Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Monday, July 28, 2008

To Sum Up Our Roadtrip

(Still dragging this out...)
1. driver: me
2. navigator: T
3. favorite places: the cowboy museum in Oklahoma City, the Denver Art Museum, Mount Rushmore, the Badlands
4. miles driven: 3,500
5. days on the road: 11
6. highest point reached: 14,110 feet on Pikes Peak
7. lowest point reached: dinner at a Chili's in downtown Denver when we were unable to find any other place to eat

THE END!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Wildlife We Saw on our Roadtrip

  1. cows, cows, cows
  2. deer
  3. rabbits
  4. prairie dogs
  5. buffalo
  6. pheasant
  7. mouse
  8. goats
  9. geese
  10. mudbirds (?)
  11. ducks
  12. butterflied
  13. other birds
  14. horses
  15. chipmunks
  16. sheep
  17. donkey
  18. mule
  19. heirloom chickens (?)

And Dead Wildlife We Saw on our Roadtrip:
  1. mouse
  2. raccoons
  3. deer
  4. armadillo

Saturday, July 26, 2008

What We Did - Part 11

1. The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD!!!



2. The interior is mostly pictures of the corn palace, and corn murals.



3. And more corn murals.



4. And corn murals over a stage. Overall it's pretty awesome.



5. Then we got the heck out of Mitchell, SD, and went to Souix Falls and saw Souix Falls. It's very pretty.



6. From there we drove to Omaha, NE, where we had lunch and went to one of the best used bookstores ever, but unfortunately did not have time to go to the Bemis Center.
7. We drove through Iowa and Missouri and those other rectangular-shaped states, which at the time were just starting to show evidence of flooding.
8. Spent the night in Kansas City, KS. This is us in Kansas.



9. On the last day of our trip we drove through places we've already driven through: Missouri and Arkansas. We listened to Steve Martin's book read by Steve Martin (thanks, HD!) and finally made it home.

Friday, July 25, 2008

What We Did - Part 10

Just so you know - I'll drag this out for as long as I feel like it!

1. We went to the Badlands! It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.



2. It made me think about painting - not about looking at art, but about the act of painting, or the paint itself.









3. The Badlands and the grasslands are just right there up against each other.



4. Prairie dogs!



5. Bunny rabbits!



6. Me.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Adding to Words I've Recently Heard Used as Verbs

Original list

5. calendar

More from Part 9

I forgot to list a few things from Wall Drug:
7. Saw lots of cowboy art
8. Visited their doughnut factory
9. Played a shooting gallery arcade game and kicked butt at it
10. Ate homemade pie
11. Drank (surprisingly good) 5-cent coffee

Bookclub Ratings

This is the ratings scale that Heather and I made up for bookclub books. It really works with everything, though.

5 = masterpiece
4 = holy crap that's good!
3 = would recommend to a friend
2 = not a complete waste of time
1 = eh
0 = crap

Sunday, July 20, 2008

What We Did - Part 9

Still in South Dakota.
1. Left Custer and went to Wall, SD, to go to Wall Drug because, well...because you just have to.



This is the inside of Wall Drug (it's like a mall).



2. Saw the chapel inside Wall Drug.



3. Saw this crazy musical instrument playing machine.



4. Saw this - Wall Drug's "new dinosaur" - it looks around and sort of growls, and occasionally red lights flash and a siren goes off and the dinosaur roars really loudly and scares the crap out of all of the kids. It's hilarious!



5. Saw Mt. Rushmore at Wall Drug!



6. Saw T riding a giant jackalope.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Monday, July 14, 2008

My Weekend

1. Made biscuits from scratch to go with spinach omelets for dinner. They weren't bad.
2. Went to the Memphis Farmers Market and bought some lovely fresh vegetables and fruits.
3. Implemented the organizational system in my studio that I learned from the awesome Maryanne McDonald. I've been using the system at work since February, and it's the only way I'm able to get anything done.
4. Listened to the first 4 episodes of Lost while working in the studio. The first season of Lost was scary!
5. Read this great quote from Peter Schjeldahl in a review of Olafur Eliasson in the New Yorker: "'Art' has become the promiscuous catchall for anything artificial that meets no practical need but which we like, or are presumed or supposed to like."







6. Saw "Hellboy 2" with T. It was pretty awesome - especially all of the creatures. More on the movie experience later. Maybe.








7. Went roller skating for the first time since September(!) with some fellow former Z-girls. It was so fun! I forgot how much I enjoy skating, though next time I'm wearing my knee pads to just feel extra safe as I navigate through children falling down and skating backwards.
8. Started the new bookclub book: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. It is good stuff.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

What We Did - Part 8

1. Mount Rushmore!






Look at it!



It's awesome!



2. Saw a rainbow - see it? It starts over there on the left...



...and continues on the right.



3. Saw the Crazy Horse Memorial. It is pretty crazy! It is huge but unfinished. The best/craziest part was the museum/gift shop/studio/former home/cafe/laser light show viewing area.



4. This was the view from our hotel room in Custer.



5. We stayed across the street from the Flintsones theme park.



6. Cute little post office.



7. The famous Custer sign.


What We Did - Part 7

Goodbye Denver and Hello Custer
1. After a long day of mountain climbing, we went to the Trail Dust Steak House for dinner. It was an interesting experience - live band, dancing, a two-story slide for the kids, biker gangs, and servers cutting people's ties off.












2. Saw a bunny!



3. Left Denver and drove north through Wyoming. The landscape went from flat in northern Colorado to hilly and green in Wyoming. We ended up in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, so the landscape changed a lot through the course of our day.









4. In Wyoming, I drove through a speed trap in Lusk (watch out if you are driving that way!), saw tumbleweeds and mystery fences.



5. Made it to Custer, South Dakota. Ate a late lunch (because there were no restaurants in Lusk! That's why we sped out of there!) at Cattleman's. T had a beer in a boot, and I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (I don't normally order those out, but it was on the regular menu!).



Wednesday, July 2, 2008

What We Did - Part 6

1. Drove to Colorado Springs/Manitou Springs to take a cog railway to Pike's Peak.



2. Drew to calm myself before the climb started.

3. Saw Minnehaha



4. Saw beautiful views



5. Saw rocks



6. and more beautiful views



7. and snow!



8. and climbed higher



9. Reached the peak!



10. Bought a postcard and ate high-altitude doughnuts

11. T did 25 high-altitude jumping jacks



12. See we really were there.



13. Saw more rocks



14. and another rail car



15. and made it back down to where we started.