I always get jealous of my kids this time of year. They are off to school and have all kinds of new stuff start in their lives. New classes, new teachers, new sports, new friends. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of adulthood, I still get up every morning and go do what I do every stinking day. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing offering much of a reason to get out of stinking bed.
“Oh, wait,” says the tiny little voice of optimism that reaches out from the deep recesses of my small mind. “Maybe you’ll make some new friends today!”
“Yeah,” I remind that stinking voice, “I work in tech support. I may meet a new person who is all pissed off because his or her Internet isn’t working. Sounds like fun.”
“Uh… well… they’ll be happy if you help them with their problem,” says the diminishing voice.
“Because I did what I am paid to do,” I replied. “They aren’t going to want to invite me and the family over for supper because I did my job.”
“… well… you, uh… sometimes, you’re coworkers are fun to be around,” squeaks the voice.
“Yeah, maybe today someone will come up with a new and exciting excuse to call in and not be able to come to work, and I can stress out (because everything stresses me out) trying to figure out how to reschedule stuff or make up for the work that coworker was supposed to do,” I tell the voice.
“You’re hopeless,” says the voice as it crawls back into the murk of my mind, hidden from all conscious thought… just where I like it.
Other than the weekends and the occasional scheduled vacation, I don’t find myself looking forward to too much during the course of any given day. Sometimes, I’m gifted a sporting event or a musical performance in the evening that makes the latter-half of a work day go by a little quicker. Usually, though, life is routine. For the kids, their lives are pretty routine as well, but their routines change from year to year and from season to season. Life as an adult can be… well… pretty mundane. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only adult who feels this way. I know this is one of the main reasons why I have changed jobs so many times: just to break up the mundane. I also have a feeling this is why American Idol and Monday Night Football are so popular: most of us just don’t know how to find excitement in our lives, so we settle for the faux-excitement of vesting our emotions in the efforts of someone who is actually living what we perceive to be the excitement. And for many of us, even most of the stuff we look forward to isn’t really so much about us as it is about our kids. Going to a kid’s baseball game or a kid’s soccer tournament or a kid’s piano recital. Once you’re old, you start to realize why people live vicariously through their children — because the life of an adult kinda sucks. All the good stuff happens to the young. Even the Bible agrees with me:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’ ”— (Ecclesiastes 12-1)
Old age is the days of trouble when no pleasure is to be found.
So, in an effort to add something interesting to the monotony of adulthood, I decided this year to get myself a small game hunting license. As a kid, I used to hunt all the time. I grew up out in the country, and all of my friends lived in town, so I’d find myself on almost any given day out in the fields near our house shooting stuff. I’d shoot rabbits and snakes and all kinds of critters. As I grew older, I tried to shoot only things that could be utilized. I’d kill jackrabbits and feed them to our dogs. My blue healers loved fresh rabbit and weren’t quite fast enough to catch them on their own. I’d kill cottontails and make my mom cook them (which happened about twice before she said “no more”), and then I learned to make the best rabbit jerky in the world. I’d hunt sage grouse and pheasant and deer (all during the correct season, of course). I enjoyed hunting, and I haven’t hunted since I moved to the No-Hunting-or-Trespassing capital of the United States — Nebraska.
I’ve scoped out a few of the extremely small public areas around the panhandle where hunting is allowed, and I plan on killing some stuff. I plan on getting some rabbits and some squirrels and some doves and some crow and maybe even a pigeon or two and I’m going to eat them. I got a smoker a couple of years ago for Father’s Day, and I’ve learned that EVERYTHING is good smoked. Heck, if I run into any rattlesnakes or big old bull snakes, I may even throw them on the smoker.
The wife is, of course, disgusted with my plan, and the boys are terrified. But, by golly, I’m gonna start filling our freezer with numerous small, rodent-like creatures. I need to go back and re-hone my skills at being able to provide for my family with my own hands and some of the firearms collecting dust in the closet. I need to reconnect with my primal self. I need to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse.
… I need to find something more exciting than the anticipation of Sunday’s new Robot Chicken episode to look forward to each week…
Well, it’s that time of year again. Although the actual season doesn’t end for well over a month, what we often think of as summer is drawing to a close. It’s sad.
It’s not sad that the extreme heat of summer will soon turn to the frigid cold of winter. I love the cold.
It’s not sad that my boys will continue in the educational process. The sooner they get through school, the sooner they gain skills that will enable them to surpass their lame father in a meaningful career… outside of the panhandle. I don’t want to wish away their childhoods, and I do not look forward to the day when they leave home to start lives on their own (along with my wife, my sons are really the only friends I have here in Huskerland… because I’m kinda pathetic… and people don’t really seem to be drawn to my vibrant personality… but whatever). The sooner they move away from the panhandle, the sooner the wife and I can get the hell out of here and I can figure out what I’m going to do with my life. I’ll only be like 52 — that’s young, right? Yeah, I’m delusional…
Soon, every night will once again be filled with one kid’s or the other’s activities. The peace and quiet, the time to collect one’s thoughts, the fun family time — they are all about to go out the window, and I’m not looking forward to it.
This year, the oldest boy enters high school. The wife was looking through the pile of crap that the school sends out with all of the rules and suggestions and whatnot. There was a flyer for the high school’s booster club in the mix.
“Huh,” said the wife, ” that sounds kind of fun.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind getting involved with something like that.”
“Oh, never mind,” said the wife as she read the flyer over.
“What?” I asked.
“Never mind,” said the wife, “you’re not going to want to do it.”
“Why?” I asked.
The wife just looked at me, and I suspect that she may have been trying to come up with a lie. She ended up telling me the truth.
“They charge $25 to be a member of the booster club,” she finally admitted.
“They charge you $25 to volunteer your time?” I asked. I should have been incredulous at this point, but life has taught me that most things make absolutely no sense, and much of what life offers seems to have been created exclusively to piss me off.
“See,” said the wife, “I knew you’d get upset.” She knows me well.
“Guess they charge $25 to keep out the riff raff,” I said. “Looks like it’s working… ’cause they’re keeping me out. All of those doctor’s wives and lawyer’s wives can handle it just fine on their own.”
“It’s twenty-five dollars,” said the wife. “It’s not exactly country club membership pricing.”
“Yeah, twenty-five bucks is like twenty percent of our weekly grocery budget,” I said. “They want our kids to starve so we can volunteer for the booster club?”
“I don’t think the boys will starve over twenty-five dollars,” said the wife.
“Well, they could!” I shouted, and the wife just walked away. Apparently she doesn’t love our boys as much as I do…
Oh summer, how I will miss you. I wish the fun and relaxation you offer could be found all year round… but with colder temperatures. I am, however, a little excited about the whole “high school” thing. Just from the intro packet that the school gave out, I can already tell that I am going to find a whole new world of stuff to piss me off and to bitch about in a very short period of time…
Every year during Oregon Trail Days, the illustrious City of Gering hosts the renowned International Food Fair. This is a one night only event that many locals look forward to from the moment the festivities end one year to the moment they begin again the following year. I mean, come on! Having some cultural diversity in downtown Gering is a great thing, right?
