Skateboarding Cow

I've seen these skateboarding cow signs on trips, but recently one popped up down the road from us. I particularly like the juxtaposition of the trees and building in the background--almost makes you think there might be a skateboarding park up ahead with Herefords and Holsteins battling it out.

How Remote Are You?

Image of The Continguous United States Visualized by Distance to the Nearest McDonald's courtesy of Stephen Von Worly (via Carpe Diem). 

I know I live in one of the remotest places in the lower 48 states. After all, it's an hour drive's to our nearest grocery store. Here's a map that helps show how remote places are in the U.S. based on the location of 13,000+ McDonald's restaurants. 

"For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota.  There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.

Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!"

So this map shows that we are fairly remote, but not the remotest in the country.

Now I wonder how if the map would look any different if the nearest WalMart was plotted. Our nearest WalMart is 135 miles by car.

Into Ice Cave

A couple weeks ago I took some work colleagues into a nearby cave. It's not real large, but it has some interesting features in it. To go in, first we had to unlock the gate.

Desert Boy doesn't look too sure about this outing. He wasn't supposed to go, but my husband had a water meeting that ran long, and since I knew Desert Boy could handle the cave, he got to go.

He was happy when he was doing something physical, otherwise he was ready to leave. He made the cave seem quite a bit bigger and was able to squeeze along some of the rather small passageways.

Do you see the scallops on the cave walls? They are an indication that there was once flowing water in the cave. I've been in this cave when water flowed into it--brrrr! It required crawling through some cold creek water. The scallops are found at all levels of the cave and you'll see them in the following pictures, too. Obviously there used to be a lot more water flowing in the cave.

Here's Bryan, who was eager to explore every little nook and cranny, hoping to find some new passageway.

Bryan, Travis, and Nicole reached a deadend and had to turn around. But before they could get out of the passage, I made them stop and pose for a picture. I'm mean that way. 

I didn't have any kneepads that fit Desert Boy, but it turned out he hardly had to crawl, even though the rest of us did.

Here's Nicole in an upper passage. There is just a little bit of maziness to the cave that makes it fun to explore.

I love looking down the deep, dark passageways and wondering where they go.

Travis was willing to not just wonder, but crawl around and find out.

Of course I'm always on the lookout for cave insects, but I didn't find a lot on this trip. This beetle was one of the more interesting finds. There was also a lot of rodent scat in the cave, some of it fairly fresh. But we didn't run into any live rodents. 

Another crawling passage, this one with plenty of dirt on the floor. And you know what you get when you put Desert Boy and dirt together...

...yum. Or not. I just hope he is getting his immune system strong.

After an hour and a half of checking out the entire cave, it was time to leave. But we'll be back!

Wheelathon

On Wednesday it was time for the annual Wheelathon, a fundraiser for the local schools. The kids in grades K-2 ride from their school to the next town, about eight miles one way. The kids in grades 3-6 ride from their school to the K-2 school and back, sixteen miles one way. 

Desert Boy and I rode the entire way last year and decided we wanted to ride again this year. We got a bit of a late start so we had to ride a few miles by ourselves before we caught up with the kids. Then we saw the little kids passing us going the other direction.

The little kids were darling, and how can you not smile when you see the cute little bikes with training wheels?! These plucky kids think it's great fun to ride the eight miles, even though it was a really cold day and they were riding against the wind.

Here are a couple more riding along.

What makes the miles go by faster is that at every mile marker there is a rest stop with snacks. Everyone stops and waits for everyone to catch up. In the photo above you can see an interesting bike, a recumbent that has a solar panel. The bicyclist is going cross-country and happened to be in town during the Wheelathon and though it would be fun to participate. He ended up taking kids who needed a rest on the back of his bike.

The school bus also followed, picking up anyone who needed a break.

After biking eight miles, Desert Boy and I (okay it was just my decision) decided we needed a break and loaded the bike and trailer on the bus and went for a bus ride. I didn't think I was quite up to riding with a trailer against the gusty wind, especially since my training for the Wheelathon consisted of riding two miles in the last two weeks.

Most of the kids were able to make it the entire distance, though. I was really impressed with their fortitude. The last few miles took a bit longer, but they kept after it.

The route is fairly barren, so it's not like they have cheering crowds along the way to distract them. Or much of anything along the way to distract them, unless you count some pretty flowering rabbitbrush.

Or Desert Boy getting off at some of the stops so he could get a snack.

At the end it was time for lunch. Everyone seemed to eat heartily. They had worked up good appetites!

Following lunch there was a little program, but it was time for Desert Boy's nap, so we couldn't stay for that. 

We'll have to keep teaching Desert Boy to pedal his own bike. In a year or two maybe he'll be able to ride some of the Wheelathon by himself.

Sabotage!

Last night my sweet, mechanically-apt husband worked on my trusty 13-year old Ford Ranger. It's been out of commission for the last three weeks. He diagnosed it as a problem in the fuel line, but he had to get a special fuel tool to mess with the particular fuel doohickey. Finally the special fuel tool arrived.

Meanwhile I've been driving our 24-year old Lincoln Town Car. It's super comfortable (true) and oh, so stylish (well, at one point it was). I feel pretty safe with that much metal traveling around with me. Saying it's a boat is a pretty good description.

Back to my truck, my husband drained some of the fuel and found water. Water is heavier than fuel, so after he drained enough of the fuel tank, he was back to fuel.

So how did water get into the fuel tank? About the same amount of water that's found in one water bottle?

My bet's on a certain three-foot tall, tow-headed little boy I see wandering around. A little boy who's favorite activity involves pouring water from one container into another. I won't mention any names, but I bet his initials are DB. What do you think?