NOLA and Cruising

Had a great trip as well to New Orleans and cruising on the Carnival Conquest. If one has the means, we definitely recommend the aft wraparound balcony. Not as pricey as a suite, but the room was amazing. All 5 of us were able to hang out comfortably in the room and/or on the balcony. We did need a separate room for the kids to sleep, but an interior cabin down the hall worked great.

Whassup

Been a long long time since I've updated the blog. Since that trip we've voyaged in LandShark to the Grand Canyon, down to San Carlos Mexico, down to Paso Robles, camped on the Pacific Ocean and so on. Currently I'm working to build ClassMonkeys into the best place to figure out what you want to learn next. If financing doesn't work out, we'll be back out in Landshark this summer. So, stay tuned...

The mighty plains

Driving westward from Shorewood, IL there is not a lot going on. Sure, I-80 is packed with trucks and it is generally no fun to drive as a result. But the scenery leaves much to be desired. We crossed the Mississippi again and then cut north to Winnebago county, the home of Winnebago Industries. The makers of our fair Landshark.

Winnebago Industries was started 50+ years ago in an otherwise unremarkable town in Iowa. Seemingly the goal of the company was to employ people from Winnebago. Well, they have done so. And in the process made the RV industry. The factory tour started out very slow with a bus tour of the factory buildings outside. Imagine driving in a bus around a truck stop with identical trucks and with a few warehouse exteriors thrown in. After 10 minutes the kids were out of their minds and Martha was giving me a look to say "we drove 300 miles out of our way for THIS!?!" Fortunately, the bus stopped, we put on safety glasses and we went in to watch a chassis being welded together. It was loud. There were copious amounts of sparks flying around. And it smelled like ozone. Whew. Dodged that bullet. There were three more trips off of the bus to watch the rest of the RV building process. And in the end we got to go into a couple of models whose MSRP was 15x what we paid for Landshark.

Continuing onwards, we headed north to Minnesota for about 10 miles before heading west in a long cut across South Dakota. I didn't expect much out of South Dakota and that was probably a good thing. As the day got later and later (though we did have an hour time change working for us) we watched approaching thunderstorms. Being originally from "tornado alley" in Illinois, we stopped on the edge of what we thought was safe. We filled gas (10+ minutes) and picked up some milk. In that time, the wind shifted 180 degrees and kicked up over 40 knots and dust was flying everywhere including my eyes. We were parked 10 minutes later and the wind had completely died. The sun was out way to the west of us and we could pick up a double rainbow in the now passed storm. Amazing.

Cedar Point until Winnebago County ... no photos

I don't know if I'm lame, Martha is lame or we were just thrown off our game. But however you put it, the 1 week between our trip to Cedar Point and Winnebago county was not immortalized on camera. We scored another national park for the Monopoly game (Indiana Sand Dunes National Park, only 4 miles off the road which pointedly avoided the tollways) bringing us closer to finishing the board. Admittedly, we only ranked the park as "Mediterranean Ave," but something had to be.

After that roadside attraction, we stayed for several days with my family in Shorewood, IL. The boys scored a 2 day sleepover in Evanston, IL with the aunts, and Sarah felt so left out, we dropped her off for 1 of those nights! Amazingly, Mom and Dad got to see a big screen movie for the first time in years. And somehow, Dad got to pick it. We saw Star Trek. Excellent choice! Not much of a date movie, but any movie is a date movie these days. And special kudos to the second run theater in which it played. Not only were there several 3+ star movies playing, each ticket was only $1.50. On Friday/Saturday nights the ticket price bumps to $2. Wow. Finally a movie house that fits our budget.

Sunday dinner was another real treat. We had graduation roast beef for dinner. If you are not acquainted with that meal, but you live close enough to join us for Super Bowl Sunday, you will be. It's what our family served for every first communion, confirmation, graduation and perhaps even some of the wedding receptions. With 5 kids in the family, it was an almost annual meal. After long wait, my mom has shared the recipe. I made it two days ago and it is outstanding.

The other highlight of our trip home was a chance to visit all of my friends from high school. Mike & Kim were also in town, so it was the first time most have been together since they got married a year+ ago. Well before the economy went to liverwurst. It was great to see everyone.

On Monday morning, it was time to head to Iowa and continue our ride westward...

Fallen off a cliff?

