The thrilling and heartwarming adventures of Dave and Kathy as they try to figure out how to raise twin daughters.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Corn and Narcoleptic Goats
The bad thing about starting this blog a month ahead of our trip is that now I kinda feel an obligation to actually update this thing periodically. The "preparing for the road trip" process ain't always all that thrilling, so this could make for some less-than-scintillating blogging. So I should publicly apologize, in advance, for the blogging to come. Ah well.
Anyway, I bring you another important national landmark that we may or may not be stopping by:
You have to admit, the sign is pretty intriguing. I think the Corn Palace gets major points for just the sign. Anyway, the Corn Palace is this really odd-looking building in Mitchell, South Dakota (the corn capital of the world, of course), located right along our planned route. I think Kathy was pretty intrigued until we found out that alas, the Corn Palace isn't actually MADE of corn, which had been my natural assumption. It's made of concrete. Every spring, however, they cover the exterior of the building with lots and lots of corn arranged into large murals:
Although a little disappointed, I still think this is a fairly cool thing and something we gotta see. In retrospect, I don't know how we thought they could make a building entirely out of corn. It's hard to imagine that it would be structurally sound. It would probably rot to the ground after a year, or the birds would eat it all up, or some kid would pull out one corn cob and the whole thing would tumble down. But I still want to see the thing. Kathy's not so hot on the idea, maybe disillusioned by the perceived false advertising of the "Corn Palace", or maybe because she senses (probably correctly) that this is one of those tourist traps like the Mini-Old Faithful Geyser/Narcoleptic Goat Farm in Calistoga that you pay fifteen bucks to get into and then leave with the distinct sense that you, sir, have just been ripped off of fifteen bucks.
I know she's right. But I don't know if I'll be able to resist the pull of that sign.
I thought I'd start this blog with the number one attraction that I'm most excited to see (ok, slight exaggeration):
Ah yeah. Good stuff.
That's a photo of Carhenge, located in the middle of freaking nowhere, Nebraska. Actually, there's a chance we might not actually visit because it's like 70 miles out of the way. But, in my mind, it'd be damn shame to miss the thing, which has got to be the ultimate symbol of everything that's great and awful about America.
In case you can't tell from the photo (and the name), Carhenge is a replica of Stonehenge made entirely out of junked cars spray painted gray. You can't beat that.
According to Carhenge's caretaker, only about 40% of the people who come to Carhenge even know about Stonehenge. Apparently, their comments box has a bunch of comments like "What the hell is this?"
Okay, you asked for it. Some of you did, anyway. Okay, three of you asked for it. Anyway, here it is, the wacky adventures of Kathy and Dave!
As you probably know if you're reading this, we've recently decided to take almost two months off to road trip across America (and a little bit of Canada). Actually, we decided this several years ago, but only recently have come to the conclusion, that, yep, it's time to finally do it. Been working at our jobs long enough to comfortably ask for the sabbatical, been seeing all our friends settling down and having babies, feeling that burned-out feeling from having worked straight since grad school without taking a long vacation... yup, it's about that time.
So, Kathy and Dave's excellent adventure is set for September 2 through October 22ish (depending on how homesick we get, or how sick we get of driving). This blog will be our attempt to keep in touch and chronicle our adventures. More entertaining and kills fewer trees than four-thousand postcards, no?
So, T minus 40 days and counting. In the days coming up, we might write up some stuff on our route, places we're planning to visit, that kinda thing. Stay tuned.
This is Dave writing this by the way. Kathy and I will have to figure out some way so that you can distinguish my posts from her posts, like writing in different colors or something. Otherwise, Kathy will keep editing the heck out of my posts. That title, by the way, "Two for the Road"? All Kathy's. She vetoed my title, "Road Trippin'". Compromising my artistic vision once again.
