Kansas April 2008
On our very last car trip together as a family, I decided to drive to Kansas because it is an easy drive. The kids had decided before we left that this wasn't going to be a good trip so there was continuous complaining throughout our vacation. They wouldn't tell any of their friends where they were going for spring break and the constant joke was that I was trying to convince them that their friends, who may be going to Florida or Cancun, would be jealous of our trip to Kansas. As much as I tried to sell it, the kids kept asking me why we were going to Kansas for spring break. The question turned into a running joke, so much so that when we returned from our trip we saw a license plate from Kansas and Lillian said, "I'll bet all of their friends are asking them why they went to Kentucky for spring break!"
Our first stop was at The Old Cowtown Museum but, since it hadn't opened for the season, I had to arrange a special tour with the staff. We had made plans to visit Kansas for spring break, not realizing how cold Kansas was in April, and our tour guide suffered through freezing temperatures to give us a private tour. The Cowtown was a collection of old historical buildings that the state had paid to move to one spot. We were only there for an hour before the rain set in but the kids did get to play a yard bowling game and we took a few selfies before getting back into the car to warm up.
A short drive from Wichita to Hutchinson to visit The Cosmosphere. It seems unlikely that a museum on the plains of Kansas would have enough artifacts for an exhibit, much less a full museum, but they started their collection early and had obtained quite a few artifacts. They had pieces from all of America's space missions and a collection from Russia as well. The highlight of our trip to The Cosmosphere was a demonstration at Dr. Goddard's Lab where a staff member blew things up to the delight of the kids in the audience.
From Hutchinson we moved on to Abilene to see the Eisenhower Presidential Museum, which was a treat because all of the presidential museums are done so well. They had many displays at the museum but my favorite was the one that had all of the gifts that were given to Eisenhower; there was a mosaic desk from the Shah of Iran, an elegantly carved elephant tusk from NGO Diem of Vietnam, and a vase which named all of Britain's colonies from Queen Elizabeth II.
We were supposed to see "The Wizard of Oz" museum next but we arrived too early and it wasn't open yet. The museum looked more like a shop than anything else and, since it was cold and we would have to wait an hour for it to open, I decided to push on. The problem was that this museum was to be the highlight for my youngest daughter, Virginia. She loves the movie so, before I told her we were leaving, I took a really good selfie with her. Then I packed her into the car and told her that we weren't stopping until we got to Kansas City. Of course she was upset and wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day.
Finally, all of the preliminary excursions were over, and we made it to the main event. The World War I Museum in Kansas City is the only national memorial dedicated exclusively to the Great War and I couldn't wait to see it because my grandfather fought in the war and I wanted to learn more about the biggest conflict in European history aside from WWII. The problem was that at this point in the trip the kids were almost ready to openly rebel. Nothing was going to make them happy. I showed them the interactive table where you could use a laser pointer to manipulate and change the display. They were uninterested. We stepped into the booths where WWI music was playing and you could choose any song of that era that you wanted to hear. Still, no enthusiasm from my three. The recruiting posters, uniforms, and faux battlefield didn''t do it for them and all they wanted was to go out to lunch.. If I could pinpoint the exact moment when I decided never to do a car trip again with my children it would be as we were leaving the wonderful World War I Museum, that had everything in the world to offer to impressionable young minds, and my three turned their noses up at it in favor of lunch.
Lunch it was and we settled on a place called Fritz's. The kids liked the restaurant better than any museum that we went to because they had a phone at every table and you just called in your order and an electric train brought your food to you. Sure,, it was gimmicky, but the kids loved it and that is all that mattered. Maybe we should have started out at Fritz's and then went to the World War I Museum when they were full and happy.
