Best Blog by Choclo: 13 Trip!

So I went on my 13 trip, and I had lots of fun in  Disney World, Florida with my dad.

I went to Magic Kingdom and Epcot.
Both of the two kingdoms were fun.

 I wore sunglasses, and  had fun with that, too.


It's odd that there are no bird photos here, cause  there were a lot of cute birds there!





My favorite thing at Disney was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It was super fun!

I really liked how it was fast and fun and told a story at the same time.

 Now I want to see the movies!



I also really liked the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. 

It was the wild mine cart ride with lots of twists and turns, some of them going incredibly fast while making 90 degree turns!





And I liked the Haunted Mansion a lot. 

It was spooky in a fun way and it had a lot of surprises.

Best of all, Dad was with me for every ride, and we had a great time!

Wordless Wednesday: Rocky Mountains and Hot Springs

Little Convent on the Llano

Leena and I actually stayed in the convent and hung out with the sisters: my sister and my sister's sisters, who are, of course, my sisters too.

Try saying that five times fast!

And Molly, their moose dog.

Leena loved Molly, Molly loved Leena.

Every time Leena approached, Molly flopped over in hopes of a tummy rub, and Leena never disappointed her!


The valley really is cowboy type country - lots of sage brush and tumbleweed.



And lots of cowboy hats and pick ups.

And lots of open space, perfect for taking a first driving lesson with Manty MaryAnn!

Not bad for 13!!

Best of all, it is big sky country.  At night we saw more stars than I have ever seen, including the Milky Way, and dozens of shooting stars!

Colorado!

 Leena and I are back from her 13 Trip to Colorado! 

When our kids turn 13, we celebrate with a trip of their choice, just them and Mom or Dad.  They can go anywhere in the continental US, and it's special time to be together, do fun stuff , and talk about growing up.

Leena picked Colorado because she loves mountains, and she loves my sister.  It was her first airplane ride- she loved it!

 Manty MaryAnn (yes, we do call our relatives strange things) took us to the Great Dunes National Park.

I should explain that she doesn't just live in Colorado, she lives in her "Little Convent on the Llano."  The Llano is like a prairie, except, in this case, it's a high altitude (2 mile elevation) valley nestled in the Rocky mountains.
 I should also explain that the valley is a dried up lake that's thousands of  (flat) square miles - it's unlike anything I've ever seen!

One of the sand bearing streams

And, strangely enough, this is where you will find the largest sand dune in North America.

Very windy!

Streams erode and carry sand down from the mountains, and in one special spot, all the winds (coming from 3 separate mountain passes) blow the sand into a pile at the foot of the mountains. 






Millions of years later, it's a really big pile of sand!

We mean really big!

Enormously big!!

All I can tell you is that it is much much bigger than it looks!

And it was amazingly fun!!

Zorg's 13 Trip: Part 2

 Zorg and the Emperor also went to Wonderworks, a very cool science museum that looks like an upside down building!

I think a science museum in Orlando probably has to be pretty cool to compete with all the other attractions.

When you enter the building they "invert" you so that you can play in all the exhibits.

 It looked to me like they focused on physics - at any rate they have over 100 hands on activities, and we are all about hands on science!

They had a great bubble physics set up.

And when he was tired of that, Zorg got to relax on a bed of nails!

Our 13 trips are, of necessity, only 3or 4 days (counting travel), so Wonderworks was a really nice wrap up to the trip.

Zorg's 13 Trip: Part 1

We have a custom of taking our new teenagers on a one on one trip of their choice.   Technically speaking, Zorg won't be 13 until early September, but it seemed silly to then make him wait until the following summer to take his trip.

He chose Legoland Florida!

It had amazing Lego sculptures!

 Some of which were very familiar...

And all of which were awesome!

It also had plenty rides and fun games.  They did a good job making the rides interactive: there was a boat ride which doubled as a gigantic water gun fight!

 The Emperor was taking pictures on his phone and sending them back to the rest of us.

Naturally, my favorite picture was a giant Lego cephalopod!  

We're Back!

 And we have a backlog of posts!

We've actually just returned from a week in NJ, but I'm still catching up with this last post about our WA trip.