The entire downtown area is closed off and vendors representing food from all over the “world” set-up shop to bask the attendees in the glow of multicultural cuisine! Now, to be honest, I haven’t been to this event very often, because long lines amongst throngs of people waiting to overpay for food isn’t my idea of a good time. Last time me and my oldest boy tried going down there (several years ago), I ended up getting pissed at the long lines and we walked down to McDonald’s and got ourselves some international Big Macs… they’re Scandinavian, right? This year, however, the wife’s and my nieces were visiting from Denver for a week, and we’d run out of things to entertain them with here in the panhandle (surprise!)… so we decided we’d all treat ourselves to some international fare.
We arrived and scoped the place out. I’m thinking maybe some Middle Eastern curry may be in order, or perhaps some Jamaican jerk. If worse comes to worst, I always like a good gyro. And then I notice what kinds of “international” treats are available at the food fair…
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Alright! The Chinese place in downtown Gering set up a booth selling — Chinese! Our journey through a smorgasbord of foods from around the world has begun…
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Okay, we have us some Mexican. What else we got…
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… alrighty, we have us another Mexican burrito place. Next…
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… uh… I’m starting to see a trend develop here. So far, we got us some Chinese and lots of Mexican. What else do we have? Out of the corner of my I, I spied something “Italian”, so I go to check it out…
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… so, looks like an Italian sub is the country of Italy’s submission to the International Food Fair. I’m kind of suspecting the people who ran this booth hadn’t actually ever been to Italy, but at least it’s not another burrito place.
The panhandle of Nebraska is filled with Germans. I started looking for some of that traditional German fare, and I wasn’t disappointed…
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… or was I? Germans in this area are big lovers of garlic sausage, which is kind of like brautwurst, but garlic-ier. I found no garlic sausage, I found no sauerbrauten, and there wasn’t a spätzle or knödel in sight. But there were brats. I don’t know how well this booth represented Germany, but it reminded me that I kinda miss those tailgate parties from my college days. Maybe there was a different German booth…
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… or not. Looks like brats are as German as this International Food Fair was going to get. This booth also introduced the famous “pulled pork sandwich”, which I believe comes from Ethiopia. No, wait a second, I’m thinking of kitfo. Pulled pork is… uh… pretty much an American barbecue thing. Well, American is part of the International community, so American fare at one booth isn’t bad, right?
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… oh, for the love of…
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… I give up. The International Fare at this food fair seems to be a Chinese place and a bunch of places selling Mexican and American food (with the occasional brat thrown in for good measure, and an Italian sub). At least this place from the Sandhills of Nebraska make their sign interesting by trying to disguise their weaseliness. Notice how they have a “meal” price of $8.00. The meal includes a sandwich and a water or Powerade. Notice how a sandwich alone is $7.00… and a water alone is $1.00. That isn’t even a combo meal… that’s just them adding the prices conveniently together for you and making it look like you’re getting a deal. I will give them credit for knocking a buck off if you go with the Powerade option, but I deduct credit for a “Philly”-style sandwich having American cheese. Either throw some provolone on it, drench it in Cheez Whiz, or take “Philly” out of the name. I do love how they state they raise their own beef, and how there is “No mystery meat here, folks!” I thought this was hilarious… I don’t think the people at the Chinese place felt the same…
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Now this place has it going on. They have the “Mexican” nachos, the Pennsylvania Dutch funnel cake, and the fries from the country of Ribbononia. And they have Indian tacos, which are, of course, associated with the Navajo Nation… which I count as American, but you can count it however you want.
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This one is kind of hard to read, but it's Indian Tacos for $6.50 and drinks for $1.00... and the unadvertised meal-deal of a taco and a drink for $7.50.
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.Got nothing for this one, but I took the picture, so here it is. Julie's Antiques has some cool stuff, so I recommend checking it out...
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There were other booths at this food fair, but they all served pretty much the same or similar things. There were some awesome boy scouts selling Pizza Hut pizza, but anyone who claims that Pizza Hut is anything other than Americanized pizza is dented and shouldn’t be listened to anyway. So, my oldest boy and I got Indian Tacos and the rest of the crew got Chinese. I think the whole experience set us back only a couple hundred bucks, and I was once again reminded why I don’t usually go to the International Food Fair in Gering, NE. The concept is great, but the delivery (or offering) is severely lacking. Gering’s International Food Fair hosts pretty much the same food you get at a normal fair, but offers the disappointment of being mislead about the whole “International” thing…
As I was writing my rants about my family’s vacation to Omaha this summer, I was posting links to the posts on my Facebook page. One of my friends mockingly challenged me to write a list of 20 POSITIVE things about our trip to eastern Nebraska. It’s like she doesn’t even know me… and we’re friends on Facebook! How could she not know me? Well, then another Facebook friend piped-up and said that she too would like to see me make a positive list.
Seriously?
Who do these people think I am? Tony Robbins?
Well, the first friend who made the insane comment about my need to do this positive list ended her comment with, “I know you can do it!!!” She really did use the exclamation points — three of them — kind of like a mother encouraging her little boy to make poopie on the potty. My Facebook friends love and respect me so much…
Well, I actually started thinking about trying to poop on that potty. You know, go against the grain of everything I believe in and actually come up with a list of crap that is positive. I wasn’t planning on limiting it to the vacation in Omaha, either. I was planning on trying to scrounge up 20 things in the panhandle of Nebraska that add some sort of pleasure and/or meaning to my life. I hadn’t even really started thinking about the 20 things yet, just the fact that I was going to try to come up with 20 things, and my head was already staring to throb.
Okay, so I thought about the church I attend. Following is the attempt I made at listing the church…
1. I go to a good church. The people are all pretty non-hypocritical, the pastor really knows the bible, and the family and I all feel pretty welcomed there. The music is all pretty old-school hymns and whatnot, which I don’t really care for, and there are no drums or guitars or synthesizers or anything. We say the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed during every service, which seems a little ceremonial to me, and I’m not a big believer in religious ceremony. And did I even mention the old people always complaining about the temperature in the sanctuary! For crying out loud, it’s always 150 degrees in there because grandma is a little chilly and had to complain to one of the deacons! AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE RUDE DEACONS…
… and then I realized that this wasn’t probably even really close to what my Facebook friends were looking for as far as positive goes, so I decided to skip mentioning my church. I thought I should try something else. At this point, my head has moved beyond throbbing and is more in the solar flare category.
1. There are good schools here. Well, the schools are okay. There are some issues with the schools here. Scottsbluff Public Schools used to have a strong HALS (high ability learners) program, but the new superintendent of schools put the kibosh to that program and replaced it with some program that he had “great success” with back in Colorado. The new program involves hours and hours and hours of extra homework for the students… and the student’s parents. Good call, superintendent. I have tried taking advantage of some of the offerings at the local community college. At one point, when I was really feeling like I wasn’t supposed to be doing what I was doing for a job, I took one of those tests through the college that are supposed to tell you what you would be good at based on your personality and skills. Well, I paid like fifty bucks to find out that my calling is to be a file clerk. A FLIPPING FILE CLERK! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SUPPORT A FAMILY ON THE EARNINGS OF A STINKING FILE CLERK…
And, once again, I got off topic. Being positive is hard. Being negative seems natural to me. I enjoy writing about stuff that pisses me off. Writing about positive stuff is boring and I don’t enjoy it at all. Writing about negative stuff is easy and fun. Writing about positive stuffs sucks. Writing about negative stuff is like a hobby. Writing about positive stuff is like work… and I like to get paid for work… so I don’t think I will be trying to write too much more positive stuff. I can’t handle the headaches.