Our last excursion on our trip was to see the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. It was unique because there were a lot of video clips attached to the displays and there were a couple of small theaters where they ran video quizzes of th major presidential decisions of Truman. Our visit began with a 45 minute video and then I set the kids free to explore the museum on their own.. They came back in about ten minutes and claimed that they had seen everything that was of interest to them and, of course,, when I asked them for details they couldn't provide any to me. I had to take them by the hand and drag them through the museum and only the promise of lunch kept them in check. Kansas City is known for its barbecue so we drove back downtown to a really nice ribs place called Jack Stack where I had one of the best meals of my life. As we walked back to the car we all shared nerd moment when we began to sing the WWI songs of "Tipperary" and "Over There." It was uncharacteristic of my kids to sing out loud and together but I think that we were all so grateful that the Kansas trip was over that a group song was in order
Chicago, June 2013
Chicago comes from an old Indian word that means swamp of smelly onions, as we learned from our trip to the Windy City. While waiting for the "Architectural Tour" to begin we walked the "Magnificent Mile," which is the heart of Chicago and it holds many hotels and the main shopping district. There was a sign painted onto the sidewalk that said there are 3,000 pedestrian deaths in Chicago every year and I believe it because I felt like we were taking our lives in our hands every time that we crossed the street. More than a few drivers ran the red lights. After we reached the Water Tower, we walked back down to Michigan Avenue to the Navy Pier where our boat ride was launched.
Jeff was our tour guide and he showed us the most famous buildings on the Chicago River: the Trump Plaza, the Corn Cobb building, the triangle buildings, the massive post office, which was huge because of the mail order business, and the Sears Tower (renamed the Willis Tower). After the tour we took a water taxi back to Michigan Avenue then walked to Giordano’s for the best pizza that Chicago has to offer.
Frederick was our guide for the Grand Tour. The first half of the tour was the north side of Chicago which included The Loop (the business section), Lake Shore Drive, Millennium Park, Wrigley Field, and the Lincoln Park Zoo. The second half of the tour was the south side and it included the University of Chicago, the White Sox stadium, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Museum Campus, and President Obama's house. We ended the tour at the John Hancock Tower to view the city from 100 stories high and then ate pizza at Pisano’s. To end our day, we went to Water Tower Place to see the seven floors of Macy's and to visit Legoland
Boston and New York (April 2010)
We began our trip to Boston on Easter Sunday and there were tour groups in the breakfast room of our hotel. Everyone in the room looked and talked differently, like the United Nations of the hotel’s common rooms, but I saw Koreans, French, Persians, and people from India. The cacophony of different voices in different languages was an experience in itself. One Asian lady was determined to hold her seat, and two other chairs with her many suit cases on them, so she guarded them closely and refused to give up the chairs even though the hotel lobby was packed, and a lot of people were looking to take a load off of their feet. I am sure that the women didn't mean to be insensitive but because her luggage had seats, she had deprived a lot of other travelers the chance to sit down.
The weather was perfect on this beautiful spring day, so we decided to walk the Freedom Trail and we saw the site of the Boston Massacre, two graveyards, and the Boston Commons. We were determined to see all of the historical sites, so we walked from Faneuil Hall, to the Quincy Market, to the USS Constitution and finally to Bunker Hill. It was all a little too ambitious, especially since Lillian had worn high heeled shoes and she refused to take them off in favor of her more sensible shoes. Finally, in the middle of the long slog back to the hotel, Lillian changed into her flats and said to me crossly, "Don't you say anything!" Ordinarily I would become angry at such disrespect, but it had been a long day and you learn to let some things go, so I didn't say anything. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as Lillian was the one who had to live with the blisters.
On the second day of our trip we drove up to Salem to see the "Witch Museum." It was a disappointment in that the museum was set up to be provocative because it defended wiccans, or modern-day witches, and I found that a little silly. Our afternoon activity was to drive the Battle Road to see Lexington and Concord. We got out of the car and, on foot, we crossed the Old North Bridge, where the British and the rebels exchanged fire. The visitors center had a really good video that explained the importance of the battle. My daughters, and even my wife, seemed to be bored with the whole experience so I tried to sell them on the idea that our side trip to Boston was just a warm up for our trip to New York.
