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The sun rose with a sunny and chilly sky over Custer, South Dakota. We ate our continental breakfast and mulled over what our day would bring. Our first stop would be Jewel Cave; and after a phone call, I found out their first tour was at ten o’clock. Perfect.
We poked our way out of town along the winding road we had come in on; and as we were just about to head into the mountains, I saw something that was on Dylan’s list for this trip: bison! There was a dozen or more of them, and we decided to stop and take pictures on the way back after our cave visit.
We paid for the Jewel Cave tour, and a few minutes later a park-ranger-monkey-suit-dressed tour guide was stuffing the dozen of us into an elevator. It took us down over 200 feet! Jewel Cave is the second largest known cave in the world… though they believe they have only explored 3% of it so far! It stretches for miles and miles. This was the kids’ first visit to a cave, and I could tell they were excited.
The tour took us down metal stairs, along concrete trails, into big caverns, and along high-up, kinda-scary bridges. The tour guide taught the kids all kinds of interesting facts, and the kids took lots of pictures. He assigned Rain as the junior deputy (she was SO excited) and had her lead the group along the path through the near-darkness twice. Then, on a huge platform, he turned out the lights, and we got to experience what “total darkness” was like. While he talked for about thirty seconds with the lights out, I stood there, smiling though no one could see me, opening my eyes wide, and wondering at the darkness. It’s a rare experience, for sure.
A few hundred footsteps and stairs later, we were back at the elevator. Our lowest point during the exploration was 385 feet! Up in the gift shop we picked out a couple postcards and a key chain, and then we headed back up the stairs to the car.
I kept my eyes on where we were on the winding road and pulled over where the bison were grazing. The kids and I got out and took a few pictures. It sounds so simple, but there’s something spectacular about the bison. They’re big and furry and beautiful, but dangerous at the same time.
For lunch, we asked the lady at the front hotel desk for a suggestion, and she recommended “Our Place,” a little dive in town. Rainlin has specifically asked that we eat at little mom-and-pop places, which I think is so cute… so we have whenever we see them. This one was decorated with Harley Davidson and Betty Boop things, and the food was good.
Our next destination, the pinnacle of our vacation, was Mount Rushmore! We turned right onto the ten mile winding road to the monument parking area (ten bucks, by the way). As we shut the car doors, we marvelled for a minute at the garage’s echo (oh… oh… oh…) and then headed up towards the memorial. The entrance has all the state flags in a present-arms overhead, and marble carved stones showing when each state joined the union. The kids ran here and there, taking pictures of the states they knew. Then we all took pictures of the monument itself, and the kids found those put-a-quarter-in-and-view-it things. Then I talked the kids into taking the half-mile trail around the base of the memorial, and we read a little about each president at the four little platform rest stops. The day was beautiful, though a little chilly–so perfect, really. Another gift shop, a few shirts, another keychain, a stuffed bison and a raccoon, and we said our goodbyes to Mount Rushmore.
On the way back to the hotel, we saw a face carved into the side of a mountain, we saw signs for “crazy horse,” and we decided to check it out. What I thought would be just a quick stop ended up being a couple more hours to our day… And I was already tired. Crazy Horse is quite a project though, and extremely interesting. It’s completely privately funded, and has a museum and all kinds of interesting Indian artifacts. When it’s completed, it will be twice as tall as the statue of liberty, and in the round, not one-sided like Mount Rushmore. Oh–and all of Mount Rushmore will fit in the Indian’s face–that’s how big it is! The kids each got to pick out a big fist sized blast rubble rock to bring home, and they lugged them with them to the car.
Is the day over yet? No, not quite… Though I was exhausted, we hadn’t eaten, and we stumbled into the car and down the street to Pizza Hut. I sat like a bump on a log while we ate. Then back at the hotel, and guess where we went…
…the pool, of course. 
It’s been an incredibly awesome vacation.
I’ve been back from California for two weeks, and they’ve been two awesome weeks. I’ve been working a lot, and I love my new job; but when I come home, I don’t usually feel like getting back on the computer again. In fact, I’ve been using my iPhone more than my home computer. I read email, chat, read the news, listen to the radio, you name it–on my iPhone. Circuit City is closing, and Rainlin and I stumbled upon a Wii Guitar Hero World Tour set, fifty dollars off, so we picked it up. We’d been talking about buying it forever… and we were probably never going to see it for that price any time soon. It’s been such a blast! We play guitar, drums, and sing; and we take turns each song. We sing, we giggle, we have a blast. Tonight we have a friend staying overnight, and the kids are in the living room playing “Beat It.” The kids know the words better than I do now. I feel so old.
