We were away from home for 25 days (24 nights).
We bought 237.8 gallons of gas at a cost of $708.20.
We paid $56.22 in tolls.
We drove 4,531 miles.
We travelled through 13 states and 1 district (not counting Minnesota).
We slept in 8 of them
… in 9 different locations.
We did something other than eat or buy gas in 13. Sorry West Virginia!
We averaged 19.8 mpg.
The hottest temperature was 105°F (according to the car) in Virginia.
We only travelled East and South of Rochester, MN
The furthest south we travelled was the Outer Banks (intersection of US 64 and NC 345 in Dare County, North Carolina on Roanoke Island) on our way to Manteo.
The furthest east we travelled was the Boston Children’s Museum in Massachusetts.
It rained briefly 3 or 4 times, never long enough to significantly change our plans.
We collectively watched less than 6 hours of television, movies and video games.

More to come!

• Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• Indianapolis Children’s Museum
• Horseback Riding
• Lake Patoka
• Bluespring Caverns
• Morton Arboretum

Just a few random pics…

We’ve just returned from a wonderful week in Florida with Gretchen’s siblings. Rachel and Kevin generously donated a week at their timeshare in Ft. Lauderdale to celebrate Patty’s 29th birthday. The accomodations were wonderful and a good time was had by all. While we were there, we checked out the Young at Art, The Everglades, the beach near the Ft. Lauderdale fishing pier, Butterfly World and the Museum of Discovery and Science. We also spent some time just hanging out by the pool, playing mini-golf and other activities right at the hotel.

The trip back was an adventure when our connecting flight in Atlanta departed for home without us on it! Delta put us up for the night and we made it home safely Monday morning. See a collection of 60 photos from our adventure.

Alyn Family in Petroglyph

Since the trip is a working vacation for me, I wasn’t able to head to the Zoo with the family today but I think they had a good time. Here’s a couple of photos to tide you over until I upload a bunch to Flickr.

Balloon Glow

Sunset over Albuquerque

For those that have never been to one of these indoor water parks, you’re missing out on a feat of engineering and a cacophony of sound. The Kalahari is laid out in one very large room. Amenities include a wave pool, lazy river, flow-rider (artificial surf), multiple kiddy pools, hot tubs, basketball pools and water slides, water slides, water slides!

Each resort has their own gimmicky angle to lure guests. Kalahari is based on an African safari. They also have live animals that guests can have their photos taken with. During our visit was this cub and a kangaroo joey.

Friday, we spent about 2 hours in the park, checking out the assorted hot tubs and the “Master Blaster” a roller coaster style water slide that you actually do go uphill on and a few other slides. Then we had a nice dinner in the restaurant that overlooks the wave pool. The boys even got the secret of the flaming water from the hostess. Friday also began the adventure in the arcade where Oskar struck pay dirt with a “skill” based game where you try to roll the coin into a certain portion of a mat. When it goes into the machine, a light bar reads it and determines if it’s a winner. Oskar of course managed to get the 400 ticket reward. We enjoyed desert from a coffee shop there at the resort a brief story time before bed and crashed hard.

Saturday, the official birthday, we woke up and had another nice breakfast overlooking the water park. We missed the initial crowd of folks who race in at the exact moment of opening to snag a chair and packed up, alas, only one night stay, and then headed to the water park. Xavier spent most of his time over the next two hours on the intermediate water slides.

We wrapped up the day with a little while longer in the arcade (a favorite with the older two) and Xavier had a good time too. His favorites tend to involve skee-ball and other games of chance. I did get it to pause for a moment for this shot on the dance mat on his way to some other game.

The big boys worked hard and all told about 1,200 tickets were earned – plastic stuff and candy was bought – success in the mind of a 3, 6 or 9 year old. (In just a few months, at Oskar’s birthday, the kids will all be prime numbers – just noticed that!)

At 2:30ish, we waved goodbye to the Kalahari and headed west, stopping for a pit stop in Sparta, Wisconsin. We found an open coffee shop and had a snack before finishing the drive home. We did presents at the house when we got back.

There are a WHOLE lot more photos if you want to flip through them. I’ll link to the photoset after I re-created it (I goofed it up last night during the upload.)

Boy’s are happy to get out of the car Friday night.

Run run run run run run run run run run run run run … okay, we’re ready to go to the mall now!

Scary T-Rex head!!! Roar! Xavier wasn’t pleased with the sound effects or the moving jawbone.

The museum is hands on and displays – a good mix keeping everyone pleased.

Xavier learned to swing for the first time (notice he’s not in a baby swing) and he started kicking his legs to make it work (anything to be just like Oskar.)

The awards were numerous!

It’s the Hoosier Tire Ghost! ~ Spooky ~

Oskar reading up on the Phantom Hourglass strategy

Of course the full resolution photos (these are all cell phone pics because I forgot my camera) are on flickr as well as a few more from Saturday and Sunday too!

This is just a few of the photos I took today – I won’t overwhelm everyone with 100′s of photos.

The kitchen here at the house is still under construction, the counters have been installed in the Kitchen (but not the pantry) and the faucet we had selected didn’t fit on the sink, so that will be installed next week. Translation, no running water or dishwasher in the kitchen until next Tuesday! It all started this last Monday morning, when the new counter tops were installed.