Bryce Canyon

Once again on our trip we lucked out with our plans to be in the right place at the right time. We’d planned on being in Utah around the end of May to see the canyons, but after talking with a Ranger in Kansas at Brown v Board we found out there was going to be a solar eclipse and Bryce Canyon was having a stargazing event to celebrate it.

When we arrived at Bryce Canyon Becca had been sick the day before and today was Jacob’s turn. When their tummies seemed calm, Mom and I went to the park to get our bearings and see the sunset. We returned and decided to take Faith to the evening program they were having. There were about 25 telescopes you could look through to view different celestial bodies. We saw Saturn incredibly clear, close and with its rings. It was so clear that it looked like someone had taped a picture of it at the end of the telescope. We also saw a double star- one bright blue and one bright yellow; nebula rings which are the left over from a star that has blown up; and the Hercules galaxy was dazzling with so many stars gathered together. The sky itself was fabulous with so many stars shining, but to be able to zoom in to see these heavenly bodies was even more incredible.

We drove through the park the following day and saw the Natural Bridge

and other wonderful formations. But the star of the show was the solar eclipse. The park gave out special glasses to watch the eclipse. The sun seemed extra bright that day. It was amazing to watch the moon block the sun and leave a ring of fire. I was afraid to try to take a picture of the eclipse because I didn’t want to ruin my camera, but this is what we looked like during the eclipse. We had perfect seats at our campground.

We returned with the whole family for the evening telescope program and then Mom and I got up at 5:30 to watch the sun rise over Bryce point.

We learned in a Ranger program that Bryce Canyon is not actually a canyon- to be a canyon you have to have a river running through it and Bryce is dry. It's a beautiful place even though it's misnamed.

Rocky Mountain Fun

Our first stop in Denver was at the airport to pick up my mom. This was her third visit with us during our RV trip. We grabbed some lunch and then toured Hammond’s Candy store.

We watched as the workers created the candy canes. They start with a huge 60-70 lb piece after mixing and adding flavoring and coloring. A machine rolls the candy out, one worker cuts the candy to the right size and another pinches the end and adds the curved end to the other side. They also make marshmallows and I didn’t realize it took three days to make them. They also make ribbon candy on a machine that was created in the 1800s. Ribbon candy is only made in Denver and in Massachusetts.

This is what candy canes look like before they are stretched out, cut and shaped.


We headed to the courthouse to prove that we were in Denver- a mile above sea level is etched into the step.

Nearby was Margaret Tobin Brown’s home. She’s also known as The Unsinkable Molly Brown thanks to the musical. She was actually never called Molly while she lived, it just happened to rhyme with Jolly in the musical so they gave her that name. We couldn’t take photos inside, but it was ornately furnished. Margaret’s husband found the largest gold nugget that’s ever been found in Colorado. He also struck it rich with other minerals in the area. She paid $4500 for her first class cabin on the Titanic- that’s $70,000 in today’s dollars! She spoke six different languages and that came in handy once the survivors had been rescued by the Carpathia. In the days that it took to reach New York she organized a survivors fund and knew the needs of those aboard.

We met my cousin Cristy for dinner. We had wonderful food and great conversation.

The next day we headed to Boulder and snapped a picture of Mork & Mindy’s house. They didn’t film the tv show here, but this was the house they showed.

Next stop- Celestial Seasonings. We had a yummy lunch and then toured the factory- complete with hairnets!

One of the rooms we went into was the mint room. It was so strong in there that our eyes began to water. They have to close this room off from the others or every tea would take on the mint scent. There are three mint scents- peppermint, spearmint and a third we know better as cat nip! After our tour we sampled various teas. This is the only production plant in the world and they make ten million tea bags a year here!

Our final destination in Colorado was Rocky Mountain National Park. We saw lots of bighorn sheep and elk. It was beautiful up there. Faith earned another Jr Ranger badge and we headed back to the city.

