Scribble World Travel Blog

An Aunt in Training…

Tally kept coming downstairs as I was trying to read my book, and hopping on my lap, carrying various plastic toys.  We worked on counting to 20…she’d count to 14-repeat 15,16,17,18,19 after me, and then gleefully shout 20, which sounds more like “tony!” Not bad for a 2 year old.

She gets all excited and expects praise whenever she uses the potty, so after a time or two of blank looks from me & an expectant look on Tally’s face, I’m finally getting the hang of it & so I’ll clap and enthusiastically say, “Good job! That’s great!!” and her face lights up and she goes to tell the next person-it’s quite funny.

Bakken Museum, Minneapolis Minnesota

We’ve made it to Minnesota and are now staying with my sister.  Her hubby took us to their local library, which is a treasure trove for valuable free admissions into various museums, zoos and other neat places- And all it takes is a library card. He “checked out” 2 free Bakken Museum passes for us, a $14 value.

The Bakken Museum-A Library and Museum of Electricity in Life, is located on 3537 Zenith Ave South in Minneapolis. The setting is pictoresque, with gardens, tall shady trees, and located next to Lake Calhoun. It is the world’s only library and museum devoted to medical electricity, according to Wikipedia.

Near the entrance, there is a machine that you can hold the handles of to administer an electric shock to yourself-just to see what it’s like. The voltage is adjustable, I was unable to go more than about halfway up and only for a moment-I’m not too eager to try that again. It surprised me that shock therapy, or ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) is still used in the treatment of certain mental illnesses, although it is highly controversial.

There were many hands on exhibits at the Bakken to learn about magneticism, electricity, the world’s oldest instrument, and much more. There was also an interesting room with props and a narrated telling of the Frankenstein story.

Upstairs, we explored some of the other rooms and took a few minutes to relax in the comphy library chairs.

No teacher left behind…?

It was very interesting talking to Michelle, the teacher in the family, about the No child left behind act.  I had no idea the testing standards could vary so much depending on what state you’re from….and there’s so much money wrapped up in the whole process.

Meanwhile, it was sad to hear about the funding shortages and how it ultimately hurts both the teachers and students.  A school is supposed to hire the teacher after 150 days, and start providing benefits- and yet, schools get around this by using the teacher to the max-up to 149 days and then letting them go and hiring someone else at the starting rate.

This tedious cycle is hard on students, whose education is undoubtedly interrupted during the transition, but also the hard working teachers who never get the benefits they’ve worked for.  Maybe it’s time for a “No Teacher left Behind” act?

Family & Michigan

Carol worked this morning, but ran to the store first to get some ingredients to make bean soup.  The mouth watering aroma was wafting through the house by the time I woke up.

We’re lightening our load today, storing a few things with family we’d originally planned to bring with, because space is too precious to waste on anything less than a necessity at this point.

We had a nice visit with Chris’s Mom and Grandma today.  His grandma, who worked with special needs kids for many years, told us a story about one of the kids who threw a plate that hit her on the head-she calmly said his name softly and said she loved him.  “You do?” he asked surprised.  “Yes, I do,” she said, and all the anger and fight melted right out of him.  She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner

We are staying with Chris’s family in Muskegon, MI and it is nice to have a roof over our heads and lots of home cooking.  Carol went all out with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry-apple-orange relish, stuffing, buns, deviled eggs, gravy, peanut butter pie, brownies, cookies…and it was all delicious!

Chris met his nephew, Gunner, for the first time.  He played pool with his dad.

The four of us went for a night walk, it’s nice to get outside, even if it is getting chilly.

Coopersville, MI

Hello from Michigan. Today was the first day of our trip where I haven’t seen the sun at all-very dim the entire day and only in the 40′s.  We’re spending a couple nights with Chris’s friend, Eric.  It was fun meeting Eric’s son and playing ball, checkers, making balloon figures, and playing with his cool tiny flying helicopter with a microchip in it.  Pretty sophisticated toy for just $20.

Night out in Indianapolis

I just love Candlewood Suites.  the people there are so nice and the room was perfect.  As an added bonus, we got to do our laundry for free, and took a free shuttle downtown where we walked around. We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Then we went to the Slippery Noodle for our evenings entertainment.  The cover band was a no-show but a back up band of blues players arrived at 10PM and by then the crowd was all worked up. A baccalaureate party was in full swing in front of us, and a separate bachelor party behind us was full of interesting characters-a few of which took the microphone while we awaited the band and made the audience roar with bad jokes and even worse singing-much to the dismay of the employees who did their best to get the mic back.  But it was all in good fun and made for a quirky night.

Prairie Dog Town, Kansas

Going East on I-70 we saw signs for Prairie Dog Town-home of the 17 foot tall prairie dog, rattlesnakes and a living 6 legged cow. After paying our admission, we were ushered to the rattlesnake cage for an up close look. They were active and lively, I think it was feeding time. We escaped outdoors where we immediately saw our first prairie dog-lots and lots of prairie dog holes and prairie dogs that would poke there heads out and run from one hole to another.

We walked around looking at the animals in pens and the cats in cages. The 6 legged cow was lying down chewing, but sure enough, you could see it really was a 6-legged cow. They encourage picture taking.

When Prairie Dog Town’s first deformed cow died, Ripley’s Believe It or Not purchased it for use in St. Augustine. That was interesting to learn because I also have a picture of that stuffed cow, from when we went to St. Augustine (but I didn’t realize that til just now, so I’m adding the picture below).

Old Town Museum Burlington, CO

Spent the night at the Burlington Inn located at 450 South Lincoln St, Burlington, CO 80807 for $42. It’s off I-70 near the Colorado/Kansas border.

From the Burlington Inn, we walked downtown to the Old Town Museum in Burlington, CO.  It was about to close but the lady was nice enough to let us take a quick tour anyway. Tickets are normally $6 for adults, free for kids under 3. The Old Town Museum is 6 and a half acres of pure history and one could easily spend an afternoon or more exploring all the turn of the century relics which fill 21 buildings. Horse drawn carriage rides, old fashion soda fountain and the large gift shop may also be of interest to some folks.

South Park

We made a stop in the small rustic town of Fairplay, Colorado, which Chris knew to be the town depicted in the animated tv series, South Park, on Comedy Central. The town itself is less suburban than the one in the series. There are several buildings in the town that say “South Park.” And Chris says to tell you, “we killed Kenny.”