#36 - Wrestling Tournament

Our visit to Craig's family in Akron, Ohio brought the opportunity for another new experience. Our nephew had an all-day wrestling tournament.  Since we miss most of our nephews' sporting events, we were glad to get the chance to watch him. I must be honest that, while I've never been to a wrestling tournament before, I have seen snippets of wrestling, and I strongly suspected it was not "my thing." 

The tournament pretty much confirmed that! It was great to visit with our family and to watch our nephew in action, but overall I'm really happy that my boys have not expressed an interest in wrestling.  Still, it was a learning opportunity for me. I learned the very basics of scoring; the ref wears one red wristband and one green wristband. Each wrestler is assigned one of those two colors, and they wear their colored band around their ankle. As the wrestlers score points, the ref raises the appropriately-banded hand, with his fingers indicating the number of points earned.  I also learned about the wrestling world's equivalent of a bat boy. I had no idea that this vital position existed at all.  A boy around 8 years old carried what looked sort of like a giant Q-tip. It was a wooden pole about two feet long, with a padded end all wrapped up in duct tape.  When the time of the match was running out, he would run up to the mat and stand behind the ref. He would watch the clock, and as soon as the time ran out, he would tap the ref on the back with the padded end. It let the ref know to signal that the match was over (because he was busy watching the wrestlers and not the clock).

Our nephew was 2-2 for the day. We spent about 2 hours at the tournament, while his mom had the "pleasure" of spending over 9 hours there! That would be just be too much wrestling for me.  Next time I'm freezing my butt off at an autumn football game, I'll remind myself that I could be spending 9 hours in a smelly gymnasium watching wrestling all day!

By the way, adventure number 36 means that I'm 90% done with my adventures.  It looks very promising that I will indeed accomplish all 40 in my birthday year.  However, being this close to completing my goal brings mixed emotions. It is actually quite sad to be wrapping up this project.  I've had such a great time, and I hate to see it end.  I have 3 of my remaining 4 activities identified. Time and weather will determine if all 3 can be accomplished in January.  If anyone has any great ideas for the remaining unidentified adventure, send your idea my way!

#35 - Various New Adventures in New York

It's pretty much impossible to spend time in New York City and NOT experience something new.  But, rather than count multiple new experiences, I'm going to lump them all together as one.  We arrived in New York City on December 20th, and we spent three days in the city before heading up towards West Point to have a couple quiet days for Christmas.  Even the quiet days in the country provided a new experience for me (see below). 

Even though I have visited NYC several times in the past, there is never a shortage of new things to see and do in the Big Apple. Here are some of the new experiences I had, along with my impressions:

• Drove past Carlos' Bakery (of The Cake Boss fame): would have LOVED to go in an sample something, but there was a line that stretched down to the next block.  Christmas is their busiest season, and none of us was in the mood to stand in line in freezing cold weather for hours.
• Ground Zero: very emotional. It is hard not to get overcome by emotion as the images and feelings of that fateful day reply in your mind.  I was also struck by the abundance of construction workers who are hard at work on the new buildings. As a military wife, I am often thanked for our family's service. As I looked at all these workers, I felt that they, too, are serving the country. They are literally rebuilding the hopes, confidence and pride of uncounted Americans as they rebuild Ground Zero.I, for one, appreciate their service to this country. 

• St. Patrick's Cathedral: magnificent, extraordinary, stunning! It reminded me of an old European cathedral. I'm such a sucker for stained glass windows, and these were simply amazing.
• New York Public Library: second in magnificence only to Library of Congress in DC. If you haven't seen either of these libraries, get to one at some point in your life.

• Completed a 2,000 piece puzzle: Yes, of course I have done puzzles before. But, a 2,000 piece puzzle?! No way--never even had the desire to try one.  My sister had been given on as a gift a few years back, and she felt that having 8 bodies in the house for several days posed her best shot at ever completing it.  She was right, although it was pure hell.  It became an obsession, especially since we were working with limited time. If this is the only 2,000 piece puzzle I ever do in my life, I will have done one too many!  Still, it was thrilling to finish that beast. 

