King of the Wild Minivan

It was a bright, clear morning when we rose to go visit that holy shrine to Texas independence, the Alamo. I was in a good mood, because I knew that there would be far more fun than my family even dreamed of.

After all, two hundred good men didn’t die to make a crappy tourist attraction.

We walked there from the hotel, whose proximity to the Alamo is its sole redeeming feature. Along the way my family asked me questions about the battle of the Alamo, such as:

“Will we see Davey Crockett’s skeleton?” this from the boy, eager to see still-warm bodies and twitching limbs.

“Is the Mexican army still around here somewhere?” this from the girl, slightly nervous.

“Do you know where the hell you’re going?” this from Wifey, slightly annoyed.

I answered all three of them with a firm yes, and because I am the father, they all believed me. Except for Wifey, who has known me long enough to have developed some skepticism about my ability to navigate strange cities.

I swear I heard the GPS speaking from time to time, but I never caught her looking at it, so I can’t prove anything. But I have my suspicions.

Upon arriving at the Alamo, the first thing you notice is that it’s not very big. But upon reflection you realize that it shouldn’t be: after all, two hundred guys held out against over a thousand Mexican troops for two weeks. If it was a big fort, then the Mexicans would have found an easy way in and won in a few days.

The second thing you notice is that the Alamo is totally funded by donations and does not charge admission. You notice this because there are signs everywhere and there are dozens of people trying to sell you extras to enhance your visit: souvenirs, audio guides, bottles of Crockett piss; you name it, they have it.

I skipped all that and went straight into the Shrine. It’s just awesome inside, one of those rare places where you feel history. There’s a big sign telling you to be quiet and for men to remove their hats. I did both, because reverence is one of the things that separate us from the animals.

Plus, I’d seen the guy in the baseball cap writhing on the sidewalk with a bootprint on his stomach who had spoken loudly into his cell phone with his hat on. I didn’t want to be like that guy.

Inside the shrine there are flags from all the states and countries of the defenders, with a pennon telling you how many people died from each location. Tennessee is the winner, with 30.

Go Vols!

Davey Crockett, as the rock star fatality of the battle of the Alamo, of course has many items on display inside the shrine, as well as considerable information about his life and works.

Did you know that Sam Houston, another important figure in Texas history, was governor of Tennessee? So you could say that Texas owes Tennessee its statehood and very existence. As a Tennesseean I demanded reparations, or at least a discount, and ended up getting ejected from the shrine.

Thankless bastards.

Finally we reached the gift shop, and my faith in reality was restored: coonskin caps and rifles, even in pink for the girls. Each child chose their cap and weapon of choice (a rifle modeled on Crockett’s Old Betsy for the boy, a pink pistol for the girl).

For the girl it was sort of a ho-hum thing; I’d promised them to her, so she took them. A simple souvenir transaction. But for the boy it was a transformative experience: having a rifle and a coonskin cap meant that he was, in some small way, Davey Crockett.

It took us a moment to sort out that he was not allowed to shoot at everyone he saw and yell “Die, Mexican!” Particularly not the frightened Japanese tourists who turned over their wallets to him.

He was also disappointed not to have received a bayonet, or at least a Bowie Knife for hand-to-hand fighting. I’d never felt closer to him than right at that moment.

Once we’d purchased rifles and caps, an interesting thing happened: the other parents, seeing our barbarism on full display and our Young Davey rushing about defending the Alamo, inquired where they, too, might indulge their second-amendment souvenir rights.

“In the gift shop, under the big ‘RIFLE’ sign,” was our typical response.

I have to say that the picture of the boy, posing beneath the giant Davey Crockett on the cenotaph out front of the Alamo, holding his rifle and hat, is extraordinarily cute. I think we probably sold ten more rifles just by posing him that way and having passers-by remark how cute he looked.

But demand a Tennessean discount and you’ll be escorted out of the Gift Shop and ordered not to return. There is no justice in the world.

Then it was time to go. If I had it to do over again, I’d spend another day in San Antonio. Nice city. And I would really like to go see what’s in that Ripley’s museum. Do they still have the two-headed goat?

We checked out of the Hilton, which was no mean feat when the guy working the desk speaks a dialect that is not quite English, not quite Spanish, and is spoken through a mouthful of chewing gum. I either checked out, signed up for the Hilton Hhonors program, or agreed to represent Paris in her next public nudity hearing.

Or possibly all three.

After that we were on our way. As we made the loooooooooooong drive out of Texas, we passed through several areas that had the best road sign ever:

“PRISON AREA. Please do not pick up hitchhikers.”

You know what? That’s pretty good advice anywhere, and in prison areas doubly so. But next door to the prison area was often a gas station and shoppette. Do you get hazard pay for working the night shift there? I certainly hope so.

The children entertained themselves pretty well, playing with their Pokecards. They might be a plague upon my house, but at least they were finally finding some kind of use. Only, eventually it became a little bit complicated. The boy asked where pokemon came from.

"Well, first the female pokemon lays an egg," said the girl. "Then the male pokeom comes along and fertilizes it."

"How?" asked the boy.

"He takes his penis, and then he uses it to fertilize the egg," she said. "Only, since it's a pokemon, maybe it's a poke-penis. And if it's a mammal, then the male would take his poke-penis and stick it in-"

"HOW ABOUT A MOVIE?" I yelled loudly enough to drown out whatever the horrible ending to that sentence was.

We drove for hours and hours, all the while completely safe with our miniature Davey Crockett in the back seat. We knew we were safe because he kept shooting the gun every five seconds, either taking out Mexican soldiers, bears, or raccoons.

CLICK.

PING.

CLICK.

PING.

CLICK.

PING.

“I am so glad you bought him that damned gun,” Wifey said to me. “I’ll have something to shove up your ass when he drives me crazy with it.”

“How about a movie?” I asked the kids.

CLICK.

“Okay!” said the boy. “Do we have any Davey Crockett movies?”

PING.

I don’t suppose that I need to tell you that this is not conducive to intimacy.

As we rocketed through the darkness, at one moment we heard the children begin an argument.

"Stop picking your nose," the girl said.

"Hey!" he protested. "That's not your job! That's mommy's job!"

"Well, mommy would tell you the same thing," said the girl. "Don't pick your nose."

"I know I'm not supposed to pick my nose," he said. "But you're not supposed to tell me not to."

"Don't pick your nose," I said. I figured that would end it.

"It's not your job, either." The boy said. "Only mommy can tell me not to pick my nose."

The car was silent for several seconds. "Tell him to stop already," I finally asked Wifey.

"You're not the boss of me," she said.

We had a long drive to Arkansas, where we planned to stay at Little Rock. We’re on a tight time schedule, and I’d planned to go to a water park the next day. So it was very, very late in the evening when we finally reached the hotel, tired, cramped, and wondering if Davey was ever going to run out of stuff to shoot at in the car.

Plus, the roads had been crawling with cops, so I had to do the speed limit. Because I was not at all in a hurry to explain my out-of-country license to some highway patrolman itching to give a massive ticket to some dumbass out-of-towner.

We stopped at the North Little Rock Holiday Inn. I chose this hotel for two reasons:

It was water-park adjacent.

It was not a Hilton.

Inside I found the staff to be quite helpful, even producing a discount ticket for the water park we planned on visiting. We were quickly settled into our room with a minimum of fuss.

Ah, sweet competence. How I’d missed it.

Tomorrow: a slight miscalculation.

Just a quick warning

There's not going to be a Sunday vacation update for logistical reasons. Monday and Tuesday will post here as normal, but I probably won't be able to put the signals up on DPUD or RDW like I have been.

I'm entering a sort of twilight zone for the next two days, where I'm not sure if I'll have internet access. The vacation updates are running about two days behind the actual vacation (meaning that what gets posted on Saturday happened on Thursday, if that makes any sense).

So the next two days will be done via auto-post. If I can, I'll check in on the blog. If not, then I'll be back here on Tuesdsay evening.

In the mean time I hope you continue to enjoy the updates, and I appreciate everyone's positive feedback.

Breakfast with the Stars

Today started off like many of the other days of our vacation: we woke up late, we watched a bastardized version of The Ugly Duckling (the duck wasn't ostracized for appearance but was rather unable to swim to the duck mixer in the lake; once he'd learned everybody welcomed him), and then we went to breakfast. We ordered, sat down, and waited for them to bring us our food.

As we waited, a woman came into the restaurant with her son, about a year younger than my son. He had a Ben 10 Omnimatrix watch, so the boy was very interested in him. I found the mother much more noteworthy.

For breakfast she'd decided to dress in a T-Shirt and flip-flops. Not an overly large T-Shirt, either; a gray tank-top t-shirt/dress that reached just below her hips.

Because this is New Mexico, the A/C was going strong. Because she had no bra, her high-beams were clearly visible to passing traffic. Because I am a male, I noticed immediately.

She chose a table behind and beside us, meaning that she was to Wifey's back. The boy and I, though, were facing her and had a front seat for the show.

During breakfast, her son decided he did not want to go to Carlsbad Caverns. This caused no small amount of consternation to her, so they argued. Eventually he ended up with his head in her lap wallering around as she comforted him. Inside my head, I received the following signal:

"CODE BLUE ALERT! Snatch view available at 11:00! DO NOT OBVIOUSLY LOOK! This is a critical situation that could lead to bodily harm from several quarters. That is all!"

Yes, apparently she'd not put on underwear, either, and between her son's rolling around and her somewhat indelicate sitting position her nether regions were well-exposed to the general public, including me. Usually to get a show like this from a stranger there's a cover charge, and it’s not in a family environment.

About that time, the well-behaved teenagers from the water park entered to have their breakfast, and chose to sit down at a table between us and Ms. Stone, thus blocking my view. Judging from the amount of whispering and nudging, they got a similar show to me, which prompted them to all get up and leave with their hands in their pockets before their pancakes even came.

As we left, the boy decided to stop and engage her son in conversation.

"Where did you get that cool Ben 10 watch?" he asked the boy.

