Summer vacation and other things

Way back on 25 October 2007 I made my first blog post. That was almost nine years ago. For a while I was a blogmaster. I wrote constantly about my life and times. Then this turd called Facebook came along and I pretty much abandoned my beloved blog. Blogging became mundane. It was stupid. I mean, nobody wrote blogs anymore.

Now I've come full circle. I've not been here at Blogger.com for some time. In fact, it was called Blogspot.com last time I was here. They've done a lot of cool improvements. I like it. And it's free.

In the meantime, I've come to despise the world of Facebook. I enjoy connecting and communicating with family and friends, but there are also many jerk-offs on Facebook.

Not long ago, Facebook must have changed a setting with one of their updates. Suddenly, people you don't know - complete strangers - can read stuff you write if you have a mutual friend who has commented/liked a posting of yours. Now, this is a problem, because those strangers don't understand your sense of humor or where you've come from or what your life experiences are. And that's where it gets messy.

People especially do not like diverging opinions. People do not like it when you disagree with them or if you say something they find "offensive" (which I seem to do all the time). And instead of engaging in intelligent discourse, a few folks immediately resort to name-calling... I mean, nasty stuff.

This is something I can't and won't tolerate. If it is something you won't say to my face (and you almost certainly wouldn't call me a "fucking idiot" while speaking to me), don't type it. I don't have time for this kind of crap in my life. I have better things to do.

And this is where the world of blogging comes in handy. It's my own little space. Most won't read it and I'm cool with that. I just need a place for my thoughts. I like to write. I need to write. And this is the best place for it.

Now I will get off my soapbox and get onto important stuff.

***

We just returned from a seven day family vacation to Yellowstone National Park. We had a great time and the accident prone Boy only suffered one injury when his hand was slammed into the truck door at the Old Faithful parking lot. No bones where broke, so it was all good.

Our first stop was at the Ramada Inn/Buccaneer Bay Water Park in Sioux Falls, SD. This is the second time we've stayed here and both times we've enjoyed it. Of course, the first order of business was to sample a Bloody Mary at the Tiki Bar. After a long day of driving, it hit the spot.

I was happy. And it was good.

No trip to the west is complete without visiting Wall Drug and when given the opportunity to ham it up, the Boy is first to do so...

We stopped by Devils Tower (that is correct punctuation, by the way. There is no apostrophe due to a clerical error many years ago). We got there early and watched the sunrise. It was spectacular.

We were disappointed we didn't see any alien landing strips there, but it was still a sight to behold.

We finally made it to our final destination: Big Sky, MT. We stayed at a ski resort and enjoyed the restaurants and shops even though they were a bit overpriced. But we were on vacation. We didn't really care!

Yes, that's me in a hot tub. No, you probably will never see a picture like this again. Those who know me know my issues with bathing in other people's fecal matter. But these are my kids so it was okay. At least for a few minutes. 

Of course, the headliner of the whole trip of Yellowstone. I would not recommend going in August. It was very crowded and it was difficult to find parking (except at the aforementioned Old Faithful parking lot). But with a bit of patience (not my strong suit, admittedly) we were able to see some cool stuff.

Old Faithful doing her thing.

This is Uncle Tom's Trail at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It's a metal staircase bolted into the side of the canyon wall; 328 steps down with nothing between you and the bottom of the canyon but metal steps. The Speaker of the House and her fear of heights was not impressed. The climb back up sucked, especially at 8,000 feet above sea level.

But the climb was worth the view. Amazing!

We also took a day to visit Bozeman and the Museum of the Rockies. This place has the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the USA and the curator of the museum was a special consultant to Steven Spielberg for the original Jurassic Park. This place was cool and worth a visit!

It was a quick seven days, but it was good to be home with our fur babies. They missed us.

Now it is back to the real world. I will be writing more here soon.