This is the Lava Canyon which we hiked on Mt. St. Helens.  This beautiful glacial stream was completely obscured by trees before the pyroclastic flow form the 1980 eruption, shall we say, uncovered it.

 In actual fact it scoured out the trees and rocks in the valley, and reshaped the canyon.  It was a little creepy (as a person who remembered the eruption) to see the line of mature trees which mark the height of the flow.


We went up a little higher on the mountain and found more snow, with the obvious results...

DUCK!








And we visited a beautiful glacial lake.

No, we do not actually have our feet in the water.  At the end of June it was quite shockingly icy!

Speaking of shockingly icy, on the Mt. Ranier climb, Klenda didn't realize that her boots would collect snow if not laced to the tippy tops.

By the end of the climb down, her toes were quite shockingly icy and here she is warming them on the black top at 5000 feet!

Social Climbing

 At the end of June, there is still some snow at 5500 feet on Mt. Ranier.

Here we are in front of the snow near the parking lot.  As we climbed, it was much deeper (20-40 ft), but it's like swimming in the ocean, as long as you're on top, the depth doesn't matter so much.

Although, it was interesting to see normal sized trees and then realize you are actually looking at the tops of giant sized trees...

Here is Klenda in a hole near a tree trunk.





I also did not expect the foothills to be snow capped!  The view was really incredible!

 Klenda, feeling snow deprived after our warm winter, made a snow angel.

Incidentally, for a lot of the climb, we had to take off our jackets because we were so hot.  My brother had told me this, but I had found it hard to believe!

We made it!!!

We ate lunch, kicked back and relaxed (and, in my case, got sunburned).











The climb up had been steep enough that we were able to slide back down (glissade, my brother told me, a very nice word for sliding down a mountain on your rump, though I suppose more talented sliders may do it differently).

Caving In

 We went to the Ape Caves!  The Ape Caves do not in fact contain an ape (unless you count the guy who left a banana peel at the end of the cave); it was discovered by a patrol of Boy Scouts called the Apes.

My brother, being the son of my Dad, is prepared for anything.

We went with packs, water, food, emergency kits, glow sticks (strapped to our packs so as to be undroppable, in case we were separated), hats (water drips constantly from the roof of the cave), jackets (42 degrees year round!) and at least two flashlights and/or headlamps (which was good, because my primary flashlight went out)!

 The caves themselves are ancient lava tubes under Mount St. Helens, and the longest in the US.


They are full of curious formations left by the lava flowing through the tube.

Parts of it were easy walking on level ground, parts of it were a scramble over ankle turning stones embedded in the path.

And parts of it have rock falls where parts of the ceiling have fallen in.

There's a reason we call Klenda "Danger Girl!"




And I did not get sunburned underground!

I'm Back!

I was off visiting my brother (Klenda's godfather) and his family out near Seattle.  This was Klenda's "13 trip."

We had a fabulous time!  We went spelunking and mountain climbing, and I managed to get sunburned in the rainiest city in America!  I looooved getting to know my niece and nephews, and I know Klenda had a great time with her cousins.  Pictures of all this coming soon to a blog near you!

We experienced a bit of climate shock since they were heating the house to 65, and when we got back, it was 104 degrees here.  The shock got shockier when the derrecho swept through later in the day we got back and left us with no power for two days in the triple digit heat. (we're meeeeeltingggggg.....)

But the power came back and we're feeling muuuuch better now!

Happy Birthday, Mxyl! Part 2

The second day of the trip was spent at the National Aviary. You would think this would be anticlimactic after the robot museum. It wasn't.

Here we have Mxyl feeding a seagull a meatball on a stick. Did you know that gulls are raptors?

Here he is feeding a Lorrie, possibly the cutest bird to feed. It knocks the nectar out of the cup with it's beak and then licks the droplets off your arm. It tickles.

Here's Mxyl in the penguin exhibit.









And here he is playing with a penguin. For a fee, you can be part of a small group (not more than 6 people counting your parent or guardian) who plays with a penguin. It's like Dances With Wolves, but better: Plays With Penguins.

Evidently they behave surprisingly like cats.

And then, of course, they came home and we had a birthday party!