Monday, June 29
Our last day. How did the month go so fast. For me it literally feels like I was making my lists and checking them and packing and running to Meijers 10 times a day making sure we had every last thing we might possibly need like there isnt another store in the country. Which there is not another store in the country, that we found anyway, that compares with Meijers. Maybe its just the familiar, who knows. But it is clean, reasonably priced and you can find EVERYTHING there. Okay enough about Meijers.
We got up, and left our last comfy hotel room. The kids wanted to go up in the St Louis Arch, and Cece needed to get her passport book (for national monuments and parks) stamped. So we headed down that way, but because there is another home baseball series in town the downtown was busy and lots of people were also wanting to ride to the top of St Loiy! And there were no parking spots to be had. After we paid $4 for a parking spot in a full lot, Ken was getting edgy. So Ken sent us in and he was going to find a parking spot. I really knowing all along he was ditching us to read the paper. Gotta love him:D! So he found a nice shady spot to read the paper, and I headed into the maximum security under ground with our kiddos. We had to wait 1 hour to get our pod ride to the top. We were psyched. They asked several times along the path before actually getting into the "elevator". "Are you claustrophobic" I was like jeese, its just an elevator. Well no its a tight little pod thing that is completely closed in and you sit in a circle with your knees all touching. Then you get out into a triangle shaped room about 25 feet long with oh 100 other people. Uh yeah if you didn't know you where claustrophobic you would find out reeeeeeeeeal fast on that trip. The views where amazing, however. The kids loved it and said it was worth the wait. Noah decided that you could actually jump off the top of the arch into the river like the character did in the book he is reading, but we decided that you most likely would die. After 10 minutes of pictures and peeking out tiny windows and trying to spot Daddy from the top of the Arch we headed down, our last hurrah, the last big sight of our trip. My hear sank a bit. It was all so much fun, every bit of it, the good and the bad. Family time is the Berries, the longer you hang together the sweeter it gets!
We had to split up to get down or wait 10 more minutes, so we split up. Luke, Ainslie and I went with strangers and Noah and Cece went together with strangers. I got off first and watched nervously for my kids to find me, like someone is going to abduct them from the pod of the St Lois arch, crazy tired mom thoughts, anyway here comes Cece with crumbs all over her face and a big smile. "I got a snack from a lady" she says. "The mom lady says that when shes bored or nervous she eats so she pulled out a bag of mini cookies and asked me if I wanted one" she continues. I look at Noah, he shrugs. I'm like you let your little sister eat food from a complete stranger coming down on the pod??? And of course he said no, cause you know you should never take food from a complete stranger on a pod! Right?! Oh we got a good laugh off that one anyway. Cece always bags a snack somehow, I cant believe she didn't ask her for a drink and then a piece of gum. To be 6 again.
So once we are out from under the ground we call our chauffeur who has been waiting patiently for us. Off we go to find lunch. The funny thing is we eat lunch at a Cracker Barrel the same place we started our culinary adventure. At the beginning we made bets on how many times we would eat at the "Crack" Someone said eleven, but now I cant find my note I made with all our guesses. I said 4, so I won. Thankfully. From there it was put the pedal to the metal. We stopped once to go potty and get a caffeine/treat fix at Mc'y D's.
10pm we pulled in the drive way. Stacy our house sitter greeted us,as did our much missed hairball Jack. I am not sure who was more excited us or him. Lots of barking and squeals.
Home sweet home.........
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Six Flags/Hurricane Harbor St Louis
Sunday June 28
Wooo Hoo Six Flags! The kids were sooo excited. We arrived at Tweety 11 and parked. Why I remember our parking spot I am not sure. Maybe cause we used to call my sister tweety and Ainslie is going to be eleven. My brain is amazing, let me tell you.....
