The Arc D’Or

Before continuing with today’s instalment of nine years ago sisterly travels, I’d like to dispel a few myths about Parisian food. (Or even Italian food, for that matter.) I feel there’s this [misguided] belief that by merely setting foot on Parisian (or, Italian) soil, you will ingest delicious food.

*Cough*Sonottrue*Cough*

I’ve been to Paris four times and I believe I’ve had exactly two decent meals there. Everything else was either of the smelly-brasserie ‘worse creme brulee than you can make at home‘ variety, or sandwiches and crepes. Which are almost always good, but how many sandwiches can a person eat?

If you’re walking along the main Parisian boulevards and duck into one of the thousands of dining establishments with the chairs on the sidewalk, odds are you’re going to get mediocre food. And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll bite into whatever it is and think ‘I’m eating this, in Paris?’

Yes, unless you’ve done a bit of research and maybe even made a reservation (or two), you will likely eat an un-delicious meal.

I offer this rambling preamble in defense of the food treason I committed in the City of Light, back in 2003.

29 March 2003

It’s around 6 or 7pm and my feet are killing me. I suggest going to the movies – we saw The Hours advertised on Blvd de St Germain. We take yet another metro and stand in line at the theatre. Sister announces she’s feeling irritated because there are so many people there.

So we begin the dreaded ‘find a restaurant’ walk. We’re both sick of sandwiches but the options aren’t too plentiful. Many stale French brasseries, but I’ve had a few too many gross meals in similar places. Finally, I announce I’m tired and can’t walk any more. And then our relationship has a serious meltdown.

I, horror above all horrors, suggest we eat at McDonald’s, since none of the other 10 places we passed appealed to either of us, and I don’t see the point of spending money on crappy food.

Thus we eat cardboard burgers - in silence. I reckon I’ll be hearing about this for some time to come. Afterwards, we stop at Haagen Dazs for cappuccino. And we head back to the hotel, in silence.

McDonald’s: 7 euros

Haagen Dazs: 5,50 euros

Getting back in Sister’s good graces: priceless

The Paris Files

It’s that most lovely time of year, when schools close their doors, and children spend 24 hours a day with their parents and other people take trips to exotic locales. Hawaii. Mexico. Jamaica. Hawaii.

I’ll admit there’s a [small] part of me who believes that a trip to Hawaii* will change my life. Maybe it started with those Magnum P.I. episodes from my youth: the lush foliage, Higgins and his Dobermans, Magnum in his red Ferrari, wearing his embarrassingly short shorts, the ocean…..

So I’ve resolved that next Spring Break, I will go to Hawaii. Even if the professor can’t go because he’s wrapping up the term or whatever Canadians call it. I’ve even started a vacation fund – I just deposited 50 cents in an empty yogurt container. Sure, unless gas prices take a nosedive and airlines start flying people free of charge, it’s entirely possible I will not have enough money saved to see the lava flows and pineapple trees by March 2013.

But I keep getting these emails from Nigerian princes wanting to wire money to my bank account, so perhaps between their windfall and my pittance, I shall gaze upon the setting sun with an umbrella drink next year.

Until then, I can amuse myself by remembering trips past. After all, I have seen a sight or two. Even if it was nine years ago.

My sister and I took the Eurostar from London to Paris, back when she was a chic singleton and I was….well-rested.

For the two of us, ‘travel’ is shorthand for ‘eating constantly’. Sure, we’ll look at some sites and pretend we’re interested, but really we’re just killing time until we find something else we want to eat.

March 28 2003

2.45pm Out the door – off to see Paris (and find an ATM). We walk towards the Eiffel Tower. I buy a salami sandwich to share. We buy a ham sandwich at another cafe, ‘to go’, and get chased away when we sit outside at said restaurant’s tables. Which are all unoccupied. Who said the French were rude?

Finally we arrive at the Eiffel Tower. Look, there it is, and we’re on our way to the next destination of our whirlwind tour of Paris.

We soldier on to the Arc and start walking down the ‘Champs d’Elysees’. Sister very dismayed by all the auto dealers and lack of shops. I assure her that it isn’t as glamorous as it used to be – even her guide book said so. We decide to head over to rue St Honore du Faubourg instead, but I’m having trouble finding our location on the map. I finally determine we’re heading the wrong way – north of the Arc instead of southwest.

We had never even been on the Champs d’Elysees.

I contemplate not saying anything and simply steering us in the right direction. But as Sister is already convinced we’re going the wrong way, regardless, I ‘fess up. She handles it well and we walk back to the real Champs d’Elysees. Remarkably void of car dealers and featuring all sorts of shops. And my beloved Laduree.