It took us about five hours to drive from Boston to Manhattan and, because I had been warned by several friends not to drive downtown, we stayed in a hotel in Newark, N.J. My wife and I like the oldies and were singing Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” to ourselves as we sung “we took the 8:15 into the city” and other parts of the famous song as we rode the train to Penn Station and walked to Times Square. Luck was on our side because, even though it was early April, the weather was unusually warm, and New York City was experiencing record high temperatures. We took a tour of the downtown loop with stops at the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, and the United Nations building. After hopping on and off the tour buses we found our way back to Times Square. The girls wanted to see the M and M’s store, the Hersey store, and the world's largest Toys R. Us store. It was funny that that the girls want so badly to be grownups and yet it was the toy store where they showed the most enthusiasm for our vacation, and the souvenir that they picked out for themselves was a Geoffrey Giraffe from Toys R Us.
The constant crowds and the heavy traffic in Manhattan were stifling to me. It can be withering and invigorating at the same time to be in a city whose population is almost nine million people and that is in commotion 24/7/365. Our tour guide said that he would be bored in any other place besides New York because in the other cities that he had lived in the only fun thing to do was to go shopping at Walmart. After having to mow the grass for twenty years, he said that he was over having a house with a lawn. The only way for him to be able to afford an apartment in the city was to share it with five other guys because the cost of living was so high. As he talked, I couldn’t help but think that we were visiting a foreign country because the way of life for New Yorkers was so strange to me.
You never know what is going to make an impression on you when you take long road trips. An example of this is when we took the train out of Manhattan and back to Newark to our hotel room. Our mistake was to linger at Times Square for too long, and that made us late for our return trip, and it was when the sky was turning dark and the crazy people came out. We stopped at a McDonalds to grab a quick bite and, as we were sitting at our booth and minding our own business, we saw a parade pf unusual people pass us by. There was a group of drag queens, two mean biker chicks spoiling for a fight, a man verbally abusing his young son in front of his friends, who were cussing loudly, and beggars were looking for a handout. We have seen beggars before but one of the beggars in this group grabbed our trash right out of the garbage can after we had thrown away what was left on our trays. As near as I could tell, the lady beggar wanted our cups so that she could go back to the counter for a free refill. I absent-mindedly apologized to her when she spoke angrily to her about throwing away our trash instead of leaving it on the table for them to use. We were all thrown by our visit to the McDonald’s from hell, so we decide to take a taxi back to the hotel. The girls grabbed onto my arms and held on tightly as we waited for the cab to arrive. It felt good to be the hero for my daughters, but the big thing for me was that we arrived back at the hotel safely.
On the way back home, we drove to the ferry to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I think that the girls enjoyed the ferry ride more than the history.
Pittsburgh (December 2009)
Pittsburgh is surrounded by mountains and we had to drive through the Fort Pitt Tunnel to get to the city. It was dramatic to see all of the buildings unfold around us as we came out of the tunnel. One of the things that make Pittsburgh unique is the many bridges that are built around it and through it. The city is surrounded by mountains, so the major metropolitan area is compacted into a relatively small area.
The first major attraction that we saw was the Incline. It is a railroad car that goes up a 45-degree angle straight up a mountain that borders Pittsburgh to the south. The Incline gives you a great view of the city, but the windows had fogged up and it was difficult to see well. Turning a lemon into lemonade, I started to take pictures of my three kids. If you didn’t know the setting, then you would think that they were taking the railroad to heaven because the whole car glowed as the morning sun reflected off of the window.
After a quick trip to the Block House and the Fort Pitt Museum at the Point State Park, we drove to the National Aviary. I had never been to an aviary before and was looking forward to trying something new. The highlight was the big room where the birds were allowed to fly around freely. During feeding time, the tourists were allowed to put worms on their hand and the birds would land on them and feed. Virginia had a bird land on her hand and the look on her face was pure joy as the bird ate out of her palm. There were plenty of other rooms and some shows to see but watching my daughter’s sparkle with fun as she fed the bird had made my day.