The weather was perfect, not to hot and it was not jam packed. In fact, we hardly had to wait on any rides, or should I say the kids hardly had to wait, Ken and I waited all day as our kids flew by us, on and off rides and on to the next. We did go on a few that weren't too twisty turny. What happened to me??? I used to go on any and all rides (except for the ones that bring you up and then drop you, no thank you those rides are just weird and wrong) but now if it jerks my neck too much I cant go or or if it spins around in circles it makes me nauseous and gives me a head ache. Ken has always been a wimp with the rides.
So, Ken and I sat with our 12.99 endless refill cup and waited for our kids and did some SERIOUS people watching. Okay please don't judge me for judging others, but there are some very interesting peoples and I have nothing against tattoos I have actually considered getting one more than once in my lifetime and may still go down that path. But, whoa mama........ do we really need Aunt Agnes tattooed on our lower left thigh????? Sorry, enough said. And we also got held up once on a ride because someone was too large to unstuck themselves from their seat. People, this is sad, that's what this is.
Okay on to happier thoughts, the kids had a blast. They are all lovers of fast crazy rides, and Cece was almost big enough to go on every ride, so a good time was had by all. We ended our time by letting the kids get charactures of themselves as a souvenir.
We left the park thinking we would eat somewhere on our way back into town, but forgetting it was almost 10pm and a Sunday night. Everything was closed. And we were starving cause we really didn't eat much of anything in the park, we just drank alot of pop. Nice healthy day for the kiddos. Luckily we made it to Houlihans in the hotel complex just as they were about to close and they very graciously offered to keep there kitchen open to serve us. We got great food, good service, and the restaurant practically to ourselves. Once again God is so good....
Wooo Hoo Six Flags! The kids were sooo excited. We arrived at Tweety 11 and parked. Why I remember our parking spot I am not sure. Maybe cause we used to call my sister tweety and Ainslie is going to be eleven. My brain is amazing, let me tell you.....
The weather was perfect, not to hot and it was not jam packed. In fact, we hardly had to wait on any rides, or should I say the kids hardly had to wait, Ken and I waited all day as our kids flew by us, on and off rides and on to the next. We did go on a few that weren't too twisty turny. What happened to me??? I used to go on any and all rides (except for the ones that bring you up and then drop you, no thank you those rides are just weird and wrong) but now if it jerks my neck too much I cant go or or if it spins around in circles it makes me nauseous and gives me a head ache. Ken has always been a wimp with the rides.
So, Ken and I sat with our 12.99 endless refill cup and waited for our kids and did some SERIOUS people watching. Okay please don't judge me for judging others, but there are some very interesting peoples and I have nothing against tattoos I have actually considered getting one more than once in my lifetime and may still go down that path. But, whoa mama........ do we really need Aunt Agnes tattooed on our lower left thigh????? Sorry, enough said. And we also got held up once on a ride because someone was too large to unstuck themselves from their seat. People, this is sad, that's what this is.
Okay on to happier thoughts, the kids had a blast. They are all lovers of fast crazy rides, and Cece was almost big enough to go on every ride, so a good time was had by all. We ended our time by letting the kids get charactures of themselves as a souvenir.
We left the park thinking we would eat somewhere on our way back into town, but forgetting it was almost 10pm and a Sunday night. Everything was closed. And we were starving cause we really didn't eat much of anything in the park, we just drank alot of pop. Nice healthy day for the kiddos. Luckily we made it to Houlihans in the hotel complex just as they were about to close and they very graciously offered to keep there kitchen open to serve us. We got great food, good service, and the restaurant practically to ourselves. Once again God is so good....
St Louis
Saturday June 27.