We end up at Galeries Lafayette. It’s clear we have opposing priorities. She wants to look at accessories and I at the Food Hall. We sit down for the first time in about four hours. We drink juice and contemplate dinner. (Definitely should have made reservations or firm plans ahead of time!)

So we walk to Vaudeville – supposedly recommended by Epicurious. It doesn’t look ‘cute’ and we don’t fancy rabbit so we decide to try a cute Italian place – Trends. (Stupid name!) It’s between 7.30 and 8pm. We are the only customers. We have great spinach ravioli. A bummer dessert and drink espresso without milk for the first (and last) time. We hobble back to the hotel to nurse our wounded feet.

29 March 2003

We drag ourselves to Notre Dame and walk around inside. It’s definitely less ostentatious than most cathedrals. Okay, of the other two I’ve seen. On our way to Ile St Louis we have the misfortune of walking behind ‘the clappers’. Two very normal-looking men who find great delight in engaging in some rhythmic clapping a deux. And they weren’t content to do it just once. No, all the way past the cathedral with just enough time in between sets to let you think they’re done. We were very tempted to do some clapping ourselves.

There are some really cute shops but mostly we’re just looking for ice cream. We find a tasty place that serves gelato and share a small cup. We share, not because we are small eaters, but because we’ve already had a scoop – each – less than five minutes ago.

We take the metro to Rue d’Alesia where Sister is certain she will find her dream designer purchase. She also manages to get us on the wrong metro line. Ah, the satisfaction. I try to say nothing, but in my mind….I gloat! I cause her severe embarrassment when I eat my chocolate pastry with my finger.

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty – but it was so good.

Sister decides she would like to have her hair washed because it’s advertised as costing 3 euros. She insists I inquire at the salon (en francais) promising she’ll ‘treat’ me. OH the embarrassment. They, of course, don’t just wash your hair. They wash and cut. Or wash and blowdry.

[To be continued]

*And Bora Bora

Your Cooperation is Appreciated

Whenever we make our annual, epic, far-too-long roadtrip to the Midwest, people tell us we’re crazy. Why don’t you fly, they ask. Which is a legitimate question, I suppose, since one can fly in one day what we can drive in….three.

But, really, have you flown lately?

Because I have, and let me just say that this once exciting experience from my youth, has turned into something rather awful.

There’s of course the matter of ‘security’ which, since 2001, has probably been complained about enough. To no avail. But, as one traveler described, it really is  ’a big joke.’

A few weeks ago, I checked in at the Indianapolis airport with a bag of Pacific Sea Salt in my carry on. I know it sounds odd, but I’d just stocked up at Penzey’s and I was so worried about exceeding that 50lb bag weight limit, that I put the salt in my carry on instead of my suitcase. Because that salt weighed at least a pound.

Sure enough, as I stood in security, at the end of the conveyor belt – without my shoes, my belt, my scarf; having just exited a chamber that undoubtedly violated my non-existing rights to see if I was harboring anything illegal, I saw that my little green carry on had been flagged. The guy monitoring the screen, showed the guy searching the bags what he’d seen.

I watched as the bag-searcher carefully unzipped the top compartment of my bag and unearthed the sealed, labeled, wrapped-in-a-Ziploc-bag salt. Half-amused by the situation, I had an overwhelming urge to tell the guy he could keep the $4 bag of salt. But I kind of wanted the salt because my supply is nearly depleted, so I stood there. And waited while he did the ‘rub’ test on my hermetically sealed bag of Penzey’s sea salt. It’s the test where they rub some special paper over the offensive article and allow it to be analyzed by a machine before letting you walk to your gate with your dumb bag of salt.

Thankfully, the machine determined that the salt was unlikely to be utilized in bringing harm to anyone on the Indianapolis-to-Minneapolis flight.

I wheeled my cleared carry on to the gate where I sat, waiting for my flight to depart. Shortly before departure three TSA employees arrived, pushing a mobile cart. ‘They’re going to select people at random,’ the gate attendant essentially told us, followed with that oft-heard threat of this post nine-eleven era, ‘your cooperation is appreciated.’

Sure enough, I was ‘randomly’ selected for violation by the female employee. She patted me down. Front. Back. Legs. Right in the terminal. ‘Back of my hand,’ she assured me, as if her touching my butt and my chest with the back of her hand somehow made it less invasive, less ‘can you believe I’m being frisked in the terminal after having gone through security?

After ‘testing’ the residue from my clothes, the machine predicted I was not a threat to anyone’s security, and the agent kindly allowed me to board.

