Vacation Is Over.

Yes, it's about time that my title had something other than a date and time in it.  In case you were wondering, I did not fall into a crack in the earth and am still alive and well.  My parents dropped my off at a hilton hotel in cleveland last sunday for my summer camp.  This camp was pretty unusual, so I really liked it.  Most of my week was spent working on our project, which was to perform a failure analysis of a pair of scissors with the rest of my team of six.  Our mentor, Dr. Daniel Dennies, was a lot of help, and has actually written a book on how to run a failure investigation.  One of the students, named Simon, was from france and was accompanied by another mentor from france named Philippe.  During the course of the weak, we were privileged to use a Scanning Electron Microscope, perform a hardness test on the metal in our scissors, perform a microscopy on our failed scissors and examples scissors.  In addition to tests for our projects, we were privileged perform a pewter casting of a Knight and a tin casting of a lizard as well as make a hook out of wrought Iron.  We found that while our subject scissors and a similar pair of scissors that we liberated from the ASM library were made of cast Iron, our other, more recently made, example scissors were made of stainless steel, which caused the subject scissors to be much softer than the examples.  We also found that it took less force to brake the two cast Iron scissors than the stainless steel scissors.  However, we did also learn that the scissors broke while being used to cut sheet metal.  We concluded that although the cast Iron scissors were sufficient for cutting paper, they were inferior to the stainless steel scissors.  Bottom line, I really, REALLY enjoyed camp and met lots of fellow nerds.  It seems I now must add materials science to my list of possible majors.

07/23/2011, 19:59 EST

Today, as we hoped, The Lord willed that we should visit Grandma and take her out to a park, dinner, and Ice Cream.  Compared to other days on this trip, today was really uneventful.  But blogging is all about telling nothing to no one, so here I sit.

07/22/2011, 19:35 EST

Today we visited Zoar, which is an old town that was founded by German sectarians during the early 1800s.  Although we have something similar to this in PA, I thought that it was still quite interesting, since finding the differences actually made it more interesting.  After that, we visited my great Aunt and Uncle, which I enjoyed even more than Zoar, partially because there was air conditioning.  Now we are back at the hotel and bedding down for the night.  Tomorrow we shall visit my Great Grandma in Assisted living, deo volente.

07/21/2011, 20:51 EST

Today was fun-packed, as most days with my Dad the vacation Nazi are (don't think that I'm not grateful to him).  In the mourning, we drove to the National Museum of the Air Force and brushed the surface of that veritable treasure trove of information, artifacts, and history.  I think that if you really want to experience that museum you have to set aside three full days to look inside.  We were pushing ourselves as fast as we could and skipping anything that looked less than breath-taking and we were only able to get through less than a 5th of the museum.  Anyway, we soon left the museum and headed off to Cedarville University to take yours truly on a tour.  It reminded me a lot of Grove City College, except a little bit bigger.  After that, we just went to the hotel and ate dinner and chilled out a little bit (to utilize the hip term).  Then, I was able to catch up on a little bit of blogging, as you can probably tell.  Now I will sign out and try to go to sleep, since everyone else seems to be trying to do so.  Dad told us we might sleep in tomorrow, but you know how likely that is.  (As in not at all.)

07/20/2011, 20:58 EST

Well, as I predicted, I didn't really get any time to blog while we were at my cousins' house except posting the one I wrote in the car.  Fortunately, I was able to recruit help from my blogging buddy again because our cousins from Oklahoma came up to Nebraska to take part in the family reunion.  Although there were lots of people there I didn't know, I knew everyone my age from one time or another, so I felt pretty comfortable.  The first day we drove to Iowa for the family reunion.  There we chatted and ate and had a good time and went to a family sharing time, which was also fun in its own way.  The second day we had a worship service in a nursing home in which one of our ancestors currently resides and drove to the ancestral farmland of our shared ancestors.  Unfortunately, the important historical buildings were all either burnt down or disassembled for parts, but there were a few trees left that we could see.  Far more interesting was the old school house in which said ancestors had been educated, which we were able to get into due to the severe deterioration of the door frame.  Despite the visible signs of having been inhabited by animals, there was still a lot to see and was an interesting look into the former times.  I will wait a few months before complaining about the inferiority of our public school systems after that experience.

