the Winter Park ski resort.

It was one of these places where you throw a line in the well-stocked pond and you’re going to catch a trout. The kids loved it; actually, all the kids loved it, which was a bit of a surprise. We figured that at least one of them would have gotten squeamish about the whole idea of catching fish and then watching Bill clean them, but they were all quite fascinated by the process, including the gutting. Bill, who had been running the fish farm for years and who had certainly seen groups like ours before, was not surprised to see the little kids this invested in the blood and guts side of things. Anyway, Will was the winning fisherman in that he caught two of the biggest fish (one trout that was 18 inches long), and he caught his fish first, almost right in a row. Then we had all of the fish for lunch– great and unbelievably fresh trout.

In the afternoon, Annette and Will and I went back into Winter Park to go to the ski resort and to take a try on the Alpine Sled ride. Really cool. Basically, you go down this track that is sort of like a bobsled run on a little cart where you control the speed. Will was behind Annette, and they were both way out in front of me; apparently, Will sped up on Annette, came up behind her yelling “ramming speed!� and bumped her cart, which is a no-no. It would have been fun to do that run again, actually, but we didn’t want to pay the $40 a person “all day� fee.

Anyway, after that, we went shopping and then we went out for dinner at a pretty nice German restaurant. Nice place and a good time for one and all, though I think it’s fair to say that the altitude and pine pollen had finally gotten to Annette. At one point in time, it got to everyone in my family other than the children, actually. You don’t think about this, but when you get up to 8500 feet or so above sea level and stay there for a couple of days, a lot of people start feeling pretty crappy. Just about everybody in our group (including me) had some symptoms from the altitude. So, when all is said and done, Colorado was “breathless� for more reason than one.

As before, there’s pictures on my Flickr account.

Western Vaction, Part 4: “Talking ’bout the Y-M-C-A”


Let’s see, where did I leave off? Here’s what we’ve been up to lately:

Monday morning, we went on a group hike on the Waterfall Trail, which was a pretty easy hike except for the fact that we are already at 8700 feet and we had to herd a gaggle of elementary school aged hikers. Kind of a funny thing at the end: we hiked and hiked, looking for a waterfall, and we got to this place that was kind of like a waterfall. We took some pictures and everything. Then we looked around the corner of the path and then we saw the real waterfall pictured here.

Monday afternoon, I played golf with a couple brothers-in-laws Sean and Dan (who was a real trooper since this was only the second or third time he played golf in the last five years) and my father at this place called Pole Creek Golf Course. I took some pictures with my cell phone, but I screwed up and didn’t save any of them. It’s too bad because it was a really beautiful course. Play-wise, it was an interesting place because some of the holes were relatively easy– I actually won the par contest with a total of 4– and some of the holes were im-fucking-possible– I ended up with about 120 for the round, and that’s with a fair amount of cheating along the way. Expensive, but well worth it.

Monday night included much roasting of marshmallows and creating of s’mores around the fire. Ah, camp….

Tuesday has featured stuff around the YMCA camp. Will and I made a visit to the craft area where we made a catapult– I’ll have to upload the picture for that later. The craft center was pretty nice. All the kids made tie-dyed t-shirts the previous day, a couple of them made little boats and stuff. I’m sure we could go down there and make those lanyard things out of the plastic strips from camp.

Then it was time for family pictures, some minigolf, some hanging out, etc. The camp is nice– beautiful scenery and nice facilities– but it is a little, well, wholesome for my tastes. It’s not like religion is being shoved down my throat or anything like that, but there are many young people sitting around the lobby where I’m typing this message quite busy studying their bibles.

More later; in the meantime, check out the uploaded photos.

Western Vacation, Part 3: YMCA of the Rockies

Steve and Annette in Colorado
I’m typing this Sunday night as my son (along with many nieces and nephews) are running around playing various singing games and my siblings and parents are sitting around being entertained by them and I am taking a moment to hide away in our room.

