Day 14

Day 13

Day 12

Day 11

Day 10

Day 9

Day 8

Day 7

Day 6

Day 5

Day 4

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1

Day 0

Out of Office

This week is David's spring break, so we're traveling to Arizona. Never been.

Seeing the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley have always been bucket list items for me and Diane, but we're also going to work in Meteor Crater, the Petrified Forest, and Tombstone. Been watching a lot of Westerns to get ready for it and I'm taking along some Zane Grey to read on the trip.

Don't know if we'll have internet access, so I've got a couple of short posts ready to go for later this week. I'll work on some Thunderball posts when I get back. Have a great week!

Gone Fishin'

Not really. I hate fishing. But Diane and I are going to the North Shore of Lake Superior for a couple of days where David's in the middle of a camping trip with my side of the family. That's why there won't be an Awesome List or My Favorite Whatnot this weekend.

See you when we get back!

Vacation Photos

Finally got our pictures uploaded from vacation.

That dinosaur's eating my son!

We have a winner!

I guess the contest was harder than I thought. Since I knew that I was going to South Dakota (and a bit of Wyoming), I thought my clues were pretty easy. But I suppose it helps to know what's in South Dakota and I forgot that I didn't know much about it myself until I started planning this trip a little over a week ago.

Chris La Tray figured it all out though and nailed five out of my nine clues. Congratulations, Chris! Email me with your shipping address and I'll get your prizes in the mail right away.

Here are the answers:

Day 1

Wall Drug (Wall, South Dakota)



Where - yes - they have a gorilla playing a piano. And a jackalope you can sort of ride. And all other sorts of tacky, Western, touristy stuff. And the coolest dinosaur gift shop I've ever been in.

Devils Tower, Wyoming



Where Richard Dreyfuss got on a spaceship.

Day 2

Deadwood, South Dakota



Where Wild Bill Hickok was killed and Ian McShane became famous.

Crazy Horse Memorial (Black Hills, South Dakota)



Probably the biggest, most pleasant surprise of the trip for me. I sort of fell in love with the place.

Day 3

The Mammoth Site (Hot Springs, South Dakota)



Where you can dig for mammoth fossils and stick your hand up a mammoth (puppet's) butt.

Custer State Park, South Dakota



Home of wild bison herds and the most amazing scenery I've ever witnessed.

Mount Rushmore (Black Hills, South Dakota)



Where you learn how cool Teddy Roosevelt really was.

Day 4

The Badlands, South Dakota



Unfortunately, I didn't get to lasso any werewolves while crossing a swinging bridge on my motorcycle. Did have an awesome Fourth of July though.

The Corn Palace (Mitchell, South Dakota)



We didn't even get out of the car for this one, but it's one of those things that you're supposed to see when you go through South Dakota, so we saw it. It's a community center with corn-covered walls.

That's the trip in a nutshell. I've got tons more pictures up at Flickr, so if you've got some time to kill, you can check that out. I've narrated the whole thing in the photos' comments, so it'll be like if I invited you over for dinner and forced you to watch my vacation slides. Only without the benefit of your getting dinner. Still, it was an excellent, pretty much flawless trip and I'm happy to share it with you if you've got the time.

That's it for today. It took me forever to set up that Flickr set. Tomorrow I'll start getting caught up on news and other stuff.

Where's Mike?: Day Four

Heading home today, but not before seeing some more stuff.

Here are the clues for today. Guess where we're going in the comments and if you get the most right over all four days, you win a prize. I should mention that of there's a tie, everyone with that number of right answers wins.





Normal posting (including - hopefully - pictures from the trip) resumes tomorrow.