I remember those United Airlines commercials from my youth about ‘flying the friendly skies.’ The excitement of getting on a plane and eating the compartmentalized food and watching random things on a screen, or listening to music on complimentary headphones, all while snuggling under an ultrathin complimentary ‘blanket’. The flight attendants were kind or at least not overtly rude. The pilot gave jovial updates about turbulence or the location of the flight with respect to its destination.

But these days, with its uncomplimentary everything, less than 12 inches between the edge of your seat and the magazine  pocket, hour-long waits in a crowded plane on the tarmac while some mechanic does who-knows-what, it’s ‘your cooperation is appreciated.’

Spending three days in a Chevy Venture with four boys is not the worst thing. At least the screaming babies are yours and not your one-inch-away-from-you neighbor’s. And when it all gets too much you can pull over…and get out.

Envy Pencils

The Gort returned to school last week after a seventeen day hiatus. When I picked him up in the afternoon, I posed my usual motley of questions. ‘How was your day?’ ‘Who did you sit with at lunch?’ Etcetera.

‘I got a new pencil,’ he announced, while holding a brand new, brightly colored pencil in the air. So I could see what he was talking about. The pencil was emblazoned with six swirly letters: H-A-W-A-I-I.

‘Ah, did one of your classmates go to Hawaii and bring back pencils for everyone?’ I surmised. A thin layer of envy settling upon me.

‘Yep’, he confirmed, in a matter of fact voice; oblivious to the fact that hanging out in Calgary and moving during Christmas break, might not be quite as fun as, say, sitting on a beach in Maui.

It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered ‘the pencil’. In Kindergarten, the Gort came home one day with a white pencil decorated with colorful flags. There were four letters o’ fun on the side: F-I-J-I. ‘You have a classmate who went to Fiji?!’ I gasped. The Fiji? The one that’s in the middle of some far away ocean, which I will likely never see? (And certainly not with my kids!)

I thought about the Hawaii pencil. ‘Maybe you could get some Calgary pencils and hand them out to your classmates,’ I joked, chuckling while imagining the Gort placing a home-grown pencil on each of his friends’ desks.

I considered this ridiculous scenario for a while, but decided it wasn’t nearly lame enough. Really, he should hand out those ubiquitous yellow-orange pencils, with the word ‘S-T-A-Y-C-A-T-I-O-N’ written in wobbly letters.

Who’s jealous now?

The Amaze-ing Drive

It was 9am, Saturday and the Johnsons were overdue for some-sort-of adventure. ‘We need to get out,’ I told the professor, ‘the boys can’t spend another day playing Lego in the basement.’

Which, of course, was not a factual statement. The boys could indeed spend another day playing Lego in the basement, but I felt like it would be detrimental to their health to do so. Something about sunlight, exercise, ‘fresh’ air and all that. The professor acquiesced – ish. And I hatched a little plan.

A friend had mentioned a sunflower maze an hour north of the city, on Facebook. It seemed like a win-win kind of idea: I like flowers, the professor likes to drive and don’t children like ‘mazes’ of any kind? As it turned out, this particular maze was half an hour from the Red Deer bookstore that sold these cookies. And the bookstore was half an hour from this cheese shop. And the planets were lining up for all kinds of six-degrees-of-separation familial fun.

Or not.

We headed north on the Deerfoot, which was a first in and of itself as we’d never been farther north than the Cross Iron Mills Shopping Mall. Apparently we hadn’t missed much because this particular stretch of the Deerfoot won’t make it onto any ‘Alberta’s top scenic drives’ shortlists any time soon.

The boys – all four of them – were pretty good in the car. Pointing out interesting sights. Making observations. [Not sitting in a basement surrounded by tiny pieces of colored plastic.] Finally, after about 90 minutes of driving (the ‘one hour’ estimate seems to have been taken from the northernmost tip of Calgary to exit 357 – anything more counts as ‘free-time’, apparently) we arrived. There was some excitement in the air – ‘the allure of the maze’ – but there was also…hunger.

The muffins I’d brought along for the ride had been consumed in Calgary, before the professor was able to shift the van gears to ‘Drive’. I’d made the crucial error of not packing any extra snacks (other than a little bag of sour candies). I had water, but not food.

Schoolgirl error.

I forked over twenty-some dollars so we five could frolic in the maze and…off we went. For thirty minutes or so, the Johnsons traipsed around a dirt path lined by enormous on-the-verge-of-death sunflowers. The older boys ran ahead. The professor toddled along with young Percy. And I trailed behind, snapping pictures of the fun.