#34 - National Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB

This post is a few days late, since I haven't been around a computer much on our trip (which has been kind of nice).  Seeing the Air Force museum at Wright Patterson has been on my "to do" list for quite a few years. I've always heard that it is amazing, and we have driven right by the exit for it along I-70 on many of our cross-country trips. However, it seems like we're always passing by at 10:00 p.m. or 5:00 a.m., or we're just too far into our 24 hour trip that we don't care to stop and extend our trip any longer.  I always figured I'd get to see it "one day," so we scheduled "one day" into our road trip this time.  After spending the previous evening in Cincinnati (to see Jungle Jim's), we took the short jaunt up to Dayton on Saturday morning with plans to spend several hours at the museum. I knew our visit wouldn't be nearly long enough to see all the museum had to offer (I had been told you could spend several days there), but at least we would get a feel for what it had to offer. 

The museum did not disappoint!  The picture above shows only one of three hangars. In addition there are outside displays and another hangar which is serviced by bus only.  The hangars are arranged chronologically. I began at the beginning (what a concept!) and learned that the Army was sending up pilots for training pretty much as soon as Wilbur and Orville got off the ground.(Wait, you say, I thought this was the Air Force museum, not the Army museum.  Correct, but remember, the Air Force was originally the Army Air Corps.)  Interestingly, the early thoughts were that aviation would be useful for reconaissance only, and that air combat was just the figment of the over active imaginations of young pilots!  In 1908 the Army (specificall the Signal Corps) paid $30,000 for its first airplane, just like the one seen below.

It quickly became clear that if I were going to actually read about all the displays, that I might make it through World War I before it was time to leave (by the way the U.S. had fewer than 40 planes at the start of WWI while Germany had over 150!), so I largely browsed quickly through the rest of the museum. I learned some cool things like:

• Walt Disney and the Disney illustrators created numerous unit patches for various squadrons during WWII.
• As early as 1931 a vertical take-off and landing aircraft, calld an autogiro, was manufactured.
• B-2 bombers look SO awesome up close!

What an amazing collection!  Craig and I decided that he and I would love to come back on a future visit and spend a couple days taking a closer look.

Our detour to Wright Patterson gave me the opportunity for another first--one I tried to accomplish 20 years ago to the very week, but had to put on hold due to the death of my aunt.  I got to visit Fairborn, Ohio!  Where, you ask?  Good question, and no, there's no reason you should have heard of it.  It was the boyhood home of one of my good friends from USNA, and a bunch of us had a running joke about visiting this redneck town.  I was scheduled to visit him one Christmas break, but I instead traveled to my aunt's funeral in Iowa.  So, every time we passed by the Wright Pat exit on I-70, we also passed by the signs for Fairborn, and I would reminisce about my lost visit.  After wrapping up our morning at the museum, we headed into Fairborn for lunch--a mediocre pizza lunch in a nondescript, small, midwest American town.  Craig and I even picked out the motel we will stay at when we return for our weekend trip to the museum.  Fairborn was exactly as I expected, and I was thrilled!  A two-fer in the new adventures department, and both were awesome!

#33 - Jungle Jim's International Market

You can't go on a cross-country road trip without having some new experiences.  Our family has driven I-70 from Colorado to Pennsylvania many times. Several trips back I saw a flyer for a 6-acre grocery market. 6 acres!!! That's even bigger than the Bass Pro Shop which baffled us. It quickly earned a spot on my "gonna see it one day" list.

However, Jungle Jim's International Market is in the vicinity of Cincinnati. http://www.junglejims.com/ That poses a small problem for our I-70 treks, as Cincinnati is NOT along I-70. And when you're about 18 hours into a 24 hour drive, you usually don't want to take a couple hours to detour just to see a grocery store (even though this isn't "just a grocery store.")..

So, this trip presented the perfect opportunity. Since we were stopping at various sites along our way in order to show our Korean student more of America, I just planned a stop in Cincinnati and a visit to Jungle Jim's.