We're in Kansas Auntie Em

Brown v Board of Education was the historic site we visited in Topeka. The site was Monroe Elementary, which was built in 1926 as a segregated school.

The Brown case involved nearly 200 plaintiffs suing the Topeka school board. The NAACP brought five similar cases from across the country to compile Brown v Board of Education to end segregation in schools. In 1954, the Supreme Court determined that “’separate but equal’ has no place.” This upheld the 14th amendment, but there were still challenges for the next decade, like the Little Rock 9 at Central High School that we learned about in Arkansas last December.

Since we were in Kansas it made sense that we’d tour an Oz museum. The author of The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, wrote many children’s stories. He felt he was going to write a classic and he was right about that! We read about the various actors including the munchkins, the good and bad witch, and the main characters. It was the perfect sized museum to entertain our kids and give us a break from our drive across the state.

Entertained in Branson

We took a quick trip down to Branson to see what it was all about. So many people are excited about Branson and it does seem like a fun place. The first thing on our list of things to do was to visit the Titanic museum. We were each given a boarding pass with the name of a passenger on it and some information about that person. We learned more about our people as we toured through the museum. Rick and Becca learned early that they died. Rick’s passenger was a well to do author and had Mark Twain as his best man in his wedding. Becca didn't want to leave her husband so they died holding each other in their arms. Faith, Jacob and I found out at the end that we survived. Faith was an attendant for the wealthiest man on board. I was traveling with my sister and we both survived. Jacob was a crew member. It’s said that while on watch he (Jacob) could smell ice in the water because the ice is fresh water and the ocean is salt. Unfortunately, he wasn’t on watch that night. When he was woken up by another crew member he didn’t think the situation was as bad as it was and went to the galley to have a cup of coffee.

The museum was full of information and artifacts. There were several pictures taken by a passenger who was on the ship for the first two days and disembarked before it took off for New York. We weren’t able to take pictures in the museum. I understood about the 100 year old artifacts, but I would’ve enjoyed pictures of the fun interactive exhibits.

We enjoyed trying to walk on the decks when they were at 5, 30 and 45 degree angles. We had to pull ourselves up by the railing to get up the 45 degree deck. They also had 28 degree water just like the freezing water that night. All five of us stuck our hand in at the same time. It was freezing! I moved my fingers hoping that would help keep the circulation going, but it was still freezing. I pulled mine out first because I didn’t see any benefit of keeping in there any longer than 30 seconds. Rick was stubborn and kept it in there for a minute and fifteen seconds.

That evening we went to the Hamner & Barber show. Hamner is a magician and Barber a ventriloquist. They were quite entertaining. Hamner baffled us with tricks that involved birds, cards and escaping while Barber kept us laughing. Days later we were still laughing and trying to figure out some of the magic tricks.

Talking with the performers after the show

Learning and playing in Missouri

After Nebraska, we stopped on the other side of Missouri to visit Kansas City. Like St. Louis, they too had interesting sculptures- giant badminton shuttlecocks, spiders, books outside the library and even what once was the world’s largest ball of string.

In Independence we stopped to learn about Truman growing up in the area, meeting his wife and retiring there after his term as our 33rd president. He met his future wife when he was a young lad as his aunt lived right across the street.

This is the view of Bess' house from his aunt's home. He asked Bess to marry him in 1911 and she turned him down, but she accepted his proposal eight years later.

His mom said he’d read all the books in the Independence public library by age 14. He’d planned on going to college, but his father's risky investment with the family’s savings lead Harry to work instead. He worked at a bank, on the family farm, joined the national guard, owned a clothing store and finally entered politics.

He faced tough decisions as president: bombing Japan in WWII, entering the Korean War, desegregating the military. World War II ended during his term. I recalled the words of my Grampa as we left town, “Truman was from Missouri so the peace treaty was signed on the Missouri instead of the South Dakota” (which was the most decorated ship in the navy and where my grandfather was stationed). History came to life for me.

