Road trip-day four

Today was a casual day. We tried to sleep in, but renovation workers on the property nipped that in the bud. Then O had an 8:00 a.m. phone call. After that, we grabbed a little breakfast downstairs and headed over to "The Mall" (The Mall of America) for our morning walk. We had a good walk, did a little browsing and shopping and then came back to the motel for a quick shower before we went to the St. Paul Minnesota Temple. It is a cute little temple, a lot like the Kona temple but without some of the local detail (such as the wood carved trim and tropical motif in the sculpted carpet) that we enjoyed when we were on the Island.



Yesterday when we arrived in Minneapolis it was 88° and sunny with a soft, steady breeze. It was pleasantly warm this morning when we went for our walk. When we got back to the motel after the temple, it was considerably cooler and windier with some clouds. By the time we walked back to the motel again after dinner it was cold and very windy with a dark, overcast sky. It looks like the cold, wet weather, that is supposed to be here during the conference, has arrived.

I forgot to mention our six little traveling companions. They have traveled the 1200 miles or so without complaint, tucked in along the right-side cargo window where they would be on the sunny south side of the car for our eastbound trip. They’ve gone from little sprouted cotyledons to cilantro seedlings with true leaves during their cross-country adventure. Today they spent their time on a sunny windowsill in our room.



We hope they will all “hang in there” with us for 5 more days until they arrive at their new home in Kohler, Wisconsin.

Road trip-day three

Well, here we are in Minneapolis. It was a mostly uneventful drive from Murdo, South Dakota. We had stayed up late the night before, so we slept in, went for a walk and then hit the road.

We crossed over the Missouri River on the Lewis and Clark Memorial Bridge.



Here is a not-so-great picture of the river and the bridge. I took the picture from a park at a rest stop/visitors' center after we crossed the river. I wanted to go out past the edge of the park and into some low underbrush to get a better picture that showed the whole bridge, but a nearby sign changed my mind.



We left the rollings hills and by the time we reached Minnesota we were out onto the broad, flat plains. It was windy today, and on the plains, the wind can really get going. We had to be careful when we opened the car doors at gas stations and rest stops because the wind would try to whip the doors open. It isn't as windy or as flat in Minneapolis as it was out on the open plains.

It's planting season here in Minnesota. We saw lots of huge corn planters- 24 rows wide- pulled by big tractors. I remember driving the cab tractor for O and Uncle Charlie, pulling the roller to get a field ready to plant. We thought it was a nice, good-sized tractor, but these were bigger. The fields in Scott Valley were smaller. There are thousands of acres in the valley, but they are all divided into fields that were 40, 80 or maybe 100 acres in size. Here the fields went on, unbroken and undivided, for farther than you could see sometimes.

As we were driving along through corn country (acually still in South Dakota), I saw something strange in the distance that seemed to rise up out of a corn field. Whatever it was, it was big. Finally we were close enough to see that is was a massive steel sculpture. I grabbed my camera, held it out the window (at 75 mph) and snapped a shot as we went past. It was pretty cool. I don't know whether a sculptor made a deal with a farmer or a farmer earns a living growing corn and feeds his soul sculpting/welding steel during the winter, but there is was. You can get an idea of how big it is if you compare the sculpture to the size of the fences nearby. I didn't notice the giant hammer until after we were past. It was the bull's head that got my attention from several miles away. There were several other smaller sculptures around the big ones, but you can't really see them in this picture. Pretty cool!



Tomorrow we will go for our morning walk at the Mall of America and then go to the St. Paul temple. Then it will be time to get ready for my conference.

Road trip-day two

Two National Monuments and a National Park in one day. Plus lots of miles through the Black Hills and out across the Plains.

We went to Devil’s Tower and walked around the base of the tower. It is a short, pretty little trail. If we are ever there again, we may have to try one of the other trails. We didn’t see any climbers while we were there, but it is a popular climbing destination.




Then we headed out for South Dakota and the Black Hills. There we went to see Mount Rushmore.




After Rushmore we hit the road and headed east again and out onto the plains. As we neared Murdo, where we had decided to stay for the night, we noticed some strange geologic formations a few miles from the freeway. Then we saw a sign for the exit to Badlands National Park. Off we went to see the Badlands. If you are old enough to have seen the old western movies on Saturdays, then you know the Badlands is where those low-down varmints go to hide out after they rob the bank, or whatever else it is that low-down varmints do. And now we know why it was such a great place for outlaws to disappear.



One thing about the Plains that we don’t get to see in the Rocky Mountains: the horizon- way off in the distance. We really don’t get to see very far off tucked into the mountains the way we are. I forgot just how far you can see when there aren’t mountains in the way. It seems like you can see forever once you get out of town and into the open. If you look at the second Badlands picture, you can see a little of the horizon there. At sunset, with a few clouds, it is really something.

And one more thing about the Great Plains. You can’t really see them when you are out just walking around, or even in town, but there are lots of insects along the highways and byways. LOTS of them.




That isn’t a meteor shower over the parking lot. That is what our windshield looked like from where we were sitting. And we had already cleaned the windshield once today! Imagine our delight when we way this little amenity as we pulled in to the parking lot of our motel in Murdo.

Road trip-day one

We spent the day crossing the vast range lands of Wyoming. Sightings: buffalo- none were home. Antelope- too many to count; none were playing. Deer- finally saw a lot of them once we left the range lands and headed up into the hills for Hulett, Wyoming; they weren’t playing either. Wild turkeys- lots of those, too; I guess you could say some of them were playing. We saw several males with their tails spread wide, doing the “Hey, baby!” for a group of hens.