"My daddy ordered it off the Internet." the child said.

"Can we please order one off the Internet?" the boy asked me.

"We'll see," I said. I was still trying to figure out how to surreptitiously slip a dollar into her tank-top for the show.

"You look very young," said the boy to the woman. "Are you a grown-up?"

"Of course I'm a grown up," she said. "But thank you."

"Why do you think she doesn't look like a grown-up?" asked Wifey.

"Because instead of fur on her vagina like you, she doesn't have any fur, like my sister."

I spit coffee all over the woman, the boy, and Wifey, thus distracting them from what could have potentially been an awkward situation.

After we'd loaded up the van and had a brief conversation about what are and aren't appropriate conversations in breakfast restaurants in high-decibel voices, we were ready to get underway. We swung by the ice machine on the way out of town, hoping to fill our cooler, but it’d been auctioned off the previous day.

It was time to leave town, and head for our next stop: beautiful San Antonio.

This was the one stop that the entire family dreaded. I was taking them there to see the Alamo, the closest thing to Thermopylae that you’re going to get in North America. It is also the origin of our home state’s motto (Tennessee: the volunteer state) and thus plays an important part in our heritage.

Nobody in the family wanted to hear any of that. Wifey was not at all interested, and the only way I’d gotten the children to agree to come was to offer to buy them coonskin hats and rifles.

“What if you can’t buy those at the Alamo?” Wifey asked me.

“Then this is not the America that I knew, and I no longer want to be part of this country,” I said. “Davey Crockett didn’t die here for nothing, you know.”

So we had an eight-hour drive to San Antonio planned, followed by an evening on the Riverwalk, then a morning at the Alamo and a drive to Little Rock the next day. As I said, we were off.

We drove for hours and hours, eventually reaching a little town in Texas right on I-10 (I never did see its name). It was one of these dusty towns where they have a handful of restaurants and cheap hotels and not much more. This one, though, had a difference: it had a combination KFC/Taco Bell restaurant.

I had to stop, just for the novelty of the whole thing. Plus, Wifey wanted Taco Bell, and I was eager to please her after forcing her to wash her hair a second time that morning to get coffee stains out of it.

As we entered, a one-eyed man limped out of the restaurant.

“Don’t go in there!” he seized my shoulders, his single eye pleading. “There is nothing but woe inside!”

“Um, thanks for the advice,” I said. “But we’re really hungry!”

“Fools!” he cackled madly. “Fools!”

I wish I’d listened to the crazy drifter.

Inside, there were thirty tables, almost all empty. Two of them were clean, and by clean I mean “not heaped with food scraps or pools of unidentifiable liquids.” They were also the only ones occupied.

A garbage can had overflowed onto the floor and attracted several flies in the center of the restaurant, but nobody seemed to care. I had a brief discussion with myself about whether or not to call this to Wifey’s attention, and ultimately decided not to.

After all, we had hand sanitizer; we could just spritz that over all the surfaces and the food and we’d be good to go, right?

So we ordered, and I took special pains to ensure that every single item for Wifey, the boy, and the girl came without lettuce. They hate lettuce. I think they believe that an animal must die in order to make a true meal.

I’m largely agreed, but I don’t mind a nice side salad along with my slab of carcass.

Fortunately when it came time to pick the table the boy had to go to the bathroom. So I took him, leaving the choice of which filthy table to clean up to Wifey.

I will not describe the bathroom, other than to say the choice between the corner, the sink, and the toilet had not been uniformly decided by previous visitors, so we didn’t really labor over it, either. We just did our business, didn’t touch anything, and left.

Wifey had just finished hosing down the table with sanitizer and wiping it up when we returned. After dipping into it for ourselves (I put a shot down my pants, just in case), the boy and I took a seat. I began to unwrap the food as Wifey busied herself getting straws, napkins, and sauce packets.

(Brief tangent: what’s with the stupid phrases on taco bell sauce packets? I find them more annoying than cute. They could at least feature fun facts, like “Did you know that 3% of every taco is made from hog anus?” Instead we get “Was it good for you?” and questions from our eight-year-old about what that means.)

Lo and behold, in a restaurant this well-run, Wifey’s food came up no lettuce. The girl’s food came up no lettuce (to be fair, it wasn’t supposed to come with lettuce, so this is only a moral victory). The boy, though, had lettuce.

Now, listen, I might be a pussy with teenagers, but I’m more than happy to take stuff back. But judging from this Taco Bell/KFC, if we made it out alive we were doing well. I had no illusions that this would be satisfactorily remedied. So I began taking the lettuce off of his taco.

Wifey returned with a handful of napkins. “What are you doing?”

She said this in the voice typically reserved for when the children are blatantly violating a rule, like preparing to turn the blender on with fish inside it. I looked up at her, steam pouring forth from her ears, and cringed. “I’m taking the lettuce out of his taco.”

She held out her hand. “Give me the taco.”

“You don’t like lettuce either,” I pointed out.

“They will fix this taco,” she declared. “Or they shall pay.”

I handed her the taco and she stormed back to the counter, lightning flashing as she went. I’ll admit it: I was slightly aroused. I was terrified, too.

“This taco was supposed to be no lettuce,” Wifey said. “It has lettuce on it.”

“You didn’t ask for no lettuce,” said the woman.

“I distinctly asked for no lettuce on the chicken taco. This is the only chicken taco.”

“You didn’t say no lettuce,” the woman said stubbornly. “I made it just like you ordered. You said no lettuce on the beef taco.”

“I said no lettuce on the beef taco, and also no lettuce on the chicken taco.”

“But the other tacos had lettuce,” the woman said. For some reason, simply exchanging the taco was not on the menu.

“That has nothing to do with those tacos,” Wifey said. “This one should have no lettuce.”

“You asked for lettuce,” the woman said.

Wifey began to purple. “Oh, shit,” I said to the children. “Get ready to run.”

“Do you know what the economic principle of opportunity cost is?” Wifey asked the woman.

“No,” the woman said.

“You have to opportunity to exchange this chicken taco for a chicken taco with no lettuce,” Wifey said sweetly. “If not, it will cost you.”

“What’s it gonna cost me?” the woman asked.

“I’m going to tear your ear off and throw it in the deep fryer.”

“Was that a chicken soft taco or hard taco?”

Wifey returned, and we ate a meal in terrified silence. I did give a quick squirt of sanitizer in the taco, though, just to be sure.

On the way out, we stumbled across another family on the way in.

“Flee!” I wailed at them. “If you value your lives or your sanity, flee now and never return!”

For my consideration I got sprayed with pepper spray, and the little kid bit me in the shin.

We stopped next door to get some gas for the car (having gassed ourselves up quite adequately). As I filled the car, I saw a pickup truck go driving away and lose a dog out the back. It wandered about, dazed but unharmed. Another pickup arrived, and loaded the dog into the cab.

“How strange,” I remarked to Wifey. “It’s like a dog swap.”

Several minutes later, the first truck returned, and the second man quickly retrieved the dog and handed it over. The first man thanked him, got in his truck, and drove away. Inside, the man told the cashier that he didn’t know either the dog or the other guy, but that “I know what it’s like to be alone and afraid, so I figured I ought to help that poor dog. That man would come back eventually.”

It’s good to be back in the south.

We pulled back onto the interstate, past the woman dressed as a green-haired troll doll trying to hitch a ride (good luck with that), and got back underway. Much, much later that afternoon we finally arrived in San Antonio. We’d gone for about four hours without stopping.

And I’d drunk the entire contents of a Mountain Dew big gulp that I’d bought full at the last stop.

I had to pee. I had to pee bad.

We were staying at the Hilton Hotel Palacio del Rio in the center of town. Did you know that there’s a lot of stop lights as you wind your way to the Palacio del Rio downtown?

And I had to pee. I had to pee bad.

When we finally got to the hotel, the GPS told us we were there and refused to help us further. Only, it was on the left, and there was a median. There were no signs for “Hilton Parking.” And the street adjacent was one-way.

And I had to pee. I had to pee bad.

Fortunately, I flipped a U-Turn (possibly legal) and pulled into the tiny slot for checking in in front of the Palacio del Rio. I was blocking traffic, but I jumped out and ran in.

Because I had to pee. I had to pee really bad.

Inside the Palacio del Rio, there is no bathroom on the first floor. I know because I ran up and down the length of it grabbing myself like a four-year old yelling “where’s the bathroom I gotta pee really bad!” and finally a guy took pity on me and told me it was on the second floor.

I don’t know about bathrooms on the second floor, but I did find a plant in a round white pot that looked kind of like a toilet. When I was finished, it sure smelled a lot like a toilet.

Downstairs, I checked in to the Palacio del Rio. We had a nice room, overlooking the Riverwalk, just like I’d reserved, which was mildly surprising to me given that this was the Hilton. Do you want to know the six ways that Holiday Inn is better than Hilton?

1) Holiday Inn is less expensive but the room is pretty much the same.

2) Holiday Inn has in-room wireless for free, and Hilton charges you 9.95 for one day, the bloodsucking bastards. There are cheap 29.95 motels with free wireless; why not you, Hilton? They’re called amenities. You should offer some.

3) Holiday Inn has free coffee all damn day. Hilton has “juice mixers” from 4 to 6 where metrosexual losers sit around and whine about the stock market.

4) You can park next to a Holiday Inn. At the Hilton you can pay $35 for valet parking, or $22 to self-park half a mile away.

5) At Holiday Inn you get the room you reserved, but at Hilton you get offered a king bedroom smoking. Yes, I am still bitter about this.

6) There is no “Rome Holiday” running around making skanky sex tapes and getting DUI arrests and bringing shame to her family and herself. That kind of tawdry pantyless behavior is okay at breakfast, but all the time just becomes tacky.

After dinner at a fine restaurant (McDonald’s, which is what I get for letting the children choose) we went on a boat tour of the Riverwalk. It was really nice, and everyone quite enjoyed it. As we disembarked, the children both wanted a dollar to tip the boatman.