Grant had said that he was skeptical that the aviary would be any fun, while I was equally skeptical that the Carnegie Science Museum would be any good for my three children because they were teenagers when we went to Pittsburgh. However, there was a section for older kids at the museum and the kids liked the trampoline because it they were strapped in by huge bands that enabled them to do flips. They also liked the two-seater ride that that tossed the passengers side to side and then flipped them upside down. I tired of the rides quickly, but the kids liked them so much that we ended up staying at The Carnegie for over five hours.
At the hotel that night we had two double beds. It would make sense for the girls to share one bed and the boys to share the other bed. And yet Virginia and I share the same disease of ADHD and the hyperactivity part of it doesn’t end at night. I have a tendency to spin a lot while sleeping and Virginia is also in constant motion. Rather than keep Grant and Lillian up with our nightly movements, Virginia and I slept together. As it turned out, my disease has given me an even worse affliction than what Virginia suffers through. I remember waking up in the middle of the nigh and staring down at me angrily because my spinning had kept her awake and I had stolen all of the pillows. It is an image that still haunts me; an angry daughter looking down at me, clearly frustrated, and revenge was in her eyes. I didn’t sleep well after that.
Las Vegas: the First Trip
We must be the only couple who ever went to Vegas and did not drink, gamble, or see any shows. What we did do, to celebrate 25 years of being married, is to take a lot of tours.
The length of the Grand Canyon is over 2,000 miles if you count all of the juts as you walk around it. At its narrowest, it is 600 feet, while at its widest the Grand Canyon is 18 miles across. We took a ten-hour round trip bus ride to see the South Rim, or over 585 miles, but it was worth it. Our guide tried to describe the canyon to my wife, who is blind, but it is so beautiful that words cannot do it justice, so his was a labor lost.
We took a tour of the Hoover Dam and went inside of the diversion tunnel, which was fifty-six feet across, and stood beside the intake tubes, which were 30 feet wide and their water provides the force to turn the turbines for the generators. Our guide tried to express the difficulty in building the dam, saying that the workers built eight cubic feet of the dam every 78 seconds for two years. There were two shifts working seven days a week. There is enough concrete in the dam to provide a two-way highway from San Francisco to New York City. I cannot, in words, describe how awesome the Hoover Dam was.
Lake Meade was built because of the Hoover Dam. The Colorado River was diverted into the basin and it took seven years to fill up the lake. We took a paddlewheel boat ride across the lake after our tour of the dam was completed. On the way back to Las Vegas we drove through Boulder City and saw big horned sheep, the official animal of Nevada, come down from the hills to eat grass in a public park. Right across the street from the park was a development of condominiums and we saw a woman trying to shoo the sheep off her back yard. She was not very effective because she would not leave the safety of her living room and was yelling at the sheep from behind the glass door.
Our guides were great and provided us with a lot of entertainment. Walter was our driver on the Grand Canyon trip and he was a slick operator who was always angling for a tip. Carmen took us to the Hoover Dam and he loved to play on the word "dam." For example, he said that we are taking the dam sidewalk to the dam gift shop but don't annoy the dam police because they will give you a dam ticket. And so it went.
We took a tour of Las Vegas on the Big Bus and Blake, our guide, said that he had to be covered from head to toe in the Nevada sun because he turned from Casper white to lobster red within sixty seconds if he didn't cover up. Our next Big Bus guide was Suzanne and she said that she was half Irish and half Native American; the Irish part of her always wanted a drink but once the Native part of her tasted the firewater she became angry and wanted her damn land back. Jessica was from Texas she said that she once went to a party where the high-fashioned models were drinking and after a few drinks, they were stumbling around like Bambi trying to walk for the first time. We had heard that Freemont Street was a place that a tourist had to visit at night so we decided to take a cab to one end and walk slowly to the other end. We started at the Container Park, which got its name from where the studios and bar were made from old storage containers from the railroad. They were stacked two stories high, placed in a large U-shape so that there could be a children's playground in the middle. There is a statue at the entrance that looks like a huge praying mantis and it shot fireworks out of its antennae when the day turned to night. The mantis was originally a Burning Man attraction.