After that, the reunion officially ended and we went home with both sets of cousins.  The day after that we went to the Omaha zoo, which was pretty good.
  

The next day we went to a lake and kayaked and swam therein.  Additionally, we decided to stack two people on top of my uncle and see if we could make him collapse.  

He didn't collapse, but I got a picture, so it wasn't a total loss.  Bottom line is we've been having a great time and I'm kind of bummed that we've already left.

07/15/2011, 14:28 EST

Not long after I finished writing the last post yesterday we passed the Custer’s Last Stand Memorial, or whatever it’s called.  We decided not to stop, considering that the battle was really more of a skirmish in which a foolish commander decided to lead his small force against an Indian horde, against orders and all reason.  I did look at it as we drove by, however, and I don’t think I missed out on anything other than another tourist trap.  We did, however, visit Devil’s tower, which was pretty cool.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

We went on a short hike around the base of the tower before we left, but we left relatively quickly.  Afterword, we headed off to Mount Rushmore.  Although I didn’t find Mount Rushmore extremely awe-inspiring or fascinating, I guess I can say that I saw it now.

We passed the rest of the day without event, and were able to make a good start the next mourning, after which we made it to the Bad Lands (yes, apparently I was wrong and we weren’t planning to go to the Bad Lands yesterday).  Despite the name, I found it extremely beautiful.

In addition to beautiful scenery, we saw Big-horned Sheep at the park, although none of them were males, unfortunately.

Over all, we had a great time and are looking forward to getting to our cousins' house.  Unfortunately, I will most likely not have much time in which to blog with all the fun going on there.  I'll try to remember everything for afterwards, though.

07/14/2011, 9:36 EST

Yesterday, on our way to our hotel at Red Lodge from Yellowstone National Park we went through Bear Tooth pass, with a peak elevation of 10,947 ft.  My dad said that it looked exactly like the Alps in Switzerland, except maybe a little smaller.  Whatever they resembled, they were very beautiful mountains and the pass was very cool.  In fact, we saw many glaciers that must have been at least sic feet thick, despite the fact that they’ve been having a very quick thaw that’s been causing lots of flooding around here.  Before we went through the pass, however, we stopped at a vista to check out the view.  When we got into the car, Dad noticed an insect on his rear view mirror.  I dubbed him Jiminy the Giant Spotted Alpine Forest Tree Cricket.  Of course, I’m not even sure that he was a Cricket, and I certainly don’t know whether he was a Tree Cricket (which is actually a kind of Cricket, I think) but I do know that we were in an Alpine forest.  Anyway, I’d love to hear what you would call him.

 

After we made it to the hotel, I hurriedly published the last to posts between swimming and eating dinner.  It would have been a lot easier if the network hadn’t have kept timing out while I was trying to upload pictures. Not much has happened today, since it’s only about 7:30 here right now.  Today we hope to see Mount Rushmore and the badlands of South Dakota, Deo Volente.

P.S.  Did you hear about how Obama stormed out of budget talks and said “I won’t let them call my bluff”?  I think that may be the first true thing he’s said in his carrier as President of the United States.  Hopefully the Republicans will find this truth as refreshing and rejuvenating as I did in their fight to reign in the national debt without leaving the door open for the democrats to spend us into debt again.  With one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, I doubt that the problem is, as Obama would like us to think, that Americans are not taxed enough.  Considering his epic failures in job creation, maybe he should take some tips from this evil rich people on how to create jobs.  But I think that it would be more likely for all the Bison we saw yesterday to sprout wings and fly to the moon and feast on the green cheese up there than for Obama to allow anything to be carried by the capable and ready hands of the private sector instead of the many-leveled inefficient bureaucracies that he insists on creating that bankrupt the American people.  Sometimes I wonder whether he has any goals other than to ruin America and go on extravagant vacations.  That would certainly fit with his Muslim upbringing.