“He was really funny, wasn’t he, daddy?” asked the girl.

“Yes he was, honey.”

“I didn’t get any of his jokes, though. But I laughed anyway.”

Ah, to be a child again.

Tomorrow: Remember the Alamo!

Try, Try Again

The second morning of our visit to Carlsbad didn’t particularly start out with an auspicious omen. Wifey, still somewhat disgruntled from yesterday’s catastrophe, challenged me to prove my manliness on the love tester. It was standard fare: from zero to Latin lover, with varying degrees of frigid in between.

I put in my twenty-five cents and, mindful that my children, wife, and half the restaurant were all watching, gripped the handle and willed it to come up “Hot Stuff.” The lights flashed, the buzzer sounded, and…

Nothing happened. The whole thing went dark.

“You broke it!” said the boy.

“You didn’t even register!” guffawed the clerk.

“That sounds about right,” said Wifey.

“I guess I’m too much man for it,” I said. “Couldn’t get a bulb high enough, so it done burnt out.”

“Yeah, that’s it,” said the girl. I’m giving her an extra Christmas present this year.

On the way out, the boy begged for a temporary tattoo. Feeling generous, I decided to spring for one since he’d done such a good job of eating his breakfast. The display tattoos were all lions battling dragons in circles of fire and such. Manly tattoos, at home on any Hell’s Angel or rebellious teenager with more money than sense.

He got a toucan in a sombrero sitting in a heart made of roses. “Disappointment” does not begin to describe his state of being.

“You know what I think?” said the girl loudly to no one in particular. “I think that this machine is designed to cheat little boys.”

“You must be right,” he said. Then he cast a suspicious eye at me. “It’s probably owned by some parents somewhere.”

Sighing, I came up with another fifty cents. “I’ll tell you what, if your sister wants that tattoo, then I’ll buy you another one.”

“I would like that,” she said. “Can I have another one, too?”

“No fair!” He said. “Then you’d have two and I’d only have one!”

“You either get the toucan or nothing,” I said. “Which is it?”

“Toucan,” she said. “Thank you.”

The next tattoo was a pirate skull wreathed in flames with a scorpion on its head. I think the machine’s designed to cheat parents into buying two tattoos, personally. It’s probably owned by some kid somewhere.

I’d made us reservations at 11 to go down into the King’s Rooms at Carlsbad Caverns. This is a very private, personalized tour, only offered to important visitors to Carlsbad who are willing to pay six bucks extra to see it. Armed with our sweatshirt for Wifey, we headed down the elevator to catch our tour.

As we exited, we were greeted by a huge display of Carlsbad Caverns jackets. Like any normal person, I decided the only appropriate action was to complain.

“Where were these yesterday?” I asked angrily. “My wife almost bit off my head!”

“After you made a scene I remembered we had some under the counter and brought them out. This is all I have left. You want one?”

“Can we p-p-please have one?” said the girl, teeth chattering.

“I would l-l-love one as well,” said the boy.

“I only have adult sizes,” the woman said.

“I’ll take a large and they can share it. How much?”

“They’re twenty bucks, but since you called me a bitch yesterday it’ll cost you a hundred.”

Damn my mouth. “Deal.”

Twenty minutes later we were ready for the tour. There was only one problem: the Skankletons’ cousins had come along. Why this gaggle of nimrods felt it necessary to holler, carry on, and slap one another in Carlsbad Caverns instead of the comfort and privacy of their own home, I do not know.

Whatever the reason, they were along with us, and unfortunately right in front of us during the forced trail march to the King’s Room. Listen, I love a good burp joke as much as the next guy, but there’s only so many times you can burp, make an echo, and then say “she did it” and have it be funny.

Maybe once. Twice if it’s a really good burp.

The other interesting member of our tour was Mr. Cool. I could tell he was Mr. Cool because he was wearing sunglasses in a cave.

I’ll repeat in case you missed that: sunglasses. In a cave.

Yes, he looked like a dipshit. He fell down a lot, too. I checked: he wasn’t blind, nor was he visually-impaired. He was just too cool for his own good. I actually worried that he’d end up plummeting into a crevasse and being lost forever.

I never did work up the courage to ask if he wore the sunglasses at night.

So we went on the King’s Room tour, and it did not at all disappoint. What a magnificent experience. If you go to Carlsbad, I highly recommend it.

I also recommend you do not go with the ranger I did who, while a wealth of information and a delightful girl, could profit greatly from some public speaking courses. The tour itself is an hour and half, but there’s a good ten minutes of “uh” in there from here. Here’s a sample of her dialogue:

“This is the, uh, King’s Room. It’s called the, uh, king’s room because, uh, it’s big. Welcome to the, uh, king’s room. It’s big. Uh, if you have any questions about, uh, the King’s Room, or it’s, uh, bigness, you can, uh, ask them now, here in the, uh, King’s Room.”

I learned a lot, though. Did you know that they filmed Journey to the Center of the Earth in the, uh, King’s Room?

At one point they turn off all the lights so you can see what the cave “really” looks like. Which is to say, pitch black. Of course, Mr. Skankleton took this opportunity to belch, then yell out:

“Could I stay down here?”

“If only we could be so lucky!” Wifey yelled.

“Who said OOF!”

When the lights came up, Mr. Skankleton was sprawled out with a big rock on his face. We never did ascertain who threw the rock, but I know that Wifey was dusting off her hands when the lights came up and a piece of the retaining wall next to her was missing.

Nobody down on our end said anything, though, except a few congratulations and one high five. Mr. Cool even slipped Wifey a five-spot with his phone number on it. If he’d have had a cowboy hat I’d have driven away alone, I’m guessing.

After the cave we did what any family enjoys during a spelunking trip: we went pervert watching. We were wandering around, looking at underground stuff, when Wifey nudged me.
“What the hell is going on over there?” she asked.

If you want to pay 3 bucks, you can rent these foot-long “Talking Ranger” devices that, when you press a button, will narrate various facts about the cave. A really lonely woman had rented one, and was in the process of punching buttons and rubbing it in her own nether regions as she squatted and writhed next to the railing.

I’m just glad we didn’t go by any low-hanging stalagmites while she was in the area playing “sit and spin” on them.

She seemed to be taking the offer to “get in touch with the cave” a little too seriously. I put my hand over the boy’s eyes, and we forced the girl to turn around. I know, Jocelyn Elders wouldn’t approve, but these choices should really be left up to the parents.

“Should we say something?” said Wifey.

“Like what, need a cigarette?”

“No, I mean to the rangers?”

“I’ll take care of it.” I said.

We all boarded the elevator, which travels up at nine miles per hour. See? I was paying attention. At the top, Wifey nudged me as Madam Pervert dropped off her auto-tour.

“Burn this one,” I said to the ranger standing helpfully next to the display.

“Why?” asked the ranger.

“She knows,” I said, pointing to Madam Pervert.

Once outside, the entire family forgave me for yesterday’s disaster, and we swore never to speak of it again. I, of course, immediately immortalized the entire affair on the Internet to make sure that years from now we’ll have that treasured memory of a crappy day to look back at and laugh.

Or discuss in therapy.

Once back at White’s City, Wifey decided that I needed to go to the auction in progress. She’d been frustrated of her desire to buy some glassware, but insisted that since I hadn’t yet bought a souvenir I needed to do so there.

“Why can’t I buy one like a normal person?” I asked.

“Because this is an auction,” she said. “You can bid on it.”

“What do I want to bid on stuff for?” I said.

“It’s more interesting to have something you bought at auction than some piece of crap you paid for in a gift shop.”

For some reason I found this compelling, and hastened into the auction.

There’s a certain kind of madness that sets in when you are in an auction. Specifically, you begin convincing yourself that every poorly-carved horse genitalia that some cowboy used for comfort on those lonely prairie nights is really worth a lot of money if you could just find yourself the right bidder.

What you have to remember is that for the auction house, you are the right bidder for the piece of crap that is currently being offered.

I ended up buying five things: four pieces of metal that they claimed were swords and a piece of wood that once belonged to Billy the Kid. It had twenty notches in it, one for each man he killed. The metal only cost me about a hundred bucks, but Billy’s Kill Stick cost six hundred bucks.

But how many people can say they have an authentic Billy the Kid Kill Stick? Only me, I figure. It was signed “Neal” but the auctioneer said that Neal was Billy’s official carpenter, and even signed his gun handles.

Once I’d finished at the auction, I joined my family at Death and Fun Water Slides and No-Fault Amusement Park, otherwise known as a pool and two water slides. I did not expect great fun; in fact, I expected a quick compound fracture or a spinal injury.

Like good parents, we accompanied our children up the four flights of stairs to the top of the water slides, which creaked with age and dripped from every joint.
“Are they suppose to do that?” Wifey asked.

“Sure,” I said. “That’s to keep the water pressure down.”

“You go first,” she said.

“No, I insist,” I said. “Ladies first.”

“I don’t know how to do it,” she said. “You show me.”

“You just sit on your ass and slide down,” I said. “Surely even you could figure that out.”

See what I did there? Screwed up with that last part of the sentence.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“It means I’ll go first,” I said. “But I insist on taking the boy with me.”

At the top of the stairs, we found a gaggle of teenagers cavorting in flagrant violation of the “no horseplay” sign.

Anticipating trouble, I took the True Path of the Pussy.

“Let’s just go back down and hide in the room,” I said. “There are rowdy teenagers up here.”

“NO!” The boy insisted. “We’re going down that slide!”

“Even if it kills you!” said the girl.

“Let’s not get our hopes up,” Wifey said.

I sighed and approached the gaggle of teens, expecting to be found the next day beaten and hanging by my underwear from the flagpole out front.

Sorry, flashed back to college for a second there.

They parted like the Red Sea for Moses. One of them, their leader judging from his backwards hat and Alpha Male posture, gestured to the slide.

“Please, sir, go on ahead of us.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “You were here first.”