As we moved to the midsection of Freemont Street, we saw people dressed up as the rock group, "Kiss," the male strip show "Chippendales," and showgirls wearing next to nothing. These posers charged five dollars to have your picture taken with them. There were several performers doing their acts on the street and they included a Michael Jackson knockoff, a Dixieland Band, a string quartet, and a puppeteer. At the far end of Freemont Street, and right before it suddenly ends, there is a stage for exotic dancers; it is flanked by two strip bars in case a tourist wanted to get out of the warm night air to cool off by watching some hot bodies.
My problem with Freemont Street is that, like Las Vegas, it can't decide if it is a family friendly destination or purely adult entertainment. For example, I saw a guy dressed up as Superman, but he was not in shape and was so thin and unhealthy looking (I suspect that he had a drug problem) that he looked like he came from Bizarro World. Next to Superman, there was a band playing classic rock, and overhead there was a zip line carrying passengers over the middle of the street. A man wearing nothing but a Speedo thong was looking for tips in front of a Cycle Pub. Above the mayhem was the world’s largest video screen. It is 1500 feet long, covered Freemont Street for blocks, and flashed bright images such as lightning strikes. All the while, there are speakers everywhere and they played rock and roll music loudly whenever the light show was playing. I took some time to people watch and it seemed to me that there was no rhyme or reason to the pattern of the pedestrians who were standing around to watch the show. There were couples pushing strollers, militant gay women, army veterans, bros having a night out, pensioners, British toughs looking for a fight, and a beggar in a wheelchair hoping that someone would put some change into his bucket. It was if all of the reality TV stars over the past decade had been thrown together and released on the street and it became overwhelming.
The casinos in Las Vegas do not have any clocks and the exit signs are difficult to locate. There are no windows so you don’t know what time of day it is and there isn’t any place to sit and relax except in front of the slot machines. The idea is to lure gamblers in and keep them there by making it difficult to leave. Each casino has its own theme to make it unique; New York New York has the Manhattan skyline for the façade of its building and a roller coaster going through and around it. The MGM Grand had a huge lion’s head for its entrance but they had to tear it down because the Asians view the act of walking into the mouth on an animal as unlucky. Circus Circus has a high wire act and a full amusement park under its dome. The Bellagio has a huge fountain that sprays water in sync with popular music like “In the Mood.” Paris has a mockup of the Eifel Tower, which is about half the size of the real article, and there is a mockup of the Seine River as well. The Cosmopolitan has a huge bar at its center; sheers and light fixtures that are meant to resemble champagne bubbles surround it. Caesar’s Palace has moving statues, one of which has fire coming out of its sword, and in the forum, there is a ceiling that resembles a real sky and it displays the 24 hour daily cycle in an hour. The Aria has pieces of modern art and The Wynn has tropical flowers. The Golden Nugget has a shark tank and the world’s largest nugget of gold. The Stratosphere has a 20-story tower that you can jump out of for about $150.00. Since Las Vegas is constantly reinventing itself, Treasure Island changed its name to TI because it no long has a pirate show and there is a brand-new casino with a Chinese theme and there will be a replica of the Great Wall, Terra Cotta soldiers, and a live panda included with it.
Other stories from the casinos are not so nice. For example, the Frontier, Sands, Dunes, and the Stardust have all been torn down to make room for new hotels; only the Riviera remains of the old hotels. The Sahara was levelled to make room for the SLS but since it never opened, no one knows what SLS stands for. The original owners of The Echelon stopped construction because they ran out of money and the skeleton of the building is being torn down. The metal will be sold for scrap.
Connecting all of the hotels together is a series of pedways that include bridges over the strip and it cost 8.3 billion to create.
Beggars in the streets holding up signs like, “I am not going to lie to you! I need the money for a Coke.”
Prostitutes at The Bellagio wearing nothing but tiny bikinis and security guard yelling at them, “You know you can’t be in here” and they were showing off their wares.