Next thing I knew, we were ‘done’ and the boys were heading back to the animal enclave housing some miniature horses, donkeys, chickens, rabbits and a lazy pig. What? The woman had said it would take an hour and a half – and here we were just leaving? Just done with the maze?

Those who’d been merely hungry half an hour earlier, were now starving. And we were at least thirty minutes from our ‘cookie’ destination. So I had no recourse but to buy Pringles and Reese’s Cups, which they inhaled in less than thirty seconds.

And then we climbed back in the car, headed to Red Deer, to the soundtrack of ‘how many more minutes’ and ‘I’m so hungry’, accompanied by unhappy fatherly sighs in the front. Good times, indeed.

After a ridiculous detour we arrived at the bookstore and I ran inside with the older boys since Percy was sleeping in the car. Also, I did not want to make the professor get out of the car – in the off chance the bookstore cafe didn’t sell any food.

Turns out there was a sad little roast beef sandwich sitting in the cooler, but it didn’t look like anything the Johnson boys would want to eat. So I grabbed three of those precious pumpkin-maple cookies and bought the boys some sort of nasty butterscotch colored bar filled with rainbow mini marshmallows. And a chocolate chip cookie for my better half. Just to tide him over.

When I hopped into my seat with an armful of cookies, the professor gave me the look of death. As if to say ‘we just stopped for food and all you bought were cookies?!’ I directed him to the nearest Wendy’s and we pulled into the drive-thru. ‘What do you want?’ he asked the boys. ‘What is this, junk food day?’ the Gort opined from the back. My little hall-monitor-in-training who actually declined a treat at a friend’s house ‘because I’ve already had enough treats this week.’

‘You can leave out the ‘food’ part of that sentence,’ the professor grumbled.

‘But I got sick last time I ate at Wendy’s,’ the Gort worried aloud. True, we’d all felt ill the last time we consumed Wendy’s food. ‘Well, it probably won’t happen again,’ the professor guessed-hoped. Rather optimistically.

I opted to consume three ‘chicken’ nuggets, figuring it was safer to eat the cookies I’d just bought. The professor ate a hamburger. And the boys ate a few french fries, drank chocolate milk and played with the crappy plastic toys inside their kids’ meals.

After our lunch break, the professor hopped out of the car and ordered me into the driver’s seat; tired of driving and eating bad food and running around sunflower mazes. I sensed my once-auspicious alignment of adventure-planets had crumbled and opted to steer the car south, to Calgary, rather than northwest to Sylvan Lake.

My better half sat in the passenger seat, his finger resting upon the automatic window button ready to depress it at a moment’s notice, certain he was about to toss his proverbial cookies.

‘So, did you have fun,’ I asked the boys, in between their chorus of ‘how many more kilometres’ and ‘I can’t wait to get home to play with Lego’.

‘I didn’t like the sunflower or the corn maze,’ my oldest decided. ‘I only liked the hay maze.’

Ah, the maze in front of the shop. The one that is free and takes exactly ten seconds to complete. That maze.

At least I’d had fun.

Wipeout

‘Have you had a fun summer?’ an acquaintance inquired, politely, when we met unexpectedly. I stopped to think. A ‘fun summer’, had I had one? Images clouded my mind, of me.. bending over a laptop while frowning and trying to figure out whether an author meant to use discrete or discreet; yelling, distractedly, at my children to stop fighting, to stop running, to stop.

It had not been a fun summer, I concluded. And so, with the looming start of school and the end of my 205,000-word editing project in sight, I reserved a hotel room in scenic Banff. Determined to somehow compensate for the lack of summer-fun.

We would go and we’d all somehow turn into different people and it would be great.

Sure, it sounds deluded when spelled out in that manner, but who can blame a girl for thinking children and parents would magically acquire longer ‘fuses’ when placed in different surroundings?

‘The thing is, you really think it’s going to be great,’ the professor sighed, ‘which is what’s wonderful about you and what drives me insane.’

Oh.

Bottom line, ‘being in Banff’ did not make my children more patient, it did not stop the Hen from throwing a killer tantrum because I didn’t buy him his own, personal slab of fudge at The Fudgery, it did not stop Percy from screaming bloody murder (in a thin-walled hotel room, no less) when we tried – quelle horreur – to put a jacket on him; to protect his little limbs against rainy, 50 degree weather. And it did not magically equip me with the supernatural ability to endure my offspring’s outbursts.

While waiting for our evening meal to arrive – the one during which one parent sucked down a cocktail and after which another parent locked themselves in the hotel bathroom while eating a chocolate bar – the professor wondered (aloud): ‘when is this going to be fun?’

