Big Family (Minus One)

We're just back from a fun family reunion in Las Vegas! Good food, lots of laughs, and a thinner wallet, as usual. R's dad is #8 of 9 kids, and R is the youngest of 26 grandkids, so you could say that only a few of us gathered together. We've been to every reunion since 1994.

March 1994 - Not officially family yet, so I didn't think I should order a shirt. Oops.

Melting Points

By the numbers...

• 3057 miles
• 8 states
• 15 new NPS units
• 38 NPS passport stamps
• 19 NPS Centennial stamps
• 2 state capitals
• 6 smushed pennies
• 4 cans of spray paint

Show Me the Way to Go Home

You know that song that Brody, Hooper, and Quint sing on the boat in Jaws? Call that our theme music for today. Well, except for the drinking part...

Show me the way to go home.

I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

I had a little drink about an hour ago,

And it’s gone right to my head.

Wherever I may roam,

On land or sea or foam,

You can always hear me singing this song.

Show me the way to go home.

Today's route: 460 miles

Stick a Fork in Us

Today's route: 305 miles

In order to get to our last new unit (#140 for me, #139 for R, and #136 for M and J) of the trip, we took NM-53 through the other side of El Malpais National Monument this morning instead of staying on I-40 west. 

Land of Fire

Another recently designated unit was our first stop this morning. Valles Caldera National Preserve was added to the National Park Service in October 2015. Because most activities are in the backcountry (hiking, biking, horseback riding, etc.) and only 35 vehicle permits are available each day in the summer, I hadn't planned on spending much time here. 

Pueblos and Project Y

Today's route: 140 miles

We didn't have to drive very far today, but it was probably the least efficient route that we will take this entire trip. It kills me to backtrack, but we didn't have enough time to visit Pecos National Historical Park on our way up to Santa Fe yesterday.

Flint and Spray Paint

This morning we were up early again and on the road to our first destination, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area. The park offers ranger-guided kayak tours on Monday mornings, so M was disappointed that we were visiting there a day too late. (He really enjoyed the one we did in Whiskeytown NRA in 2014.)

I had made reservations for a 10:00AM ranger-led tour at nearby Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, so the extent of our visit to Lake Meredith consisted of stopping by the visitor center (for my passport stamps) and then heading over to see the lake. From the boat launch, it was very apparent how much the water level has dropped.

Sooners or Later

Today's route: 415 miles

We hit the road early this morning because we had a 180-mile drive to Oklahoma City and even more ground to cover after that. Our first stop was the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, and it was well-worth the time and cost of admission ($15/adult). The museum does an excellent job presenting the story of the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Arkansas Travelers

We left George Washington Carver NM around 10:30AM, and headed south down I-49 to Arkansas and our next stop, Pea Ridge National Military Park. We grabbed lunch on our way through town and headed straight out to the park.

Pea Ridge was the "battle that saved Missouri for the Union." Fought on March 7-8, 1862, it involved some of the same commanding officers who had faced off at Wilson's Creek, such as Maj. Gen. Sterling Price (pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard), Confederate Brig. Gen. Ben McCulloch, and the Union second-in-command Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel. 

The Plant Doctor

The first destination on our itinerary today was George Washington Carver National Monument, about 30 miles west of Monett in Diamond, MO. Because we also had two other places to visit later in the day, we hit the road as early as our teenagers could tolerate.

Get Your Kicks...

Well, if you ever plan to motor west,

Take my way, it's the highway, that's the best.

Get your kicks on Route 66.

Well, it winds from Chicago to L.A.

More than 2000 miles all the way,

Get your kicks on Route 66.

When we decided to drive one-way back to CA from IL for our summer vacation, I had originally entitled this our "Route 66" trip. But after planning out our itinerary to visit national park units along the way, I realized that we would be detouring from the Mother Road for a good portion of the time. So, it was rechristened as the "Help Me, I'm Melting" road trip because most likely it would be obscenely hot everywhere we went. That's been the case so far. Boo!

Food, Glorious Food!

Saturday, July 16

We were up super early this morning for our 7:00AM flight from LAX to ORD, and encountered a few more hiccups than usual. The plate and screws in my arm didn't set off the scanning x-ray, but a zippered pocket in my shorts did earn me a pat-down. And both boys' backpacks were pulled aside for a search. I guess TSA must find giant bags of gummy bears and sour patch kids highly suspicious!

After we picked up our luggage from baggage claim and the rental car from Hertz, we headed straight for Rosemont because it was the closest place to get...

Hail, Alma Mater!

Since Champaign-Urbana is only an hour or so away from my parents' house, we decided to schedule a campus tour of the University of Illinois for M today. I was happy to see that the Bread Company on Goodwin was still in business, but they no longer make the cheese croissants that I loved to get when I was a student. OK, so it has been almost 25 years, but still...

I settled for something to drink from Espresso Royale next door instead.

The tour was scheduled to start at 10AM from the Alice Campbell Alumni Center. What a great facility to welcome prospective students to campus! The speaker from the admissions office gave a nice spiel showcasing all that the university has to offer. But we definitely didn't like her slide with the cost of tuition - yikes!