Haints, or drunken shadows of people, wandering the streets
The Pakistanis who were sitting behind us on our ten hour round trip to the Grand Canyon burped loudly and incessantly. Sitting next to them was a man who was talking loudly into his phone, so everyone could hear about how a great businessman he is. Thoughts of homicide crossed my mind,
Las Vegas: The Second Trip
Tracey and I had been to Las Vegas four years ago to celebrate our 25th anniversary. She was disappointed because we didn't get out to experience the nightlife so this time she had Grant and Virginia to take her out all three nights that we were in the city. On Thursday, they went to a bar called "Fat Tuesday" where they played Jenga with giant block of wood. On Friday, they went to "Rock and Reilly's" and stayed for five hours because they bought the all you can drink package. Tracey enjoyed sharing the experience with them and I have the sleeping habits of a toddler so I was happy to go to bed early. A funny story from the evening was when the drunken woman who was sitting next to them and she suddenly blurted out, "I am going to sleep right here!" Then she put her head down and passed out on the bar. On Saturday night, Tracey and Virginia went to play the penny slots at the Excalibur. The ante was a dollar and after playing for an hour, Virginia walked away with four dollars and fifty cents.
I am a slave to my daily schedule so I was showered and out the door by 4:30 am, which was just in time to watch the sun come up. It is amazing what you can see at that time of the morning. For example, there were prostitutes who looked me up and down and were trying to decide if they could fit in one more trick before their evening's work was finished. Mostly, though, the people who passed me by did not bother to look at me. Because I am older, and because I was by myself and seemingly harmless, the late night partiers tended to ignore me so I could hang back and observe. A pair of newlyweds started making out on the pedway bridge between New York New York and the MGM Grand; they had love in their eyes and brand new rings on their fingers. One woman, who clearly had just experienced a tryst judging by her messed up hair and disheveled dress, said goodnight to her partner for the evening in front of our hotel, and then sent him away in a cab. Only after he was out of sight did the woman call a cab for herself. We stayed at the Tropicana but I walked across the street to the MGM where I saw a bachelorette party winding down. The girls were twerking with absolute strangers, who didn't seem to mind, as they made their way into the hotel bar for one last drink. This was about 6:00 am and having just one last drink was clearly a mistake. At New York New York, there were a bunch of fraternity brothers who were egging each other on by yelling, "Do you want to go to bed or do you want to go to see some strippers?" The answer was so obvious that no one bothered to reply as they made their way to the front door.
After two hours of watching how the other half lives, I made my way back to the Tropicana to wake up my wife and children to get ready for The Big Bus tour of Las Vegas. Our first guide became a little too familiar with us by bragging about eating pizza in bed after making love to his wife and how he would divorce his wife if my daughter would agree to marry him. We got off the bus as quickly as possible to get away from this driver. Our first stop was at Freemont Street where Grant and Virginia did the zip line over the crowd and under the canopy. Then we got back on The Big Bus and drove to New York New York so that the kids could ride the roller coaster, which wrapped around the hotel and flung the passengers over the main thoroughfare of Las Vegas. The coaster and the zip line were a unique experience because they took place over streets and people, adding an additional element of danger, and that was the highlight of the trip for the kids.
On the second day in Vegas were decided to do a walk about where we saw young women dressed up as showgirls, wearing next to nothing, posing with tourists who would give them a couple of dollars to include them in selfies. There were others who were dressed up in costumes, but they put little effort into their costumes and were just glorified panhandlers. Actors in Dead Pool and Black Panther costumes sweated fiercely in the one hundred and ten degree heat. Wannabe rock stars tried to press homemade CDs into our hands as they asked for five dollars for the cost of production. On the pedestrian bridge and in the shade of the wall was an old Elvis, sitting in a wheelchair while sporting a bejeweled jumpsuit, shaking a tin cup for tips. Lastly, there were Buddhist monks who wanted five dollars for a beaded bracelet and an accompanying prayer. We found out later that they weren’t even real monks and Grant, disappointed that anyone would falsely pose as a religious man, said, “Everything here is fake.” I replied, “The beauty and tragedy of Las Vegas is that everything is fake.