Besides, there are plenty of positive people blogging about the panhandle of Nebraska. There aren’t too many of us who show the other side (and I know that not everyone loves life here, so I have an audience). Want something positive? Try:
These are just a small sampling of the many blogs about how great life is in rural Nebraska. These are usually written by women, and the women are usually either avid photographers or very artsy-craftsy (i.e. have talent of some sort). More power too ’em. I don’t know how me struggling to write positive crap about life in rural Nebraska would fit in with these fine bloggers. Positive just isn’t my thing. Besides, I kind of like people being able to find my blog. Do a Google search for “Scottsbluff, NE” or “rural Nebraska”. You won’t find any blogs on the first page of these searches.
Now, try Googling “Scottsbluff, NE sucks”.
Go ahead… Google it… or use Yahoo… or Bing…
That’s right, baby!
Looks like I might know which pot I’m supposed to be pooping on…
Our final day in Omaha was capped with another night in the camper. This was kind of sad, because we knew that our vacation was slowly coming to an end.
Day five was to be our shopping day, so we hitched up the camper, left Mahoney, and drove to a mall in Lincoln. We ate lunch at the mall food court (so everyone could get what they wanted… my family all got Chinese and I got a gyro). We spent a few hours doing some back-to-school shopping, and then we decided we better head for our next destination.
The plan was to camp at Johnson Lake south of Lexington, but they wouldn’t let me make a reservation because we were just staying for one night. They only make reservations for two nights on the weekends, so I wanted to get there before dark in case we needed to hunt down another camping spot for the night.
We swung into Grand Island to search for some place for supper. I spotted the billboard for USA Steak Buffet and remembered seeing that billboard on other visits to Grand Island.
“Hey, let’s go to USA Steak Buffet,” I said.
So, immediately, the oldest son starts looking at reviews on the wife’s smart phone. Needless to say, the reviews aren’t good.
“Uh, Dad, the reviews suck,” said the boy.
“Oh, you can’t always trust the reviews,” I said, thinking about how a really crappy dining experience would make for a humorous addition to my blog. “I think we should try it anyway.”
“Dad, look at these reviews,” said the boy. So I looked:
A Google Userreviewed 5 months ago
Overall0/ 3
This place sucks. Way over priced. Found hairs in the food. Tiny steaks. Do not come here.
A Google Userreviewed 11 months ago
Overall0/ 3
Waaaaaay over priced for what you get. Steaks are small and chewy. Family of give can’t go without paying over 60 bucks. Everytime you back, the price goes up. No group rates either… All you get for a group of 10 or more is 10% gratuity added to your bill. Poor value.
Liked: Food
Disliked: Service, Atmosphere, Value
A Google Userreviewed 4 months ago
Overall0/ 3
Way over priced for a not so great buffet
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“Oh, come on,” I said, “that’s only three reviews. If it was that bad, there would be more.”
“But, Dad, the one dude found a hair,” said the boy, and I knew I was fighting a losing battle. There was no way I was going to be able to talk the entire family into eating crappy food just for the sake of my blog, so we pulled in beside Olive Garden.
Olive Garden is not even close to one of my favorite places to eat, but the wife loves it and the boys don’t mind it, so I thought we’d give it a shot. There was, however, like a 40 minute wait to get in, so we turned right back around and headed to Buffalo Wild Wings across the parking lot.
There was no wait to get in at Buffalo Wild Wings, and there was no hair in our food. I really don’t have anything interesting to write, but I’m almost positive that USA Steak Buffet would have given me something to complain about. But, sometimes you have to take one for the team at the expense of something to bitch about in a blog. Although… this was only the second time I had ever been to a Buffalo Wild Wings, and I can honestly state that they are the noisiest restaurants on the face of the planet. Apparently they are where you are supposed to take people you don’t actually like and want to talk to, because carrying on a conversation in a Buffalo Wild Wings is nearly impossible… especially if you are old and can’t hear very well in the first place. Also, who in the hell came up with the idea of frying a part of a chicken that used to be disposable (because it’s almost all fat and no meat), covering it with a spicy sauce, and charging caviar prices for it? That person should be shot. Seriously, the prices for chicken wings are absolutely dented! I guess if I think about it long enough, I could come up with a bitch about most anything…
So we eat and we drive and we drive and we drive and, before you know it, it’s dark. We turn off at Lexington and try to find this state park that we’ve never been to — in the dark.
“We are so screwed,” I informed the family.
“Why?” asked the wife.
“I bet we get there and they have no open spots,” I said.
“What makes you think that?” asked the wife.
“Because that’s just my luck,” I said. “Then, we’ll be driving around in the dark trying to find some place to spend the night.”
“If worse comes to worst, we can always get a hotel,” says the wife. “You need to try to see the bright side of things.”
“There won’t be any open hotel rooms and we’ll end up parked in a rest area,” I said. “So we’ll crawl into the hot camper with no air conditioning. Then, a serial killer who frequents rest areas will find us and he’ll be all It’s like Christmas, time to open the present. Then he’ll tear off the camper door and shiv us all to death as we groggily try to figure out what in the hell is going on. It’s gonna be horrible.”
“Please don’t talk like that in front of the boys,” said the wife. I glanced at the boys, and they did look a little peaked. “That is never going to happen.”
“Mommy…” said the youngest boy, tears welling up in his terrified eyes, “are we going to die tonight?”
“Of course not,” said the wife, “you’re father is just an idiot tonight.”
So, we finally find the campground and they have an opening. Lucky for us, ’cause I’m pretty sure there was a serial killer with our names on the dull blade of his near-blunt object waiting for us at a rest area.
We wake up the next day and I take the boys out geocaching for the morning while the wife enjoys a relaxing shower back at camp. Geocaching is kind of geeky, but it is cheap fun, which is important when you are on a poor man’s camping vacation. We find a few caches, and we head back to grab the wife and then drive into Lexington for lunch.
I had never really been through Lexington before, and I was a little shocked at the town. There is literally a Mexican restaurant on every corner… and there are a lot of corners. Before we got into town, we passed a Tyson foods processing plant, which I’m assuming is the employer in Lexington. And apparently Tyson processing plants attract a lot of non-English speaking minorities. In addition to the Mexican restaurants, we passed two Islamic centers… in Nebraska?!? Who’d a thunk it?!?
So we settle on one of the Mexican places that has “buffet” in the window, ’cause we all like a good buffet (unless the reviews mention hair in the food, apparently). On this whole trip, I really didn’t take any pictures for the blog because, well, I’m kind of an idiot. However, Restaurant La Hacienda was so cool that I actually thought to get out my phone and snap a couple of pictures.
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See, Restaurant La Hacienda actually serves what I think is probably authentic Mexican food. Scottsbluff touts it’s plethora of authentic Mexican restaurants, and people who move away always clamor about how they miss the authentic Mexican food in Scottsbluff. Authentic in Scottsbluff means fried tacos. A flour tortilla filled with beef taco meat and fried in fat to make the tortilla look like a corn taco shell like you buy at the store. Then the cheese and lettuce and tomatoes are added, and that is authentic Mexican. Don’t get me wrong, I love fried tacos (anything dripping with grease has got to be good, right?), I just don’t really imagine a lot of Mexicans in Mexico eating these on a regular basis. I have a feeling fried tacos are a little more Tex Mex than they are Mexican…
So, anyway, at Restaurant La Hacienda, there was not a staff member (including our waitress) who spoke fluent English. How awesome is that? The small buffet was filled with things that were unrecognizable to me. Different meats in sauces, for the most part, with the obligatory beans and rice. The thing is, this wasn’t ground beef like in the fried tacos of Scottsbluff. These were chunks of inexpensive meat filled with fat and gristle, but they were cooked for so long that the pieces of meat literally fell apart in my mouth. An full of flavor? Of course they were. This is the kind of food I suspect the majority of Mexicans in Mexico eat — inexpensive, flavorful, fattening, and just down right delicious.