Meaning, I suppose, what ages do our boys need to be for us to become ‘the family who travels’. The family who visits museums and interesting places and goes on long hikes and eats a meal in a restaurant…..and sort of enjoys it? I mean, we were driving in the car, hinting at taking a short walk when the older boys stage-whispered in the back: ‘let’s just stay in the car….because we don’t like hiking.’ At least they bond over their mutual disdain of that-which-their-parents-enjoy.

We got our answer about the ideal age for travelling with kids the next day; watching a nineteen year old boy eat lunch with his parents. He sat quietly, waiting for his food; keeping to himself. ‘I’m not going to make it to then,’ the professor despaired, while we begged-threatened this one to stop touching that one for the umpteenth time.

Of course, the excursion wasn’t completely devoid of pleasantries. After all, staying in a ‘hole-tell’ as the Hen calls it, comes with one substantial perk: the television. That rectangular screen that is on whenever we are awake and within the confines of a hotel room. Of course, child-friendly offerings dwindle considerably in the evening. Much as the boys would like us to believe that Family Guy is a ‘boy show’ – just because it’s animated. But we found something we could all watch together: Wipeout.

I had no idea there existed a television show in which adults compete on video-game-esque obstacle courses to win money. But there is….and we watched it. For what seemed like hours. ‘I love this,’ the Hen sighed happily as he fixed his attention on the ‘big kids’ trying to ‘jump the shark’ and doing their best to exit a moving, slippery slide onto a ramp. Delighting as their efforts failed and they plummeted into the pool of water below.

On our way back to Calgary, as I schemed quietly on how to make a family trip a success, I decided the only way….was to turn my house into a hotel. Perhaps if my bedding was ultra-coordinated (with a stain-resistant-sheen) and I had more pillows than I can use, and there was a flat-screen tv against a wall, I could just pretend that I was staying somewhere fun.

Without having to leave the house.

And I will drive 5000 miles…….

When we woke up in the decidedly unfashionable Comfort Inn in Bozeman, there was a (barely detectable) sense of excitement in the air.

It was the day we would drive home. We would not stop at any tourist attractions. We would not drive hours through National Parks. We would go directly to Calgary. Tout de suite.

The boys had been saying ‘I want to go home’ for three days. Even Percy was getting in on the action: ‘I wan go home’. Though I seriously doubted he knew what the phrase meant.

We packed our suitcases for the eleventh, and final, time. And then we were off. Neither the professor or I wanted Google to tell us just how many hours we’d have to be in the car. We preferred to let our minds do the guessing. Surely it would be less than 10 hours?

Before getting in the car, the professor asked the hotel desk clerk if there was a Starbucks in town. Because their Allegra freshly brewed coffee had smelled…..scary. There was a Starbucks, but it was clear on the other side of town. We would not be delayed in our final push towards the Calgarian summit.

So we went without.

Until we got to Helena and saw the friendly green and white circle calling to us from one of the town’s billboards. We stopped and procured iced coffee and vanilla milk for the boys. ‘Should we buy another copy of the New York Times and pretend we’re going to read it?’ the professor asked. ‘Sure.’ I sighed. Anything was possible on this last day. Perhaps we would read the paper, even though we’d gotten a copy precisely one week earlier en route to the Pokagon State Park, and never made it past the front page.

But when the professor looked at the date on the newspaper, he recognized it as being one week old. It was the same paper we’d bought in Indiana the previous Sunday.

Since we were already stopped, we decided to go to the Target in Helena. For one last shopping excursion. The boys spent an hour in the toy aisle and then it was time to go. Not really the kind of shopping excursion I’d imagined.

Who knows what time it was when we finally got back in the car, but we vowed to stay focused and finish strong. The end was in sight. We drove. And we drove and we drove and we drove. Empty highways with farms on either side. Hills. Mountains. The Blackfeet Reservation. Glacier National Park.

‘You have a 25% chance of winning $5000 if you go to Glacier National Park today,’ I challenged the professor, ‘do you go in?”

I wanted to see how ‘done’ he was with traveling.

‘Nope.’

He was done. Unless the odds were 50-50 in which case he would go.

We got to the border crossing. I feared it was going to be the day the entire car would be searched. ‘So, the two of you and three kids?’ the guard asked while feigning interest in the human contents of the car-van. ‘Yes.’ ‘Any alcohol?’ ‘Six bottles of wine.’ ‘What size?’ Size? Did it matter what size they were? ‘Uh, the 750ml bottles?’ ‘Any weapons?’ ‘No.’ ‘Welcome to Canada.’

