Road Trip: The Miscellaneous

If you get an ebook out of the library on your Kindle app and you never take the iPad off of Airplane Mode, you can take longer than two weeks to finish your book because the Kindle will not get the ping from the mothership that will delete the book. This is good when you are reading one of those 900 page books in the Outlander series.

One 12 ounce bottle of olive oil is good for two weeks of salads and sautéing, but 10 ounces of vinegar is twice as much as you need.

Elevation changes are well reflected in sealed plastic packages. These marshmallows were bought at 5627 feet and photographed at 8975 feet. See how the bag is inflated? Also, jumbo marshmallows are idiotic.

When you pack, you throw weird stuff in at the last minute, right? I loved having a couple of silicone twist ties and a few of those plastic coated metal clips, for sealing up all sorts of things, and holding other things in place.

If you are going to go to more than three National Parks in one year, get the pass. It’s $80, it’s good for a year, and it gets a carload of people into the park. And then when you happen to be driving by the FDR house in Hyde Park, you can go on a tour for free! We’re making the most of our park pass. I might even go to the Teddy Roosevelt house, which is a block away from my office and I’ve never set foot inside.

If you are going to be in Yellowstone for more than a couple of days and are going to be buying things like groceries and bear spray and souvenirs, join the Yellowstone Association. It’s $35, and gets you a 15% discount on purchases in the Park (except for gas and meals). And you get a quarterly magazine for the next year. And you get a door prize, which was a choice of a tote or a stuffed bear. Yes, of course, the 10yo picked the stuffed bear, and named it Fumarole.

I can't really explain why I was so amused to find spent cap gun ammo outside the office of the Butch Cassidy campground.

One family’s campsite in Madison included the oddest little tent: its footprint was about 4’ square, and it was taller than it was wide. We decided that it was the Tardis in disguise.

The way I solved the problem of the kid wanting to buy things at every single gift shop was by giving her an allowance. I didn’t give it to her in cash; I paid for things, and she said “take it off my tab”. On about the third day, she started working out what Monster High dreck she could buy with the leftover money when we got home, because I’d made the mistake of not stipulating that it was “vacation only, use it or lose it”. Next time. In the end, she did spend most of her allowance on the road – on postcards, a 3D wolf puzzle, two stuffed animals, an “opal” ring, and the Lego movie on the airplane ride home.

Do not ever buy the Walmart Mainstays Quick Drying Towels. They dry quickly because they do not absorb any water; I think they may have been treated with ScotchGuard.

A 10yo American girl who speaks no Dutch can have a wonderful few hours with a 10yo Dutch girl who speaks no English.

I got out of the car one day to take a picture, and saw signs for a Gutzon Borglum monument. Awesome name, right? He turned out to be the sculptor who carved Mount Rushmore. Maybe we'll go to Mount Rushmore next year.

I like a good didactic sign, but I like them better when they don't have grammatical errors.

The end.

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Part 1, The Hut, is here.
Part 2, The Campsites, is here.
Part 3, On Food And Cooking, is here.
Part 4, The Assignment, is here.
Part 5, The Animals, is here.
Part 6, The Natural Sights, is here.
Part 7, The Built Environment, is here.