What happens here, stays here... (Part 1)

Vegas, baby. First time. If you've never been, you wouldn't believe it. If you have been, you know what I'm talking about. It's every preconcieved notion you've got, but exponentially MORE.

Bigger.

Louder.

Sparkly-er.

Overwhelming-er.

Here's just a couple pictures. These are of the Neon Museum that is part of the Freemont St. Experience in the old downtown part of the city. I think I actually liked this more than the strip. Kinda retro. But, boy, howdy. walk about one block away from this area and you want to hold your purse a little closer. There's no in between to Vegas.

Glitz, glamour and Caesar's Palace.

Dark, barren, dangerous.

Actually, I don't know how actually dangerous it is. Maybe I've just been watching too many episodes of CSI.

Or maybe not.

I'm just glad Mark was with me. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, you meant it's hot...

Mark tried to warn him. He really did. But Max can usually eat anything hot. He's like his dad that way. But not this time. We were in Cody, Wyoming, which, by the way, is one of my very most favoritest places. I was off wandering through the Traces of Light gallery, and trying to think of a way to get the photographers who own it to adopt me, and Mark was keeping the boys entertained and oblivious to the fact that their mother was thinking of running away to be a full time photographer.

That was when they found a little shop that sold all manner of jerkey (think antelope, buffalo and rattlesnake.) They also sold a wide range of salsas and hotsauces. If you ask me about it, I'll tell you about the one that is totally inappropriate to talk about in a public forum. They had a nice little table set out with samples of many of their delightful wares.

Mason, being a fairly reasonable person when it comes to hot foods stuck to the "middle of the road" salsa. Even that, Mark told me later, made his face go beet red, starting with his neck and working steadily up to his hair line, not unlike a cartoon character.

Mark was game for anything. Even the one with the warning label that said, "Hot! Hot! Hot!" Truth in advertising. It made Mark break out in a sweat.

So when Max asked to try it, Mark said, "I don't know if I'd do that if I were you." Max, undeterred, figured he was up to the challenge.

This is when his mother walked into the shop. Max had kind of a funny look on his face.

"Buddy, are you alright?"

And that's when Max burst into uncontrollable sobs.

This is my tough boy. The boy who eats everything his dad eats.

"What happened!!!!!!!"

Then I got the story. Sheesh. The two men who worked in the shop were standing around with blank looks on their faces. Uh, guys... do you think you could get a glass of water for this kid? RIGHT NOW?????????? Honestly.

We got the majority of the fire put out, but Max was complaining of a headache for the next half hour. Don't worry though. By the time I had walked all over half of Cody and found him some aspirin, not to mention a glass of water to take it with, he was fine. Of course.

Like we told Max, pain is temporary, but a good story lasts forever.

If you go out in the woods today...

If you go out in the woods today,

You'd better not go alone.

It's lovely out in the woods today,

But safer to stay at home.

For every bear that ever there was

Will gather there for certain, because

Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic

Wow, what a day we had in Yellowstone! Mark said he's probably been through the park about 20 times and he's never seen a bear. A shopkeeper I spoke to in the town of West Yellowstone said he'd lived there for 20 years and seen exactly one bear in all that time. I don't think a day like ours happens all the time.

When we were about 2 miles outside the eastern side of the park we saw a bunch of cars pulled over so we stopped, in true tourist fashion, to see what they were gawking at. Calmly munching plants 50 feet off the road was the sweetest moose. It made my day! The only other time I had seen a moose was on the very last day of our honeymoon in Yellowstone 16 years ago.

As we got in the car to continue on, we saw the same group of cars pulled off 100 yards farther along. We couldn't see what the people were looking at, so I rolled down my window to ask. A man told me that they had been watching a black bear, but it had moved off into the bushes and you couldn't see it any more. Man! So close! I was really disappointed. It would have been sooooo cool to see a bear. Little did I know.

