Demolition Derby!

Saturday night in Evanston, Wyoming and we (and much of the town) headed to the Volunteer Fire Department's fund raiser: demolition derby. The combination of derby and volunteer firemen was indeed a good one as foot-long flames shot out of the hood of one powderpuff entry and one driver was taken away in an ambulance (after they cut the roof off of his car).

If you, like us, are unfamiliar with how a demolition derby works, here are some (but not all) of the rules:

• For all of the participant cars, the windows are taken out, roll-over bars are installed as a safety measure and the drivers wear helmets. I estimate the average car age was 25 years+
• Each round featured 3 to 6 cars - grouped by size of car and driver's gender (hence the "powderpuff" round)
• Cars had to make (at least) one hit per minute (and got warned at the 30 second mark if they hadn't made any hits recently)
• No one is allowed to hit another car on the driver's door
• Good drivers were able to hit other cars while going backwards (and thus protect their own engine)
• The round continues until just one car is either running (or is the only one who made a hit in the last minute)

Remarkably, some cars survived for an additional round - the later rounds were a lot faster since these cars had already been pretty well smashed. Cars that don't win but were still running could return for later for these "grudge match" rounds.











The car in front (above) appeared to benefit greatly from having rear-wheel drive. Notice him facing backward as he executes a textbook reverse hit. If we were to start competing we would seek out rear-wheel drive. Our new Hyundai does not have this...


In this round, drivers were allowed to wrap chains around their front and rear ends, which may have prolonged the usefulness of their bumpers.

Boulder photos

It didn't take long for us to fall in love with Boulder - competing used book stores (only one was entirely dedicated to angels and metaphysics), in-town hiking, independent coffee shops, sunny weather, a restaurant set in a tea house that was built and shipped from Tajikistan, and warm hospitality. During a breathtaking drive through the mountains, our cousin Anne said that these remote houses often go on sale in the spring, after people realize that mountain living is not for them (with cold weather, deep snow, and far-away neighbors). Perhaps we also loved Boulder because we visited on a 70-degree day in September and not in the winter.

Cousin Jim shared this insight:
Question: How many Boulderites does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: None, but a dozen of them will happily volunteer to sponsor a workshop on finding peace in the darkness.

Walking the Chataqua trail near cousin Anne's house in Boulder

Boulder Creek

Cousin Jim's homemade mass spectrometer at the NOAA lab in Boulder

I.M. Pei designed the National Center for Atmospheric Research building in Boulder (he also designed the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland)

With Anne in Brainerd Lake, just outside Rocky Mountain National Park

Illinois and Iowa photos

Reagan's birthplace in Dixon, Illinois

Hoover Presidential Library grounds in West Branch, Iowa

Our hearts were touched by this inscription inside the century-old Imes Bridge, one of the "Bridges of Madison County", Iowa

Outside the Imes Bridge

Outside a Pioneer Village in Nebraska

America is full of stuff...

No photos today - they are in the camera and will come eventually but I wanted to write in a few observances by location.

It is worth noting that this is a whirlwind trip - while 3.5 weeks will be our longest vacation ever it still requires a lot of driving to make it across country and so this is definite "if it's Tuesday it must be Iowa" kind of trip. Except for friends' houses we won't be anywhere very long.

3 big cities:
PITTSBURGH - we spent a morning in Pittsburgh to see the Andy Warhol Museum. We arrived before it opened so we walked along the river for a while. At 9:00 in the morning the city was already mobbed with tailgaters for a University of Pittsburgh fans. The Museum seemed to know about the tailgaters and had their own parking lot ($6 vs. $25) with an attendent who seemed to check people out (or at least their attire) to confirm that they were museum-goers and not people with large foam fingers and coolers full of beer.

CLEVELAND - In Cleveland we enjoyed the glorious weather but poked our head into the Library to confirm that every city in America has a better library than Washington, DC. Cleveland's is particularly beautiful. At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame we liked the films about the history of rock.

CHICAGO - Caren and John hosted us and we got to eat yummy vegetables from their enviable garden. Together we headed to the Harry Potter exhibit at the Science and Industry Museum (which featured props and costumes from the movie). Dan and I thought that the gift shop was missing an opportunity by not offering kitten plates like in Dolores Umbridges office.


And a lot of little towns:

• Milan, OH to see Edison's birthplace and discovered Melon Festival
• RV Hall of Fame in Indiana
• The Rutherford Hayes home
• The William McKinley Memorial in Niles, OH where the local high school team was the McKinley Red Dragons - we propose it should be the McKinley Assasins or the McKinley Gold Standard or the McKinley Puerto Ricans
• In West Branch, IA we STRONGLY recommend Reid's Beans for lunch. At the Hoover Museum we learned that he is apparantly no longer associated just with the depression but rather with his lifetime of humanitarian work especially saving Beligium (???) from starvation.
• The bridges of Madison Country

And more...

Ohio and Chicago Photos

Milan Melon Fest beauties touring the Edison Birthplace in Milan Ohio

Dan beats the carnies to Melon Festivities in Milan, Ohio

Squirrel snacking outside the Rutherford B. Hayes Library, which placed more emphasis on its architecture than his presidential accomplishments. Fremont, Ohio.

With the Weasley's flying Ford Anglia at the Museum of Science and Industry's
Harry Potter exhibit, Chicago

Duffy and Caren at the Chicago Botanical Gardens

Cleveland and Pittsburgh photos

Walking the riverfront in Pittsburgh

Shepard Fairey poster medley outside the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh

President McKinley's birthplace in Niles, Ohio

Tom Otterness sculptures outside the Cleveland Public Library

We are on the road - Road Trip Day 1

Winchester, Virginia

Some other time we will write about summer school studying consular law and most recently the "western hemisphere" - 44 countries in 10 days!

With our training wrapped up, and not scheduled to arrive in Trinidad for nearly four weeks, we had originally planned on flying to Phoenix and then touring California from there - but since we still love our new car and may never have so many weeks of unplanned vacation again, we decided to see family and friends by driving across the country, and hitting conveniently located presidential landmarks along the way.

Day 1

Today was our last day in training. We took a field trip to the Organization of American States for a lecture on U.S. policy in Latin America. The OAS features an unexpected local presidential landmark: the "Peace Tree" planted by President Taft in 1910, which has grown so tall it threatens to break through the atrium roof. After one final lecture, we hit the road. We hit traffic almost immediately and when we heard the announcer on the radio say that the Beltway was down to one lane 4 miles ahead of us (and we were already stopped) - we quickly exited and found another way out of the metro area.

We drove through Winchester, VA and saw a piece of land that George Washington owned. On to Berkeley Springs, WV where George Washington liked to take the waters. We also stopped at Sideling Hill, MD - where you can see lots of geology where they blasted through the mountain to make the highway.

Sideling Hill, Maryland

Several people had mentioned Road Food which is a book/website and a feature on NPR's "Splendid Table" and so during a break in class today (while overachievers asked the guest speaker additional questions about 'what's going on in Honduras') we printed out a review of Ruby and Ketchy's diner in Morgantown, WV which got their highest rating: "worth building a day around." We had a perfectly tasty meal but not one to build a day or a detour around. Dan had very beige turkey and gravy and I had stuffed cabbage rolls. We shared cherry pie a la mode which was indeed very, very good.

Along our drive several highway repair projects boasted that they were the result of the stimulus package. We also saw a billboard for a bank boasting, "Refusing government bailouts since 1881" My favorite bumper sticker urged us to "Practice Random Acts of Awesome."

Tomorrow ... Pittsburgh