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The Zees Are Home.


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5000 miles later, the Zees are home safe and sound.

Walking in Memphis

Took a tour of Beale street and heard a dozen outdoor jazz/blues bands within a space of two blocks. That's the entire extent of the famous Beale street strip. Had some spectacular BBQ at Rum Boogie and spent the evening drinking beer and soaking up the music. In the morning, Karen and Zack took a tour of Graceland, and now we're on the way home.

Hot Springs National Park

This place was about 40 minutes out of the way, and wasn't quite what we expected. The "National Park" was a building in downtown Murfreesboro. The hot springs were all capped shut to shunt the water to a row of bath houses. I think it became a national park because of the significance of the bathhouses, not because of the hot springs. We were thinking that we would be able to swim in the hot springs, so were in no mood to tour bath houses and read about which celebrities visited them over the years.

Crater of Diamonds National Park

The Zees are in Murfreesboro, AR



Crater of Diamonds National Park is the only Diamond Mine in the United States. It was assayed in the 1990's, and determined that there weren't enough diamonds for commercial mining. Now it's a park where people can come and try their luck finding diamonds themselves. It looked like there were about 100 people out there today. A few hard-core miners who rent cages for their equipment, but mostly tourists like us. The "diamond field" looked like a big plowed field of mud. They plow if every month to turn over the soil and give visitors a fresh look. The hard-core miners use a skinny iron probe about 6 feet long that they shove down into the mud. If it goes it easily, they try a new spot. They are trying to locate a layer of gravel. If they find one, they dig down to it and pan the gravel to find diamonds. The guy I talked to was at it about a year, and found 53 diamonds. On the day we were there, 4 diamonds were found; the biggest was 1.68 carats. We found a few likely candidates, but they turned out to be either quartz or jaspar.
Someone who was thinking put a mini-water park right in front of the diamond mine. The Zees couldn't resist the Siren's call and we only lasted a couple hours in the field. After cooling off in the pool, Karen insisted on going back to hunt more, but the Zees retreated to Baxter to watch a movie.

Mesquite, TX

Karen's brother Gary lives in Mesquite with his wife Leslie, son Jeremy, and his in-laws. We stopped there to catch up and have dinner. Very nice family. Gary is back row, far right. Leslie is next to Zeo, who looks like a mutant 8-year old next to her. I probably would have looked like a circus freak, so I volunteered to take the photo.

Hello World,
When I was at Las Vegas there was this wave pool and it was really fun. Usually it was just a regular pool but once in a while a huge wave came by and it was really cool. It was extremely hard to ride the wave but once in a while I actually caught it. Zeo was really good at it though.
Sincerely,
Zoe

lake towhe

We went to lake towhe. It was really fun. Me and Zeo got are head wet and Zeo dunked me. the water was just right. zacky caught a fish, but then zeo sqused his guts, then buried it alive. Zeo just wanted to end its misory.

Remember the Alamo

Today, we went to visit The Alamo. It was more educational than I thought. 169 untrained people were defending the Alamo and 2000 trained men were bombarding them with muskets spheres. But, every day more and more people joined the defenders. in a few weeks, there numbers were 3000 strong. But, the men who were trained finally broke through the wall and took control of the cannons and destroyed the rest of the army.

Hi we went to this place called the Alamo. it was boring.Well it was nice that they had

aircondishaning.We had to wait in a HUGE line.It was about these

people fighting in a war.We went swimming after

that too!!!

San Antonio, TX

The Zees are in San Antonio!

San Antonio is a bit hot for my tastes, but has a nice riverwalk through downtown, and has a nice feel to it. We're here for Karen's 20 year High School reunion. Her school was so small that it's a reunion for the whole school, not just her graduating class, so it's more like "approximately 20 years for some people, and not even close for others". Plenty of kids to keep the Zees occupied, and there were street performers in the plaza right outside the restaurant; a cheesy magician in particular that had all the kids mesmerized. Our 2nd night in a hotel room since the beginning of the trip. This is what the daughters of army personnel look like 20 years after graduating high school (Taegu American High School in South Korea)

today we went to a big cave, i got bored after 5 minutes but then we went

to this really cool part of the cave then i was amused there was stlagtight

and stleagmight everywere

Carlsbad Caverns

The Zees are in Carlsbad, NM!




The Carlsbad Cavern walking loop is about 90 minutes around, 750 feet underground on a paved trail. Most people were smart enough to wear jackets, and we were all pretty cold in our shorts and T-shirts by the time we got through. Next stop is San Antonio for Karen's High School reunion. My face is still pretty banged up and my lip is about 2x normal, so poor Karen will have to explain to all her friends that her husband doesn't usually look quite this bad.

If anyone has suggestions for stops between San Antonio and Chicago, we'd love to hear them!