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This was soooo much better tasting than it looks...
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My favorite dish was the most bizarre (in American terms). If was like strips of pork fat cooked on a tomatillo sauce. The fat reminded my of pork rinds (same flavor, but mushy instead of crispy). It was absolutely to die for (and I’m sure my cholesterol levels after eating it had me near death).
And of course, there was flan for dessert. There is nothing on this planet that is more heavenly than flan done right… and this flan was done right.
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The above tray was actually full until I came across it. The Mexicans (I don’t think there was an English-speaking person in the place, staff or customer) looked at me like I was some kind of deranged, gluttonous gordo blanco… which I was. The Cheesecake Factory can kiss Resaturant La Hacienda’s hiney!
So, after our fattening, delicious meal (if you’re ever in Lexington, check Restaurant La Hacienda out!), we headed back to Johnnson Lake, loaded up the camper, and headed for home. We did a little more geocaching along the way. We stopped in Ogallala so the family could get some supper (I had overdone it for lunch and didn’t need any further fuel for the machine… plus, good Mexican food gives one gas, and I was so full of gas, I had no room for more food).
Our final leg put us getting into Scottsbluff/Gering about 8:30 pm on day 6, and we had to get our dog from the boarding house before 9:00 pm, so we were right on track. And then we get to the first set of railroad tracks in Gering… and we get stopped by a train. The train passes, and we get to the first set of railroad tracks in Scottsbluff… and we get stopped by another train. We get our beagle (who was intensely happy to see us 🙂 ), and we head for our house… only to get stopped by one final stinking stupid train… and I was reminded of one of the many reasons I need to get out of this area once in awhile. In fact, after the three back-to-back train delays, I was already ready for another vacation…
After our fun-filled day at the Henry Doorly Zoo and the disaster at the Cheesecake Factory, we drove back to Mahoney State park and our camper for another good night of sleep. So far, our family’s summer vacation was getting off with mixed reviews. The wife and two boys were having a blast. I was having a moderately good time, but the stupid apple cider incident at the Cheesecake Factory had left a bad taste in my mouth (which I’m sure a refill of apple cider would have washed away).
Day three of the vacation was designated as our day to spend in the state park. Just a day to relax and maybe enjoy the park’s water park. We actually slept in this day, which was nice. After a late lunch at the camper, we donned our swimming attire and drove to the pool.
Mahoney State Park has a very nice water park/pool. We actually spent most of the day there, and we all got a little sunburned. There was a crowded wave pool, a kiddie area, a diving board and like three decent water slides. All of the areas were fun, but I learned to hate people on tubes. The wave pool was a blast when you weren’t dodging some idiot on a tube, and I can’t count the number of times I had some tubed jerkwad’s feet in my face. Apparently, when you are on a tube, you don’t have to display common courtesy to anyone. Everyone else is responsible for getting out of your way. Guess I should have forked over a few bucks and rented a tube myself so I could have been a rude jerkwad.
After a cooling day at the pool, we retreated to the camper and enjoyed another camper meal. In the evening, we played a round of mini golf (which is the only kind of golf non-rich people play). Earlier in the day, a group of college-aged kids walked by our campsite with golf bags on their shoulders, obviously on there way to the driving range.
“There go the rich kids,” I snarled as they sauntered past.
“How do you know they are rich?” asked the wife.
“Because they’re carrying golf clubs,” I pointed out.
“They look like college kids, and they are camping, so I doubt they are rich,” said the wife.
“Yeah, whatever… it is obvious they have rich parents,” I said.
“How can you know that?” asked the wife.
“Because they play golf,” I stated. Sometimes I just don’t understand the wife’s naiveté.
“And we’re camping, and we don’t golf, thus we are poor?” asks the wife.
“You’re starting to catch on,” I said, smiling with the knowledge that the wife was grasping a major life lesson. Apparently, she rolls her eyes as she learns…
Another night in the camper was followed by our fourth day of vacation. This day was another to be spent in Omaha. After a light lunch at camp, we drove back in to Omaha and straight to Fun-Plex. Fun-Plex is a small amusement park with both amusement park rides and a small water park. It was so stinking hot that we tried to include some form of water activity on any day we actually spent a considerable amount of time outside. Even the zoo had water misters placed conveniently throughout.
Fun-Plex was pretty okay. We bumper boated and roller coasted and tilt-o-whirled and go carted before the heat started to get to us and we retreated to the water park. The water was a little dirtier here than at Mahoney, and the waves in the wave pool weren’t quite as ferocious, but there were just as many little old men and fat ladies in tubes sticking their feet in my face. Again, there were also slides, and a nice “lazy river” that was fun to swim in.
Two days in a bathing suit surrounded by young people in bathing suits made me realize something: I am old and fat… and I’m not too certain I was ever anything different!
I’ve always been a fatty, and I don’t remember ever hanging out with shapely people at a pool anywhere. I think that’s because the shapely people all hang out with other shapely people, and they leave us fatties to ourselves. It’s almost a form of discrimination, I think. I’d see a bunch of shapely girls in bikinis walk by with a group of muscular young men, and then I’d see two fat kids walk by the other direction. And it’s kind of funny, ’cause the skinny people are always looking around and laughing and talking, while the fat people pretty much just stare at the ground. I would probably have other observations about how the skinny people discriminate against (and have more fun than) the fat people, but I spent a lot of time looking at the ground, so I’m sure I missed a lot.
Young people upset me. Especially young, fit people. Even my own kids are often the objects of my jealousy. Both of my boys are relatively fit and healthy. They are also pretty smart, and they aren’t ugly. Because of their fitness and intelligence, I’m sure they will have an advantage in life that my ugly fat belly and ignorance didn’t permit. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want the best for them. I want them to be successful and happy with whatever they decide to do with their lives. I just wish that I would have been given the advantages of fitness and good looks and intelligence (or at least one of them), but apparently God wanted to put some hurdles in front of me to develop some sort of character trait that I wouldn’t have found if things had been easier for me. I’m sure God is now shaking His head as He realizes that I don’t learn from obstacles (I retreat like a Frenchman), but I think He’s still working with me….
So, after a fun yet somewhat degrading day at Fun-Plex, we let the youngest boy decide on what kind of restaurant to go to for supper. The youngest loves Chinese and Mexican, but he settled on Mexican. I found the closest decent-looking Mexican place and we ate. I don’t remember the name of the place, but it was pretty typical. We got chips and salsa, and the waiter was great at refilling our glasses. I had some sort of fajita-type-stuff, and it was good. Nothing out of this world (at least not enough to remember the name), but everyone seemed satisfied. And I didn’t get screwed on the refills…
As I last wrote, I was preparing for a wonderful week of vacation in and around Omaha, Nebraska. The wife and I packed up the kids and our travel trailer and headed east. We selected Omaha as our summer vacation destination for a myriad of reasons, all of which I touched on in my last post, but the major reason is: we’re poor and cheap.