We learned that after his presidency he just had his military pension of $100 a month to live off. A few years later they passed a law so the presidents would receive a pension. Years later, after Kennedy was shot, the presidents also received secret service agents to protect them. The house across from Truman’s was not occupied so the secret service stayed there. Many of his secret service agents received their masters degrees studying in their free time. Truman did go on a daily walk each morning at 7. He died in 1972 and Bess died ten years later, leaving the house to the national park system in her will. Bess was the longest living first lady dying at the age of 97. The home is decorated minimally and the décor looks like the 1950’s. They had a rotary phone and you could make out their phone number on the center dial. We couldn’t take pictures inside, but it was a beautiful house built by Bess’ grandfather.

A Wild Time in Nebraska

We awoke early Sunday morning, about 5:15am, to high winds, thunder, lightning, rain and hail. The wind made me the most nervous. I wasn’t sure if we should seek shelter somewhere and it hadn’t been discussed with us when we checked in as it had at other places. We turned on the tv and checked the internet for updates. We lost power a couple of times, but it quickly came back on. Later in the day we found out that the gusts had been 80mph! We also found out that they don’t have the warning sirens at the lake to tell us to seek shelter. There were several people camping in tents and none of them were injured (others had been at different campgrounds). Some of the 5th wheel trailers were lifted off their blocks- that would be scary!

Later that day Becca and I drove to the commissary and saw lots of branches on the ground; some were huge. We also saw a trampoline that must’ve blown over the fence because it was sitting in an empty field. We had more rain, thunder and lightning, but we were thankful that we didn’t have wind like that again!

The national monument we visited was Homestead. Faith earned her 52nd Jr Ranger badge learning about the 160 acre parcels that were given to people who were willing to work the land. They had five years to make a profit off the land or turn it back over to the government. Only a small percentage succeeded. Homesteading took place in 30 states from 1862 until 1980. The last parcel of land that was given in 1980 was in Alaska. Homestead national monument is located in south central Nebraska because it was one of the first homesteads claimed and this house still stands!

I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to go to a new place not knowing what the weather would be like, which crop would grow best, etc. Some of the challenges they faced included wind, rain, drought, locusts, fire, Indians, lack of timber, lack of irrigation, etc.

To come up with a way to mark their territory, barbed wire was developed. There are more than 2,000 variations on over 500 patents! Other inventions that helped during this time were the steel blade grasshopper plow and the pivoting windmill to pump water.

While in Omaha we found the largest ball of stamps at Boys Town. It’s over 600 lbs and created from more than 4.6 million stamps!

We looked for a Chef Boyardee statue but were unable to find it. We drove stopped Gerald Ford’s birthplace. It had been one of the finest homes in Omaha, but it burned down in 1971 so a businessman created the memorial and gardens. Ford was born Leslie King Jr. When his mom divorced and then remarried he was adopted by his new father and given the name Gerald R Ford Jr.

Iowa

Our first stop in Iowa was the World’s Largest Truck Stop. Who wouldn’t want to go there? This place is huge! They offer a dentist, theater, library, truck museum, restaurants, showers, barber, laundry, gift shop and more.

Our next stop was for our little Jr. Ranger- Herbert Hoover’s birthplace. The tiny cottage Hoover was born in still stands in West Branch, IA. It has one bedroom and one multipurpose living room/kitchen/dining room.

They had a summer kitchen off the back porch. Hoover’s dad was a blacksmith and his shop was just a hop, skip and a jump away. Also on the property- a one room school house and a meetinghouse where they worshipped as Quakers.

Hoover was orphaned at 9. He was separated from his brother and sister, but they all lived with relatives. He became the 31st president and helped establish UNICEF.

I had planned our trip to Iowa around the Pella tulip festival. I have been told by many people, even people that live in Iowa, that there’s not much to see so I was happy to have found this festival. Being from Skagit county in Washington, we have acres and acres of colorful tulips so I was hoping for some great pictures. I know you can’t always time the blooming of the tulips and that was the case for this event. It was a cute little town, but we saw maybe six tulips since they all bloomed early.

