Two days left, Jon wed's on Saturday, April 1st, and no this is not an April fools joke, although some might say only fools fall in love. Honestly Jennifer is the perfect match and they make a fantastic pair. She actually reccomended this shirt for jon to wear as family begins to arrive for the big day. 
No trip to Minnestota is complete without taking a gander at the world's largest twine ball. We looked in marvel at the gigantic supply of twine and immediately one thought came to mind: Boy would that sucker be cool to start on fire!
Today we visited the World's Largest Crow in Belgrade, MN. This crow weighs 3000lbs and is perched on a 30' branch. It is surrounded by a centennial memorial for the town that features dozens of flags. The wind was whipping up pretty hard and the flags were flapping but the crow stood firm and proud.
Arriving earlier than expected to the MN state line, I called up my brother to let him know we had one more gas stop and we would be there before dinner!
The main freeway offramp to the Enchanted highway features this enourmous sculpture of geese flying south. The photo gives little perspective to it's size. We saw this from over a mile away as we returned to the freeway. Expect to drive about 30 miles to the gift shop and 30 miles back to see all of the sculptures, just be sure to pick a better season. I am now fully reminded of what wind chill is.
By now, I am too cold, and too lazy to stop the car. Nathan continues to take photos out my windows.
A big one, and several smaller ones actually, but they all didn't fit well in one shot. By now, the Enchantment is starting to wear off.
The most bizzare of the sculptures is this variety of metal fish perched on metal seaweed and posts. There is a sea monster looking thing in the back jumping from the water's surface. This may have been a work in progress as most of the fish were still just bare rusted scrap steel.
Here I stand, freezing to death, under a family of mutant giant pheasant. The most realistic of the metal sculptures on Enchanted Way, this family of birds are made of a mesh that gives them a semi transparent look. I think it also allows the wind to blow through them, rather than blow them over.
Here the giant "Tin Family" stands in all thier glory. You may notice, Nathan standing on papa tins foot and only comes up to his knee.
As I mentioned before our trip in an earlier post, we planned to take a detour onto the Enchanted Highway. My first mistake was to follow the directions of Microsoft Streets & Trips, because it routed me off the freeway too early, and although it did get me there, I drove around and below the route, only to follow the "Enchantment" back to the freeway where we really should have begun. We basically did the reverse sequence enchantment, thus leaving us less than fully enchanted.
Here is what they are supposed to look like. You can see a current view at the Painted Canyon web cam, found at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We pressed on for the long, and windy drive across ND.
We drove most of the night, I attempted to sleep in East Montana, but couldn't get comfortable and decided to press on. Eventually we made it to the Painted Hills of West North Dakota. Here we found a wayside to park and get some more sleep. Thinking this would be a great sunrise view point we attempted to rest, while what can only be described as an arctic wind storm raged outside. The car swayed and shook with each gust of wind, and although I was dozing off, I was continiously distrubed by my son's moving about so I really didn't sleep much here ither. When we awoke to some morning light, we braved the wind force to take this pathetic photo.
Another stop for a break to Geocache just before sundown, took us to this small town high-school track field. The sun was setting and as you can see our shadows were long. Time to get back on the road.
Out of sequence, this is from the mountain pass going through Idaho. Of all the trip, this was the only snowy part and we beat any bad weather going over. You can just barely see the big snow flakes as we drive by. The elevation was about 4200 feet.
On the road I saw several oddities that will be posted shortly. This dune buggy was really cool. This is exactly the type of sand buggy I would love to own. Hardtop to keep you dry in Oregon weather, it looks a little like a car from the flintstones too.
Montana goes on forever! The scenery is pleasant enough and the roads are in good condition. Weather was rainy the first bit, and the cleared up the rest of the way east.
This photo was taken at lake Coeur d'Alene Only the 2nd stop we made since we left Albany. We made it all the way to Kennewick, WA on our first tank of gas, refueled and was hoping to get some tourist stops in here. Unfortunately the weather wasn't so great. On our next leg we will be going over the panhandle of Idaho.
my last Snicker's Mocha before heading to the land of Caribu Coffee and 10'000 lakes. Nathan, and I will drive the 1760 mile trek across 2/3 of the country. This will be only the 2nd time I have made the journey back to my home state since moveing to Oregon in 1989. My brother is to be wed on April 1st, and we will spend the week preparing and showing my son my home town. Next week my wife will fly over to join me and when she flys home after the wedding, I will pack back up and make the drive back. The trip will be time well spent with my teenage son, and in the spirit of the Griswold family we might make a few stops to see the world's largest cow, or big red the ox along the way. Check back this week, as I will do my best to post some updates to the trip. I am especially looking forward to touring the Museum of Questionalbe Medical Devices, should be interesting.