The first thing I leaned about pulling a trailer to Omaha in an effort to save money on the old summer vacation is that pulling a trailer when gas is over $3.50 per gallon and you are lucky to be getting 8 miles per gallon is not really saving anyone anything. The second thing I learned is that summer on any interstate is going mean many, many, many road construction delays. So, yeah, our little drive, which should have taken around 7 hours, took more like 10. Ten hours in a vehicle pulling a trailer with outside temperatures of well over 100 degrees F and two kids who love to terrorize each other whenever they get bored spells F-U-N!
So, our first day ends setting up camp (or camper) in Mahoney State Park just outside Omaha. Neat place, except it looks to me like making a reservation was kind of like inviting the State of Nebraska to gently screw us. We made reservations to make sure we had a spot to camp, but the portion of the campground that was set aside for reservations was definitely the suckier part of the campground. If we would have just showed up and grabbed a spot, we would have been in the shaded area next to the bathroom/shower house and we would have been able to pick up the WiFi. Instead, we were in pretty much direct sunlight all day long and were like a quarter of a mile from the shower house (and nearest bathrooms). Sure, we have a toilet in the camper, but there were no sewage hook-ups at this park, and a camper with a sewage storage tank full of poop and pee sitting out in the 105°F sun isn’t somewhere anyone could really spend a week. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time driving to the pooper on the other side of the campground… you know… where the WiFi and shade were.
So, after a decent night sleep, we drive into Omaha and head to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. The wife was there as a little girl, but none of the rest of us had ever been there. Heard it was cool, so we thought we would check it out. It was cool. Best zoo I have ever been to… not that I’ve been to that many. The Denver Zoo, a zoo in Memphis, and our local excuse for a zoo in Scottsbluff (which isn’t really too bad for a zoo in a town that is way to small to have a zoo). The Omaha Zoo was (according to one of the volunteers that wouldn’t leave us alone) recently named the “best zoo in America”. Apparently, Omaha’s Zoo is always in the top three, but this is the first time it has been named number one. I don’t know what agency ranks the zoos or how credible the volunteer was, but I will admit that I don’t have a hard time believing that the Henry Doorly Zoo is the best zoo in the nation.
For lunch, we ate at one of the cafeterias in the zoo. Overpriced burgers and fries, but not bad food. The zoo took us pretty much the entire day to get through, and it was a lot of walking. By the time we left, we were starving again, and I had special plans for supper.
My family members are big fans of iCarly, and there was an episode where the show kind of poked fun at the portion sizes at the Cheesecake Factory (although they gave it a different name). Ever since that episode, we have wanted to try out a Cheesecake Factory, and Omaha happens to have one. I didn’t tell the family where we were going, so when we pulled up, it was a surprise. We were all excited.
We got seated and the waitress took our drink orders. The oldest boy ordered a pop, and the wife asked if there were free refills on the strawberry lemonade.
“Oh, yeah, all the drinks have free refills,” said the waitress.
So, the youngest boy and the wife got the strawberry lemonades. I, after hearing the waitress make her statement about all of the drinks coming with free refills, decide on the $3.50 glass of chilled spiced cider. Usually, I would have just ordered a pop or an iced tea, but cold apple cider sounded kind of good.
The waitress brought the drinks, and the pop and lemonades are in these monster glasses. My cider is in a much smaller glass, but I’m thinking “guess that means she’ll just have to refill it more often.” The oldest boy and I finished off our drinks before the waitress returned to take our food orders (walking around the zoo all day in the heat makes a guy thirsty). She asked the boy if he would like a refill to which he replied in the affirmative. She then left. She returned shortly with a new pop for the kid and… a glass of water for me. She leaned over and whispered, “I thought you might like this. The cider is the only thing we don’t have free refills on.”
What the…
So I’m going to be drinking freaking water with my Cheesecake Factory meal? I must have had a look on my face that indicated to the wife my displeasure.
“Just order a pop or something,” said the wife.
“No, I’m good,” I pouted.
The waitress hurried away.
“Don’t get all pouty and ruin this for everyone,” said the wife.
“I’m not pouty,” I pouted. “They already got my $3.50 for that little glass of apple juice. They don’t need any more money for drinks from me.”
For your information, apple juice is the cheapest of the juices. I have no research to back that up (because I’m incredibly lazy), but I’m pretty sure it’s true. Whenever you buy a juice that is “100% juice”, it usually isn’t really 100% juice of the kind advertised on the label, especially if it has “cocktail” or “blend” in the title. Usually, it is mostly apple juice with a hint of whatever kind of juice you think you are buying. This is because apple juice is the cheapest juice they can add, yet they can still put “100% juice” on the label. Yet, I gotta pay $3.50 for one tiny glass of cheap apple juice with no free refills! Needless to say, my entire experience at the Cheesecake Factory was ruined at that particular moment. I don’t even really remember what I ordered (some kind of burger I think) or if it was any good (but I know it would have been better with free refills on the cheap apple juice).
By the time the waitress had come around to take our dessert orders, I was so pissed that I skipped dessert entirely. Everyone else ordered cheesecake (because that’s what you do at the Chesecake Factory, right?) and I just sat there being all kinds of pissed off. Myself excluded, I think everyone enjoyed the Cheesecake Factory. My youngest said it was the “best cheesecake ever”… and he doesn’t even like cheesecake… but I personally will never set foot in that particular chain again. Screw me on the apple juice, will you…
Last summer, the family and I went on a cruise for our summer vacation. It took almost 3 years of scrimping and saving to accumulate enough money to go on this cruise. It was an awesome experience and we had a good time. However, since we went on the expensive cruise last summer, our plans for this summer’s vacation are a little less… well, less.
I had really hoped that by the time I reached my forties, I would be in a financial position to be able to take a decent vacation every summer. Life and the panhandle of Nebraska had different plans for me, and we have to save up for a decent vacation every two or three years. But, with our oldest son entering high school this fall and our youngest not really that far behind, we want to do something fun over the summer to create some memories before the boys are all grown up and far away from the panhandle leading their own successful lives.
This summer, for our family vacation, we are going camping. Camping vacations are kind of our go-to vacation during the summers where we are saving up for a real vacation. Now, we have been camping in Yellowstone National Park and Tetons National Park in Wyoming. We have been camping in Estes Park, Colorado. This summer, we thought we might do something different than a beautiful mountain retreat. This summer, we are going camping near… Omaha.
Okay, we really didn’t plan on going to Omaha on purpose… not really. The oldest boy is in this AYSO soccer thing and the one tournament that it looked like he would actually be able to participate in was in North Platte, NE the same week we were planning our vacation. We still wanted to take a vacation, but we wanted the boy to be able to play in this tournament, so we decided to go camping in Mahoney State Park outside of Omaha. We figured we could visit the Omaha Zoo and whatnot and stop in North Platte on our way back so the kid could get his soccer on.
Well, it turns out that the oldest boy’s age group didn’t have enough kids that could go to North Platte… that and the fact that they didn’t really have a coach. I, being Johnny on the spot, already had made non-refundable reservations at Mahoney, so it looks like eastern Nebraska is our destination for this summer’s vacation.
