The Big Road Trip: Days Four and Five

Day Four of The Big Road Trip found us on the road in the Black Hills. Our first stop in the morning was Jewel Cave, the third longest cave in the world. Jewel Cave is renowned for its formations of calcium carbonate crystals. It's a dry cave. The crystals were formed long ago as the cave was lifted above the water table. It has very few of the stalactites, stalagmites, and other "wet" formations that you usually see in caves. 

We took the scenic tour, which only covers about a mile of its 170+ miles of passages and chambers.

After we got back to the surface, Monique decided to see if she could fit through the test passage required for people who want to take the wild backcountry spelunking tour:

Nope.

A career in caving is not in her future.

Next it was on to Wyoming and Devil's Tower. We walked the loop trail around the base:

After we looped around Devil's Tower we stopped at the prairie-dog town at its base:

A better view than most prairie-dog towns, I reckon.

Next stop on our tour was my brother Mike's house in Casper, Wyoming:

  
Here we've run into the first real change in our itinerary. We had planned to head up to Yellowstone with Mike and family the morning after our arrival. Unfortunately, Mike has come down with a wee little case of pneumonia. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service had issued a heavy rain warning for Thursday and Friday in Yellowstone ... something about "biblical downpour" and "better build an ark" or somesuch.

So, we've decided to hang with Mike and family in Casper for a couple of days, then Monique, Henry, Malcolm, and I will head up to Yellowstone Saturday morning. Fortunately, there's lots to see and do around Casper. Day Five of The Big Road Trip found us taking the Jaguar on a swimming and sightseeing expedition around Alcova Reservoir:

Oh, this parking spot looks so innocent, doesn't it? Sadly, I hit a rut as we pulled out. It popped several of the clips and fasteners off the air dam underneath the front of the car.  All was well during the drive, but after we returned to Mike's house we found the dam scraping on his driveway.

Yeah, I pretty much freaked out when I saw that I'd broken my beautiful Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas Supercharged saloon car. I would like to deny that I was curled in a fetal position on Mike's lawn, my face covered in tears. I would very much like to deny that.

More on the damage to the Jag later in this post.

Malcolm swimming.

After the swim we continued around the reservoir and stopped at Fremont Canyon for a little sightseeing.

Climbers preparing to rappel down the sheer canyon walls.

Look closely and you can see mountain goats (aka Malcolm and Henry.)

A little farther up the canyon we stopped at the Pathfinder Dam overlook:

Don't jump, Malcolm!

Your intrepid photographers:

The Jag still looks lovely, doesn't it? Obviously the air dam hadn't yet fallen down. Honestly, I'm just as glad I didn't know at this point because the hilly, windy roads around the reservoir were just the sort of road that this car was made for, and I took full advantage. It was a great drive.

Once we were back from the expedition -- and after I discovered I had broken my Jaguar, sigh -- we all headed out to dinner at Poor Boys Steakhouse:

I asked Henry what he thought about the big plastic blue buckets that Poor Boys uses to serve its salad.

The insightful reply: "It makes me feel like I'm not in France."

Friday morning found me and the Jaguar at Farley's Imports Car Care in Casper, Wyoming, where I waited to see how much damage I had done to my dream car:

Good news! It looks like I didn't do anything too terrible. A handful of plastic clips, a few minutes of labor, and the Jag was back on the roads for just twenty bucks. Whew!

(I have, however, noticed a new ticking sound from the engine when I idle. It may or may not be related. Maybe it was even there before and I never noticed it. I'll keep an eye on it and we shall see. But for now ... we're back on the road.)

What's on the agenda for Day Six? The Thermopolis Hot Spring State Park. Photos from that coming ... um, whenever I get a chance. That's it for now, though.

SYTYCD Season 11: Spencer Liff

Can I tell you how much we love Spencer Liff? I can't rave enough. He was our first big guest back on SYTYCD on AfterBuzz TV during Season 9 and we are thrilled he comes back each season. His honest and constructive comments on the contestants was so helpful for us to listen to. We are down to the Top 4 and he explained why each contestant should be there.

There is a lot of Zack love brewing at just the right moment. Don't forget to vote, vote, vote for your favorite contestant. It's so important for next week and the final results on Sept. 3.

Next week, our guest is choreographer Dave Scott.

If you missed the show, watch it here:

The Big Road Trip: Days One through Three

Just throwing in a few photos from the road for the Patio Boat faithful and the non-FBers among the crowd. In general, photos from my iPhone will go on FB on a regular basis, and wil tend to be quick snapshots of whatever we're up to during the day. Photos from the good camera will go here, and will tend to cluster around touristy things that are worth breaking out the good camera for.

The Day One report -- We left Wolverine Lake around 12:30 pm on Sunday. We stopped in at the original Pizzeria Uno in Chicago for dinner:

Then we headed West on I-90...

...until a thunderous downpour led us to call it a night and stop at the Relax Inn in Stewartville, Minnesota.

Day Two -- We made a reasonably early start out of Stewartville and early in the afternoon we stopped at the one and only World Famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota:

After a quick visit to the Corn Palace (the exterior of which is under reconstruction, as you see in the above photo. It'll look better in 2015. I promise.) we got back on the road and arrived at Badlands National Park, South Dakota, in time to set up camp and catch a lovely sunset:

Day Three -- The next morning kicked off with an equally lovely sunrise:

After we broke camp it was time to do a bit of hiking and exploring in the Badlands. Because we look pretty small in some of the pictures below, I'd like to point out that Monique is the blue dot, I'm the green dot, Malcolm is the red dot, and Henry is the white dot:

 After we left the Badlands we made a quick lunchtime stop at Wall Drug for a glass of free ice water, five-cent coffee, and lunch. The lunch at the Wall Drug Cafe wasn't all that costly, but it did cost a bit more than the ice water and coffee.