And we drove on; our little red house in Calgary but a couple of hours (ish) away.

Shortly after 8pm, we turned into our neighborhood. ‘We’re home!’ the boys crowed. We hobbled out of the car-van, set our feet, tenderly, upon the sidewalk and limped to the front door. The (5) flowers had grown. The grass had not. Gotta love living in a place where you don’t have to mow more than once a month. The house had the stagnant smell of a dwelling isolated from fresh air.

We unloaded the van. The boys played. The professor vacuumed the car-van’s interior with a look of horror upon his face. ‘We’re definitely not ready for an RV,’ he sighed as he dug handfuls of markers, toys and crumbs from various hiding places.

It had been 22 days since we left. We had driven over 5000 miles; slept in 9 different places. The neighbor’s dog had doubled in size. And our Percy had morphed from baby to little kid.

See you in 2012 (ish) America!

In Search of the Geyser, Day 3

Our night at the Best Western Inn was a long one. The Gort slept on the floor. I huddled on the bed with Percy and the Hen while the professor vacillated between the chair, the foot of the bed and the floor.

It was one of those nights when morning couldn’t come fast enough.

We had talked, loosely, of taking four days to drive back instead of our usual three, since we were going to be ‘in the vicinity’ of Yellowstone National Park. But when I got in the car that morning in Sheridan, I was anything but interested in seeing the splendor of Yellowstone.

‘I don’t want to go to Yellowstone,’ I announced when the professor suggested we stop to stock up on snacks for the drive. I just couldn’t fathom spending an extra day in the car just to see trees and water and a geyser. He looked at me with wide eyes. ‘You don’t want to go?’ ‘No.’

He swallowed his counter-argument and opted for a diplomatic ‘okay, we won’t go.’

Which was a smart move on his part. If he’d dug in his heels, insisted we go, I would have dug in my heels and refused. Instead he chose to be reasonable. And then I felt guilty.

We stopped at the Wal-Mart and I tore through the store with a cart and thirty minutes on the clock. I bought bags of Terra Chips (many bags of Terra Chips) and popcorn and rolls and turkey and cheese and cereal. And fruit. We hadn’t had fruit for days.

We stopped at Starbucks for (more) iced coffee and free wireless and by the time we got in the car, it was close to noon. It was two and a half hours to Cody, Wyoming, which the professor believed was close to the Yellowstone entrance.

He was wrong.

We arrived at the Park Entrance close to 4.30pm. A sweet braces-wearing McLovin lookalike greeted as from his perch in the booth. ‘Hello and welcome to Yellowstone,’ he chirped. We were not feeling friendly, not any of us. But we offered insincere smiles and pretended to be excited. The professor paid the $25 admission and before McLovin could send us on our way, I leaned in his direction with a desperate look on my face.

‘How long does it take to get to the geyser?’

I had my eye on the clock. And I’d taken a look at the park map. Things did not look good for the Johnson’s Yellowstone experience.

‘Old Faithful?’ the teenaged ranger asked. And I felt all kinds of embarassment for having asked where THE geyser was. Because there’s more than one geyser in Yellowstone, isn’t there?

‘Yes,’ I humbly replied.

‘It takes about an hour and a half,’ he chirped. And flashed a silver smile and sent us on our way.

An hour and a half would have us at ‘the geyser’ close to 6pm. And the sky was overcast. I was darned if I was going to sit in a car for five and a half hours and miss ‘the geyser’.

So we drove. And we drove. And we stopped briefly at ‘the lake’ so the boys could throw rocks and the professor could stick logs in the sand for one of his infamous installations. And we stopped for a bison. And we stopped for ‘other’ geysers. And we got gas and bought the boys more cheap trinkets to keep them happy. And we drove.

And then we got to Old Faithful.

Estimated time of next eruption: 8.12pm.

Is it bad to drive all the way to Yellowstone and not see ‘the geyser’ erupt?

We walked around on the wooden walkways, doing our best to keep Percy from touching that which was not to be touched, for fear he would burn himself. After an hour or so, we headed back to the car, so we could begin the drive to Bozeman, Montana.

It was 7.30ish. The predicted eruption was less than 45 minutes away. ‘Well, let’s get the boys ready and then we’ll drive to the end of the parking lot and if it erupts we’ll see it,’ the professor suggested, because we had no idea how accurate their predictions were. 8.12 could mean 7.45….or 8.45. And did we really want to hang around for a lazy geyser? Apparently we did. We doled out snacks. Changed Percy’s diaper. Put in the ten thousandth movie of the journey. Ate cereal and cherries. Because no one among us could stomach the thought of a sandwich or a hamburger or a nugget. We drove to the edge of the parking lot. At 8.08, as we walked towards Old Faithful, it erupted.