We arrived at our hotel by Six Flags, just outside of St Louis. And promptly canceled our reservation! YIKES. Our routine is for me to go in, check out the lobby, if it looks nice then I ask if they have a room available, if so then I go check it out and make sure its goooood. Before we haul all our stuff in. Only once on the trip did I have to say, um no thank you. (in Flagstaff) So anyway, we were sceptical as we pulled in but then the lobby check failed miserably. So we took a minute on their lobby computer and found ourselves a room at the Marriott-Union Station downtown St Louis. It was the best! We just had to drive back to Six Flags (26miles) but it was worth it. It had a great pool, which we went right down too and swam until the Cardinals game got out and all the fans came streaming in hot and sunburned and took over the pool area. We were directed to a place called Smokin Joes for dinner. We wanted some good Bar-b-Q and that's what we got! It was fabulous. Ribs, chicken wings, pulled pork, sweet potato fries, Delicious! Then we walked in the 98degree heat 12 blocks to the Arch. Cece wondered why we would want to go see an arch that wasnt natural?.....well.......cause man made arches are cool too, I guess. And cool it was. We walked all around the Arch and then went into the Millennium Hotel and sat at the bar area with a great air conditioned view and got ourselves some ice cold pops! Then we made our way back to our hotel, to once again turn on the boob tube and watch yet more coverage of Michael Jackson.
We arrived at our hotel by Six Flags, just outside of St Louis. And promptly canceled our reservation! YIKES. Our routine is for me to go in, check out the lobby, if it looks nice then I ask if they have a room available, if so then I go check it out and make sure its goooood. Before we haul all our stuff in. Only once on the trip did I have to say, um no thank you. (in Flagstaff) So anyway, we were sceptical as we pulled in but then the lobby check failed miserably. So we took a minute on their lobby computer and found ourselves a room at the Marriott-Union Station downtown St Louis. It was the best! We just had to drive back to Six Flags (26miles) but it was worth it. It had a great pool, which we went right down too and swam until the Cardinals game got out and all the fans came streaming in hot and sunburned and took over the pool area. We were directed to a place called Smokin Joes for dinner. We wanted some good Bar-b-Q and that's what we got! It was fabulous. Ribs, chicken wings, pulled pork, sweet potato fries, Delicious! Then we walked in the 98degree heat 12 blocks to the Arch. Cece wondered why we would want to go see an arch that wasnt natural?.....well.......cause man made arches are cool too, I guess. And cool it was. We walked all around the Arch and then went into the Millennium Hotel and sat at the bar area with a great air conditioned view and got ourselves some ice cold pops! Then we made our way back to our hotel, to once again turn on the boob tube and watch yet more coverage of Michael Jackson.
Branson or not to Branson...that is the question!
Not to Branson. We thought we might take in the tourist trap of shopping and washed up country stars. But then we decided not to when we saw that it was kinda off the beaten path from home. Instead we decided to take in the sights of Carthage Missouri. So we left Ok City and headed north, east. In record time I might add, we got up and out of a hotel in less than one hour!
The land is starting to look more like Michigan, more jungley and green and rolling hills. Just outside of Tulsa we ran into only our second major traffic jam. We have been so blessed with not getting into any bad traffic. So we got off the main highway and took a lesser road and kept rollin.
So, why Carthage? Carthage is the home town of my grandfather on my mothers side. And I heard my whole life stories of Carthage. (or Carnage as one of my kids flubbed it) So we thought it would be fun to go check out the ol stompin grounds of my gramps! The town square looks like the town in Back to the Future, it was like frozen in time. But sadly we were the only people besides the two people working in the malt shop we stopped into, that were in Carthage. It was fun to think of grandpa maybe sitting at the same booth possibly and gettin a soda pop with his buddies after a big basketball game or after he was done life guarding at the city pool......fun times.
After a trip down memory lane we found a hotel in Springfield Mo(Pastor Stevens old Evangel stompin grounds) with an outside pool and extra added bonus of a basketball court for Noah! After we expended some energy swimming we turned on the boob-tube and watched the endless of coverage of Michael Jackson.
Tomorrow we are shooting to get to St Louis and spend the last of our amazing adventure there. Man the drive to Portage Lake in August is gonna be like a trip to the corner, let me tell ya! Almost 7000miles and 15 states now that we have reached Missouri.
The land is starting to look more like Michigan, more jungley and green and rolling hills. Just outside of Tulsa we ran into only our second major traffic jam. We have been so blessed with not getting into any bad traffic. So we got off the main highway and took a lesser road and kept rollin.
