Return from trip

Hallelujah, we're back!!

Found meade at the Mall of America, too, so Dale and I sampled it last night.  It's quite good, I'll be buying more from a site I found it at.  Now that I know the brand I like, it was easy to find an online distributor here in the US.  It's imported from Ireland, surprise surprise... gotta love authentic stuff.  http://millstonebuyriteliquors.com/product.aspx?Item=1441

Trip went well, and we had WAY too perfect weather - about 15 minutes of actual rain in three weeks, and 14 minutes of it was at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  Gah!  I LOVE rain.  Guess what it did a couple hours after we arrived home?  Yes, it rained.  FINALLY some REAL RAIN!!  I went out and danced in it briefly before shivering from cold and coming to my [adult?] senses.  Apparently we missed some heat wave by a couple days, too... that's okay with me though.  I can certainly do without a heat wave, especially a humid one.  Just rain on me.

Dale got sick the day after we sought the top of Pike's Peak, but we think it was viral now.  He had two IV bags of fluid pumped into him at the ER and felt better immediately although he slept a lot over the following day or two.  Some stomach thing.  We think it was viral because just a few days ago I had a few of his symptoms (thankfully lacking the stomach portion).  I got over it in a couple days, on my own, thankfully.

For those of you not keeping up with the blogs/pictures at www.mount9.com, we saw the Grand Canyon (wow), the Phoenix area (including Sedona), lots of cactus, deserts, prairies, and wildlife, LOTS of buffalo (mostly in Wyoming), LOTS of antelope (that song weren't kiddin'), no deer (song lied about that), prairie dogs, Devil's Tower (yep we had a third encounter), Seven Falls, Yellowstone, Mall of America, some stadium Dale could tell you about, Mt Rushmore, the marker for the 90 degree Meridian, a Green Giant figure 55 feet high, White Castle fast food restaurants (Stan and Rick will be cringing at me now), and oh yeah, most recently - Niagara Falls.  I think Grand Canyon and Niagara are the more breathtaking treasures we have in this world, but I was also quite taken by an acorn weevil on the sandy beach of Lake Erie the other day, so...

We didn't go into Canada as planned because we were both too chicken given the gazillion things we had in the SUV by that time (I'm sure customs is quite efficient really), but eventually we will go back to Niagara on the Canadian side.  We stayed in a U.S. hotel this time around instead and enjoyed a jacuzzi for the second time in our hotel history.  (Weird, those are, but enjoyable now and again.)  Our worst hotel in the way of amenities was $35 (with tax) outside of Toledo, OH.  It had painted white bricks as walls, a sink that backed up when run for ~1 minute, and some... interesting wires... anywho, the worst in the way of service had to have been a $50ish one in or near Colorado; they had a 10am checkout time which was not posted anywhere nor announced, the neighbours were very noisy all night, and housekeeping very rudely asked 10 minutes before 10 when we were leaving 'cause they wanted to clean up after us.  (And that was the morning after Dale came down with the bug.  He did NOT feel that good being rushed.)  Our best hotel was the one last night in Niagara Falls, NY (we could fit at least eight of the crappy hotel rooms into that one room!), and runners up were the Sands in Boulder City, Nevada; ABC in Gunnison, CO; and one from last week that also featured a larger jacuzzi.  Forget where that was, it'll be in the blog I reckon.

Total miles driven were around 6,000.  Haven't totalled what we spent on gas but it was around 20-26 miles per gallon and prices seemed to hover around $3/gallon, give or take 20 cents depending on whether we were just off the highway or in the middle of a town.  We ate lots of fast food, hit a couple nicer places, and snacked on nonperishables from the grocery store.  I might be wrong, but I think we were well under my guesstimate for costs.  Of course we enjoyed a few continental breakfasts, too, courtesy of the various hotels that offered them.

I wrote a sort of a poem on our way to Albany, I want to sculpt it a bit as it's probably the roughest poem I ever wrote - some song inspired it, and the words just spilled out.  Heck, maybe I'll just leave it be for now and fix it later when I decide to futz with a melody for it in my head.  By rough I mean ROUGH... will post it here soonish.

Currently trying to get pictures copied from White Castle to Shady - yes, Dale named the laptop finally during our last hotel stay.  White Castle is sooooooo appropriate, too.

The worst thing that happened in the last three weeks is the death of Guinevere.  She passed away sometime at the bottom of the lizard tank, not sure why.  She had a mouth ailment that I could never seem to clear up (not mouth rot according to the dr) so maybe it was calcium deficiency after all despite my attempts to fix the problem.  Dunno if there was more I could/should have done but I'm not going there, what's done is done and she lived to be two years old.  Anoles only live 2-3 years naturally anyway.  Which means Lancelot might be on his way out, too, although he seems perfectly healthy right now.  He's closer to 3.  Sigh.

Despite the loss, though, and having been immensely homesick for the past solid week, even dreaming about green mountains and rain and clouds and REAL GRASS instead of that weird prairie stuff they've got out in Ohio (or worse, fields of nothing but sand, scraggly bushes, and cactus plants/trees)... I do believe we've had a very positive experience, one that will last a lifetime.  The U.S. is full of interesting explorations, but the best part I think about our trip is that I've come to really, REALLY, appreciate New England for all its ups and downs.  From the steady monotony of desert and rocks in Arizona to the prarie-ladden horizons of the Midwest, I've found that I love nothing more than the steady pitter-patter of raindrops falling upon the mountains all around us late at night.  We were filled in wonder over being able to see lands as far as horizon, but I kinda like wondering what's over the next hump.  Keeps me on my toes.  Flat roads are good for driving fast but they become boring pretty quick; even the beauty of the rolling clouds spread across the landscape can't hold my interest longer than an hour.

Yes, New England is still my home, in heart, mind, and spirit.

~nv