Omaha…
Nebraska…
Does anyone really take a vacation in stinking Omaha?!? Well, Adventurer Rich and his family are. We’re trend setters like that. Oh, who am I kidding…
Okay, so I’m sure we will have a good time on our vacation. Any time spent with the family is fun… until the boys start fighting… and I lose it and yell at everyone… but there will be good moments. Still, a vacation in Omaha seems a bit oxymoron-ish, but it is what it is. It is an eye-opening exclamation that I need to make more money.
So, Adventurer Rich is looking for a way to make some additional income. I need to do something so the family and I can take real vacations every summer. I’ve thought about delivering pizzas in the evening or something like that, but I’d like to make more money doing something that doesn’t completely suck. I’ve tried a couple of different multi-level marketing things, and I just don’t have what it takes to be successful with those (people who are successful with MLM seem, to me, to be a touch annoying). I don’t mind making people mad, but I really don’t want to annoy anyone…
I’ve messed around on Mechanical Turk, and the work there is kind of fun, but I really need to make more than a couple of bucks an hour or it’s really not worth my time doing it. I’ve thought about writing articles for eHow or about.com, but I don’t really know enough about anything to be able to write any articles that would benefit anyone. “How to Put Your Walmart Shopping Cart in the Cart Corral, You Flipping Moron” probably wouldn’t get a lot of hits and, thus, would not really be a money maker.
sigh
Well, I’ll keep thinking on it. Something will come to me, I hope. In the meantime, I need to go pack. Omaha awaits…
Okay, so the boy and I signed up for summer camp again this summer. We missed last year due to our whole family going on a cruise and me not being a doctor or a lawyer or some other rich dude who can afford all kinds of frivolous vacation expenses. In the past, the boy and I have attended Medicine Mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Camp Laramie Peak in Wyoming. This summer, the troop had decided to go back to Camp Laramie Peak (CLP). At first, I was a little hesitant, because last time we went wasn’t exactly a stellar, a-plus experience. In fact, I blogged about it.
Now, I have written a couple of lengthy posts about scouting. They are some of my most-“Googled” posts. I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I love scouting. I love the leaders, I love the kids, I love what we are trying to instill in the young men. Between cub scouts and boy scouts, I have been an adult volunteer for around 8 years (and the last two years, I have been involved in both cubs and boy scouts). Let’s remember that I am a cynical smart-ass and I make fun of stuff (myself included) whenever I write. Every time I poke fun at BSA, I get some militant buttmunch who comments about what a horrible example I am, how I should quit scouting and pull my kids out, and how I’m just an all-around jerk with no business posting anything negative about scouting online. To those with no sense of humor about scouting, please leave now. I think you may have a more pleasant experience here.
So, I somewhat reluctantly agree to follow the troop to CLP to help with the scouts. A short time before we’re ready to embark on this journey, the Scout Master approaches me. He tells me that he has some work obligations, and because I have been with the troop for awhile, he wants me to serve as acting Scout Master while we are at CLP.
Crap.
Responsibility, paperwork, having to be the adult that wakes up early enough to get the boys up…
sigh
“I’d be honored,” I told him, and I actually think I felt my nose grow slightly longer.
I am not the kind of person who handles stress very well. I don’t have a high-paying job with with a large amount of advancement opportunity because those kinds of jobs usually involve a large amount of stress. If I deal with an upset customer on the phone, I usually handle it pretty well on the surface. I can usually make the customer happy. However, I have the knowledge that I will ultimately die of a massive heart attack while on the phone with one of these people because I get so stressed while talking to them. Either an upset customer — or having to deal with employees under my direct command and their issues… management material I ain’t… So, the inherent stress involved with being directly responsible for 20 scouts is not something I am really looking forward too, but I can’t imagine another leader that I am sure all of the boys of all ages will respond well to. Kids like me (probably because I haven’t really grown up yet myself… going to have to do that one of these days). Besides, there are a lot of other adults going with the troop, and I know there are a few of them who are going to be great assets with the boys.
Finally, camp time arrives and we load up the cars and take off. CLP is about 2 1/2 hours from Scottsbluff and the drive goes by quickly. My car consists of my boy and two other scouts that are my boys age. I’ll just call those boys Mada and Neb to protect their identities. I have been dealing with these scouts for years now and we all get along splendidly. I always crank up the stereo and blast some tunes when I have a car full of scouts. They usually enjoy it. On this trip, I got the Mumford and Sons blaring and I hear giggles from the backseat.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“What’s this crap?” says Neb.
“Yeah,” says Mada. “Is this folk country or something?”
“It’s… it’s Mumford and Sons,” I say. “It’s good stuff.”
“It’s Garbage and Sons,” says Neb. “It sucks.”
I turn the stereo down, blinking back tears, and proceed onwards toward CLP. It’s going to be a long week…
Our actual Scout Master did an excellent job of preparing all of the paperwork for check-in at camp, which made checking in once we arrived a snap. We were guided through the camp to our campsite. Every time we approached a sight, I could hear scouts mumbling, “this must be it,” or “maybe it’s this one.” Needless to say, the sites we passed weren’t “it” or “this one.” Our campsite was Pawnee, and it was about as far as you can get from the main activities of camp… it was always an uphill walk to get there. I think our Scout Master requested a site on the outskirts of camp… because I think our Scout Master may actually be satan. Old fat guys with high blood pressure and weak wills are not meant to walk long distances uphill — several times every day — for a week.
So we get settled in and start our camp schedule. Up at 6am, flags at 7:45am, breakfast at 8am, merit badges at 9am… etc, etc, etc. Life at camp is supposed to be pretty predictable. And for the most part, it was. I had a really good group of scouts and parents. Everyone seemed to get along. I was very proud of the boys of all ages. The older scouts included the younger scouts in most of their activities and fun was had by all.
I was duly impressed with the staff at CLP. The food, although pretty much like a school lunch and very high in carbs (although not a single bagel was to be found 🙂 ), was plentiful and none of it sucked (although I did hear some of the health freaks from Colorado make complaints like “I never eat like this — so much processed food — oh my — I’ll have to eat salad for a week after I get back to straighten out my digestive system…”, thing is, there was a salad bar served with every lunch and supper, but there was no gourmet lettuce on the bar, and Coloradans like to make themselves sound healthier than they really are…). The counselors were all relatively knowledgeable and seemed to enjoy what they were doing. The staff was, for the most part, friendly and willing to answer questions. In other words, CLP this time around was a complete turn-around from when we attended in 2010.
One of the things I always find amusing at every boy scout camp I’ve been to with the troop is, no matter which camp we go to, there is always at least one cute girl serving on the staff who becomes a topic of discussion amongst the scouts. We try to get the boys away from the normal things of this world and help them get closer to nature and developing outdoor skills, and they end up infatuating over girls, which is what a lot of them do as a normal thing in regular life. At CLP, there were “the twins”. The twins were two attractive, outdoorsy young women who most of the boys would go out of their way to get a gander at. Mada in particular (one of the scouts who rode to camp with me) became very fond of the twins. I don’t think Mada actually talked to either of the twins, but I think he had visions of dating one — if not both — of them at some point in the near future.
The week progressed nicely. All of the scouts seemed to handle being away from home just fine, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Some of the boys weren’t showering quite as often as my nose would have liked, but that is just part of a week-long camp with boys. By the time Thursday rolled around, everyone was in high spirits. Thursday was the last day for the boys to complete any merit badges they were working on. Friday, we had planned on taking the troop on a hike up the side of Black Mountain to the fire lookout post at the top. It’s like a 3 mile hike uphill and it tests the younger scouts endurance. By the time the scouts hike up, check out the awesome views from the lookout post, and stumble back down, everyone gets a good night sleep before packing up camp and heading home on Saturday.