So, why Carthage? Carthage is the home town of my grandfather on my mothers side. And I heard my whole life stories of Carthage. (or Carnage as one of my kids flubbed it) So we thought it would be fun to go check out the ol stompin grounds of my gramps! The town square looks like the town in Back to the Future, it was like frozen in time. But sadly we were the only people besides the two people working in the malt shop we stopped into, that were in Carthage. It was fun to think of grandpa maybe sitting at the same booth possibly and gettin a soda pop with his buddies after a big basketball game or after he was done life guarding at the city pool......fun times.
After a trip down memory lane we found a hotel in Springfield Mo(Pastor Stevens old Evangel stompin grounds) with an outside pool and extra added bonus of a basketball court for Noah! After we expended some energy swimming we turned on the boob-tube and watched the endless of coverage of Michael Jackson.
Tomorrow we are shooting to get to St Louis and spend the last of our amazing adventure there. Man the drive to Portage Lake in August is gonna be like a trip to the corner, let me tell ya! Almost 7000miles and 15 states now that we have reached Missouri.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Cliff Dwellers
Thursday
Packing up and heading out. Bernillio KOA was not our favorite. They locked the bathrooms. And everything shut down at dusk. Whats dusk?? Oh well, this is our last cabin until family camp. So I will let it go and think happy thoughts. Like no more peeing in a cup at night cause I am too afraid to walk to the potty. So my happy thought is a nice clean potty in my room :D
One more Diners Drive ins and Dives. My poor family. "please could we just have Wendy's" So we went to the Telecote Cafe. No toast. Noah was miffed. But despite no toast they had the best baked goods ever. And very spicy green and red chili sauce all over everything! I think Luke and I are gonna go through spice withdrawal when we get out of the SW.
From there we drove North of Santa Fe to Puye Indian Cliff Dweller Reservation. We made a hefty donation to the Puye Pueblo and went on our tour. It was very interesting and even Cece stayed entertained mostly looking around on the ground for bits of broken pottery. Our tour guide was a bit blah, but she was smiling. Luckily we had a few people on our tour that knew more than her so we got lots of good tid bits of information about how the cliff dwellers lived.
Now its eastward. On and on we go where we stop only Ken knows. We thought we would stop in Amarillo but we ended up finding a hotel just outside of OK City. We blew right threw Texas. The pan handle of Texas is NOTHING. We did stop at the Cadillac graveyard. Which is awesome. We got to do some vandalizing! Yeah,so anyway besides some cool land formations and lava flow on our way out of New Mexico, we saw nothing for hundreds of miles. We did stop at an old route 66 diner some where in Texas. And we saw Kens Ice cream shop and Deans Restaurant right next to each other. Apparently Ken and Dean(vredevoogd) had a thing goin on route 66 in another life!
Packing up and heading out. Bernillio KOA was not our favorite. They locked the bathrooms. And everything shut down at dusk. Whats dusk?? Oh well, this is our last cabin until family camp. So I will let it go and think happy thoughts. Like no more peeing in a cup at night cause I am too afraid to walk to the potty. So my happy thought is a nice clean potty in my room :D
One more Diners Drive ins and Dives. My poor family. "please could we just have Wendy's" So we went to the Telecote Cafe. No toast. Noah was miffed. But despite no toast they had the best baked goods ever. And very spicy green and red chili sauce all over everything! I think Luke and I are gonna go through spice withdrawal when we get out of the SW.
From there we drove North of Santa Fe to Puye Indian Cliff Dweller Reservation. We made a hefty donation to the Puye Pueblo and went on our tour. It was very interesting and even Cece stayed entertained mostly looking around on the ground for bits of broken pottery. Our tour guide was a bit blah, but she was smiling. Luckily we had a few people on our tour that knew more than her so we got lots of good tid bits of information about how the cliff dwellers lived.
