Turning North

We drove north through more beautiful farmland today, up through the balance of Missouri, into Iowa, and on into South Dakota.  The trip was a good one, pretty straightforward except for one weird detour in South Dakota wherein we were mandated by the Iowa DOT to backtrack some because they had closed the onramp opposite the offramp we took to buy gas.  There were no signs to indicate that the onramp was closed–it seemed like one of those episodes off of the Dukes of Hazzard where Boss Hogg and Roscoe set up some contrived detour to nab innocent wayfarers.  No local gendarmes, however, and we were back on I-29 in about ten minutes.  Incidentally, the station where we pumped our gas actually had the 89 octane priced cheaper than the 87, so I paid a dime or so more a gallon for inferior gas.  Iowa:  Land of Mysteries.

The first of the day’s highlights came with our lunch stop at the Western Historic Trails Center in Council Bluff, Iowa.  We were toying with the idea of stopping at a rest area to eat, but Ms. AlphaLima saw this in the AAA guidebook and we wheeled on in.  The entrace drive was cool–the flora was all native prairie plants and looked kind of like what I’d imagine the prairie would have looked like many years ago except for all of the stadium lighting for the rec park that abutted the museum grounds.  I was admiring the beauty of the place–echinacea abloom, queen anne’s lace, too–and Sonny Boy was in the back hollering about the soccer game taking place just across the boundary.  The exhibits in the museum were well-executed and covered a broad range of trails and expansion throughout the western US.  While the museum focused at length on the California Trail, Mormon Trail, Oregon Trail, and Lewis and Clark’s collective ramblings, it also covered the logistics of migration, the evolution of rail and road networks, the influx of immigrants, and the like. The content and presentation were better than average.  We also walked the half mile down to the Missouri River and watched the river flow for a bit.  We also saw the largest specimen of poison ivy anyone in Clan AlphaLima has ever seen, basically a tree growing out of a tree.

The second highlight came with our visit to the Falls Park in Sioux Falls, SD.  The place is a marvel; we headed over after eating at a diner in what I think is a really cool downtown area, and the kids and we big folks rambled around, clambered on rocks, shot lots of photos, and the like.  The park was going to host some light show at 9:30, but the littlest AlphaLima was about worn to a frazzle by that point so we came back to the hotel.

Geese at Falls Park.

From what we’ve encountered here in Sioux Falls, the folks are mighty nice.  Of course, they are aiming to take our money, but they sure are nice doing it.

Another interesting thing about Sioux Falls:  there are little c onvenience store sized casinos on many street corners here in town.

Interesting thing #2: we were dining outside in downtown Sioux Falls, and while the big black four wheel drive trucks were awesome in their own rights, the coolest thing was a guy driving his girl around town on his four wheeler.  It had a license plate on there, so I’d assume that y0u can do that kind of thing in South Dakota.  I’m going to get on my four wheeler and ride on down to the tiny casino.

 

The night before…

Here we go. Tomorrow we are headed west, spending the night in Paducah, Kentucky, a river town from what I hear but I couldn’t say for sure as I’ve not been there yet. The American Quilt Museum or something like that is there, but we’ll be blowing through headed for Kansas City for the next night’s rest. I suspect that in Paducah we will find time to eat a little (there’s supposed to be some hot little Mexican place there recommended highly by the Physician’s Assistant I conferred with when I had the shingles—he says it is “probably the best food he['s] ever [ate]). I think it’s called Tribeca. There are also a couple of barbecue places there, and I naturally tend to gravitate towards those. There’s also a riverwalk along the banks of the Tennessee River, and we are planning on strolling around a little bit with the kids. The hotel also has a pool, so there’s that.

I still have to finish a few last little packing things, and tomorrow bright and early I’ll load the van and we’ll hit the road after breaking the fast with cold cereal and milk. Hoo boy. As we wheel on down the road I will be drinking a Diet Coke with Lime, one of my current addictions.

 

Licorice Shootout: Black Jack Taffy

Trust me when I say that looks can be deceiving–this here is some pretty good candy.  Each piece looks pretty unpalatable, something between discarded fish parts after cleaning a mess of bream and some bit of a growth that the surgeon snipped off one of your internal organs.  See for yourself:

Black Jack Taffy--not so black, huh?

In the middle of each piece you’ll see a bit of licoricey black, but the preponderance of each piece is sort of a sallow yellow color topped with a streak of sanguine goop.  It looks kind of like a debeaked chicken head.  Yum!

The taste redeems this confection–initially sweetness predominates, but as you consume the licorice flavor grows stronger until at the end you pretty much taste licorice albeit a sweet strain.  The flavoring is artificial, but there’s some good chemicals in here.

Sonny Boy said, “They taste kind of weird at first, but their aftertaste tastes really good.  They’re good, aren’t they?”

Baby Girl gave a silent thumbs up of approval, probably thankful that these were not Snaps.

The taffy is smooth and soft, none of that out-of-date crap from down in Morehead City that you had to gnaw on for a bit until it softened up. Of course, back in the day before my palate became so refined, I’d blow through a bag of that taffy like a bob-tailed Manx in an Electrolux showroom.  Whatever that means.  I’m thinking it’s pretty fast.

"Holy Doody! Is that an Electrolux?! Or is that Meryl Streep singing?!1"

Note:  even after eating a piece of Black Jack Taffy (which is a pretty strong flavored goody) I could still get that incensey taste from the Snaps that I had eaten earlier.  I noted that it was “like that subtly unpleasant taste of illness you get when you are falling ill.”

 

There’s a fine line between fun and not fun…

This afternoon while Sonny Boy and I were processing firewood at one of my coworker’s houses, Baby Girl and Ms. AlphaLima were cleaning house.  They made it as far as the bathrooms, and Baby Girl was waving the toilet brush too close to Ms. AlphaLima’s face.

Ms. AlphaLima:  “Take the toilet brush away from my face.  It is dangerously close, and I don’t want to get any germs.

Baby Girl:  “One person’s fun is another person’s nightmare.”

 

“He tried to bite my arm off!”

I was sitting on the couch with Baby Girl, looking at a map of Glacier National Park as it looks like that’s where we’ll be going for a big old Out West trip next summer.  Across the top of the map were illustrations of the different kinds of animals you might expect to see in Glacier.  Baby Girl wasn’t too sure of what a marmot was, so I read her the blurb about marmots–five to ten pounds, den in rocky places, eat vegetation.

She then asked, “What do bears eat?”

“Bears eat just about anything,” I replied.

“Like a bite of a kid and then a bite of a grownup?”

 

A torrent of blue language at dinner tonight…

We were sitting there eating tuna noodle casserole this evening after Sonny Boy and I returned from soccer practice, and something impressed Baby Girl to the point that she said, “Oh my gosh.”

We looked at her for a second.

She looked back at us and said, with utmost seriousness, “You can say ‘gosh’ because it doesn’t mean poop or pee.”

I snickered so hard I about goshed my pants.