Late night laundry room thoughts

Greetings from another day on this trail of friendly folks, clean gas-station restrooms, periodic announcements of farts (I am travelling with three boys, after all), and spontaneous fun.  On a fuel-stop in the vast open spaces of Eastern Wyoming, we had a water-gun fight at a gas-station stop in Sundance, kind of our own version of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  As we passed by the town of Spearfish, Calvin suggested that we check out what looked like a really cool waterpark.  It turned out to be part of the city-owned rec. center in Spearfish, and it was an excellent water park:  clean, new, well-run, full of friendly folks, and really cheap.  I will post some photos on this blog eventually, but I won't be posting the photo that Patti took of Calvin and me, on an inflateable raft, zooming down a waterslide, unless I'm sure that I'm mostly hidden by splash.  Also spontaneous, but not quite so fun was the hour or so we spent visiting with the friendly folks at the local ER, after a teen-age gal fell off the "water-climbing" wall and landed on Patti's face.  Patti was bruised and bloodied enough that we needed to verify that her nose wasn't broken.  It isn't.  She'll be fine in a day or so when the swelling goes down.  And the little owie was not enough to stop her from deciding to play with her brothers at the pool here at our hotel, after we checked in this evening.  Kids... an afternoon at the water park, and they still want to play in the pool.  I was like that once.

And now I'm doing laundry.  Plus ca change, eh?

But seriously, we are having a WONDERFUL time.  The scenery has been glorious, and the logistics of our travelling routine are getting easier and easier with repetition.  The kids have decided not to rotate their "jobs" for the trip, so Mark is keeping our accounts, and helping the other kids to understand that this travelling thing is NOT free.  Calvin is getting more and more skilled at map-reading and noticing exits and mileage, as well as helping me to not freak out when the computer-generated driving directions do not correspond to the road signage.  Patti is our food-service coordinator par excellence.  She can slap together lunch from cooler while travelling at 80 mph, and can tell you how many bags of baby carrots we have left, and how many yogurts.  Today's turkey-and-cheese with horseradish sandwich, with a side of cherry tomatoes and ranch dip was better than many, many in-flight meals I've had.

Well, the clothes are almost dried and I need to get some rest.  Tomorrow, we explore the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and... who knows?  from our temporary base here in Rapid City.

The only thing I'm missing on this trip is adult company.  I guess that's where you all come in.