“We’re going to take some time up here,” he said. “You and your lovely family go on ahead and enjoy yourselves. We don’t want to be a bother to you, sir.”

He said this without a trace of irony or cockiness; it was utterly sincere. I don’t know what they put in the water in New Mexico, but they have most polite slacker teenagers anywhere in the country.

We slid down, and I discovered that with a five-year-old on your lap the exposed bolting can rip a generous chunk out of your ass when you go over it.

At the bottom, having snorted a gallon of water, I helped Wifey out of the tube when she arrived.

“He called me ma’am!” she said. “What nice boys!”

“It almost makes me want to go again,” I said.

“HEY DAD!” yelled the boy from atop the stairs. “GET A MOVE ON, WILL YOU?”

All in all we slid about thirty times. Turns out that the teens, when they were all assembled, hooked themselves together like the Barrel of Monkeys and then would all slide into a great tumble at the bottom of the tube, crashing into great fits of laughter.

But only if they weren’t disturbing anybody else. Damndest thing I ever saw.

Later that evening, I stopped by the shopette to pick up a beer, and I was carded. Now, I appreciate the thought, but I don’t look anywhere near 18.

“I need to see an ID,” the clerk said.

“Will my unlaminated, out-of-country, undated driver’s license with a picture that doesn’t look like me do?” I said.

“Sure will,” she said.

“Okay, let me go make one,” I said. Moments later, I produced the not at all realistic looking document (which is actually real).

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

Once I’d taken care of that I headed back to the room. There I found the children setting up their poke-cards.

“These are some really rusty pieces of crap you bought,” Wifey said. “Hope you didn’t pay too much for them.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “Did you see the kill stick?”

“No,” she said.

“This is a great poke-card holder you got!” the children said. “We love it!”

“What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“This,” the girl gestured to a piece of wood holding up a poke-card. “We broke it up and put the cards in the notches.”

“It didn’t have enough so I made more!” the boy proudly held up my also-ruined bottle opener that he’d been using to notch the stick.

“That was my Billy the Kid Kill Stick!” I said. “You’ve ruined it!”

“It was obviously fake,” Wifey said. “He didn’t get killed twenty times.”

“But…”

“Forget it,” she said. “It’s not like you paid a lot of money for it.”

“Right,” I laughed. “It was cheap.”

Sometimes it’s good to be the one who pays the credit card bills.

After this, we went to see the bat flight, the highlight of our visit to Carlsbad. I will be honest with you: this is not to be missed. Not only is it cool, it’s free.

Hundreds of thousands of these bats come swarming up out of the cave mouth, swirling off into the horizon like a cloud of vampiric fury.

The only bad part is that the bats don’t keep a schedule, so you have to wait through a variable amount of ranger blah-blah before they arrive. And you can only listen to so many bat facts before you start humming the theme to Batman and fidgeting in your seat.

For the boy that was five minutes. I held out about ten.

But finally the bats came, and it was awesome. The boy, though, didn’t particularly care for it. Too many swirling, swarming bats for his taste. So he had to be held and comforted throughout the event.

As we were leaving the girl noticed the “adopt a bat” sign. For five dollars, you get a certificate, a bat fact sheet, and a picture of your bat. You can name the bat whatever you like.

“Can we do it, dad? Please?”

“No,” I said. “We’re going back to the hotel to go to bed. We have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

At that very moment the boy, who has alternated between apathy and displeasure since we arrived, began to cry.

“What’s wrong?” asked Wifey.

“I want to adopt a cute little bat!” he wailed. “But you won’t let me!”

I’ll admit it: I caved. Listen, it’s easy to be judgmental from the other side of the computer screen, but you weren’t facing a seven-hour drive with a bat-deprived child the next day. So I sprung for two bat adoptions, because I can’t very well let two children pick one name.

Well done, National Parks Service.

Once we had those in hand, it was back to the hotel and to bed. Oh, and this famous bat photo of the adoptee?

A freaking postcard.

Well done indeed.

Tomorrow: KFC catfight!

A New Low

I laid the groundwork for what I hope was our worst day of vacation several weeks ago, while we were packing for the trip.

“Do I need a jacket or a sweatshirt?” Wifey asked me.

“Of course not,” I said confidently. “It’s summer there, you know. In fact, you shouldn’t pack any undergarments, just flimsy sun-dresses that become transparent when exposed to light.”

“I know it’s summer there, jackass. The seasons are the same. But are we going anywhere cold?”

“No,” I said. “It’s the Southwest United States. I think it’s all desert there.”

“What about the caves?” she asked me. “I hear they get cold.”

“That’s an old wive’s tale. Caves are closer to the center of the earth, which is a hot ball of molten lead, so they should be warmer than the surface.” I cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re not an old wife, are you?”

For some reason unknown to me, she believed me. Oh, how I wish she’d called bullshit. It would have saved me a very bad day.

The whole problem actually started the night we checked into the hotel, just after midnight. I’d chosen to lodge at a place called White’s City Resort. The guidebook said that it was “kitschy Americana.”

What I failed to realize was that since the guidebook was English that was an insult and meant it should be avoided like the plague. Damn language barrier. Either that, or “kitschy” in England means “run-down festering hell-hole full of possible serial killers.”

The second problem with White’s City was that the whole place was being auctioned the two days we’d be staying there. I am not making this up. Every time we went to the lobby more and more stuff was missing. At breakfast a guy even offered me thirty bucks “for the wife and kids.”

“She’s a little bit of everything,” I said. “It’s gotta be forty-five.”

He was unwilling to bargain, cheap bastard. I did sell her panties for five dollars, but she refused to play ball and take them off.

White’s City, in addition to good, kitschy fun, offered three other advantages:

1) It had a water park
2) There was a rootin’ tootin’ good time offered at Granny’s Saloon, with the option to boo, hiss, and throw popcorn
3) It was close to the caves

I had to waive all legal rights to use the water park, and it looked like it was due for regular maintenance about thirty years ago. There was no way I was going to willingly go there, unless I needed a watery grave.

I was informed when I checked in that Granny’s Saloon was closed until further notice, as Granny had died, Paw ran off with all the money, and Little Joe was spending 5 to 10 in prison for fondling the help. Plus, the theater was being used as a staging area for the auction.

In all fairness, it’s still close to the caves.

Okay, what about regular hotel amenities, like wireless internet or hot water?

The internet worked if you stood outside, pointed your computer at the main lobby building, and logged on quickly while a car drove by to bounce your signal across the road.

The hot water didn’t work nearly as well.

But how about those caves? Well, that was the whole point of coming to Carlsbad Caverns, so after a cold shower and a tepid breakfast, we were ready to discover the wonder and magic of this spectacular attraction.

Here’s a fun fact about Carlsbad Caverns: it’s a temperate 56 degrees. Turns out that getting your spelunking tips from Journey to the Center of the Earth is maybe not a good idea.

Forewarned by the ranger that the cave was cold, we visited the gift shop. No sweatshirts. So we visited the gift shop annex. No sweatshirts. But, both places assured us, you can buy sweatshirts in the gift shop located inside the cavern itself.

“Imagine,” I said. “You can say you bought a sweatshirt eight hundred feet below ground!”

“If they don’t have one, you’ll end up six feet below ground,” Wifey promised me.

We decided to take the natural entrance in, because it was funner. And this vacation is all about fun. Because nothing says fun more than a mile and a half hike down into the bowels of the earth.

Another fun fact: if you suffer from fear of heights, the path dropping straight down into the cavern mouth will inspire vertigo. Wifey discovered that as we walked into the Caverns. I discovered that sufferers of vertigo often have a secondary, involuntary reaction where they kick their spouses in the groin.

At least, she told the children it was involuntary. But it was the only time all morning she smiled, so I have my doubts about that.

Just inside the Big Room, two facts became quickly apparent: it’s damn cold down there, and it smells like poop for reasons not readily apparent.

I confidently strode to the gift shop, my frozen testicles clinking as I walked. “I’d like a sweatshirt,” I said.

“We don’t have any,” said the woman in the parka behind the counter. At least, I think that’s what she said through her muffler. “You could probably buy one upstairs.”

“Listen, I really need one,” I said. “My wife’s gonna kill me.”

“You could buy a T-Shirt,” she suggested.

“What the hell good will that do me?” I asked.

“I dunno,” she said. “But we have those.”

“Listen, can I buy your parka?” I said. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks for it.”

“Then what would I wear?”

“You could wear a T-shirt.”

“But then I’ll be freezing!” she protested.

“So why the hell did you offer one to me?”

“I’m going to call security,” she said threateningly.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “I’m going to call you a bitch and leave.”

It’s clear to me why the government loses money: here’s a tourist attraction located in a meat locker, and not one damned sweatshirt. But they had tons of T-Shirts.

If looks could kill, then I would have died when I informed Wifey of our predicament. So, to compromise, we had lunch.

“We’re eating eight hundred feet underground!” I said excitedly.

“I’m cold,” the girl said.

“I’m bored,” the boy said.

“I’m cold and you’re celibate,” Wifey said.

“I don’t think that’s technically true.”

“Oh, that’s right, you’re a eunuch.”

“I am not!” I protested.

“Yet,” Wifey said menacingly.

Quickly, I bought sandwiches. You can buy any kind of sandwich you want in Carlsbad Lunchroom, so long as it’s Turkey or Ham. Why the family in front of us took twenty minutes to discuss this, I will never know, but finally I bought us all sandwiches.

“Mine has hair,” the girl complained.

“That’s just cave moss,” I said. “It’s good for you.”

“Mine is green,” the boy said.

“That’s health bread,” I said. “It’s good for you.”

“I’m a widow,” said Wifey. “Just you wait.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea!” I said. “Let’s leave! Right now!”

Up on the surface, we quickly thawed, and then decided to do laundry. Because nothing says “crappiest day of your vacation” like doing your laundry. Only, White’s City doesn’t have a laundry. You have to drive to Carlsbad.