Roswell, NM

Roswell
Every shop had a picture of a UFO or an alien. Even the Wal-mart in Roswell had an alien logo. We stopped for a few hours at Bottomless Lakes, where the kids swam and we simply relaxed for a few hours. No one was abducted and replaced with an alien doppleganger, as far as I can tell.

highlight

I asked the little Zs what there favorite part was so far, and the perennial favorite "sticking heads out of window at high speed" claimed the #1 spot. (click to enlarge)

Santa Fe, NM

we went mountain bicking. we successfully made it through the trail with minamaml injorys. But the next day, we went on the same bike ride, but with Zoe instead of Zeo. It was one minute in to the ride, and Zoe thinks its a good idea to slow down and hit a tree root. she jumps off her bike and lands on all fours. Me flying after her, and stoping my fall with my hands. Ow. I wish I broke it with my helmit. now because of Zoe for stoping, and dad for not mentioning gloves, and my self because I wasnt suposto be so close to Zoe, for exactly that reason, that I got my hands skin peeled back from the base, and getting full of dirt that took a day to start to get out. It hurts evan as Im typing. Well, there is one good thing, I don't have to do any hard work untill my hand gets healed up. other than that,Im doin' good.

Santa Fe, day two

After some great food at Tomasita's last night, and several hours of shopping in an around the plaza, we decided to try the trail again the next morning, this time with Zack, Zoey and myself. We made it about a quarter mile, when we had to turn back (see Zack's entry) My brakes were really loose, so after returning, I borrowed an allen wrench from the guy in the trailer next to me, and after listening for about an hour to a kindly old gentleman explain how America has gone to hell in a hand basket, and no one is willing to work for a living, I had managed to tighten up my front brake considerably, but the back brake was too trashed to fix. The start of the trail consists of a series of 8 inch steps, which I used to be able to ride down with about 90% success rate. After the first step, I squeezed my brakes hard, forgetting that I had just tightened the front one. This effectively turned my bicycle into a trebuchet with me as the projectile.

Santa Fe, NM

The Zees are in Santa Fe!

Santa Fe was one of must stop destinations on the trip. Both the mountain biking and the food are outstanding. We got a campsite just a quarter mile from the start of one of the better trails. Zeo, Zacky, and I headed out on what I remember as about a 40 minute ride. Its pretty technical, and turned out to be a little too much for little Zeo, who ended up waking his bike uphill because it was too steep, and then walking his bike downhill, for the same reason. There were a lot of flat areas where he was fine, but a one hour ride turned into four. I added an extra hour by taking a wrong turn, but the other two extra hours were clearly Zeo's fault. We didn't have enough bikes for the whole family, since I totalled 3 when I backed Baxter up into an embankment in the redwoods. I was able to get one off of Craigslist in Tahoe, but we're still short. And then, after the bike ride today, I put the three bikes on the rack, but when we got back to the campgrounds, Zeo's was missing, so now we're really short bikes.

Antelope Canyon. AZ

The Zs are at Antelope Canyon!
This formation is not far from Lake Powell, and was really a spectacular site. It was pretty touristy, and the guides moved us through like cattle, but the rock formations were unique. Great opportunity and challenge for photographers.

Zion

The Zees are at Zion National Park. We hiked for a little too long then went swimming in a river to cool off. Still a little behind schedule, so we headed out after only a couple hours.

Lake Powell

At Lake Powell we enjoyed jumping off the cliffs in a c formation.it was fun jumping off and landing with a splash! Then climbing back up agian, then makeing a canonball. we enjoyed hours of that, and best of all, the water felt warm. Zeo found a nice plat form that was exciting to jump from. If I did a dive, then my trunks had a risk of falling off. finaly after hours, went back to Baxter to spend the night at some RV park.

Las Vegas, NV

The Zs are in Las Vegas!
Tonight was the first night we didn't sleep in the RV, but instead decided to get a hotel room for the night. My brother Ed met us there and treated us all all to the Lion King Musical. Very generous and very fun. The rest of the time in Vegas the Zees spent at the wave pool or in the lazy river at the hotel.

Goldfield, NV

The Zs are in Goldfield, NV
Goldfiled is an old mining town, which is not quite a ghost town. It's mostly abandoned property, but there are a few hearty souls still working the ground. We tried our luck finding gold in a pile of tailings for about an hour and came up with a couple bits of lead and a bullet shell.
This local was towing his model-T somewhere (he claims it still runs), and we asked if we could take his picture.

Lake Tahoe

The Zs are at Lake Tahoe!
There's a great bike trail in Tahoe called The Flume, but no one was up for it, so we just hung out at the beach. The water was 56 degrees, which deterred the adults but not the Zees. We also played a little beach VB. It turns out that the Junior VB Nationals were going on at the same time in Reno, and a team of U17 girls from South Carolina showed up and joined us. We cooked dinner on the beach and headed out. It was a beautiful spot, and we had planned to stay longer, but at this point we're pretty far behind schedule.

Still in Grass Valley

The Zees are hanging out in a conference room!

Grass Valley is where we purchased the RV, so we took it in for a pitstop. A bunch of minor things, and the one major thing was that the oven stopped working a couple days back. It turned out that the slide had pinched the power cord to the oven, and we needed to make an appointment the next day to get it repaired.

:(

The dealership has wireless, so I'll use the time to backfill the weblog.