Most of us enjoyed jumping off the swing set when we were kids. My kids are no different. In fact I encourage risky behavior such as jumping off of tall things, skateboarding, and running with scissors. Paying hundreds per month in medical insurance premiums, I might as well get my money's worth. But seriously, today everything has to be safeguarded. Toys are tested for safety, playground equipment is set in soft sand, and in Alabama a proposed bill will require kids ride in car seats until the age of 12! In protest, I was encouraging my kids to see who could jump the highest off the swings at the park. I think the other parents were getting irritated. Especially when their kids started requesting underdog pushes. On another note, what’s up with emergency room waiting? How long can it take to set a femur and slap on a cast anyhow!? (KIDDING!)
Took a lunch break at our local state park. One of the perks of working in Silverton, OR, is Silver Falls State Park just about a 20 minute drive away. I had to do some geocache maintainence on one of my hides, so we grabbed some drive-thru and took a heading for the hills. A short walk from the parkinglot provides a great scene, as well as some fresh air away from the office. We got stuck behind a slow vehicle on the drive back so our lunch went about 10 minutes over. If you are in the area, you must spend some time here.
When Cindy and I were in the market for a home a couple years back, we had two homes that fit our needs, budget, and location. One had a large yard but small 1 car garage, the other, a smaller lawn, a 2 car garage, well landscaped yard with minimal maintenance, and built in sprinklers. We chose the latter, the low maintainence yard and bigger garage. Yard maintenance, and pruning, are right up there with buying new tires and dental work on my list of favorite things to do. Today with the sun out and T-shirt weather conditions outside, I decided to survey the dammage from my winter neglect. I think I have more moss and clover than grass, and weeds are comming in a close 3rd. The fortunate thing is my yard is small enough to nuke the whole thing and I might just need a pallet of sod to replace it all. That looks like my best bet, that or astroturf.
Being the gadget junkie I am, you will find me visiting most of the local electronic stores when I get the chance. The majority of the time, I do reasearch online, and I know just what I want, where to find it, and how much it costs. Today was no different. What I was looking for was in stock at Best Buy, and I walked right in the door, and right to it, plucking it from the shelf. I nearly walked right to the register when some other gadgets caught my attention. Without going into detail, I was puzzeled as to the price difference of several similar items, and figured the lower priced ones were older and not compatable with newer devices. Just then an associate decided to step in, "Can I help you?" he asks. With his invitation, I proceeded to ask my question to see if my conclusion was correct. He hesitates, looks at what I was reading, and proceeds to come up with the most confusing non-explanation I was supposed to accept as fact. My mind still boggled by this, I proceed to ask for an accessory power supply for my item (something a good saleperson would have already tried to link sell me) and he brings me to Laptop power supplies over $100... Now I am irritated, and I explain.. No I already have a power supply for my laptop, I am looking for one that will work on "THIS"... "I guess we don't carry those.. "(Ok, this guy didin't even leave the isle!) Now I decide that I might find what I am looking for in another deparment, so I walk over to personal electronics, and the "gamer" sales guy asks to help. Since we are near the PlayStation stuff, I decided to ask him for something else I had researched online, and had yet to see in stock at any local stores, a 12 volt car adaptor for a playstation. (Yes they make them) Rather than (A) explain they don't carry them (B) admit he doesn't know (C) try to locate one at another store or tell me who might help me, he goes with (D) tell me to buy another overpriced item that is not something I need to make it work "Use an Inverter" Now I could go into why this is stupid, but I will spare you further ranting. Why I hadn't left yet I don't know, other than amusement, I proceeded to car audio to see who else could amaze me with superb customer service. No surprise there. The car audio department had some cool stuff to hook up satilite radio to your car sterio without replacing your factory stereo. I asked if this would work with my Laptop and Ipod like the $50 FM transmitter I already purchased. I was puzzeled when he asked what make of car I had, because I thought all cars had FM radios. So I told him I had a Suzuki, and he said, no our Ipod adaptors won't work in a Suzuki.. and showed me a $200 item to control and hook the Ipod up to a car system, but not my car... So I asked again, how would that $200 item let me listen to my laptop over the raidio. "Oh no, it won't do that it just works with the Ipod." So you don't carry just FM transmitters? "I don't know, let me ask.." ARRRGGG!!!
Daisy the wiener dog, saw her shadow Sunday, so there will be 3 more weeks until baseball season.... or something like that. I took a much needed break to relax at the Oregon coast. It was a short break, just Sunday and Monday morning, but we couldn't have asked for better Sunday weather. Little to no wind at the Oregon beach is rare, and the sun even came out for the afternoon. We took our dog for a walk on the beach where she had her first real taste of freedom. I even got my wife to go on a geocache search, she was just as disinterested as I expected, but at least she participated. My turn was to go shopping with her, fortunately I found the electronics department and got lost.
For those of you just tuning in today, I am posting a small few of my photos from Saturday's 2006 Mountain Mud Festival, as I like to call, THE MUD.