St. Louis

We started our day in the St. Louis area at a park that had several statues and pieces of art. I went for the giant eyeball, but we found other interesting pieces too.

Ulysses S. Grant’s White Haven home was our next stop. He attended West Point and a classmate invited him to his home at White Haven. He enjoyed their company and became a weekly visitor. After their daughter returned from boarding school he became a daily visitor. He ended up marrying her, his classmate’s sister, Julia Dent.

Faith was thrilled to be able to sit on furniture and touch things inside the house since often we are not able to in other homes.

Grant loved his wife and family and resigned from the military after being apart from them for two years. He returned to the White Haven area to farm. Being a hard worker and from the north, he worked alongside the slaves trying to make the farm profitable. This angered his wife’s family as they didn’t feel it was proper.

This was the slave's entry door- not fancy like the front door to the house.

Grant tried to make money as a farmer, then as a horse breeder. The family ended up moving to Ohio where Grant's family lived to make a living there. The Civil War broke out and Grant went back to serving his country. He rose rapidly through the ranks and years after the war became the 18th president. They didn’t return to this home to live, but had fond memories of their time there.

The home was called White Haven, but it was painted green. I was sidetracked and didn't get a picture of the whole house. Here we are going into the winter kitchen and it shows some of the green. The kitchen helped warm the home, but it must've been freezing for the slaves as it was cool when we were there in the spring.

Our next stop was at a home where Scott Joplin once lived. We watched a video on his life and toured the house, but the most fun was getting to press the pedals for an old player piano. It was great listening to Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer.

"Look Ma, no hands!"

Our visit to St. Louis wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the arch. The arch’s official name is Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. This arch represents the gateway to the west, a starting point for Lewis and Clark’s adventure to the Pacific Ocean.

In addition to seeing the arch when you’re in St. Louis, you gotta have some barbeque! We ate at one place and it did nothing for me, but then we tried Stumpy’s. I figured with a name like Stumpy’s it had to be good. It was wonderful. It was so good that we ended up getting some the next day for lunch as we left and headed north.

Moving on

On our way from Kentucky to Missouri we stopped in Indiana at Lincoln’s boyhood home. Faith didn’t earn a Jr. Ranger badge when we were in Indiana last summer so this was a perfect time to make up for that. When Lincoln was seven, his family left Kentucky and moved to Indiana. He spent fourteen years in Indiana before moving to Illinois.

His mother died from milk sickness; the cow ate a poisonous weed and she drank milk from the cow. Lincoln attended just two years of school, but he loved to read. His father remarried and his step mom brought three books with her. Two books that made an impression on him were the biographies of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, with whom he could relate.

How do you measure up to Lincoln?

Lincoln was a hard worker and a good story-teller. One day, two business men asked him for a ride in the small boat he’d made to get to the steam boat in the middle of the river. He couldn’t believe that he earned a dollar in such a short amount of time. He did that a few more times and a ferry company took him to court. They claimed he was ferrying people across the river, but he argued he was only ferrying them half way. Lincoln won. This may have been the beginning of his desire to work in the legal system.

Just down the road from Lincoln’s place was Santa Claus, Indiana, so we had to go there. There were roads with names like Christmas Blvd, shopping centers named Kringle Place, Holiday foods, and several ornament stores.

We spent the night in Paducah, KY so we could visit Metropolis, IL, home of Superman, just a few miles away. It was great fun to pose with the giant statue, see “kryptonite” and walk into a phone booth (in case you needed to change).

Bats, Bluegrass and the Colonel

Our last day in Kentucky we saw the largest bat in the world

and then two blocks down we saw the largest bat in the world.