We got to our motel in Hulett at 7:40. The desk clerk mentioned that the only restaurant in town closed at 8:00. We hustled over there for a quick dinner. It was a tiny little place with seven tables and lots of the wall art that you see in small, out-of-the-way places; you know- Indian artifacts, old photos of settlers, wild life paintings, etc. I’m sure you can imagine what kind of place I mean. Our server was a guy in worn-out docker style pants and a T-shirt. Interesting conversation we overheard between him and the cook (the only other people in the little café besides us):

“I wonder if we can get some. Do you think Sysco can get some for us?”
“Which ones?”
“You know, the ones stuffed with asiago.”
“Oh, right. Well, the asiago is what really makes them so great.”
“Absolutely.”

Not the kind of conversation you expect to hear in a 7-table diner with about eight choices on the menu. Maybe a conversation about some processed cheese sauce substitute, but not one about something stuffed with asiago cheese.

Can you say 'Overdue?'

It's been a while since I've been to our local public library. But today I needed something they had and so I went. Since it had been so long, I didn't know where my library card was. Before I could get what I needed, I would have to get a new card.

The card process all went smoothly; my old card, where ever it is, was still active. All the information was still the same. There was just one little detail to take care of- the $11.50 overdue fine. It had been there, waiting to be paid, since May of 2005!

Could someone else be using my account? What were the books? How overdue were they?

Bonsai books? A stack of books about bonsai? I didn't check out any bonsai books! I've never turned in any books 28 days late. Who else could have used my....Hmm...

So, whoever you are, you bonsai-loving, overdue-book-returning rascal, your fine has finally been paid. And you are sooo lucky they didn't charge interest!

Rats!

We’ve had a little visitor for the past month or so. Steven’s pet rat, No-Doze (a little less than 8 ounces of energy and curiosity), has come to stay with us while he looks for a new home for either her or for the both of them. (Don't get yourselves all worked into a dither- I know some of you are repulsed by little critters.) She’s been pretty polite, quiet and really not much trouble at all.

I don’t have room for the kind of cage she really needs, so she stays in a little cage at the end of the kitchen counter by our back door. Unfortunately for her, this is only a couple of feet from where I plug in my blender or flour mill. She’s had a few frights with all the noise from the blender.

Today I needed to grind some wheat. The flour mill is a lot noisier than the blender, so I decided that I would put her in a bathroom, close the door and let her run around for a while until I finished with my flour. Not wanting her to make a mess, or chew on anything, I put the wastebasket, the plunger and the bowl brush up on the back of the toilet where she wouldn’t get into them.

Between batches of flour, I heard a noise in the bathroom and went to check on things. She had climbed up the bathmat that was hanging over the edge of the tub and had knocked a small bottle of shampoo into the tub. No big deal- I went back to my flour mill.

After I finished the last batch of flour, I hear another, louder, noise from the bathroom. Since it was now safe to put her back in her cage, I went to get her. There she was, on top of the toilet tank. Somehow, she had gotten herself up the smooth sides of the toilet and then up onto the tank, where she had shoved the plunger onto the floor and nearly knocked the bowl brush off as well.

I suppose if I went and looked carefully and really thought about it I could figure out how something that small could get itself all the way up those slick surfaces, but what I really don’t get is how she managed to undo the bolt at the base of the toilet!

Consumer Woman rides again!

I decided I needed to step up my game, wardrobe-wise, for a business conference I’m going to, instead of wearing levi’s. I didn't want to wear a dress, either, so I went to the mall to look for a pair of Docker-style pants. One pair is all I needed because I already have a nice pair of pants that are part of a suit. After trying on many pairs of khaki pants, I selected a pair and also splurged on two pairs of warm knee-high socks. I had a coupon for $10 off. After I paid, I walked down to the other end of the mall to check out a sale I had heard about while waiting in line to pay for my pants. What did I find on a 70% off rack at the sale? That’s right, a pair of pants that looked a lot like the one’s I had just bought. They were marked down to $9, almost $20 less than the first pair. I bought the $9 pants, of course, which turned out to be $5.40 because that brand had an additional 40% off the clearance price (talk about icing on the cake!) Then I went back to the other store to return the $28 pants.

I asked the clerk if she would re-calculate the sale to apply the $10 coupon to my two pairs of socks (the $10 discount had been spread out over all three items instead of being taken off the total purchase at the end). She said she couldn’t do it, because the coupon was a single use coupon and I had already used it once. “Is there a supervisor you could call to take care of this?” I asked. “No,” she said, “they are way stricter than we are.” In a fit of pique (don’t worry, it was a very polite fit) I told her that I would just return the socks, too.

When I got home, I decided to call the store and just let them know that their loyalty coupon hadn’t inspired much loyalty on my part. After all, my coupon was right there in the cash drawer. The evidence of the coupon was right there on my receipt. I wasn't tring to make a completely different purchase. Why couldn’t they just do it? I called the store, asked for a manager, and told her my story. After apologizing for my dissatisfaction (not for their lame policy, just for the fact that I was unhappy), she offered to give me my $10 discount if I wanted to come back to the store. (At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to drive all the way back. Then I decided that if I am going to complain, I should go back and give them the chance to make it right.) After five minutes of listening to another clerk explain all the reasons that there was no way someone could honor my request, the manager arrived and sold me my two pairs of $8 socks for $2.15 ($10 off plus a multiple item discount).

And that is why my nickname is Consumer Woman.