The Freakin Deacon's Corner

I am on my way from Denver, Colorado (USA) to Copenhagen, Denmark.  My flight has a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany.  The flight from Denver to Germany was uneventful.  It is about 1:00 p.m. local time which is about 4:00 a.m. Denver time...Oh so painful...  It is raining lightly here.  The airport is a testament to German efficiency.  It is the little details like security conveyor belts that automatically bring the little trays back to the start of the line after the user picks up there luggage.  The flight was on a gigantic Airbus.  The bathroom was literally down stairs.  It was the smoothest take-off, flight, and landing I have ever had.

I am glad this is a business trip as the value of the dollar against the euro is painful.  I think I spend 3.50 USD on a plain cup of coffee.  My first purchase was an adapter for my laptop to allow it to plug into the outlets here in Europe (minus the UK, they feel the need to be different apparently). 

I plan to look for a gift for Kristine while I am here.  Hmmmm....  wish she was here to help me but that would sort of defeat the purpose :)

Anyway, I am crazy tired so I am going to sign off but I thought I would drop a quick map of my flight path.  We flew almost directly over Minneapolis and then up over Canada, out to sea, and then past Ireland and London, finally landing in Frankfurt.  There was low cloud cover so not too much to see. 

Definition: Vehicular Insanity Quotient

Distance is one small factor in any roadtrip.  Multiply distances times the number of children, weighted by the children's age and you have a far more accurate roadtrip rating scale called "vehicular insanity quotient". 

Trip Summary:

1300 miles
4 days/3 nights
170,000 calories consumed
12 cups a coffee/per adult
4 tanks of gas (broke the bank)
8100 tears cried by toddlers
93 kisses
only 2 beers (thanks mom for the wonderful upbringing)

Day 1:

Our story starts out in Silicon Valley at 2:00 PM (only 2 hours late -not bad when the quotient is factored in).  After a false start and a quick stop at Le Boulanger for a sandwich, we got going on the road.  Kris graciously volunteered to drive -I quickly learned on this roadtrip that driving is the better half of the deal when there are three kids in the back :)  We drove from Sunnyvale to Bakersfield stopping only for a quick stretch at a rest stop about 2/3 of the way there.  Oh how we have loved driving near the mountains and orchards when everything is still green in the spring and early summer..

We stopped at Red Robins in Bakersfield for dinner -being Thursday night this was a bit comical and nostalgic -not that I had any time for memories with the kids -but I did get a burger and some steak fries -oh, and of course a Fat Tire.

After dinner we got gas and headed for Las Vegas.  The initial trek east on highway 58 was beautiful as the sun was setting.  We didn't get any great photos since we were in a hurry but I have included one for completeness.

In Barstow, highway 58 meets up with Interstate 15 North.  Barstow contains part of the historic route 66 (the mother road) and perhaps more importantly in our van was the fact that it was mentioned in the movie "Cars".  This fact ran through my head a hundred times and I considered sharing it with my oldest son Elijah but I could not bring myself to rouse him from his deep sleep.

Dude, you're lucky those diapers were clean...

About 150 miles from Las Vegas I noticed that night had fallen but the temperature had not.  Luckily we were moving quickly through the desert -average speed on Interstate 15 was 85-90 mph.  Another thing about Vegas is that it is a magnet for shady characters.  At the gas station we stopped at (still about 100 miles from Vegas) not a single person there seemed to be going anywhere but Vegas.  AM/PM too much good stuff...  Oh, and I suddenly encountered the joy of cigarette smoke invading my California-ized lungs.

We reached Las Vegas at 12 and passed out.

Day 2:

We decided to take a quick jaunt in the wrong direction to go see Hoover Dam first thing in the morning.  I am glad we went first thing -I kind of knew in the back of my head that Hoover Dam is in the middle of the desert but I didn't realize that once there I would keep looking for a good place to jump of the backside into the lake due the the heat at about 9 am.  It is not the temperature alone but rather the temp in combination with the moisture sucking dryness of the air and the dust that hits your lungs with every inhale. Here is a set of picks from Hoover Dam.

Part of the Dam (apparently not a crucial part) at a park in the small town "Boulder City" just prior to the Dam.

The Dam generates enough power that I started to grow a sixth finger on my left hand when we drove by this on the way in.

