Across America Days 3-5

Well, after we finished at Pictured Rocks, we headed out.  We were now further away from our final destination than when we started in Chicago,but we weren't in an excessive hurry.  We drove through Wisconsin and most of Minnesota.  After a stop in Minneapolis in a real Hotel, with a real bed and shower, I was recharged and ready to move on.  We were off to South Dakota to check out the Badlands, Blackhills, Mount Rushmore, and a few other national monuments.
We made it to the Badlands National Park with only about an hour of daylight, so we did a quick drive through and stopped very quickly at select locations and then moved on.  They were quite beautiful, but I was hot and glad that I wasn't spending all day in 100+ degree weather without shade hiking in the formations.

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Once we were done with the badlands, it was time to make Kevin's dreams come true.  We were almost to Mount Rushmore!!! My hyper American husband has talked about going since I met him, and I was never going to take a trip to South Dakota for any reason, but since we were driving across the country, it was the perfect time to make my man happy and go see all the rocks that he wanted. I think he has reached his Zenith.  He is self actualized and can die a happy man.  We camped in the Black Hills and got up at the crack of dawn so that we could be the first people to arrive at this amazing display of American exceptionalism.
Kevin showed some impressive tolerance as we pulled in and it was packed with foreigners blocking his way and walking into all of his pictures.  Don't fret though, we got plenty of pictures.

Once we were finally finished at Mount Rushmore, we still had plenty of daylight to burn, so we were off to our next adventure.  We wanted to hit up the 2nd largest cave in the world, so we headed to Jewel Cave in the Black hills.  Since I was carrying the fetus, I was too large to go spelunking (you had to fit through a tiny concrete box as seen below).  We ended up settling for a cave tour.

We were just trying to make the most of our time, so once we were finished in the cave, it was time to move on.  We drove all the way up to Wyoming near the Montana border to check out The Devil's Tower National Monument.. It felt like it was 200 degrees outside, I had camped too many nights already and this was an extra hour or so out of our way, I was dirty, I am sure I was smelly, and 30+ weeks pregnant.  I was not a happy camper, BUT let's look on the bright side.  It is a GIANT rock in the middle of nowhere.  I know someone who LOVES rocks.  In fact, I am just hoping this trip that we took full of rocks does not encourage someone very cute to try to go back to school to become a geologist.  Say a quick prayer for me. Kevin was in Heaven (yes, good rhyme, I know). There is a ton of Indian folklore about this rock because of it's strange groves in it. So not only did we drive up to it, but we hiked around it. I think I deserved an Oscar that day for my performance on trying to look even slightly interested and I deserve something else for going on an additional 2 mile hike around the monument in 200 degree weather.   I was not in a good place at this point and yes, I made sure we had a hotel this night.  In hindsight, I am glad I went, in part because I never have to go again, but it was a pretty cool place. 

 

Across America Days 1-3 Pictured Rocks

Time to finish catching up on my blogging. I still have so much to share before the fetus arrives.  We made the trip across America, and since I do not plan on driving anywhere near any of the sites in the Midwest again, we decided to make the most of Kevin's last few weeks before he became property of his law firm.  We decided to take our time, not really put ourselves on a schedule and go explore some of the beautiful sites America has to offer.  It was a great idea, and it was a wonderful experience, but I do have a small bit of advice; If you are 30+ weeks pregnant, do not camp, or at least bring an air mattress if you do. Our first stop was totally out of our way.  Kevin had wanted to go earlier in the year, but weather did not permit.  So on our way out of Chicago we made the last minute decision to drive all the way up to the upper peninsula of Michigan to check out Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  It is a beautiful little stretch of coastline along Lake Superior, that is famous for the rock formations and minerals that give it the different colors on the rocks.   This particular stop added another 10 hours of driving in the car and 3 days to our journey from Chicago to California, but it was such a beautiful place, that we just had to see it.
We were there a couple nights, and camped in Christmas Michigan.  Kevin thought it was a sign that the fetus MUST be named Klaus.  While we were there, we did a boat tour of the coast to see all the colors and  admire the streaking colors offered by mineral seepage along the coast giving it the name Pictured rocks.  We also went on a nice 17 mile hike.  It would have been really nice of Kevin to tell his VERY pregnant wife that it was so far so she could bring more than just 2 bottles of water and a baggie of trail mix for the day :(  We both lived, but I learned my lesson. Always bring food and water when I leave the car period.  That lesson came in handy on a couple other occasions that same trip.

Captain Planet

It took a little while for me to learn that I married Captain Planet. I sometimes want to start singing the song to him. "Captain planet, He's our hero.  He's gonna take pollution down to zero."  It must be from living in the Bay Area with all the tree-huggers and hippies. Kevin doesn't really strike me as a hippy, but he does love earth. I get in really big trouble when I forget to put something in the recycling, he curses people whenever he sees litter, and he is always concerned about global warming, I have even been forced to sit and watch "An Inconvenient Truth".  It's not that I don't care about the environment, but I really don't think my carbon footprint is that large.  