Another fun fact for you: the Shamrock Laundry in Carlsbad is about 95 degrees in the summer, and for reasons not clear to me, it also smells like poop. What a great place to spend an afternoon of your vacation!

Just after we got the clothes started, Wifey turned to me and said “If you want me to go down again, you will go buy me a sweatshirt right now.”

“You mean in the caves?”

“I mean ever,” she said.

So I went to my favorite vacation Mecca: Wal-Mart. They never fail, right?

Wrong. In addition to lacking an elderly greeter, the Wal-Mart in Carlsbad has no long sleeved apparel whatsoever.

Saddened, we returned to White’s City once the laundry was done. However, I was struck by inspiration. “Why don’t you check out the auction,” I told Wifey, “While I check the gift shop for a sweatshirt?”

“Okay,” Wifey said. “I do like Antiques Roadshow.”

Inside the gift shop, I found the sole bastion of capitalism in the whole area: sweatshirts, for sale, even. I picked out some other objects and quickly made my purchase. The cashier was so distracted with her personal phone call she forgot to charge me for the sweatshirt, so it was free.

Advantage: Plebian!

Inside the auction hall, however, things were not so wonderful. Wifey had thumbed through the book and found several pieces of beautiful glassware for sale, all marked for auction tomorrow. This is not a problem, since we’ll be here tomorrow.

For reasons never fully explained, the lot of it had been sold off just before we got there.

“Instead of being here buying beautiful heirloom glassware, I was freezing my nipples off and eating shit sandwiches underground!” Wifey growled at me. “I am not happy!”

“I have an idea!” I said. “Let’s go to dinner!”

If you’re scoring at home, that means we drove back and forth to Carlsbad (about twenty-five minutes) four times in two hours. But isn’t this what vacation is all about?

Turns out, no.

We went to Pizza Hut, on the theory that since our Pizza Hut in Europe has shitty service this would be like a breath of fresh air, no matter how bad it was. Oh, how I longed for surly Euro-trash waiters that evening.

The boy and I visited the bathroom and I read the most horrifying sign ever: "Do not flush paper in toilet." Next to it was a large garbage can, overflowing with paper. The boy made a beeline for it.

"Good God, no!" I pulled him away. "We don't go in there!"

"I have to go potty!"

"You'll go potty in the parking lot before you walk into there, my son!"

Fortunately, the other toilet had no such sign. Which begs the eternal question: what kind of wimpy toilet can't handle paper, but can handle poopie?

After that, we were immediately seated, fifteen minutes after we came in, and had to get our own menus. Then we watched as the single waitress took orders from several other tables, bussed a few others, flirted with a customer, and then peed right in the soda fountain.

Okay, I made that last part up. Finally Wifey, by this time a volcano of pent-up fury that was thankfully pointed at somebody else, said that we were leaving and not patronizing this establishment.

“Where will we eat?” I asked.

“I don’t care,” she said. “But they better serve us food.”

“Sonic it is, then.”

Listen, I have a problem. I know this. But it’s not like there’s a twelve-step program for Taterotica problems. It’s just an issue I have to live with.

You know how Sonic works: you pull up to a box, press the button, and order. The first box we pulled up to had an “out of order” sign on it. The second box we pulled up to we pressed the button, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

In the ten minutes we waited, we saw no less than four other cars come, press the buttons around us, and then leave in frustration. Finally, the car next to me pulled out, throwing a Sonic bag onto the ground as they went.

“Daddy, those people littered!” the girl said.

“Really? Where were they?”

“They’re right there!” she pointed at the road.

“But which slot were they in?” I asked.

“That one!” The boy pointed it out. “I saw them leave!”

“Hot damn! Good work, kids!” I rapidly pulled the car around, almost running down an old lady and her dog.

“But shouldn’t we pick it up?” The girl asked. “It’s bad for the planet.”

I decided to comfort her. “Don’t worry, honey, there are plenty more bags where that came from.”

Soon we had our food, which I was beginning to despair of. I told the carhop about the busted box, and she said the most chilling thing I’ve ever heard:

“Oh, no, it works, it’s just that sometimes they ignore the calls that come in.”

So to all my friends at Sonic Carlsbad: screw you too, ‘kay?

And that’s far kinder than what Wifey said, what with her previous experience at Sonic at all.

Finally dinner was over, with a minimum of tater tots rubbed in Wifey’s hair (I did it while she was leaning out the window hollering at passing cowboys). We decided to order ice cream.

Should have quit while we were ahead.

“I’d like some ice cream!” I said to the box.

“Okay, it’s a thirty minute wait on ice cream,” the box said to me.

“Well, then I’d like you to have unlawful carnal knowledge of the shake machine, and then dip your head in hot grease.”

“Would you like fries with that?”

Rolling my eyes, I pulled away. There was a loud yell from the rear of the car.

“Daddy, you almost hit a carhop!” yelled the girl.

“Don’t worry, he’s biodegradeable,” I said. “It’s not really litter.”

Thanks to the miracle of the GPS, we were able to highlight another ice cream store, which we quickly sped to.

It was closed. At 8:30 at night in the summer.

WTF is wrong with Carlsbad? One restaurant with decent service, normal hours, and sweatshirts and the whole town could be yours.

“What do you want to do now?” asked Wifey.

“I want to go back to the hotel, chain the door, and hide under the bed until morning and hope that this is the single worst day of the vacation.”

And that’s exactly what we did.

Tomorrow: Back into the hole.

A Long and Winding Road

I could tell that it was going to be a special day when, at breakfast, one of the robotic cowboys tried to pick up my wife. Honestly, it was the most active I’d seen them in our entire stay at the Grand Canyon Railway.

As we were going to breakfast, he was lounging in front of the restaurant. The children wanted their picture taken with him, so they both posed. My son insisted that Wifey be in the photo with him.

Wifey approached, and the cowboy (easily thirty years her senior) looked her up and down appreciatively and said “You’re just a little bit of everything, aren’t you, missy?”

She smiled and laughed appreciatively. I’d have punched the old codger, but he was carrying a fake gun, and he knew how to lazily point it at the ground, thus causing other people to slump over in incredibly unrealistic scenes of death.

Plus, and I am quite honest about this, I am a pussy.

During breakfast I discovered that the boy is fast turning into an evil genius. He was still smarting from yesterday’s breakfast, when his sister got a special cup and he didn’t. I was happy about the situation; we have no fewer than fifteen cups from various restaurants that give kids special “keeper” cups.

You wanna cut my carbon footprint? Stop giving me the damned plastic keepsake cups every meal. At this point I’m ready to pay extra for the non-keeper cup.

Anyways, the boy ordered milk for breakfast. This was a dead giveaway to us, because he drinks apple juice in the morning, and only apple juice.

“Why did you order milk?” I asked.

“I like milk,” he lied.

“He wanted the cup,” Wifey said as she looked out the windows for passing cowboys. “He saw her get a cup for milk yesterday, so he wants a cup, too.”

When the waitress returned, she gave them both their cups. The boy focused his 10,000-watt smile on her, the one he uses to get coeds to carry him around in 105 degree heat, and said sweetly “Can I please have an apple juice also?”

“Of course, sweetie!” She ran to get him an apple juice to go with his milk.

In a keeper cup.

I didn’t know whether to congratulate him or strangle him.

After breakfast, Wifey changed into a special outfit for the drive: her watermelon shirt. Now, the watermelon shirt is nothing special to speak of per se. But I will acknowledge that it accentuates her, um, assets. She also wore it because, as she pointed out, I won’t eat watermelon and thus “need all the help you can get.”

I would like to remind everyone that I am hung like a donkey on Viagra. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Thus we began our 800 mile drive to Carlsbad Caverns, with the children sorry to see the Grand Canyon left behind and Wifey somewhat aroused by the antiquated cowboy. All I got was a sunburn on my elbow from ill-applied sun block.

Oh, and I got a cowboy hat that Wifey bought me from the gift shop “just for laughs.”

I drove until lunchtime, when we stopped at an Arby’s somewhere in Arizona to refuel the car, take a leak, and eat lunch. Ah, America, where you can do all three at the same place. That’s four stops in Europe. Well, five if you don’t want to piss on the side of the road.

Inside the restaurant, they were watching MASH. And not just any MASH episode, either, it’s the one where the head doctor gets killed over the sea of Japan. You know, that’s exactly the uplifting message that I want on my mind as I’m driving cross-country.

After lunch, for the first time I asked Wifey to take the wheel on the long drive. She’s driven the short routes around town and stuff, but I’d done all the long drives. I like to drive, and it means that she has to deal with the kids. But my elbow was bothering me, and my fingers were starting to hurt from all the driving.

She’d no sooner left Arby’s than she started to channel her inner Mad Max.

The problem started when she found herself behind two SUV’s from Montana that were caravanning through New Mexico. They were in the lefthand lane going 72 MPH. Wifey was doing 78 MPH.

Wifey did not appreciate their choice of speeds, as the limit was 75. She tried several times to pass them, but they occasionally would speed up or slow down, and she couldn’t ever get it to work.

Finally she lost all sense of decorum and went off-roading to pass them. If I’d taken the wheel she was going to simultaneously double-bird them as we went by, but I refused to help her with her nefarious scheme.

It is possible that the Arby’s cup of ice that smashed into the lead SUV’s windshield came from me, but I doubt there are prints on it because I wiped it off real good.

Then we entered the “Safety Corridor” in New Mexico. As far as I can tell, there are four rules in a Safety Corridor:

The first rule of Safety Corridor is that you don’t tell anybody about Safety Corridor.

The second rule is that you must drive the speed limit or pay a double fine.

The third rule is that you have to turn on your lights.

The fourth rule is that you can’t litter.

Why there are hundred-mile stretches of long, flat roads designated “Safety Corridors” I have yet to figure out. They ought to call them “Boredom Corridors” or something. The whole state is weird.

By the time dinner rolled around, the window was completely encrusted with bugs, with only a small 2x3 inch square directly in front of the driver somewhat open for visibility. I’d given her a car that was completely clean, but she’d turned it into a bug house of horrors.