Then it was on to Mount Rushmore:

After Mount Rushmore we visited its rising "famous dude carved out of a mountain in South Dakota" competitor, the Crazy Horse monument, now in its 66th year of carving. To give you a sense of the scale of this vast undertaking, you could fit all four presidential heads at Mount Rushmore inside Crazy Horse's head:

(To help give this thing a bit of scale, if you look closely at some of the terraces you can see large bulldozers and bucket loaders as little yellow dots in this photo.)

After visiting the Crazy Horse monument we headed down to Wind Cave National Park to camp for the night. But a series of looming thunderstorms on the western horizon led us to instead settle for a quick picnic lunch...

... before beating a hasty retreat to the secure and dry Holiday Inn Express in Custer, SD. Malcolm and Henry were of course heartbroken to have to hang out at the indoor pool and hot tub instead of potentially getting electrocuted before sleeping in the mud. But they covered their disappointment amazingly well. Really, amazingly well. It was quite convincing the way it seemed they preferred a pool and a dry mattress to camping in the rain. 

But they're good lads, so I know they must have just been covering their disappointment at not getting to experience camping in a giant thunderstorm, so as not to make me feel that I let them down by chickening out in the face of Mother Nature. Brave, brave boys.

Monique covered her disappointment pretty well, too.

The Big Road Trip: Day Zero - The Dream Cruise

As many of you know, Monique and I are off on a big road trip for the next couple of weeks. We're bringing our nephews Malcolm and Henry along on an expedition to the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Rocky Mountains and -- if everything works out right -- the World's Largest Ball of Twine.

Sadly, the Corn Palace is under construction in 2014.

I hope to bring you a few blog posts from the road. But before the trip, Arsen, Henry, Malcolm, and I warmed up by taking our dream car -- the 1999 Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas Supercharged saloon -- to the world's largest automotive event, The Dream Cruise! Here are a few photos, plus my thanks to Malcolm and Henry for wielding the camera while I drove.

Loaded up in the dream car and ready for The Dream Cruise.

If it looks like the World's Largest Traffic Jam on Woodward Ave., it must be The Dream Cruise.

Arsen said, "I hope I see a Studebaker today." Not two minutes later ... a Studebaker appeared behind us.

1973 VW Thing, presented over burled walnut.

I've never before seen the big rims on a mid-70s Stingray. It looked a lot better than I would've thought.

This Buick Riviera found a small window in the left lane, punched the accelerator, and flew by the backed up traffic ... all the way into the hands of this waiting cop.

Starsky & Hutch in the house.

Thunderbird.

MG Midget.

Now here comes an awesome looking dream cruiser:

There goes an awesome looking dream cruiser....

Woodward Dream Cruise 2014 - My Camaro won't be making the trip

Shit happens, pure and simple.  After making it down the track for the first time in 14 years, even though I had my troubles, I didn't seem to have hurt anything.  I was wrong.  Today, I topped off the tank in preparation of the Dream Cruise tomorrow.  I no more than left the gas station and I heard something was wrong.  Though the oil pressure was fine, the valve lash sounded loose, and a squeal, as if a bearing was failing, was a sure tell sign something wasn't right.

I had already been skeptical that one of the solid rollers may have been failing, after rechecking the valve lash a few days after running down the 1/4 mile.  Fortunately, I was just around the corner from home.  After parking it in the garage, oil pressure was still fine, though the driver side valve cover was obviously louder than the passenger side.  I quickly pulled the cover off, and the rocker I was concerned about had a lot of clearance.  The engine was hurt, and I can only pray that it's not hurt too bad.  As it is, it's parked for the year, and this winter will determine just how hurt it is.  I'm hoping I'm just a cam, lifters, and gaskets away from being back on the road and track ready.  Not the winter I was expecting, as I was hoping to leave the drivetrain alone this winter.

I'm not one to let my misfortune dampen my spirit, and will still be heading to Woodward with family and friends tomorrow.  I will enjoy it just as I always do, but my car simply won't be making the trip.  The downside of making so much hp is that sooner or later, something fails, especially when you push the limits of streetability.

SYTYCD Season 11: Makenzie Dustman and Jasmine Harper

We've had pretty good luck with scheduling All-Stars this season. I wish I could say that I carefully planned this out, but the timing has been impeccable. We were supposed to have Courtney Galiano on this week along with Jasmine Harper and Makenzie Dustman, but her shoot was running late. We will be working to reschedule her within the last three episodes. Can you believe the season is almost done?

We had a lot to discuss with the untimely exit of Tanisha Belnap and Rudy Abreu, the addition of Allison Holker to DWTS and everyone's thoughts on Nick Lazzarini from last week's show. I can't wait to hear what you all think of the show this week.

Next week is Spencer Liff. I can't wait to get another choreographer in the studio.

Watch Jasmine Harper and Makenzie Dustman on AfterBuzz TV.

The beagle haiku in which Katie the Beagle does her best to deal with a very chaotic summer that has put quite a crimp in her planned schedule of naps, walks, dinner, and staring adoringly at Monique.

Moving? Hammering?
The beagle's rut is disturbed!
More visitors? Sigh.