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Spending a summer living here would be pretty cool...
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Now, we had heard that there was a forest fire in the area, but it was a long way from camp and was in no way a threat to us. We all went about our scheduled business on Thursday. The camp director informed us that his wife had given birth to their son the previous evening and he would be going to spend time with the newest member of his family. He turned the reins of the camp over to one of the other staffers, and no one doubted her ability to get us through the remaining two days.
A couple of older scouts had no scheduled activities, so they decided to take a hike up Black Mountain just to say they did it twice at one camp. Upon their return, they informed us that a new fire had started from a recent lightening strike and it may pose a threat to CLP. Throughout the day, we were given bits and pieces of information about the nearby fire, and the stream of smoke pouring over Black Mountain grew in intensity throughout the day. By evening, there was speculation that there may be an evacuation of the camp… just as a precaution.
Beside the Pawnee campsite, there was a hill that we figured would provide us with a cool view of the smoke coming over the mounatin. All of the scouts and leaders took a short hike up the hill and were amazed by the ominous black cloud that rolled right over the fire lookout at the top of the mountain.
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You can see a touch of the actual blue sky in the center. All of the dark is smoke coming over the mountain.
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Although the sky was filled with smoke, no one seemed to concerned. You really couldn’t even smell the smoke, and the fire seemed so far away… until the sun went down. As what little light that could be seen in the sky disappeared, the entire horizon over the top of the mountain glowed orange. I didn’t get any pictures of the orange glow because, at this point, I am starting to freak out a little.
We have the entire troop return to the camp site. By this time, it’s almost 10:00 pm and 10:00 is supposed to be lights out — everyone in their tents and down for the night. Well, because of the eeriness of that orange glow, one of the other adults and I decide we’re going to make the long hike downhill to the office to see what the plans are. We get to the dining hall and one of the staffers stops us.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Well, it’s lights-out and we were wondering if we should have the boys go to bed or what because the orange glow on the ridge is kind of freaky and I’d hate to have them get all comfortable just to wake them up to tell them we’re evacuating and that would probably freak them out more than if they just stayed up and …” I was settling well into freak-out mode before she stopped me.
“Listen,” the staffer said, “if and when… when (she looked me straight in the eyes)… we call for an evacuation, the fire bells will sound. Keep the boys up and listen for the bells. ”
“Okeedokee,” I said, and we started the exhausting hike back up the hill. We made it about 50 yards before another adult leader from another troop came running by.
“Did you hear?” he shouted. “They are going to evacuate! Get your boys ready to meet by the dining hall!”
Then he was gone.
Crap.
The other leader and I started to run — uphill — to our site. The other leader, being in much better shape than me (it doesn’t take much) soon had the lead.
“Screw… this…,” I barely was able to emit between grasps of breath. “I’m… calling… someone…”
The other adult kept running while I pulled out my cell phone and dialed one of the leaders back at out campsite. The smell of smoke that had been mysteriously absent earlier in the evening started to fill my nostrils.
“Yeah?” answered the adult back at camp.
“They… are… going… to… evacuate…” I stammered.
“What?” said the adult on the other end of the call.
I took a few deep breaths to try to catch mine, and I repeated the evacuation edict.
“What do you want us to do?”
Just then, the fire bells started ringing.
“Line all… line all… of… the boys… up…,” I stuttered while still trying to catch my breath, “and… wait… for… me…”
“Will do,” and the phone went dead.
I continued my brisk jog up the hill toward our campsite at the edge of the universe thinking about how much the real scout master must hate me for having chosen a site sooo far from everything. As I ran, I could feel my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest as my head felt like there was a balloon being inflated inside.
“I’m going to fall over dead of a stroke right here on this stinking trail,” I thought to myself… because talking to myself would have used too much precious breath, ” while I’m supposed to be helping a bunch of scouts to safety…”
When I finally stumbled into the campsite, the smoke was hanging heavy in the air, but there was a row of scouts and adults diligently lined up in a single file line, ready to head out for the evacuation instructions.
“Alright, guys, ” I said as calmly as I could, “they are going to have us leave camp early because of the fire. We are in no danger, they are just being overly cautious, which is a good thing, but I don’t want anyone to worry. We are all going to be just fine, so stay calm and let’s make sure ever one is here.”
From a nearby campsite, I could hear another adult leader screaming at his scouts, “Would you guys hurry up… there’s a fire coming and we need to meet at the dining hall to find out what we need to do to get out of here… HURRY UP… DO YOU ALL WANT TO DIE!!!”
I glanced at my scouts to see if they had overheard the other adult with the other troop — their faces all remained calm, so I couldn’t tell.
“We don’t need to overreact,” I tried to reassure them as that balloon in my head grew a couple of inches in size. I counted the scouts… and came up with 19.
“Nineteen,” I said, calmly at first. “There are only nineteen scouts here. We’re supposed to have twenty. Who are we missing?”
Everyone looked at one another and then back at me with blank faces.
“There are only nineteen scouts here… and we are supposed to have twenty. NINETEEN IS NOT TWENTY… WHY ARE THERE ONLY NINETEEN INSTEAD OF TWENTY… WHO IS MISSING?” The balloon in my skull felt like the Good Year blimp and my vision started to go all kinds of wacky, while I’m sure that my voice sounded like that of an 11-year-old girl.
One of the younger scouts at the front of the line looked at me and calmly stated, “Don’t you have a roster?”
Roster? Why yes, we had a roster. In fact, they made us have three copies of that stinking roster and I remembered thinking that was nothing more than overkill: two copies to the camp and one for the campsite.
We rounded up the roster and I performed roll call. When we I got to the name that didn’t elicit a “here”, a tent was checked and a sleeping scout was roused. Now we had twenty scouts and we headed to the dining hall for further instructions… all the way back down the hill.
A small group of leaders were taken inside the dining hall while the staff led the remaining adults and the scouts in some rousing campfire songs to keep their minds preoccupied. The fill-in camp director calmly gave us our evacuation instructions, which consisted of tearing down our campsites, getting everyone to their rides, and getting everyone calmly and orderly the hell out of Dodge. We were all to meet at Safeway in Wheatland, WY to make sure that everyone had made it out. There would be available locations for us to safely sleep in Wheatland once we arrived.
We went back outside and calmly gathered our troops and headed all the way back uphill to our campsite, which we promptly tore down and loaded in our trailer. Once loaded, we hiked all the way back down to the parking lot and loaded the boys in their appropriate vehicles. As each vehicle left the parking lot, CLP staffers stopped the vehicle and took a tally of who was in the vehicle and compared it to one of the copies of the roster that we gave them. We then started the caravan toward Wheatland.
For the journey to Wheatland, I chose Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain as our departure music. No one seemed to mind. As we traveled the dirt roads leading away from camp, the orange glow on the horizon gave us perspective on why we were leaving camp near midnight more than 24 hours early. After Set Fire to the Rain, I selected Someone Like You as our evacuation music. I noticed that Mada seemed especially upset during the Adele ballad of broken hearts and lost love.