The Louisville Slugger museum and factory was another fun place to learn and interact. We toured the factory and watched bats being created in a lathe in just seconds. We couldn’t take photos in the factory since they have 29 competitors and didn’t know if any of us were spies. They make 40,000 bats during each MLB season! Five thousand pounds of sawdust are created each day. A turkey farmer buys the sawdust collected each month. We each received mini bats after the tour. 1.8 million bats leave this place each year, including the mini bats.

We mingled through the history of baseball and watched a video narrated by James Earl Jones. Jacob and I hit some balls in the batting cages.

We went to the visitor center downtown because I’d learned there was a wax Col. Sanders holding a bucket of chicken so I had to get a photo!

I was pleased to see they had a timeline of his life so we learned some things about him. He was 65 and earning just over $100 on social security when he started working on KFC. He franchised it a few years later and then sold it not long after that for $2 million.

We drove through the bluegrass area. I was amazed at how many rolling hills there were. We saw lots of horses too. I was thrilled to be here in the spring, knowing that the blue grass is blue because something is blooming making it look blue, but I didn’t see any grass that I thought was blue. It was a lovely drive though.

I was sad to leave Kentucky, just like I’ve been sad to leave other places, but it’s hard to be sad when you know there are other wonderful things to see.

The Derby

In honor of the Kentucky Derby, I have a few things that I forgot to add to my last blog post about Churchill Downs.

The person that founded the racetrack was Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr, the grandson of the famous explorer William Clark. He spent two years in Europe learning about horse racing at the request of thoroughbred breeders and businessmen who wanted a facility in the Louisville area. He raised money for construction and leased 80 acres from his uncles, Henry and John Churchill.

Churchill Downs is huge. It’s twice the size of a professional football stadium holding over 160,000. The amount of money bet the day of the derby just at Churchill Downs is twenty four million with half of that spent just for the one race. This is pretty incredible because this is all cash- no credit! I can’t even imagine.

The horses go from 0 to 40mph in just three strides. Most of the horses that race are three-year old colts (males), but fillies (females) have raced and won. The Kentucky Oaks race is the day prior to the derby and is for the fillies. The blanket of flowers they use for the Oaks winners are lilies- lilies for the fillies. Derby winners receive a blanket of roses (run for the roses).

The jockeys and their saddles are weighed prior to the race. They must weigh 126lbs. If they need to add weight they put lead in their boots or in pockets on the saddle or change to a heavier saddle.

In the paddock area just prior to the race the horses are checked to make sure it’s the correct one racing. The horses have a tattoo inside their lip and the numbers are matched.

The track record was set in 1973 by Secretariat. He ran each quarter mile faster than the one before. When he died the autopsy found that his heart was 22lbs- normal size for a horse is 7-12! After that buyers began asking for ultrasounds trying to find a horse with a big heart, but they haven’t found one yet and the record still stands.

Another thing I learned had to do with burying the horses. They usually just bury the head, heart and hooves. The head represents the will to win, the heart represents courage and the hooves represent speed. Only three distinguished horses have been buried whole- Man O War, Seattle Slew and Secretariat. All three were Triple Crown winners and achieved incredible feats.

Opening Night at Churchill Downs

There were thousands of people at the opening night of racing at Churchill Downs. Our tour guide from the day before had given us a tip- where to stand for the 1 1/16th races because the starting gate would be right in front of us.

It was quite fun! The horses started right in front of us and then came around again right before they finished.

I was surprised both times they started in front of us because it was so quick. As soon as they get the last horse in, they're off!

We met some nice people after they commented on the Fascinators Faith and I were wearing. I made them out of leftovers from my Princess Half marathon tulle skirt and flowers I had purchased but not used. Rick and I partook in Mint Juleps

The mild evening took a turn for the worse with thunder, lightning and hail. We were told to seek shelter and we did.

The track was a mess afterward, but the races went on.

We let the kids bet with $10 each. Becca doubled her (our) money, but the rest of us were not so successful. It was a good lesson- none of the kids bet all of their ten dollars after seeing that it’s not a guaranteed return race after race.