Clearly any of the regular readers of this blog are wondering if I have fallen off a cliff. That is not the case. After we got to Chicago, life just became too busy and has remained so for the rest of our trip. I have an hour or so this afternoon and will try to edit & upload some photos as well as try to get as much as I can get down before my memory becomes too fogged. In any case, we are alive & well with LandShark parked in the driveway.

Cedar Point -- It's worth the trip

After several amusement parks which I've already covered, we arrived at the mecca of the roller coaster world--Cedar Point. 17 coasters. Despite having gone to 6 other parks before this, there were some completely new roller coasters. The ones that stood out as truly special are Millenium Force, Magnum XL200 and Maverick.

Millenium Force was aptly named. We leveraged the "stay in our park, enter 1 hour early" card and only had to stand in line for 20 minutes. That was 20 minutes well spent. 310 feet tall, speeds over 90 miles/hour. When I got off the ride, my arms from the elbows forward were completely numb. I can't decide if it was just the velocity of the ride, or the grip with which I held on to the lap bar (no shoulder harness!). It was a real force of nature.

Magnum XL200 was a new coaster 20 years ago. Today, it was still great. While waiting for the ride, they played 80's music which was a total hoot. It was 200 ft tall and still far more extreme than anything at SCGA, and apart from Accelerator at KBF, more extreme than that. What I most loved is that it would set up an expectation of motion, throw you in a tunnel and then jig that expectation. It was full of surprises. Excellent ride, probably my favorite until...

Maverick. Wow. I have been on nothing like it. I waited in line 45 minutes, it broke down, we bailed. 6 hours later I waited in line another 50 minutes. Totally worth it. I can't describe the number of new motions that I went through. I had no hope of getting my hands in the air. It was absolutely brilliant. It was voted the best roller coaster of 2007 in an amusement park trade magazine. I understand why.

About the park. It is huge. And it is the first non-Disney park which felt like it could compete with Disney for customer service, albeit for an older crowd. Every single ride was run by operators who were psyched to be there. They would describe the ride in detail, rile up the crowd and get you pumped. We went on a sky ride where the line was probably 50 yards long and 3 ft wide. A similar line at SCGA would take 45 minutes. We know, we've waited. We were on in 8 minutes. Even the "jungle boat ride" was run by operators telling the inevitable lame jokes but with spirit and a sense of timing. Clearly, working here is a priviledge, not an obligation.

For the non-coaster goers, the park was very good. There were too many non-coaster rides for me to count, and most rides could be boarded immediately or after one round. There were 4 kiddie areas which meant that the parent on duty was not thoroughly bored after 1 hour. There also was a water park which James said was the best yet, though Martha is baffled how/why he could say that. Half of the park had a great big beach where one could hang out on Lake Erie.


As Martha put it, we're coming back when Sarah is bigger. The other two places about which she has said that are Disneyland and the Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island. It is an rarefied list which Cedar Point richly deserves inclusion.

Tim Hortons v. Dunkin Donuts

"When are we going to have the doughuts" is the refrain I hear from the kids every time they look at the blog. "I thought we were going to have doughnuts on this trip?"

It was time for the taste test.

En route from Canada to Cedar Point, we picked up a dozen Tim Hortons doughnuts in Brantford (where they are made daily before being shipped around Canada) and then a corresponding half-dozen from Dunkin Donuts somewhere south of Detroit. To be fair in the freshness department, we waited 2 hours after leaving the DD before the official taste test. However, we must admit to quelling a serious rebellion by sampling several of the non-matching Tim Hortons in the DD parking lot. We were not arrested.



To illustrate the power of doughnuts in the world, we were in the Cedar Point RV Park with the sound of happily screaming kids plummetting 200+ ft at 80+ MPH and there was no interest in getting to the park. Our judges had one thing on their mind. Doughnutty goodness.

The methodology was simple. Matching doughnut types were cut into 5 pieces and put on two different plates, Martha did the cutting and placing and the rest of us had no idea which plate came from which vendor. Each person would sample a type from each and then vote which plate was their favorite.

The judging was very close, but even Martha voted for the Dunkin Donuts over the Tim Hortons slightly more. To give you an idea of how close the voting was, of the 3 types of a potential of 15 votes, 7 of the votes were "I'm not sure."


Even so, our local Los Gatos donut vendor was agreed by all to be the better doughnut. Neither Dunkin Donuts nor Tim Hortons make their doughnut on site any more, and clearly the quality has suffered.