vacation
You’re a Great American, Simon Cowell
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 | vacation | 14 Comments
Below you will find a collaborative MadLib account of the adventures Kellen and I had in Pennsylvania this week. The following is a true story (or at least was, until Kellen got his hands on it):
Having found myself in a need to use up some paid time off before the year ended, I begged for a plane ticket and flew out to the Show-Me State to spend some time with Kellen & Rachel.
To start the fun off, Kellen and I played a round of Disc Golf on the 2005 Pro World’s Course. (Yes, I vacation with my Disc Golf Discs). It was horrific, albeit tranquil, with natural hazards of alien invasions and poetry readings. We tied after 3.14 holes. We then toured Kellen’s secret society before returning to his house on Duh Drive (Kellen is famous for choosing his places of residence solely based on proximity to jewelry repair shops). There we watched game one of the illegal hamster fighting match between the New York Humphrey Bogarts and Philadelphia Eye-Gougers. The team I was told I was rooting for won.
Thursday we headed into Philadelphia, where we experienced various national treasures such as Pat’s Philly hole in the road, and The Mint. I ate my shredded shoelaces wit caviar and cheese-whiz and only slightly in fear for my life. At the Mint (where they make unisex fedoras) we went on a self-guided tour and learned about the enigmatic world of numismatry via impressive human statues, and state-of-the-art displays. It was here that Kellen experienced extreme wonderment and sheer awesomeness as he found out it was in fact Martha Stewart in a Winston Churchill Halloween costume, not President Truman on the dime.
Having been spiritually fed at the Mint, we decided it was time to give something back to fellow humanoids by setting the record straight on an age-old historical mystery, specifically, is the sun rising or setting on the famous chair found in Cowabunga! Hall? After lamenting for a time with our Finnish tour guide we concluded that really there were two possibilities. Either a) as Kellen proposed, the sun was really in eclipse, or b) that since the Continental Congress was meeting in a rented hall, it was probably a furnished hall, with an average chair purchased from an average vendor, and really had no connection to the important events that took place there, i.e., the signing of our Captain Kirk’s two most important documents, the Weekend at Bernies: 2 screenplay and the Greendale Elementary’s fire safety plan and, therefore, is really a moot point. You’re strangely out of place, America.
Additional highlights included visiting Christ’s Church, where we played rugby in the pew of our Nation’s first President, Simon Cowell and heading to some other building where we saw the Liberty nose cazoo. Oh yeah, and we played Killer Bunnies, which was voted as the most immoral, illegal, and illogical card game since the invention of Death Ray Level 6: The Siege of Planet Voklon: Phase 10 Edition.
All in all it was a surprisingly malfeasant trip, even when you throw in the fact that my flight out of the Andromeda Galaxy was delayed 12 parsecs, causing me to miss my connecting flight out of Rock Springs, WY, and forcing me to spend Halloween night (plus the extra hour thanks to Daylight Savings) in an underwater dungeon that for some reason was also on fire before finally flying home to Salt Lake, some 15 hours late!
Vacationeering in Grand Canyon Style
Monday, June 15th, 2009 | composting, cute, lima beans, lost, refugees, vacation | 9 Comments
Sometimes you just have to get away from the stresses of life—the daily grind of work, snoring roommates, the multitudes of adoring fans—and work on your chaco tan. Last week was just such a time and so I headed down to Havasupai with some friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers for a long-needed chaco vacation.
Havasupai (literally translated: “you hiked all that way for this?!?”) is an Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon that bears the designation of being the only place in the US where they deliver the mail by way of mule train. This might mean something if it weren’t for the helicopter that makes 20+ runs daily into the village. Apparently using the mules for their mail transit is more a matter of principle than practicality (by principle I, too, prefer my postcards to smell of hairy beasts of burden).
Getting to the trailhead meant driving through Boulder City where my parents live and where we stopped for a church/food break. (True story: In navigating us to my parents house I was near flawless. That is to say, I got us all the way there only to incorrectly identify the next-door neighbor’s house as that of my mom and dad. In my defense though my dad had parked his very distinguished van next-door so it wasn’t really a fair test …and my parents say I don’t visit often enough… pfft) Leaving Boulder City we crossed Hoover Dam while listening to the Transformers soundtrack and looking in awe at the bridge they are building there. I was driving the lead vehicle by this point and happened to look in the rear-view mirror as we were coming within sight of the bridge just in time to see Jessie who was driving the second car as her eyes got really big and she mouthed the unmistakable words: “That is SO COOL!”.