At one point she was hitting them three and four at a time, like an Orkin man on steroids. The girl was actually weeping for the bug holocaust going on before our eyes. Finally, in order to protect endangered species, I made her turn the wheel over to me.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said. “It’s not like I’m hitting them on purpose.”

“That’s because you’re driving at mach one!” I said.

“I do not.”

“Then how come when I drive I hit a few bugs, but when you drive it’s like we’re motoring through the third plague?”

“Because you drive like my granny chauffeuring the pope.”

After dinner we switched back, with me taking the wheel and her taking over copilot duties again. Quite frankly, I was happy, since it always feels a little emasculating to be the copilot when your wife is driving. It’s like she’s carrying your balls in her purse or something.

Long after dinner, when all was dark and the children were dozing in the back seat, she started thinking about the cowboy again.

“You know what would be great?” she said to me.

“What?”

“Maybe you could wear the hat tonight.”

“What, in the dark?”

“No,” she said coyly. “In bed.”

“Just the hat?”

“Well,” she said, “You don’t have any boots.”

“I could get some, ma’am, if that’s what you want.”

“Don’t do the accent,” she said. “You sound like a dork.”

“I do not!” I put on my best John Wayne. “I sound like the duke, ma’am.”

“Do you want me horny or angry?”

“Horny, please.”

“Then shut the hell up.” Her advice is usually sound in this matter, so I took it. We drove for some time further, entering Texas. Apparently there’s no road that runs through New Mexico to Carlsbad; you have to pass through Texas.

“I’m going to slip into something more comfortable,” she said as she began rearranging her clothing. I swear I saw skin.

“I’m going to pull off to the side of the road for about ten minutes,” I said.

“No, you’re not.” Wifey was now largely disrobed on her torso, which in addition to captivating my interest had caused a noticeable swerve in the direction of travel of the car. “Keep your eyes on the road! I’m just taking off my bra!”

“And for my next trick I’ll shoot fire out my ass,” I said. “Not likely when you’re over there waving your ta-tas at me.”

“I am not,” and to prove it, she tossed her bra into the back seat.

Now really, what was I supposed to do? I groped her, just for good measure. HOOOONK! I almost died by semi.

“WATCH THE ROAD!” she yelled at me again.

“I’ve got a crazy idea,” I said. “Instead of me in the hat, why don’t you wear just the hat tonight?”

“Maybe I will, pardner.” she said it in a dorky cowboy accent, too, but I was nice enough to let her think it sounded sexy.

See? I’m not selfish, no matter what her therapist says.

Then she popped on the hat and gave me a little treat, flashing me by raising her shirt. I couldn’t see shit in the dark, but I decided to hoot appreciatively yet quietly lest the children awake.

It was right then that I decided to do what any red-blooded, American male would do when faced with the situation that he had an amorous and braless spouse in the passenger seat on a dark, deserted highway: I pulled down my pants.

Listen, the car has cruise control and the road was straight. Besides, there wasn’t anybody out at damn near midnight around here.

“What the hell are you doing?” She asked me.

“I thought we could fool around a little,” I said.

“What if somebody sees?”

“Who’s gonna see?” I gestured at miles of empty landscape. We’d left El Paso behind several miles ago.

“Let me put on some music,” She said suggestively, powering up the Ipod.

The first song in the queue? “Achy Breaky Song” by Weird Al Yankovich. This is not conducive to intimacy, but I was charged up nonetheless.

Did you know that about thirty miles outside of El Paso there’s a border crossing station where you have to stop so they can ensure that you’re not smuggling aliens across the border?

I didn’t know that either, or I’d have kept my pants up.

I come hurtling towards this station at about 70 MPH, not paying the least bit of attention because my mind was focused on, uh, other things. Wifey, though, noticed it immediately.

“STOP!” She yells.

Thinking quickly, I slammed on the brakes and simultaneously grabbed the hat off her head to stick over my midsection.

The guard strolled up to the passenger side window and shone a flashlight inside.

“Evening, folks.”

“Evening, sir,” said Wifey.

“Hello ocifer, I mean, officer,” I stammered.

“That achy breaky song,” sang Al.

“Where you folks coming from?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

Wifey shot me a dirty look. “We’re coming from the Grand Canyon.”

“Where y’all going?” he asked.

“I’m going to hell!” I said.

“Ignore him,” Wifey said. “We’re heading towards Carlsbad Caverns.”

He shone the light at me. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“I’m, uh,” I goggled like a fish out of water.

Wifey thrust her chest out and leaned towards the guard. “They’re cowboy hat pants. Do you like them?”

He eyed her up and down appreciatively. “You’re just a little bit of everything, aren’t you, missy?”

She smiled slyly at him. “Don’t you know it, pardner.”

“Y’all have a good night now, you hear?” he said.

“We will,” Wifey winked at him.

“Thanks, ocifer!” I yelled as I sped away.

“I think I need to have this hat cleaned,” I said.

Tomorrow: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Stay Here

Lamest Gun in the West

When I reserved our Grand Canyon adventure some months ago, I wasn’t able to get a room in one of the hotels right on the rim. But the travel company that manages all Grand Canyon properties (Xanterra) suggested that I stay at the Grand Canyon Railway Inn, from whom I could also reserve a package to ride into the canyon by rail, the old-fashioned way.

On paper this sounded really great: you get to see a gun fight, followed by a luxurious two-hour trip by rail up to the canyon rim, where you and your family can spend four hours doing whatever you like. After that, the train brings you back down to the hotel, during which you will be the victims of a mock train robbery.

The morning began with promise: it’d rained overnight, but the sky was clear and blue at 7 AM when we awoke. The breakfast bar was outstanding. Like good tourists, we showed up promptly at 8:30 for the mock gun battle.

Once, while doing my daughter’s hair, I shot a hairband at my wife off my forefinger. That was a more realistic gunfight than the one I viewed. It was supposed to be funny, but if you were over six it was really more boring.

I know this because the boy laughed, but the girl yawned and asked if she could go play in front of the train. Imagine four fat cowboys going through their lines without a hint of emotion, kind of like the hall of presidents with poorly-aimed cap guns. This was almost that exciting.

After that we boarded the train. When I’d bought the tickets, I wanted the dome car, but the boy wasn’t old enough to ride up there. Knowing that this would lead to (at best) homicide, I opted for first class.

It did not disappoint. Free munchies, good service, and a roving cowboy musician made the entire experience worthwhile. Comfy seats were also highly appreciated. I glanced into coach and saw that they had people strapped down a la Clockwork Orange while train personnel rummaged through their belongings for loose change.

So if you take the train, I advise you to spring for first class or ride with empty pockets.

Now for the highlight of the trip: the Grand Canyon.

Have I mentioned that Wifey is both afraid of heights and the official trip photographer?

The Canyon itself is spectacular, not at all diminished by the lamentable Steve Martin/Danny Glover movie of the mid-90’s. Beautiful, scenic, awe-inspiring; these are inevitably words that come up when you talk about the canyon.

My children were fascinated, however, by the tailless lizard in the parking lot and had to be drug to actually view the Canyon. After ten seconds, they were off, walking on the rock wall beside the pathway and complaining that it was too hot, too dry, and too outside.

Meanwhile, Wifey decided that the paths were only a suggestion and proceeded to place herself right at the edge of the rim to shoot pictures. Several times I saw rocks crumble beneath her feet to fall the 4,241 feet to the canyon bottom.

I alternated between being annoyed at the children and terrified that I was going to have to start dating again to find a new wife. I don’t even remember how I seduced the one I have now!

About halfway up, we were attacked by Godzilla and his family.

They came from the parking lot, and the Canyon trembled beneath their feet. It was the fattest family I have ever seen in my entire life. Dad easily tipped the scales at 400 pounds, mom a svelte 350, and the daughters went two hundred a piece. Add in fat little junior (85 pounds at four years old), and the two fatties in between, and you’ve got about a ton of family now trundling along next to us, shaking the rim and causing seismic disturbance as they pass.

Meanwhile, Wifey’s swaying precariously on the edge, trying to get “just one last shot.” The children are slipping and sliding, their footing now made precarious by the heaving earth.

I quickly realized the gravity of the situation when Wifey asked me “Did you hear that thunder?”

“It’s just a stick,” the girl said.

“No it’s not, it’s one ton of human excess rushing down atop us!” I cried. “Run for your lives!”

“Just one more photo!” Wifey said.

“Just one more lizard!” the girl said.

“I’m hungry and hot and it’s too outside and I want to be inside and I’m hungry,” the boy said.

“JUST RUN!” I insisted.

Call me alarmist, but I care about my family.

We fled to the shuttle bus, only barely making it, and caught the free shuttle back to the El Tovar hotel. There, weary but alive, we stopped to take lunch.

You want to hear something strange? Every single waiter in El Tovar is Chinese, like from Shanghai or Beijing. It’s like the Olympics came to the Grand Canyon. Should we investigate? Are the Chinese taking over the National Parks Service?

Lunch was okay, not at all worth the price. Then we boarded the train back for the hotel, tired but ultimately satisfied with our Grand Canyon experience. After all, it’s not every day that you survive a Godzilla attack!

On the way back we had two great surprises in store for us: engine trouble and the aforementioned train robbery.

The engine trouble was not expected by us, but judging from the reaction of the employees this is not a rare occurrence. That cost us about forty-five minutes, during which we sat completely still and did nothing.

It is almost as fun as it sounds.

Then, the train robbers came. And if I thought they were robotic and unentertaining before, it was only because I hadn’t seen them yet rob a train.

You know how when sometimes your lover has sex with you solely out of duty, and then halfway through realizes that it’s not very good for you when she sits there and does her nails, so she makes this totally unconvincing moan that ends up in a yawn? Those guys rob trains just like that every day.

I think they must be soulless by now, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Once we were back at the hotel, we decided that it must be time for dinner. After all, the breakfast buffet had been spectacular, so we had great hopes for the dinner buffet.