07/13/2011, 16:52 EST

Today’s weather is much better than yesterday’s was.  Although it did rain for a little bit, it wasn’t intense and was certainly much shorter than yesterday’s.  This mourning, we got up early and were able to beat the crowds on our hike to Uncle Tom’s point and Artist’s point.  It was really nice to be away from the crowds, but the altitude did leave me somewhat short of breath while climbing back up the huge flight of steps that go down from the top of the canyon.  The climb was more than worth it, however, because the view of the falls was spectacular.

In addition to the falls, we saw a Yellow-bellied Marmot on the hike, which we realized we had seen before but mistaken for a funny colored groundhog.  I can see just as well as you can that he has a red belly, but I didn’t name it, so don’t blame me.

After our hike, we drove to a few more stops, one of which included the Dragon’s Mouth, which I thought was a pretty good name for that particular spot

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On our second hike, we walked to a natural bridge, which was kind of neat.  On our way there we saw lots of cool wildflowers, one of which I stopped to photograph.

One stop after our hike included abyss pool, which is another aptly named landmark, even though it’s hard to see it’s depth in the picture.  Interestingly, I unwittingly took a picture of the pine trees reflected in the pool when I was trying to get a picture that captured some of its depth (53 ft).

Finally, our last stop included many colorful pools, such as Grand Prismatic Spring.  Although we’d seen a number of blue pools before this, I think that these were the best.  Unfortunately, there was so much steam coming off of the pools made them difficult to photograph, so I had to wait until the wind picked up and blew away some of the steam to get pictures of the water.

In the new bird department, I had 2 volunteers, a Trumpeter Swan and an American Dipper.

On one last note, I caught a wild animal stealing one of my cucumbers, but I let it have it because I figured that the chipmunks in Yellowstone probably get fed to much junk food and need the healthy vegetables.  And plus, he was really cute!

53 feet

07/12/2011, 21:25 EST

Today we toured Yellowstone National Park.  Despite the rain, I enjoyed myself immensely for the most part and I think I can say the same for the rest of us.  We started by visiting Old Faithful, of course.  Although the actual geyser was really cool, I had a sever misfortune.  Since Old Faithful ran 15 minutes late, my memory card ran out just as it began to erupt for real!  So much for videotaping every minute of it.  I fact, I had only 6 seconds of video when it started.  I was, however, able to hurriedly delete the bummer video and take some still shots of the water falling back to earth, well after the peak.

After that we went to a cool spot with some small geysers and colorful pools.  I think that this might have been my favorite part, but I can’t decide.  Unfortunately, the rain that started while we were watching Old Faithful increased in intensity, and we began to get rather wet, despite our rain jackets.

After that and a few other stops like it, it rained so hard that we decided to just drive around the park instead of getting out and accumulating moisture.  While we were doing this, I photographed this huge geyser base from the car window.

To complete our Yellowstone experience, we visited some mud pots, including the Painter’s Pots, which were really cool.  Although I did take some movies, which were much more impressive, I don’t think I’ll be able to upload them with hotel internet, so you’ll have to make do with these photographs I took of this small, but especially vigorous mud pot.

At lookout point, we also saw an Osprey nest, and I snapped a few pics through my scope.  Although it is hard to see, there are chicks in there (trust me, I could see them moving).

While I’m on the topic of animals, we also got a fantastic look at a male Elk and a much less fantastic look at a Bull Moose.

Over-all, this was a great day, especially since the rain cleared up later in the day.  The wildlife here is pretty cool, and there are neat animals all over the place.  I didn’t see any new birds today, but since we’re hiking tomorrow, I hope to have some links for you tomorrow.  Yet again, our hotel doesn’t have internet, so my apologies for the late posting.  Hopefully I won’t have as much backup as I did for our two nights at the Grand Canyon.  I also hope that our next hotel will have internet, because it is outside of Yellowstone.

P.S.  I think I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw a Gray Jay for the first time at Grand Teton National Park.