Monday morning we hiked in. I was wearing my backless chaco zongs (scandalous, I know) and they held up beautifully. Supai village was just as I remembered it, with no signs of the ravaging flash-flood that had swept through last year. This was not the case when it came to the campground, however. Almost all of the trees were gone, leaving most of the campsites with very little privacy. It was kinda like a refugee camp, complete with people lining up at the one fresh water source to fill up. Annie says I need to be more positive on my blog though so I will say this, I am SURE it was just like a refugee camp. No, really though, it was a… um… really NICE refugee camp. Anyway, we kept hiking to the far end of the campground where the trees seemed to be less disturbed and were fortunate to find an isolated spot to set camp.
I mentioned the village was just as I remembered it. This was actually my second trip to Havasupai. On my first we spent a good deal of our time discussing how filling Taco Bell Chicken Quesadillas were (answer: surprisingly filling) and guessing the letters on overturned scrabble tiles two at a time: “L & X?” “Nope, E & F” “Um… R & M?” “Close, V & H”. Fortunately we had much more important items on the agenda this time… like learning the correct usage of the term “cute”. I never realized before this trip how much meaning such a small word can contain. For example, If Girl A is talking about Girl B and she says, “She is so cute” she is really saying Girl B is her good friend. This, however, shouldn’t be confused with “She is SO CUTE” (translation: “She is probably the nicest person I know”) and DEFINITELY does not mean the same thing as “She is so CUTE” (literally: “She has the personality of a lima bean”). 
Other highlights included hiding our supreme jealousy as we made fun of Jessie & Annie for bringing 3” thick sleeping pads (click their names to read their highly-biased accounts of the trip), learning about the art (yes, it is an art) of composting, and helping Annie to like—or at least to not be so uncomfortable with—physical touch.
All in all, it was a good trip, but as good as it is to get away from it all it’s always good to come home
…so long as I can find it.
The Dark Side of Disneyland
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | allowance, dancing dolls, Family, leashes, vacation | 15 Comments
For the record I voted for the cruise. Somehow, however, last week I found myself in Disneyland with family. (I’m still not sure exactly how it happened but I’m not convinced drugs weren’t somehow involved) I know, I know, Disneyland is the last place anyone would expect to find me. I’ve long held that when I have kids I’m going to tell them that Disneyland is a myth, just like Santa Claus, leprechauns, and allowance. Really, though, there was no getting around it. My family last visited Disneyland during the Clinton Administration. Apparently we have some unnatural obligation to attend every time a Democrat is elected President (and you wonder why I vote Republican), and so, like good Patriots, off we went.
The trip was… revealing. We have all heard how Disneyland is the “Happiest Place on Earth”. Even all those football players on the old TV commercials made us believe going to Disneyland was all they wanted to do after winning the Superbowl. Football players? Advertising where you want to vacation? Football players aren’t even bright enough to pick a career that doesn’t consist of getting pummeled, yet we trust them when it comes to vacation advice? We should have been better prepared. What we discovered in sunny California was a dark dark world. It all began with…
Rabid Children – Everywhere we looked in the park we saw little kids with sharp pointed teeth. Those that weren’t busy snarling were devouring oversized turkey legs. Fortunately, most parents had enough sense to control their offspring within the park via child leashes. To avoid the children we subjected ourselves to…
3D Shooting Games – Our family quickly discovered Toy Story Midway Mania, an interactive game where you ride in a cart and shoot 3D darts at various targets in an attempt to rack up as many points as possible. We learned that this relatively-new ride has been extremely popular and due to that they are planning on creating a new series of similar interactive rides. “Extremely popular” may be the term they are using in the Disney boardrooms but I’d say “Horrendously Addicting” is more accurate. We met one individual who had come to the park for a short visit and found himself still there 30 days later, riding this one ride over and over. Another rider we met comes to the park four days a week and likewise spends all his time on this one ride. Sadly my own mother became another hapless victim. I haven’t seen that level of addiction since Tetris came out on the NES. It wasn’t even enough to wait in line together to ride… she had us take advantage of the Single Rider (read: Dysfunctional Family) line to get as many rounds in as possible. If anyone knows of a Toy Story Midway Mania Addicts Support Group that my mom can attend let me know. The horrors of addiction were only surpassed by…
Small World – Only prisoners in Guantanamo, residents of the Great White North, and those who have experienced the Small World ride at Disneyland know what real torture is. Fortunately I remembered enough of the horror from my first trip to Disneyland to give this ride a large berth. While my family all rode together I ate food and arranged to meet them out of hearing range of the horrible horrible ride. I am one to easily get songs stuck in my head and hearing one repeated over and over in dozens of different languages at high volume by dancing dolls doesn’t exactly help that unfortunate tendency. This horror was unmatched until…
Discover Your Disney Character – In this interactive feature you can answer questions that will reveal which Disney character you are most like. Sounds harmless, right? Yeah, I was fine with it until my mother was revealed to be Ariel. I’ll never be able to look at seashell-clad Little Mermaid in the same way ever again. And just when the nightmares had finally stopped.