Facing northwest from the entrance to the Alumni Center,
with Illinois Street Residence (Wardall) in the background

Chicago's National Park

Pullman National Monument was officially added to the National Park Service (#407) on February 19, 2015, but today was the first opportunity we have had since then to visit. So this morning we took the Edens to the Kennedy, followed by the Dan Ryan, and then the Bishop Ford Freeway - haven't forgotten my Chicagoland expressway lingo! We were joined by our friend S and his son K, who met us down there to check it out, too.

Mural on the back wall of the visitor center

Summer League Scouting Report

After watching 6+ games of summer league basketball this weekend, the ballers weigh in with their Saiki-delic scouting report:

Who were the best three players you saw this weekend?

J / R: Devin Booker (PHX), DAngelo Russell (LAL), Kris Dunn (MIN)

JL: DAngelo Russell, Devin Booker, Kay Felder (CLE)

ML: DAngelo Russell, Kris Dunn, (tie) Kay Felder / Ben Simmons (PHI)

M: Denzel Valentine (CHI)

Basketball Jones

We started off our day with the Portland Trailblazers and Phoenix Suns (Devin Booker, Tyler Ulis, Marquese Chriss, and Dragan Bender). Like Friday's Laker game, there was an abundance of Phoenix fans in the Cox Pavilion.

Ball Is Life

This summer, J's first foray into high school basketball has been playing up with the F/S team as one of their starting guards. And M has been rehabbing his surgically-repaired Achilles' tendon - he's disappointed that playing with the summer JV team was off the table, but hopes to be back on the court for the regular season in November. At our house, ball takes up a lot of our life, indeed!

As soon as we realized that there were no F/S games on the calendar during the first weekend of the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, we bought our tickets and booked a hotel room right away. We even convinced some friends to join us for the quick trip...

Got Opinions?

It has taken me a little while to get this recap written up, but I can backdate the blog so it doesn't appear to be quite as late - haha! Here are the family's thoughts on our most recent Saiki-delic road trip...

What are some of your favorite things that we saw or did on this trip (top 3)?

M / R: Sledding at White Sands, going to Carlsbad Caverns, and the Pima Air & Space Museum

J: White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, and the Cubs game

Me: Carlsbad Caverns, getting passport stamps from a new region, and seeing parts of the country we've never been to before

Physics Is Fun

Guesstimating there were ~25-30 cars ahead of us

Hurry up and wait. That's what we did this chilly (below-freezing!) morning to get in line for the Trinity Site Open House. I had been told that the queue to get through the Stallion Gate Entrance of the White Sands Missile Range could get quite long, so we arrived around 7:15AM for the 8:00AM opening. 

On a Mission

When I was mapping out our itinerary for this trip, the schedule for today was flexible. We could either:

• Visit the remnants of two frontier-era Army outposts, Fort Selden and Fort Craig, as well as a site along the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, the Royal Road of the Interior Lands, which stretched from Santa Fe, NM down to Mexico City. 

Or...

• Visit one more NPS unit, Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument

Because my family humors me (and they have my completist tendencies, too!), we chose the latter.

Flying Saucers

Carlsbad, NM is only about an hour or so away from Roswell. Being a nerdy geek (is that redundant?!), of course I had to visit! So, our very first stop this morning was the International UFO Museum and Research Center.

To the Bat Cave

National Park #29 (of 59)

Months ago, I asked our cave tour planner to decide which one we should do during our visit to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. No surprise that every tour in which M was interested had "strenuous" in the description or involved crawling and/or climbing! Unfortunately, none were available during the time that we would be here. So I made reservations online for the 11:00AM King's Palace Tour, the only one we could do.

Texas Two-Step

M and J have been keeping track of how many states they've ever visited and were debating whether or not to count Nebraska (slept through it overnight on the Amtrak California Zephyr) and Texas (layover at DFW). Even though we only spent a little time here today in West Texas, I think they should definitely be able to count it now.

From Las Cruces, it took us less than an hour to reach El Paso - gotta love 75 mph speed limits! We headed straight for the border and Chamizal National Memorial.

Rooms with a View

It was a bit chilly this morning when we headed up into the mountains on NM-90 towards Silver City. We crossed over the Continental Divide (twice) on our way to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. 

Easter Sun-day

HE IS RISEN!  

He is risen, indeed!

We celebrated Jesus' resurrection this Easter Sunday morning with Calvary Chapel Tucson. They held their service at the Tucson Convention Center, with special music by Steven Curtis Chapman. It was nice to be able to attend church while on vacation, but we missed our #smallchurchbigfamily!

OCD Madness

Throughout 2016, the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th year. In honor of this milestone anniversary, Eastern National has issued a commemorative centennial stamp to nearly all of the 410 units in the NPS. Our current tally of units visited as a family is 115. So while we didn't check off any new units today, it was a successful day of stamp collecting for me!

Wait 'Til Next Year

Marking time. For my older son that means marching in place without moving forward. As parents we've marked the milestones in our kids' lives - first teeth, first steps, first days of school. And as a family we've had to mark all the things we've missed sharing with R's brother K over the past year - a Stanley Cup for the Blackhawks and a great post-season for the Cubs! Christmas. The March Madness (newly rechristened "Swordfish") Invitational for the guys in Vegas...

This spring break finds us on the road trip we planned to take before that late-night phone call came and we headed off to Chicago to be with K instead. Last year we were going to meet K here in Phoenix to watch a couple games together, since he had never been to spring training. Fittingly, we started everything off this year by watching the Cubs play the Brewers today, the epitome of marking time - 108 years, to be exact!