Now its eastward. On and on we go where we stop only Ken knows. We thought we would stop in Amarillo but we ended up finding a hotel just outside of OK City. We blew right threw Texas. The pan handle of Texas is NOTHING. We did stop at the Cadillac graveyard. Which is awesome. We got to do some vandalizing! Yeah,so anyway besides some cool land formations and lava flow on our way out of New Mexico, we saw nothing for hundreds of miles. We did stop at an old route 66 diner some where in Texas. And we saw Kens Ice cream shop and Deans Restaurant right next to each other. Apparently Ken and Dean(vredevoogd) had a thing goin on route 66 in another life!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Albuquerque-Wed 24th
Today we head to the Sandia Mt. tram. We could see the Sandia Mountains from our cabin. The tram is the longest in the world it climbs 10,000+ft to the top of Sandia Mt. From up there we could see 7% of New Mexico. The kids loved it. I was reminded of my fear of heights and my over active imagination, as we swayed up to the top and then the kids ran all around at the top just inches from tumbling over. Not really, there where railings, but what if one gave out. Aaahh! New Mexico has active volcanoes! We could see them from up there too. Ainslie just about lost her camera, but luckily a friendly soul turned it in to the ticket agent. She left it on top of the penny press while she was pressing a penny for a souvenir.
From there we when to Sophias Place for lunch- another Diners Drive'n and Dives. It was a dive but it was our favorite place. Everything was homemade and perfectly spicy. No where back
home can you get food like Sophias Place! Later at the Pueblo Museum a native, told us, ooo yes that is the best place all the locals eat there.
We visited the Pueblo Cultural Museum in Albuquerque. Very informative and worth while. All over you see signs for this Pueblo and that Pueblo. What is a Pueblo? Its the Indian word for village. So we found out Pueblos are separate Indian villages with different governments, etc. Ainslie, Luke, and Cece picked out souvenirs at the museum store for themselves and friends. From the museum we headed to old town Albuquerque to have a look around and try and find the Candy Lady. It was very hot and old town Albuquerque looks alot like old town Santa Fe, only not as good. So we beelined for the Candy and headed back to the pool to cool off.
New Mexico is called the "land of enchantment" and between he amazing scenery at every turn and the most vibrant rainbows I have ever seen it lives up to its name.
From there we when to Sophias Place for lunch- another Diners Drive'n and Dives. It was a dive but it was our favorite place. Everything was homemade and perfectly spicy. No where back
home can you get food like Sophias Place! Later at the Pueblo Museum a native, told us, ooo yes that is the best place all the locals eat there.We visited the Pueblo Cultural Museum in Albuquerque. Very informative and worth while. All over you see signs for this Pueblo and that Pueblo. What is a Pueblo? Its the Indian word for village. So we found out Pueblos are separate Indian villages with different governments, etc. Ainslie, Luke, and Cece picked out souvenirs at the museum store for themselves and friends. From the museum we headed to old town Albuquerque to have a look around and try and find the Candy Lady. It was very hot and old town Albuquerque looks alot like old town Santa Fe, only not as good. So we beelined for the Candy and headed back to the pool to cool off.
New Mexico is called the "land of enchantment" and between he amazing scenery at every turn and the most vibrant rainbows I have ever seen it lives up to its name.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
New Mexico SURPRISE!
Monday/Yesterday we left Flagstaff and headed further east on hwy 40 toward Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stopped along the way at the Meteor Crater in Winslow AZ, it was quite a fine sight to see. Hmmm is that a song? Anyway, I thought it was going to be sort or kitschy but it was really pretty amazing. Right out in the middle of nowhere, a farmers field was this huge hole from 70 stories deep, 2 miles in diameter. There was also a meteor/astronaut museum there. Telling all about meteors all around the world, it was worth the stop. We also stopped at the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park. I could have spent more time there but the kids thought it was boring. You seen one petrified log you seen um all I guess, maybe the novelty of all this cool American geology and history is wearing on some people in our traveling party......