We silently snaked along the roads all the way to the interstate and then into Wheatland. We arrived in the Safeway parking lot only to stand in another line while our names were once again compared to yet another copy of the roster that we had turned into the camp. We then assembled on the sidewalk next to Safeway and awaited further instructions. Finally, one of the twins came over to us and let us know where the city park was where we could sleep for the night. I glanced at Mada and saw the sorrow in his eyes as the twin walked away.
When we got back to the car, Neb whispered to me, “Please don’t play any more Adele. It reminds Mada that he may never see the twins again.”
“Okay,” I smiled gently as I put the car in drive and cranked Adele on the stereo.
By the time we arrived at the park and got everyone either sleeping on tarps on the grass or in the cars, it was around 2:30am on Friday morning. When we awoke a few hours later, we must have looked like a bunch of vagrants littering the park to all of the Wheatland residents walking around the park… and there were a lot of residents walking around the park. Apparently, there isn’t much to do in Wheatland, WY but walk around the park on a Friday morning 🙂 We received some strange looks and a few questions… and a lot of “we’re glad you’re safe” and “welcome to Wheatland”.
The drive back to Scottsbluff was a cheery one. Everyone seemed to be in a grand mood… even Mada. I later asked him if he was still upset about his missed opportunity with the twins.
“It’s not a missed opportunity,” he explained,” just postponed.”
The whole ordeal from our adventure at CLP gave me some perspective on scouting and the important lessons scouting teaches:
“Be Prepared” is not only a motto, it is a way of life.
Rosters are good and you can never have too many.
Boy Scouts of America trains it’s people well.
Always have some Adele on hand. You never know when it may come in useful.
Never — I repeat, NEVER — select a campsite as far away from everything as possible to try to teach some sort of lesson to the scouts. You (or your designated substitute) may actually have their head explode (which I’m pretty sure mine almost did) in case of an emergency…
Jimmy John’s sucks, and residents of Terrytown and Gering, Nebraska need to boycott it. (I wrote this intro sentence after I actually wrote the blog post because I’m working on my SEO 🙂 )
A couple of days ago, the wife was looking for some fast food for supper. It was one of those crazy hectic evenings where there really wasn’t a lot of time to cook. She had a rough day and was looking to have something (other than the standard pizza) delivered. “Hey,” she says to herself (because she talks to herself when she is losing her mind), “Jimmy John’s has good, relatively healthy food and they deliver!”
So, the wife calls Jimmy John’s, orders some grub, pays for said grub with a credit card, and then (thinking it strange that delivery was not offered) asked to have the order delivered.
“Uh, you live in Terrytown,” says the fast food genius on the other end of the line.
“Yeah,” says the wife.
“We don’t deliver out of Scottsbluff,” says the minimum-wage-earning superstar at Jimmy John’s.
“Huh?” says the wife.
“Yeah, we don’t deliver anything south of Beltline,” says my new favorite person in the whole entire world.
“But we’re only like 1 mile south of Beltline,” says the wife.
“Uh, you are gonna have to pick up your food,” says, I believe, Mr. Jimmy John himself, and can’t you just imagine him picking at a pimple as he’s talking?
So, the wife rubbed down the horses, pulled the irrigation line, pulled the milkers off the cows, rounded-up the sheep, put down our rabid family dog, pulled the fevered baby from his crib, loaded the crew into the sled and mushed the dogs all the way to Jimmy John’s. Okay, that may be slightly exaggerated, but it was a pain in the ass. Thanks for being a buttmunch company, Jimmy John’s!
Jimmy John’s does not deliver to Gering or Terrytown?!? How have the noble citizens of Gering not taken to the streets en masse to demonstrate against this monstrosity? How has this not made the cover of the Gering Citizen (a Gering-based tabloid that is pro-Gering… so extremely pro-Gering that its reporting often makes FOX News’ reporting on anything conservative and the Huffington Post‘s reporting on anything liberal actually seem fair and balanced), or at least the topic of a scathing editorial? I cannot comprehend how one of the loud-mouthed, opinionated citizens of Gering (and Gering has a plethora of those) hasn’t started a boycott of some sort against the tom-fool shenanigans of Jimmy John’s! Let me say that, as of this point in time, I shall lead the call for a boycott of the ridiculousness that is Jimmy John’s!
For those not from the panhandle of Nebraska, please let me explain the ridiculousness of that which I just wrote. See, Scottsbluff and Gering are two communities separated by the North Platte River. Terrytown is a village that occupies a sliver of land between Scottsbluff and Gering and is only a “village” at all because some guy named Terry with a lot of money wanted a town named after himself. For all intensive purposes, these three municipalities are one community.
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Terrytown is so stinking small, it isn't even on this map...
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Most everyone in this area would agree with that except for the residents of Gering — they tend to be anal and think they are better than everyone “north of the river” (which is how they refer to the unwashed masses in Scottsbluff).
See, part of me blames the residents of Gering for the whole Jimmy John’s debacle. If Gering would merge with Scottsbluff, we would become like the 7th largest “city” in Nebraska. Instead, we are two puny little communities (three, if you count Terrytown… which no one does) who have issues attracting not only decent-paying employers (wanna work at Walmart, anyone?), but we have issues getting in amenities and businesses that many in the area would like to see come in (Red Lobster — the lower-middle class’s fancy seafood place). If we were merged, I bet Jimmy John’s would deliver to Terrytown and Gering.
However, I’m not going to blame this one on Gering (mostly because I wouldn’t rule out a vehement Gering resident trying to murder me in my sleep). I blame this one on the cheap-ass who owns the Jimmy John’s franchise. I’m guessing one of two things is happening:
The franchisee only bought the rights for the Scottsbluff zip code and is therefore contractually prohibited from delivering outside of the stated franchise area. See, the franchisee doesn’t really care about the residents of Gering and Terrytown (whom I’m guessing provide a significant amount of business to the restaurant). I guess the franchisee wouldn’t care if we all just stopped supporting the business? I say we give it a try!
The franchisee or management of the restaurant all come from an alternate reality where people in Scottsbluff look at people “south of the river” with the same contempt that Gering residents currently look at “northies” in our reality — because I could see some diphole actually opening a business in Gering and making deliveries to Gering only just to spite people from Scottsbluff.
It’s almost like the Hatfields and McCoys around here… except Gering is the Hatfields and they are out for blood, and Scottsbluff is the McCoys and they gave up on stupid, ego-driven feuds years ago.
I can almost guarantee that some ninny from Gering will read this post and think, “Adventurer Rich, as smart and well written as he is, just doesn’t understand the ramifications of a merger between Scottsbluff and Gering and how that merger would diminish the “voice” of the people of Gering. Our opinions would be lost in the cacophony of noise coming from north of the river. Not too mention the fiscal determent to our community and the … blah blah blah. Come on, folks, we all (by choice or not) live in Nebraska. Nobody gives a rat’s sittin’ spot about any of our voices. The least we can do is try to come together with a unified voice so that we can all grow together.
Of course, I live in Terrytown. Neither side of the river gives two cares about what Terrytownians (dibs — I claim credit for making that word up!!!) think.
Residents of Gering and fellow Terrytownians, let’s show the powers that be in the world of Jimmy John’s that we are not going to be subjected to their abuse. I propose that all Gering and Terrytown residents refuse to purchase anything from that despicable restaurant until the day when we can have our orders delivered to our doorsteps. All three worthless little communities making up the Tri-Cities of the panhandle of Nebraska deserve equality!!!