From there we drove on into the Northeast, or Silver Star gate of the park. A few miles along, there was the usual wildlife traffic jam, and there, calm as could be, was a black bear having lunch in a meadow, about 50 yards off the road. Now I'm happy, happy, happy, cause I've finally gotten to see a bear in the "wild," even if it is in The World's Biggest Petting Zoo (also known as Yellowstone National Park. But wait. It gets better.

From there, we continued on, heading for Roosevelt Lodge for lunch. Before you get to the lodge there's a little bridge that you cross over. We were about the sixth car stopped on the bridge. That would be because strolling along right there on the bridge was a mama black bear with her twin cubs. Perhaps the coolest thing EVER. Unfortunately, they meandered off the end of the bridge and down the hillside to the river below before I could get any pictures. I don't know why Mark gave me the evil eye and threatened my life if I got out of the car to get closer for pictures. Honestly.

But wait. It gets BETTER.

After lunch we took a little side road because Max wanted to see the petrified tree. A little ways along this road were about 30 people staring off into the woods. Hmmm. That's a lot of people looking at a petrified tree. We got out and joined the crowd of gawkers and soon realized that there was a bear visible through the trees. Being a bear expert and all, my first thought was, "That's a pretty big bear." My second thought was, "They didn't have multiple park rangers stationed at the areas where we saw the other bears." Then I overheard one of the other camera-toting tourists ask the ranger, "Hey, what kind of bear is that, anyway?" Turns out this was no cute little black bear, but an honest-t0-goodness, get-the-kids-back-in-the-car-Ethyl, grizzly bear. Apparently, this bad boy had been hanging out in this general area for the last couple of days so the rangers had taken up permanent residence to ensure that some fool didn't allow his "I'm on assignment for National Geographic" tendencies to run rough-shod over his common sense. Why are you looking at me in that tone of voice? It wouldn't have been me. Seriously.

From there, we moved on down the road. We had become so jaded by our multiple bear experiences that we barely slowed down when we saw a family taking pictures of a black bear poking his head out of some berry bushes on a nearby hillside.

So that was our amazing day in Yellowstone. I'm expecting National Geographic to be calling any day now.

We interupt our regularly scheduled vacation pictures...

To those of you who faithfully checked this space for updates of our trip to South Dakota (you know who you are...) I apologize for the delay. I found myself so immersed in vacationing, that I was disgracefully lax about blogging my vacation. That's about to change. Tomorrow. First, Mark has to transfer all my vacation pictures from his laptop to the home computer. I know, he should be doing that right now, but his priorities are woefully misplaced and he decided he would go to work instead of catering to my blogging needs. Very sad. Do stay tuned, though. There are a couple amazing stories that you won't want to miss, and there are pictures to go along with them.

P.S. There's a reason Mason isn't in the family picture in the last post. He took the picture. My baby has developed a passion for photography. It makes his mama proud. Unfortunately, it took him about one day to discover that his point and shoot birthday present cannot adequately capture images like Mt. Rushmore at night and wildlife half a mile away. If this continues, I won't be able to afford his hobby.

On the road again...

I'm writing this from St. Anthony, Idaho. I know! Who's ever heard of St. Anthony, Idaho. Well, Mark, for one. Our hotel overlooks the Henry's Fork of the Snake River. For those of you who don't fly fish, that is a very big deal. I may not be able to get Mark to come back home with us. It's pretty, I will say that. It also, apparently, is quite the fly fishing river.

We left home yesterday and got to Mark's sister's house in Meridian, Idaho. We all did fireworks and then crashed there for the night. This morning, we caravaned with Mark's parents to Sun Valley for an antiques fair. I exhibited super-human restraint and spent no money. This was largely motivated by my memory of the most amazing cowboy antique store in Cody, Wyoming. We'll be there Monday. Of course, that place might as well be a museum as far as my finances are concerned. They are not givin' that stuff away.

After that we stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument. Lava fields extended for miles and miles. I couldn't decide which was more dramatic: the rocks, the wind-twisted trees or the thunderclouds building overhead.

In the morning it's off to Yellowstone. Happy fourth, everyone!