The "fam" at the back side of the dam next to the huge water intake towers.

Overflow tunnel big enough to drive multiple semis down side by side.  Or, as Isaac put it "that's where they clean the water when it goes over" 

Umm, no label required.

After that, we headed back to Las Vegas and decided to catch lunch quick before checking out of the hotel and driving again.  The hotel concierge said the most family friendly restaurant close the the hotel was the Rain Forest Cafe in the MGM Casino.  He did not mention that the entire family would have to walk the across the entire casino to get to it...

Parental Advice #1: Don't attempt to explain gambling to your children 5 and under -they hear the word "game" and immediately head towards the nearest slot machine

Parental Advice #2: Don't buy your children stuff snakes at the Rainforest Cafe even if they are 2 for 1.  They will beat each other with them for the rest of the roadtrip.

We headed out of Las Vegas at 1 o'clock.  Our next stop was St. George, Utah which is an oasis in the middle of the desert.  It is a very beautiful town right outside of Zion national park (which unfortunately was removed from our itinerary to maintain sanity).

We stayed at a great little resort there -none of the hotels had multiple room suites available...  We probably arrived in St. George about 3 PM and spent the rest of the day just hanging out.

Day 3:

We left St. George, Utah at about 9 after the frustration of trying to find a good breakfast place, we settled for finding a McDonald's -It's not that St. George doesn't have good breakfast places -in fact, looking back, I think we were just insane -I would have settled for a bagel from Safeway that morning. 

"We LOVE generica daddy!"  "Please can we take a picture with Old McDonald?"  -They think he is the farmer from the children's nursery rhyme...

We had this grand plan of going to Zion national park and then to Arches national park later in the same day -which was of course predicated on leaving St. George at 7 am.  So... we did not make it to Zion but at least we realized this early on and didn't attempt it.

Utah has some amazing mountains along Interstate 70.  We stopped at some salt flats shown below:

After what seemed like forever (it was quite a ways) we arrived at Arches National park.  This was a park I had been wanting to see for a long time and I really enjoyed it.

Our completely awesome son Elijah.  Immediately after this picture he took off down the valley behind him...

The teeth and the rocks are similar is size and shape in this masterpiece...

Holy cuteness....   "No Daddy, I will not smile -but I am adorable anyway... just love me..."

Balanced Rock and the "Three Gossips"

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a short hike the boys and I took to "Double Arches".  That is one serious chunk of rock suspended over your head.  Elijah and Isaac were fearless in climbing around -nearly gave dad a heart attack so instead I just joined them... :)

Smile for the picture (one second afterwards I realize Elijah is not next to me and is endangering his life with a huge smile on his face... Behind him is a cliff)

"Double Arches" in all their glory!!!

We left Arches National Park and ate dinner at a brewpub in Moab -which is a strange and random tourist town outside of the surrounding national parks.  After that we drove another couple hours to Glenwood Springs, Colorado and promptly went to sleep at the Best Western Antlers -still not sure if that is a name or a sentence but they had comfortable beds and we were finally in Colorado!

Day 4:

We only had a couple hundred miles left of our trip and decided to take it easy in the morning soaking up some pool time in Glenwood Springs before heading to Denver and our new life

In Glenwood Springs we ate lunch in the quaint little downtown and took the boys for a brief tour of the Amtrack station before heading across Interstate 70.  Here are various pictures along the way...

Heading out of Glenwood Springs, CO the mountains are beautiful!  Although I have grasped the concept of the mountains stopping the clouds and causing rain, it is still amazing to drive out of Utah and into Colorado and see the switch in the span of less than 100 miles. 

Vail pass is quite amazing.  The boys were able to play in snow which is still a novel concept to them :)  The Interstate is above 10,000 feet elevation in various places including this one.  It is amazing to see the little towns along the way and the beautiful rivers with all sorts of sports and activities that we can't wait to try out...

This is the mile long tunnel under Longmont pass that when completed allowed the rest of the interstate to be 4 lanes wide.  This reduced travel time between Vail and Denver from 3-4 hours to 90 minutes.

We didn't take picture after this last set since we were getting close to home and spent time talking about how to find our temp housing and what to do the first few days of our stay.  I will leave you with this one final gem.

Kris and I make a really, really good team.  Eight amazing years and counting -love ya babe, happy anniversary, welcome to your new life :)