Here’s the menu, as best I remember: grilled crap, fried crap, crap on a stick, crap on crap, crap sauce, and a side helping of vegetable crap. And asparagus, which I like but gives me the wind something terrible.

Which I know from prior experience is not conducive to intimacy.

Once we’d eaten, we decided to go swimming. You’ll notice that this is a familiar theme in our vacation: eat, then go swimming. Personally, I think Wifey is hoping that swimmer’s cramp will help her cash in on my million dollar life insurance. The joke’s on her, though: I sent the girl to lifesaving classes and told her that the future of the family depends on her.

I like pressuring them young.

Anyways, there were two problems with the pool at the Grand Canyon Railway Inn: it was freakishly cold, and full of members of the underclass.

The girl dove right in and enjoyed herself. The boy decided he wanted to go to the hot tub. Wifey joined him, since there’s a real risk that he’ll drown in two feet of heated water with floaties on his arm. Plus, he loves her more and would rather have her company than mine.

So I ended up swimming in the Arctic pool with the girl. After I’d frozen my ‘nads off getting in, I discovered the second problem.

You know the people who allow their children to cannonball right next to you, pelting you with ice bits and water? And the children that kick you as they swim by, gouging your flesh with their yellowed nails, never once muttering so much as a “sorry”? Those people would have thought that the people in this pool were rude.

And yet, if I drowned them, I’d be the criminal. There is no justice in the world.

Absolutely as soon as I could, I drove the family out of the pool. Wifey informed me that, if anything, the people in the hot tub were even fouler. When I mentioned that there were no people in the hot tub when I got there, she mumbled something about the boy peeing and didn’t say anything else.

Damn, why didn’t I think of that? Just shout “jeez, I gotta pee. Ahh, that’s better!” That always buys space in a pool!

Once we were back in the room, we taught the children how to play “Pass the Pigs.” If you’ve never played it’s a delightful game where you score points based on how the two dice (shaped like pigs) land. First one to 100 wins.

I scored a 0. The boy won.

Once they were in bed, I snuggled up close to Wifey. I said, “How about that boy winning the first time he plays Pass the Pigs, huh? He sure is lucky.”

“Too bad it doesn’t run in the family.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You had asparagus. You stink. Good night.”

I will only say that I got revenge, but because this is a family blog, I will not explain how.

Okay, it’s possible that I farted and pulled the covers over her head. But that makes me sound like a member of the underclass, so let’s pretend I never told you that.

At any rate, we drifted off to sleep, our visit to the Grand Canyon a complete success and everyone glad that they came.

Tomorrow: Oh my God how far away is Carlsbad Caverns, anyways?

Long Drive Off a Short Pier

This morning began with a fight. As we were preparing for our ten-hour drive to the Grand Canyon, Wifey encountered some problems combing out the girl’s hair. In fact, she broke her favorite comb clean in half on a massive tangle.

You have to understand that Wifey has had this comb since she was a little girl. I think this comb is a family heirloom. She’d planned on handing this comb down through the generations. Now it’s garbage in the bin at Holiday Inn.

“What the hell have you been doing with her hair?” Wifey asks. “You’re supposed to be in charge of making sure that they’re clean.”

“They are clean,” I shot back. “In fact, they’re clean enough to eat off of.” To prove my point, I wiped a donut across the boy’s forehead and took a big bite.

“How is this clean?” Wifey gestured at the Gordion knot atop the girl’s head. She was now weeping big tears as Wifey fought to bring order to the rat’s nest.

“We’ve been swimming like ten times since we got to the states,” I said. “Pool water is chlorinated to kill bacteria. Ergo, the children are clean. Case closed.” And I crossed my arms to prove that fact, because everybody knows that crossed arms and Latin phrases pretty much win any argument, ipso facto.

Wifey decided to be ignorant and continue arguing. “Haven’t you been using conditioner?”

“What?”

“Con-dition-nerrrrr.” She said it like she was explaining Quantum Physics to Forrest Gump. “You have to use conditioner on her hair or it gets tangles.”

“You don’t condition,” I pointed out. “And your hair is as long as hers.”

“I do so use conditioner. Haven’t you ever noticed in the shower how I put shampoo on first, then conditioner?”

“No.”

“We shower together almost every morning, and you never noticed this? What the hell are you doing in there, then?”

“I’m usually staring at your tits.” Note to self: next time pick a less honest answer.

She glared at me for a good thirty seconds, then finally said “I can’t believe how stupid you are.”

“It’s your fault for thrusting them out like that. I swear, you’re like Jezebel in the shower or something.”

Note to self: next time simply accept accusation of stupidity.

Although I had a plethora of routes to choose from to go to the Grand Canyon, I chose to go through Mesa Verde. I have had lots of friends who have gone there to see the ancient Puebloan Indian cliff dwellings that are there, and they all tell me the same thing:

“This is really amazing. You have to go see those once in your lifetime. They are not to be missed.”

After having visited there, I can honestly say that every single one of them was absolutely incorrect and I need friends with better taste and more honesty.

First of all, I don’t believe that the area was built up by ancient Indians, because as I understand it the Casino was the main building of the Native American lifestyle, and there was absolutely none in evidence.

Second of all, these buildings are less impressive than you might believe. Maybe this is cultural bias, but mud-and-wattle is simply not as cool as stone.

Third of all, they’re built at the end of a sixty-mile long road that weaves up and down treacherous cliffs, and is so not worth the stress and Dramamine required to navigate it.

Fourth, it costs fifteen bucks to get in. Hey, I only spent nine bucks to smell the Great Fart Lake and see the psychedelic buffalo statues of Antelope Island.

Other than that, Mesa Verde is not to be missed.

As we hiked down the path to see one of these cliff dwellings, we came across three 20ish college girls hauling down a load of “restoration” stuff. Personally, I think they were expanding Mesa Verde and the whole thing is a government conspiracy to create antiquities and prevent exploration for oil and gas in the area in order to keep us dependent on Saudi Arabia.

Sorry, that just slipped out. Been watching too much late-night Public Access Cable.

Anyways, we came across these girls, and everyone in the family hiked right by them as they struggled with their giant cases. Everyone except the boy. He sensed an opportunity. Remember that he is only five.

“Hello, ladies,” he said to them. “Hot enough for you?”

They all blush at him and giggle.

“Are you scouts or something?” he asks.

“No,” said one as she giggled at him. “We’re students going to work on restoring the ancient ruins.”

He then strikes up a five minute conversation with them about what that means, at the end of which they invite him to ride up on top of the box that they’ve been struggling with, with the third one fanning him as they walk.

Do they make chastity belts for little boys?

After a few hours in the park, during which the children adopted an attitude of “what was the point of this again?” we finally left, stopping only long enough to get ice cream.

The children ordered mint chocolate chip, the foulest ice cream devised by man. It’s their mother’s influence. Everybody knows that all right-minded people eat Pralines and Cream or Cookie Dough.

If you disagree, remember that this is my blog and I will figure out how to ban you if need be.

Once we’d left Mesa Verde, we did what every single American family should do at least once in their life: we went to Four Corners.

Hey, where else can you and your 2.3 children stand each in a different state? Nowhere, that’s where. Unfortunately, Four Corners stands in Indian Territory. Specifically, it stands in the lands belonging to the Greedajo, whose ancient custom is to charge excessively for even the most mundane service.

They’ve set up a large square of stalls full of crap, which all costs about twice what it should, and for which they do not provide change. So if you want to buy a 30 cent postcard, prepare to either pay in exact change or pay a dollar. There is no middle ground.

As we stood looking at the giant seal, I decided to see if Wifey’d cooled off over the whole tangled hair incident.

“So, you wanna make it in four states?”

“Honey,” she said sweetly to me, “Maybe you’d do for Rhode Island, but these are big states. I just don’t think you’re up to it.”

Verdict: still pissed.

Whenever we travel anywhere, Wifey has to get a magnet for her sister (who has appeared here before as Sis-In-Law). We decided to look for a magnet for her at Four Corners, because it’s a noteworthy stop along the route.

We went into one of the grungy roadside stands and examined authentic Greedajo hand crafts. Apparently the main body of the Greedajo tribe lives in Thailand.

“This is outrageous!” Wifey said.

Having learned from my earlier problems, I immediately said “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”

“This magnet is five bucks!” She showed it to me.

“Inconceivable!” I pretended mock outrage. “Unconscionable! A magnet like that should cost, uh, no more than, um…what should it cost?”

“A buck ninety-nine,” she said. “Every damn magnet I’ve bought costs a buck-ninety-nine. There’s no way I’m buying this.”

“Yeah!” I said. “You go, girl!”

“Good afternoon!” said the jovial Greedajo shopkeeper. “How are you folks this afternoon?”

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Wifey said in her voice reserved for child molesters. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Yeah!” I said.

In order to break up the monotony of the drive, we’ve been playing the license plate game. This went really well, until we got to Arizona, where there are no passing lanes, and the roads are all one-lane. So we spent 6,472 miles behind the same slow truck with a bumper sticker that said “Don’t like my driving? Go fuck yourself!”

Finally, I reached a stretch where I could go past him. Wifey mooned him as we went, and he, blinded by her posterior, swerved off the road into a fiery crash.

“Good riddance,” Wifey muttered.

After longer than I care to think about, we finally arrived at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel in Williams. We turned in, all tuckered out from a long day’s drive.

Wife, perhaps aroused by the fiery crash, perhaps appreciative of me having driven the entire way, saw fit to spend quality time together that night.

Her earlier prediction proved to be inaccurate: I didn’t even live up to a tour of Vatican City, much less four whole Western states.

Tomorrow: The Grand Canyon by rail

An After-School Pool

On day six of our vacation, both Wifey and I had great things planned. I was going to go do some work, and she was going to take the children back-to-school shopping. Because nothing says vacation like work and school.

