Our primary reason for coming to Chicago was the Field Museum's Real Pirates exhibition. Liam loves pirates and will have a birthday party to match next month, so we figured he'd love it. He did seem to enjoy it, but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It was the tale of the Whydah, a slave ship before it was captured by Captain Sam Bellamy and his crew. It sank off the coast of Cape Cod and wasn't rediscovered until 300 years later. Liam's favorite part of the exhibit was hoisting the Jolly Roger. (We have friends named Molly & Roger [View Full Entry]

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Jeff & I decided to add a zoo to our itinerary while here in Chicago because we haven't been to one in ages. I wasn't sure whether to do Lincoln Park or Brookfield, but figured out that Brookfield=Minnesota Zoo and Lincoln Park=Como Park. We like Como Park, but it doesn't take long at all and there's not a lot to see. So to Brookfield it was. We got there earlier than expected and so had to wait for the gates to open. The first employee there to open them couldn't figure out how and had to go get a second employee. [View Full Entry]

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Our first camping trip of the year was to Minneopa State Park in Mankato. It was our third trip there, second camping. As many of you know, Jeff kicked my butt in our bocce battle. In our first visit to Minneopa, he decided Lorrin would play with me (for the disadvantage to me in having two people), but Lorrin and I won. Ha! Anyway . . . I had a short weekend, so we decided to camp out Friday and Saturday. We set up in a downpour and didn't bother to turn on the furnace. It wasn't so bad Saturday morning [View Full Entry]

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As many of you know, we are planning a 3 week road trip to Alaska this summer. Jeff wanted me to post this countdown weeks ago, but I refused on the basis of our other vacation. So, here it is. Barring any international travel restrictions, we will be leaving in: [View Full Entry]

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We are not hikers, both because we are not in particularly great shape and because we have two small boys. In general, that’s fine. However, some national parks are designed mostly for hikers. Take Guadalupe Mountains National Park, for example. The highway skirts the southeast edge. I was initially tempted to have us walk along a few paths, but we’re ready to leave the southwest, so we stopped at a few places for photos and called it good. I had also planned to have us spend an evening in El Paso to go to a few local museums and probably the [View Full Entry]

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Our primary destination for today was Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico. It’s on our list (National Park Service parks, monuments and memorials), we’ve never been and, of course, it was supposed to be really interesting. We decided to do both the Natural Entrance and Big Room self-guided tours. The boys were, aside from an occasional brief melt-down by Cole, phenomenal. A NPS ranger was very impressed that both boys were still looking energetic near the end of the tour. They had fun; we had fun and many of the photos turned out, too. Have I ever mentioned ho [View Full Entry]

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Our morning began at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, an older museum in Alamogordo. While there, we learned about early rocketry, Skylab, meteorites, etcetera. Jeff & I walked through John P Stapp Air & Space Park while the boys played in a replica of a Mercury capsule. (No one with claustrophobic need have applied!) Our next stops were in Roswell, where Mark Akland told us we had to go. The AAA Guidebook listed the Roswell Museum and Art Center as a GEM, so that's where we went first. It includes Dr Goddard's original laboratory, where he designed early rockets. [View Full Entry]

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We spent last night in Silver City, the biggest city relatively near to Gila Cliff Dwellings. Jeff and the boys had a big breakfast at Holiday Inn Express and we headed off the forty-four miles to the monument. We should have worried a bit when the sign said "travel time two hours," but we've done worse. About 1/4 of the way in, Liam asked the title question. Since the answer was no, he puked all over himself and his car seat (fortunately not all over everything). I was able to find his tray which served as a bucket for the next [View Full Entry]

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This morning, we drove from Gallup to El Morro National Monument. We were told that bull snakes may be sunning themselves on the path, which is never a good thing to tell Jeff (because he's very much not fond of snakes) or Liam (who thinks it'd be really cool to see a snake). We didn't end up seeing any, which was fine with me. We did have a nice time walking around the Inscription Loop Trail. At one point, I told the boys to watch out for the number 11 and Cole was the first to recognize it. Where'd that come [View Full Entry]

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After Liam decided we needed to go to the Grand Canyon on this trip, too, we changed up our itinerary a little bit. Unfortunately, it meant getting up early. Jeff was up at 5, but we still didn’t get out of the hotel until 6:30ish. Thankfully it’s Saturday morning so traffic around Phoenix wasn’t too bad. Our first stop was Montezuma Castle National Monument in Camp Verde, Arizona. It is Junior Ranger Day in the national parks, so Liam and Cole both received laminated guides for a scavenger hunt. Liam had a blast singing a new song, “We’re going on a [View Full Entry]

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