Behind every web-based app that no one thinks is used are at least a hundred avid users that sink their teeth into it every day. Case in point, Google Notebook, which Google announced two days ago it will no longer support.
Avid users, don’t hyperventilate just yet. The app, and its content, will remain at http://notebook.google.com … at least for now. Will they reach a point that they’ll decide they could use that Google Notebook server over there in the corner for something else?
The post on the Google Notebook Blog, within two days, has ramped up over 400 comments. The responses range from “noooo!” to “what the heck is Google Notebook?”
And, more pertinently, why the heck do I care personally?
Well… do you have a blog? Have you ever been in that Wordpress “write a post” page, gotten 500 words into an incredible story, then had your computer lock up… or your Internet connection crash… or your web browser freeze? ARGH! Well, Google Notebook saves what you’ve typed every few seconds… so if you lock up, just visit your Google Notebook a few minutes later, and “taa-daa” (insert Wall-E sequence here) all your typed text, save maybe the last word or two, are still there.
Oh sure, other tools out there do this. But Google Notebook is pretty. It also allows you to easily grab onto the handle of an entry of text and drag it into a different order, into another notebook, or whatever makes sense. Another point to make is that Google is telling people to use Google Docs–sorry, but Google Docs doesn’t have the same level of shuffle-stuff-around-edness that Google Notes does. It’s like… well, comparing a Granny Smith apple to a Macintosh apple. And no, I still don’t own a Mac.
I’m going to continue to use Google Notebook until it falls over dead. I don’t store any overly important information in there–just use it for editing, upcoming story ideas, and my peace of mind. It’s my favorite, idiot-proof text editor.
tap tap tap
“Hot, hot, hot… hot chocolate…” I whispered as I tapped on her arm with the hook of a candy cane. She was tucked into bed, the big fluffy comforter up around her ears even though it wasn’t that cold outside. She made a sleep-coming-to-wake murmuring sound. “It’s Polar Express Day,” I whispered to her; and she sucked in some sleepy air, opened her eyes to me, and smiled. I heard Dylan pass by, thump-thump-thumping his way down the stairs.
Polar Express Day is a tradition at the kids’ school. They dress up in their pajamas, some with slippers and bathrobes, and enjoy their class winter party. My favorite part about this party, about the town we live in? Papers say Christmas, songs they sing say Christmas, and even the teachers occasionally say Merry Christmas. And yes, this is a public school. They still do exist.
I had wanted to wake the kids with a special surprise, with a special morning–so I pulled out an old, only-once-used tea kettle, filled it with water, and set it on the hot stove. Nowadays kids just shove a coffee cup of water into the microwave; but this was the real way. Rain asked when the water would be hot enough, and I told her “when the tea kettle whistles.” She waited… and listened… and Dylan joined her… listening as the dull moan turned into a high-pitch whine. Then she chuckled when the tea kettle WHEW made its sighing sound as it was taken off the heat.
There was a bag of mini marshmallows; and I’m a terrible parent, but I’ll tell you they were pretty old–and pretty hard. But hey… they were in a closed bag… and if they’re going in hot chocolate, they’ll get soft… right? Right! They tasted fine. 
I showed Rain how I put a touch of milk in mine to make it a tiny bit more creamy (and to cool off the water a bit), and both kids asked for a dribble of milk in turn.
So, with the kitchen radio playing Christmas music softly in the background, the three of us huddled around the kitchen table, drinking hot chocolate together. We talked about nothing, we snuck extra marshmallows into our coffee cups, and we giggled and smiled. It was a wonderful, perfect morning.
Then to school… and the kids piled into the car, in their pajamas, but with their backpacks too–somehow mis-matched that way for the day. As I pulled up to the school and dropped them off, I saw the conductor from the Polar Express–a man who works for the school–and I swear, that man, when he dresses up for Polar Express Day, he looks exactly like the conductor in that movie. He’s so wonderful that people take pictures of him all day long. It’s magical.
My morning was magical. My evening was magical too, but for different reasons. They’re stories that maybe I’ll tell another day. Shoot, I haven’t even told you a single tiny smudge about the cruise yet. Like I always say, “Everything’s a story.”
And on this day,
December 19, 2000… sleeping in a toddler bed shaped like a car is extremely uncomfortable. I’ve had this blog for eight years now.
There have been a total of 1098 posts in this blog since September 2000.
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