I could tell that it was going to be “one of those days” when, as we sat eating breakfast and watching PBS, I saw the bowdlerized piece of crap that they were passing off as Rumplestiltskin.

The show was some fairy-tale based piece of garbage to help kids with their reading. And the fairy tale that they’d chosen to use today was Rumplestiltskin. At least, that was the title; the story itself shared no other semblance to the classic tale of an angry dwarf and attempted child abduction.

Oh, sure, there was straw into gold, but other than that the stories were totally dissimilar. Rumpy ended up in one piece, for example, and there was no baby abduction or wicked pagan rituals by firelight.

And without all that, what’s the point? If you can’t count on a Grimm fairy tale for violence, then the commies have already won.

The school shopping went well, I suppose, even though by the end of the day I think she was well and truly tired of them. The girl doesn’t like shopping at all, and so chooses the first thing she comes across and then vigorously defends her right to have it until forcibly separated from it.

The boy takes a different tack: he searches an exorbitant amount of time, until finally he finds the cheapest and least functional item of the group, then decides on that. Backpack made of crepe paper? Sold!

Needless to say, this often creates friction with their mother, who for reasons unknown to me demands that they select quality apparel that will last a whole year that is functional.

If it were up to me I’d send them to school in sacks with plastic bags on their feet. Now that’s recycling!

Once we were all back together, the vacation had officially begun, since there were no more work obligations to fulfill. To celebrate, we allowed the children to choose dinner. They, of course, chose Burger King in order to get more damned Pokemon cards. I offered them twenty bucks each to go somewhere else, but they refused.

What is that school teaching them, anyways, that they can’t be bribed?

At Burger King, while they were in the playland a strange man approached them and offered to give them what was in his pockets. They, being well-schooled not to talk to strangers and warned to be suspicious of any men who speak to them in a public place, immediately thrust their hands into his pockets, real deep just like he’d asked.

Turns out he had the Pokecards from his children, who were too young to yet be addicted to the vile substance. So they not only got theirs, but they got the cards from two other children as well.

A debate ensued as to the best way to thank the mysterious man, either via “a thousand hugs and kisses” to “nothing at all.” He accepted a simple thanks and was on his way.

Oh, sure, he gives away crap he doesn’t want and I have to be thankful to him? Screw that. I threw a rock at his car as he left.

After dinner, in order to top off the perfect first evening of vacation, my children insisted that we needed to go swimming in the postage-stamp pool. I could hardly refuse, since it was right outside our room and had only one person swimming in it, a boy about thirteen years old.

So we went swimming, even though it was past their bedtime.

I’ve created a game to play with my children when we swim. I pick them way up out of the water and I yell “Who’s the baddest?”

If they yell “Sho’nuff!” then I throw them into the water.

If they yell anything else, then I throw them into the water.

It’s great fun for me, now that Wifey has promised me that the next time I pull down her suit I’ll be pissing out a tube for a month. And the girl loves it. They boy, however, is less of a fan.

So I had tossed him once or twice, and he decided to get out of the pool and go stick his feet in the hot tub, where the teenager was taking a break from swimming.

“I got problems, man,” the boy said. “Dad problems.”

He proceeds to lay out his tale of woe: dad is always throwing him in the pool, dunking him, and almost drowning him. Turns out that I’m like Hitler-dad, according to the boy.

Well, eventually the teenager decides to come swim some more.

“What was he complaining about?” I ask the kid.

“He was saying that you throw him too much,” Sad Boy says. “I told him that when he’s older he’ll wish that his dad would throw him in the pool. My dad doesn’t like to swim.”

That’s when I look around and realize that Sad Boy is all by himself: no parents, guardians, or caregivers have accompanied him to the pool.

I almost cried. It was like living in an After-School special. Here’s poor little Sad Boy, all alone in the postage-stamp pool, while this other kid is complaining that dad plays with him too much.

So we played with Sad Boy, and when we left the pool, he left too, probably to go cry himself to sleep after a meal of gruel and fish heads.

Not the most uplifting experience of our vacation.

Finally, with the kids tucked into bed and everything ready to go the next morning, I lay down next to Wifey for some quality time.

“So,” I asked. “How’s your vacation going?”

“It hasn’t really started yet,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I had to take them school shopping,” Wifey said. “I have been running you back and forth to work, and I don’t know where the hell anything is. How is that vacation for me?”

“I suppose it’s right out of the question that you’re amorous?”

“Good night,” she said.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been enjoying my vacation for almost a week.”

Wifey rolled away from me. “Then your hand should be plenty amorous enough for your needs. Good night.”

I certainly hope that tomorrow is better.

Tomorrow: A long drive to the Grand Canyon.

Jurassic Building Code Violations

Today was going to be the real test of whether or not this whole “drive across America” was a good vacation idea. We had a 5 ½ hour drive, and during this we’d get to see how the children reacted to being cooped up in the car for that long.

Of course, if they went berserk we still had about 600 hours of driving ahead of us until we got to our destination, so the only difference would be that we’d know just how screwed we really were.

In order to get them tired out before we left, we went swimming one last time in the really boss hotel pool. The best part about swimming at 8 in the morning on a weekday is that most people have respectable jobs, so we had it all to ourselves. The only part that kind of creeped out Wifey is that the bay windows of the pool are in front of the restaurant, so everybody coming and going for breakfast saw us cavorting in the pool.

Despite this we managed to have a rip-roaring good time. In the tradition of great swimming pool pranks, I “accidentally” pulled Wifey’s one-piece suit down around her waist. That was a really good larf, until she figured out how to throw the Toypedo through the water just right and hit me in the nuts.

Thankfully the girl is a strong enough swimmer to fish me out of the water.

Anyhow, we started on our long odyssey to reach the last stop where I had to do a little work. And by “little” I mean “just enough to qualify putting the hotel on an expense account.” But I’d come up with a coup d’etat: a stop at Dinosaur National Monument. My kids, like all normal children, love dinosaurs.

(If you have a child between the ages of 2 and 10 that does not love dinosaurs, I regret to inform you that they are potentially a serial killer or lawyer. You’d really be doing the world a favor having them institutionalized.)

So we set off on the way, happy as could be. If you know the area, you are aware that the road waves up and down mountains as it goes from an elevation of 6000 feet to 8500 feet, and that there are several stretches where there are 10 to 12 switchbacks going almost vertically.

It was in just one of these places that Wifey gasped in horror and said “that truck is on fire!”

“Cool!” I began scanning the mirror for it. “Get the camera and I’ll slow down so you can take a picture of it!”

“Daddy, that truck is smoking!” Yelled the girl.

I still didn’t see it. “Where, honey?”

“RAM IT!” Yelled the boy. This is the moment I realized that perhaps the truck might be in front of us.

“We’re going to die!” yelled Wifey.

“Our father, who art in heaven…” began the girl.

“RAM IT!” the boy repeated.

I looked up to see a fireball with a bumper hurtling towards me. Now is the time in most blogs where the writer will tell you some sort of lie, like he swerved to narrowly avoid a crash, or that he jumped over to the truck and saved thousands of lives by applying a manual break.

I soiled myself.

Not just a little bit, either. It was like being on Antelope Island all over again. And I didn’t hardly dodge or anything, I just kept driving towards flaming doom like a lemming.

Fortunately, I’ve always been lucky, and before it crashed into us the truck swerved past and came to a stop. I’d have pulled over and helped, but quite frankly, I didn’t realize we’d survived until another ten minutes had passed. I had my eyes closed.

“You want to steer any time soon?” Wifey grunted at me.

“After I change my pants.”

The rest of the drive went pretty smoothly, until we’d gotten to Dinosaur National Monument.

If you’ve never been, let me tell you what’s there: several loop drives that are so boring that cars habitually careen into the river when the driver falls asleep, and the coolest visitor center in the entire National Parks Service. It’s full of dinosaur skeletons and replica models and fascinating exhibits about what has been found in the area.

I’d been hyping it to my children for months.

When we got to the visitor center, there was a handwritten sign on it that said: “Klosinged for re-pair.”

There was a much larger red-and-black sign that read CONDEMNED.

Turns out the visitor center has been closed for two-and-a-half years because it’s so dilapidated that there’s a good chance a girder will fall down and kill you before you get halfway to the T-Rex skeleton.

But don’t worry, there’s a temporary visitor center set up with several dinosaur-themed exhibits on folding tables, like a Barney video and several working Dino-Bots from the Transformers of the mid-80’s.

Let me tell you, my children were not pleased with me when we got back into the car. Combine that with the near-death experience and so far we were not having a good day.

It would not improve.

For lunch the children insisted on Burger King, where the toy in the kid’s meal is Pokemon cards. These things are like crack for the 5-12 set, and my children can’t get enough of them. So we stopped and had Burger King to try to win back some of their love.

The ironic part is that none of us like the food there.

Several hours later, as we cruised along, the boy let us know he had to go potty. As you can imagine, out in BFE between two tiny towns there isn’t a lot in the way of roadside service, but I burned rubber and made it to a rest stop within five minutes.

“Come on, let’s go!” I yelled as I opened the door.

“Too late,” he said. “I already went.”

Sure enough, he was soaked. It was a nightmare. “What were you thinking?” I asked him.

“I was thinking about the truck that almost killed us,” he said. “Just like you were.”

What could I say to that?

Finally, we made it to our destination, and discovered that everyone in town had decided to stay at the same Holiday Inn as us. Okay, no problems: a ten-minute wait in line is nothing for people who have experienced grocery shopping in Europe.

I’ve stayed at this hotel before, and I swear in the past it didn’t have a swimming pool the size of a postage stamp. Yet either my memory is faulty, or they cemented in part of the pool and made it smaller.

I’m gonna guess it’s the second.

For dinner we treated ourselves to Outback Steak House, with the children accusing us of not loving them since we didn’t go to Burger King again. Forget the war on drugs; there needs to be a war on Pokemon.

So today was really more unsuccessful than anything else. And Wifey is particularly upset about all the urine-soaked clothing.

Tomorrow: Somebody needs a hug.