I ran towards the geyser, snapping pictures along the way. Thoroughly pleased that I’d been there to witness the cloud of steam and water (or whatever it is). And then another McLovin-esque teenaged worker rode by on a bike. ‘There she blows……..AGAIN’ he called out as one who’d seen the cloud of steam and water one-hundred-too-many-times.

And then I thought about it. Was Old Faithful lame? Was this geyser a smarter, classier version….of a tourist trap?

As we drove the three hours to the Bozeman Comfort Inn, munching on a half-baked Subway pizza in the dark van, narrowly missing a large deer on the highway, I decided ‘yes’.

Tourist Traps, Day 2

Our second day of travel got off to a rather late start. Thanks to the non-functioning internet at the Sioux Falls Sheraton, the professor holed up in the cafe in Falls Park to work on his performance report, while I did my best to entertain the youngsters. There were rocks to climb and waterfalls to look at and I thought it would be a fun morning.

But it was also hot. And I had to keep three non-swimming boys from climbing in the water. And the Hen had a meltdown of epic proportions that prompted an Indian woman sitting under a tree to try and talk him off his fragile-state-ledge (read: screaming so loud every head in the vicinity turned in my direction.)

All this to say, it was late by the time we finally got in the car for our second day of driving. And we hadn’t yet agreed on a destination: Sheridan, Wyoming or Billings, Montana. Five hundred eighty seven miles? Or six hundred and sixty? Or none of the above?

An hour after we hit interstate 90, we came upon Mitchell, South Dakota. Home of ‘The Corn Palace.’ Actually, home of ‘the world’s only corn palace’ if the tagline is to be believed. I was intrigued. I’d heard it was a terrible tourist trap, but who could resist the allure of the corn palace? Not moi.

‘You know we’re stopping at the Corn Palace, right’ I informed the driver. He looked at me with slightly rolled eyes. ‘Are you serious?’ ‘Yep.’

So we veered off the interstate and drove a painfully indirect route past every.business.in.Mitchell to the Corn Palace. The Gort was unamused. ‘It’s not even made of corn,’ he sneered, before running off into the gift shop across the street. Where he gazed longingly at trinkets he believed would improve his quality of life.

Of course, anything can improve your quality of life when you’re trapped in a car with your family.

Well, anything except more family time.

‘I’m getting a coffee,’ the professor announced, pointing to the sign on a dilapidated building in the next block. It was early afternoon and we hadn’t yet had any coffee. We were desperate. Though not desperate enough to believe the ‘world’s best coffee,’ was forty paces away. But seeing as Starbucks hasn’t set up shop in Mitchell, we had no other choice.

So we passed the Corn Palace and stepped inside ‘Jitters’ where we ordered two lattes.

I have some selection criteria when it comes to patronizing coffee shops during our annual tour. (1) Don’t buy coffee anywhere that uses the word ‘expresso’. (2) If the baked goods look gross, the coffee will most likely be bad too. Conversely, if the baked goods look good, there’s a reasonable chance the coffee will be drinkable. (3) Positive sayings posted in a coffee shop does not mean the coffee will be good. (4) Iced coffee served in an insulated cup….with ice….is a bad thing.

Jitters (aka, the world’s best coffee) had bad looking baked goods and positive sayings. I knew exactly what I was getting when I sipped my iced latte….served in an insulated cup.

Having checked Mitchell off our non-existent bucket list, we got back in the car and kept driving, only to be confronted by a mess of billboards luring us to ‘Wall Drug’ and the ‘Badlands’. Since we were already hideously behind schedule and still hadn’t settled on a final destination, I decided I had to see the Badlands. And Wall Drug. .

‘I want to see the Badlands,’ I told the professor. Figuring, he’d had Mt. Rushmore, I could have the Badlands.

‘Really?’ ‘Yep.’

So we paid $10 or $15 to take a scenic loop through the Badlands en route to the sure-to-be-tourist-trap Wall Drug.

It was 95 degrees outside according to our trusty car-van. The older boys refused to get out of the car at the first scenic outlook. So we took young Percy and rolled down the windows and walked forty paces to the vista of rock formations. We looked. I photographed. And we walked back. At precisely the same time as an elderly couple peered inside our van – obviously concerned for the welfare of our heat averse boy-children.

They lingered by the van and we hustled back to avoid getting in trouble with the senior set for leaving our lazy kids in a van for four minutes.