We’re staying at a YMCA camp in Colorado, a huge (5000+ acres) affair near Winter Park that caters to family reunions and church groups and such. The house we’re staying in is built to house 25, certainly comfortable for the 17 or so of us. It includes two stoves, two refrigerators, two microwaves, and two bedrooms that have nothing but bunk beds. Guess where the kiddies are staying?

It took us about four hours to drive up here, up what I thought was a pretty challenging pass. The picture here is of Annette and I at the top, taken by Will (that’s why it is a little crooked). The camp is at about 8700 feet, which means that low-landers like me are spending the first day trying to adjust to the altitude. We hiked around the camp a bit, but mostly, we watched the dramatic thunderstorms that rolled in and out of the valley and tried to see if we could start a camp fire and listened to the kids play.

Interestingly enough, even here in the wilderness, getting away from it all, it’s pretty easy to get online. I am here via a free wireless connection in the coffee shop area of the administrative building. Down the hall, there’s a little store and a grill that has a “cyber cafe� section, $5 for the day or $20 for the week. Try to give up the ‘net (which I’m not trying to do, btw), and there’s someone ready to feed you a connection, even in the middle of nature.

Pictures are here; this is where they will be for a while as I add to it…

Western Vacation, Part 2: Sterling, CO

I have nothing of substance to report about our trip today. We got up, we drove and drove and drove, through western Iowa and Nebraska and the beginnings of Colorado to here, Sterling. Frankly, the main reason I’m writing now is because I can. The hotel we’re staying at here in Sterling has free wireless as part of the deal, and I’m pretty sure my internet access will be limited or non-existent for the next three or four days. Though I guess we’ll see.

Oh, okay, since I’m here, a few things I recall from the day’s trip:

  • Lotsa rain in the morning.
  • Every little town in Nebraska has some little museum advertised as a means of sucking people in off of the interstate.
  • There were a couple of stretches of drive through Nebraska where the smell from the feed lots was pretty freakin’ awful. And long-lasting, too. I’m not talking about a drive by of a smelly farm that lasts a few seconds; I’m talking about the smell of shit and death together for a good 15 minutes. BTW, how’s the burger?
  • We left Cedar Falls this morning about the same time as my parents, more or less. We had decided that there was no point in following each other and that we’d just meet up on Sunday. So who shows up at our hotel? The Ps, of course. They did their thing for dinner while we did ours, but it’s like we planned it. Pretty funny.

Western Vacation, part 1: CF and Sturgis Falls days




balloons

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

The first leg of our trip westward is here to my home town of Cedar Falls, Iowa. A few thoughts in some particular order:

  • We got here yesterday evening; this morning, my father and I played golf. I managed to get a birdie on a hole after hitting a 3-wood shot well over 200 yards up a hill and on to the green and then sinking a long long putt. This ultra-lucky shot rolled on to the green while the group ahead of us was still putting. I apologized profusely from the fairway, and my father ran into them in the clubhouse afterwards and told them I got a birdie on the hole. They seemed pleased.
  • It’s too freakin’ hot and humid– like mid-90s.
  • I continue to be impressed with the improved quality of life in Cedar Falls. For example: not only does CF finally have a Starbucks; it also has a drive-thru.
  • The highlight of the day and the source of the photo here is from the children’s costume parade at Sturgis Falls Days, which is the annual big summer celebration here in Cedar Falls. Will participated in his knight costume (as pictured above). Sturgis Falls is a nice small town fest, and if we had more time and weren’t leaving first thing tomorrow morning, I might be there still at the beer tent and listening to dixieland jazz. But we are and so I’m not. Besides, it was really REALLY hot, and then it started to rain, so time to come home.



Here is another picture from the parade:

Will leading the parade
Here’s Will (pictured in the middle) leading the parade. Well, behind the guy who was really leading the parade, a bagpipe player. A nice touch for the children’s parade, we thought.

Anyway, tomorrow we leave for Colorado, and I am thinking I won’t have Internet access for a couple of days. Probably a good thing. But stay tuned for details when access is available….