From there we motored to our new home at the KOA campground in Bernillio NM, right between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Where a surprise was awaiting the kids. When we got there my mom and her husband had gotten there before us. Had set up camp in the cabin next to ours and had a picnic all waiting for us. I said to the kids hey look there are some people next to our cabin from Florida. "so"(Noah) no response from anyone else. Then Noah realized that it was grandma sitting there and the kids all gasped and ran to give big hugs. It was a fun surprise!
SANTA FE
Today we went to the Farmers Market in Santa Fe. It was great we got to sample all kinds of yummy stuff and check out what kind of produce is more commom here that we dont see at home. They had all kinds of different woods for sale for smoking meats and lots of chilis and spices. It was great. Then we just walked around downtown and did some shopping. Walked around the cathedral in the center of town. It was built in 1680. Wow, it was recently restored, very cool. From there we were ready to eat some good ol new mexican food, so we asked our parking attendant where his favorite place is. He sent us to Tomasitas, it was very good, they had awesome sopapillas. Ken was put out because the didnt serve us the endless chips and salsa like back home but they did keep the sopapillas coming. The food was hot and plentiful and cheap. Yeah! Now we are just hanging out with Grandma Reeny and Grandpa Bill before they have to leave in the morning
From there we motored to our new home at the KOA campground in Bernillio NM, right between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Where a surprise was awaiting the kids. When we got there my mom and her husband had gotten there before us. Had set up camp in the cabin next to ours and had a picnic all waiting for us. I said to the kids hey look there are some people next to our cabin from Florida. "so"(Noah) no response from anyone else. Then Noah realized that it was grandma sitting there and the kids all gasped and ran to give big hugs. It was a fun surprise!
SANTA FE
Today we went to the Farmers Market in Santa Fe. It was great we got to sample all kinds of yummy stuff and check out what kind of produce is more commom here that we dont see at home. They had all kinds of different woods for sale for smoking meats and lots of chilis and spices. It was great. Then we just walked around downtown and did some shopping. Walked around the cathedral in the center of town. It was built in 1680. Wow, it was recently restored, very cool. From there we were ready to eat some good ol new mexican food, so we asked our parking attendant where his favorite place is. He sent us to Tomasitas, it was very good, they had awesome sopapillas. Ken was put out because the didnt serve us the endless chips and salsa like back home but they did keep the sopapillas coming. The food was hot and plentiful and cheap. Yeah! Now we are just hanging out with Grandma Reeny and Grandpa Bill before they have to leave in the morning
Monday, June 22, 2009
Route 66
We got a late start today. We headed east on hwy 40/old route 66. We drove through the Mojave desert. We saw many trains and stopped at a Mr Dz roadside Diner for lunch. They had the best root beer that they make themselves even Oprah has stopped there and had a root beer! We stopped and took a quick walk in Needles it was 102. We needed to stretch our legs. Today turned our basically to be a road day. It was one of those days we had to give up some things we wanted to see to make some headway, because we need be in Sante Fe by Monday night. So we decided to bypass the Grand Canyon. We have seen so many canyons and amazing landscapes already in Utah, we decided that we would come back sometime to AZ and do a trip to the Grand Canyon later. It was a little disappointing. But how much can one family see.....:D
We landed in Flagstaff in time to take a nice long walk in the downtown area and have a pizza pie and celebrate Fathers Day! Flagstaff is also worthy of a longer stay than just one night. We will put that one on the list too.
Speaking of lists there were a couple of things I noticed about Californians. They still have old fashioned phone booths all over. (maybe for superman)They also have in every single bathroom no matter the size or cleanliness of it those toilet seat cover things. And the people in California know how to have a picnic.
We landed in Flagstaff in time to take a nice long walk in the downtown area and have a pizza pie and celebrate Fathers Day! Flagstaff is also worthy of a longer stay than just one night. We will put that one on the list too.
Speaking of lists there were a couple of things I noticed about Californians. They still have old fashioned phone booths all over. (maybe for superman)They also have in every single bathroom no matter the size or cleanliness of it those toilet seat cover things. And the people in California know how to have a picnic.
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