Travel Archives - Page 6 of 9

Rocks or kids, which do you think is easier to photograph?

June 9, 2015 1 Comment

If you’re just joining us, this is the final installment in our somewhat-epic summer journey to Yellowstone, in which I
fervently hope we have a bear encounter that ends up well enough for us as well as the bear and whatever we happen to be driving. You can start here, and the whole set up to this trip is here and here.

If yesterday’s adventures were about encounters with blurry animals, today was about stuff that was, thankfully, a little more stationary, therefore easier to photograph.

That is if you don’t count the fact that my kids won’t stand still for a picture.

Since the road to Old Faithful was out yesterday, we took a road by the Grand Canyon instead, heading up to the north end of the park where we’d be staying in Gardiner, Montana.

Travel

I’d be a killer wildlife marmet photographer

June 8, 2015 2 Comments

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon

If you’re just joining us, this is the third installment in our somewhat-epic summer journey to Yellowstone, in which I
fervently hope we have a bear encounter that ends up well enough for us as well as the bear and whatever we happen to be driving. You can start here, and the whole set up to this trip is here and here.

People told us we were smart to come through Yellowstone this early in the season. We’d avoid the crowds, they said.

Good thing, too, because it doesn’t feel a lot like Yellowstone planned for crowds when things like roads and restrooms and pull-offs were installed back in the day. It really doesn’t feel like anybody anticipated busloads of Japanese tourists, when installing mountain roads with exactly zero shoulder on which to pull over and observe the wildlife, I must say.

Travel

The Grand Tetons, with a serious lack of bears

June 7, 2015 2 Comments

If you’re just joining us, this is the second installment in our somewhat-epic summer journey to Yellowstone, in which I fervently hope we have a bear encounter that ends up well enough for us as well as the bear and whatever we happen to be driving. You can binge-read the whole series here.

We were discussing bear encounter survival techniques on the way out of town this morning and realized we’re all a little confused about how one is supposed to react when running into a bear. One site recommends stopping whatever it is you’re doing to assess the situation, and then identifying yourself by speaking in a calm, appeasing tone.

Europe, Travel

Family Travel Tips: Expect Sleep Disruptions, Remember the Ranch

June 5, 2015 No Comments

This weekend we head out on our road trip to Yellowstone, so an original blog entry for today would put me over the edge. Instead enjoy this piece of nostalgia, a version of which recently appeared on Motherhood: May Cause Drowsiness.

“Over here you can see an example of Soviet era architecture.”

Saara was craned to face us from the front, translating for her uncle, who narrated in Finnish while pointed at long rows of abandoned-looking cement apartment buildings. The car wove back and forth and occasionally into the lane of oncoming traffic.

Saara, who had been interpreting for the better part of an hour, looking back at us, surprisingly wasn’t turning green, as I would have been.

North America, Travel, Yellowstone

If we’re lucky, there’ll also be bears

April 20, 2015 No Comments

We’re going to be schlepping the family to Yellowstone this summer, and as you can probably guess, I’m just beside myself with ambivalence.

It’s time, though. On average, about three out of four exchange students will ask to see Yellowstone, and we haven’t even taken our own kids to see this American family vacation icon. I’ve always insisted it’s too far, too expensive. And who wants to sit in a hot car stuffed with crabby kids, driving through a big expanse of nothing on the off chance you’ll see a buffalo in the distance?

I mean, we got all kinds of scenery – trees and everything – right here. And a city zoo. I don’t know if they have buffalo, but I’m sure they have goats and stuff. And guess what? There’s concessions. And no drive. Bam.

This year, though, I’m relenting. I need to stop being such a stick in the mud.

Parenting, Travel

No, YOU take a number

March 27, 2015 No Comments

This was the week. I couldn’t put Jack off any longer with the whole driver’s license thing.

It was spring break, so we’d finally be available during the window that the DMV is open for testing. Jack had fulfilled the long list of requirements I had for chauffeuring him to that end of town – very near the Seventh Circle of Hell, otherwise known as The Mall.

I rather thought a trip to that end of town was going to be the worst part about the whole afternoon.

This is the part where you chuckle nervously about my naiveté.

Guatemala, North America, Travel

Of Machetes and Medications

July 18, 2014 No Comments

Sunday afternoon I packed the kids’ stuff for camp as I’ve done at the same time every summer for the past five years.

I’m happy they have this opportunity to go every summer, to break up the routine, make a few friends and maybe escape the Sahara Desert heat wave that usually socks us in this time of year.

We’re blessed we don’t need to send them with special accommodations or instructions in order to spend a week away, that they interact well with their peers, that they’re respectful of their counselors, that peanuts won’t make their throats close up.

I mean, Jack’s not supposed to eat wheat, but it’s not life threatening. It’s not even really an allergy. Colin’s allergic to wasps, but that’s not a life threatening issue either.

Not really.

If a wasp stings Colin right on the mouth, or on his throat, he could be in real trouble with the reaction he gets, but what kind of freakish scenario would that be?

Parenting, Travel, Youth Exchange

Did I say I was ready? Yeah. Ignore that.

January 27, 2014 No Comments

Bliss on the ski hill — Bliss is two parents alone on the ski hill

“Why do you want to go on exchange?” I ask my kid.

“Well, I like to travel, and I’m into learning new things.”

Good answer. Just the night before, Jack had told us he would be interested in going on exchange his junior year in high school. Now, I’m putting him through a mock interview.

We’re in McCall, the opening weekend of the little town’s winter carnival. Mike and I are part of a committee shepherding a gaggle of students in the Rotary exchange program. The group includes ‘inbound’ students from countries across the world, and soon to be ‘outbound’ students from counties across southern Idaho – sort of a foreign exchange cavalcade.

Parenting, Travel, Youth Exchange

Eight things I’ve learned hosting a foreign exchange student

December 13, 2013 No Comments

Another teenager came to live with us this week. Given the stories you hear from me about the one we already have, you might think I’m self-medicating. Hold off on the intervention, we know what we’re getting into.

And not second-hand either. When we told people we were going to host our first foreign exchange student, we were regaled with horror stories, similar to what happens when someone finds out you’re pregnant, and feels compelled to share the most hair-raising details from their own labor and delivery.

But we’ve yet to experience any horror, hosting through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program, and the student who just moved in is our fourth.

Parenting, Travel, Yellowstone

When Yogi just isn’t worth the hassle

June 20, 2013 No Comments

I have an embarrassing parental oversight to cop to. We’ve never taken our kids to Yellowstone. All the traveling we’ve done and one of our most cherished national icons has never even been a consideration.

Technically it’s not my fault we’ve never considered this possibility. Although I was born in Boise, we lived in north Idaho for my formative years. Our family trips were mostly by boat, through the locks of the dams on the Lower Snake River to the Columbia, all four of us crammed in a 28 foot Bayliner for hours of quality time.

I swam a lot.

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