So far, all these little nuances have been cute and endearing until NOW.  My fetus will be here in about a month, and although I am very excited to meet the little miracle, I am slightly apprehensive.  Kevin seems to think that having disposable diapers is the worst thing I can do for the environment. Yes, He thinks I have nothing better to do all day than 10 loads of laundry (and ruin the water supply for the world) by reverting back to prehistoric times and using cloth diapers.
His arguments - 2% of the waste in landfills is diapers.  My fetus will use 5000 diapers by the time he is potty trained.  He says I can use a diaper service and they will pick up my old smelly diapers and drop off fresh ones each week.  How exciting! Won't that add to pollution? I just get so excited when I think about what this means for me,  I get to keep stinky diapers in my tiny apartment that smell like poop, the will allow waste to get all over my baby, his clothes, take up space, and think of the diaper rash from it not being as absorbing.
AHHHHH.  I have tried to be a good sport about this, but the end is near and I do not want to be confined to my house to take care of linens.  What if Brady Belichick and I want to go to the park, or the zoo, or on vacation?  What now?  Carry around poopy smelly diapers for hours or days? I could compromise Kevin's morals and keep a few disposables on hand for such occasions.  No, I need to come up with another option. I hear of mother's not using diapers at all.  Isn't that fantastic.  Since I am a tremendous mind reader, I will just watch my baby's face all day and when I see cues, we will run to the potty and sit on the toilet...Ok, I would rather do cloth than that.
In my research, I have come across what I hope will be the compromise. Compostable diapers! They also have a service.  They are "disposable" and work like a disposable diaper, but are 100% biodegradable and within 14 weeks are turned into topsoil.   I will have someone come, take them away and compost them for me. Look at me being a Planeteer.  I am pretty proud of myself.  I think this is even going to be a cheaper option than cloth.  Hallelujah! I just hope they don't start decomposing on my baby's bottom.
If any of you have advice and have tried to be a better person that I am willing to be, please comment and give me some advice, but the more I think about it, the more anti-cloth I become.

Summer Vacay Part 2-California-Hill Family Reunion

For some reason, the picture taker-Kevin, didn't take as many on the second leg of our trip.  I think he gets too cool in front of his family or something, and I just forget most of the time.  So, this post will be significantly smaller.  

Since Kevin has kept me sequestered in Chicago for the last 3 years, it had been that long since I had seen his family, so it was so great that EVERYONE was able to be there.  It was the year of the baby, so everyone had their little ones except me, but Klaus will be here soon enough, we aren't rushing it. I also got some great tips, which I will certainly need. With all the vacationing and moving, I hadn't, and still haven't done much to prepare for our little ones arrival. 

One of our days we got to go out to Half Moon Bay to go deep sea fishing. It sounded like a fabulous idea to me, so the boys, Lianna, and me went off to catch ourselves some rock fish and link-cod. Most of us fared pretty well, we caught our maximum number of fish, even without the help of Art, who spent most of the day with his head overboard.  Maybe that was the bait that kept the fish coming and poor little 4 year old Kaden.  He got sick early on, but was an amazing sport on the fishing trip that never ended.  I think we were out on the water an extra 3 hours. 

 Kevin, trying to look the part of a fisherman.  He ALMOST nailed the look. 

 I think Lianna caught the most fish, but the men just claimed to be after the big fish. Whatever. 

 Kevin caught a Jellyfish, but he just wanted a big link-cod so bad!

 We won't mention that this was actually Trace's fish, but Kevin wanted the picture with it so people might think he caught it, Trace was gracious enough to consent.  So let's critique his fisherman outfit one more time.  From the waist up, he nailed it.Grizzled beard, flannel shirt, toque, and a good neutral jacket.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a good enough picture.  If you could look down, yup, those are Jordan shorts and Puma sneakers. Maybe next time if we get him the real look, he'll catch some real fish.

 We also got to go down to Monterey, one of my favorite places in the whole world. We went out wandering in the piers, went to the beach, and since we mastered kayaking the week before, ventured out in the open water kayaks.

We went out with Kevin's brother and his little 4 year old.  It was chilly, but we were all bundled up.  We saw lots of marine life, seals, otters, and sea lions around the harbor, but, it was super windy, and  those sea lions were foul smelling, so we weren't out too long. 

We got to spend lots of time hanging out with the family, and playing with all the new little spawn, but I am terrible and didn't do a very good job of documenting all the fun we had, but Tina had the foresight to schedule pictures. 

 What would a family reunion be without family pictures?  Here we are! 

Here is the baby train.  All within a year of each other.  

And our mini family pic.  Kevin was a terrible sport, and he kept making me laugh commenting on how the photographer wanted us to get so intimate in public. It is amazing that we don't look entirely distorted from me laughing and hitting him to get him to quiet down.

It  was such a fun trip.  Hopefully we can all get together again soon! Luckily we are closer now that we are in California.  Oh yeah, I neglected to mention that didn't I?  We moved out to Mountain View so Kevin could start his new job as a lawyer.  We have been here almost 3 weeks now. Let's hope he ends up loving it and forgets all about wanting to be a Geologist!