At the next scenic outlook, we ordered all boy-children out of the van and climbed the pale rocks, together. Other than the ‘watch for rattlesnakes’ signs posted on the walkway, and the mind-numbing heat index, it was a good time: watching the oldest boys navigate the landscape while the youngest determined to keep up with them.

Only problem, when we got back in the car, I realized the ‘nearly full’ bottle of water tucked in the passenger door, was ‘mostly empty’.

‘You guys can each have one drink of water,’ I ordered. And we drove the thirty miles to Wall Drug for their much-publicized ‘free ice water’.

But not before stopping at another scenic outlook where a mass of touring senior citizens held their point and shoot cameras aloft in the direction of (what was believed to be) a bighorn sheep. The professor maintains it was actually a deer.

As we pulled into the crowded Wall Drug parking lot and watched the throngs of fellow travelers arriving and going from this dubious attraction, I wondered: what makes a tourist destination? If you put up a billboard (or thirty), sell cheap souvenirs and bad food….will they come?

In the case of Wall Drug, the answer appears to be yes. Or maybe I’m just bitter that I spent $3 on an ‘expresso’ shake that tasted suspiciously like….chocolate.

At the gas station, we made use of one of the motels’ wireless networks and bought ourselves a night at the Best Western Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming.

When we walked through our ‘enter from the outside’ door at 11.38pm, we discovered there was one bed for all five of us.

Desperate, the professor phoned the hotel desk to see if we might at least borrow one of their cribs for young Percy.

They were all out of cribs.

The Return, Day 1

Driving back is the worst.

It doesn`t matter that I know this, anticipate it, expect it. Still, I find myself sitting in a car that first day after the conclusion of our annual Midwestern tour, in a deep funk.

‘You know how there are volcanoes and supervolcanoes,’  the professor dares to speak aloud, ‘well you`re a supervolcano about to explode,’ he opines. As though it needed to be said.

Which, it didn’t. ‘Yes, I’m grumpy,’ I concede, ‘so maybe you should just leave me alone.’ But he can’t. He insists on jabbing his finger into my sides in the off-chance it will produce a smile. Which, it won`t. I’ve been on the road for 19 days: I’m done.

We approach Peoria, Illinois which is probably two hours from Indianapolis. ‘I don’t want to be in the car anymore,’ I whine like a small child. ‘Can we just stop here?’

We’ve traveled one-eighteenth of our journey and I’m suggesting we quit. ‘Yeah, maybe we can just get out here and never get back in the car again,’ the professor agrees. ‘We could just live in Peoria and tell everyone if they want to see us they’ll have to drive to Peoria because we’re never driving anywhere again.’

The Gort and the Hen are fighting in the backseat. ‘He won’t share water with me!’ one bellows. ‘He’s copying me,’ another cries. ‘Stop copying me!’ ‘Stop copying me!’ ‘It’s not funny.’ ‘It’s not funny.’

It’s annoying and so……textbook.

Percy isn’t one to be left out of the drama. He learned a thing or two in the Midwest. Namely words. Suddenly, he speaks. A lot. It’s as if we left Calgary with a baby and are returning with a preschooler. They’re mostly ‘declarative’ phrases, like ‘no pictures!’ when I point the camera in his direction, or ‘no byper [diaper]!’ when I offer to change him. ‘No bath!’ when I suggest we remedy the disaster that is his appearance. And self-centered demands, like ‘my turn’ and ‘share’ when his brothers or I have something he wants.

Which is pretty much 90% of the time: toys, snacks, iced coffee, atlases – it doesn’t matter. He wants them all. Now.

He’s also adopted an ear-searing squeal that stuns me – painfully – when he opens his mouth and lets one rip, at completely random intervals.  It’s not done out of anger or malice, I think he just genuinely enjoys the look of wincing-horror on my face whenever he does it. Because he breaks into a huge grin, thoroughly pleased with himself.

As if to say ‘pretty impressive, huh.’

Despite our inclination to set up shop in Peoria, we soldier on, completing the 758 mile journey to Sioux Falls in the Google-suggested 12 hours and 30 minutes. Along the way, there’s a disagreement about the amount of ice in iced coffee. There is mind-blowing heat and humidity. We purchase little pieces of junk at visitors’ centers in the off-chance it would keep the boys quiet for fifteen minutes. We eat candy. And more Terra chips than any human should consume in a year.

We arrive in the Sheraton parking lot just before midnight. There are two beds in our room (which is not always the case – as we’ll find out the following night). The $10 internet is not working And the professor has to turn in his ‘annual performance report’ the next day.