Think regular grocery store combined with Sam's Club combined with flea market combined with cheap Disney imitation attraction.  That's pretty much Jungle Jim's.  Yes, it is HUGE.  It would really take me the better part of a day to fully explore it.  I knew that our approximate one hour visit would just be the tip of the iceberg, and I simply accepted that I wouldn't be able to experience everything that Jungle Jim's had in stock. So, here's a quick summary of just some of what we saw:

• Kangaroo, alligator and ostrich meat (picture follows below). BTW, Kangaroo meat runs $14 per pound.
• More honey varieties than you could ever imagine, including Key Lime honey and peanut butter honey (picture follows)
• Chocolate covered potato chips (we bought some--picture follows. They weren't that great. There was too much chocolate to really even taste the chip)
• Some kind of Thailand fruit that looked like a blowfish and cost $15!
• Indoor fish farms
• Quisp cereal (people of my age--do you remember that?)
• More types of peppercorns that I even knew existed.
  
  


While it was a quick trip, it was fun.  We ended up dumping over $100 on various oddities and treats (although that DID include gifts for the grandpas).  If I lived in the area I doubt I would do my weekly shopping there. It is simply too overwhelming (although their prices were quite good).  I think we mad the right decision in not detouring from our previous road trips. But, since adventure #34 was also in the vicinity, I am glad we took the time to see Jungle Jim's.

#32 - Cutting Our Own Christmas Tree

When I was a kid, my sister and I always wanted a real Christmas tree. My dad was a master of "stuck in his ways," and he insisted a real Christmas tree was a fire danger. Needless to say, we never got one.  As soon as I was out on my own, you can bet that I had a real Christmas tree. Craig and I got real trees for about the first decade of our marriage. However, after we had trees get peed on by our dog, had a tree fall over in the middle of the night and had many tilting trees tied up with fishing line, the mystique of real trees wore off and we returned to an artificial tree.

Yet, I always felt I had missed out by never having cut down our own tree.  For heaven's sake, we are surrounded by mountains and forests, so it just seemed that cutting down our own tree was what a true Coloradan would do.  Still, every year we had a reason for not doing it--schedule conflicts, bad weather or the "we'll do it next year" excuse.

No more putting it off!  This was the perfect year to add this experience to my treasure trove of life experiences.  Early this morning we piled into the truck and headed into the Pike National Forest in Woodland Park, CO.  We bought our $10 permit and then headed up the windy, mountain road. 

If you have ever seen a "cut your own" Christmas tree, you know they tend to be of the Charlie Brown style. We warned our kids that the tree would not look anything like our full, perfectly proportioned artificial tree.  Several miles into the forest, we pulled off the road, hopped out of the truck and started down a ridge on our quest.  All the way up to Woodland Park we had commented on how it just didn't seem like the Christmas season because we had received so little snow.  Fortunately, there was a trace of snow in the valley we hiked, so the surroundings made it seem more like Christmas tree season. It actually was perfect.  Had the mountains received their typical couple feet of snow by now, our hike would have been much more challenging.

Searching for the right tree is sort of like a scavenger hunt.  At first you think you'll never find what you're looking for.  But, after hiking less than a half mile down into the valley, we ran across several viable options. We all agreed on the same tree. It was over 6 feet tall and quite wide.  We set to sawing it down, and we were pleased at how easily that task was accomplished.    Craig was our hero and carried the tree all the way back up the hill and to the truck.  We tossed it in the back of truck and headed home to decorate it.

We are all pleased with the final result. It is obvious that our tree was not purchased from a tree lot, yet it is full enough that we'll all happy with it.  We all enjoyed our adventure today, and we will certainly consider making it a family tradition. If you've never cut your own, tree, I would highly recommend it!

#31 - Drum Lessons

If there are any "failures" among my 40 new adventures, this would be listed among them. However, I didn't get into this "new adventures" business to beat myself up, so I'm not going to look at it as a failure, rather an adventure for which I just wasn't cut out to succeed.

I LOVE music.  My world would be incomplete without it.  I'm amazed at the power of music and lyrics. They can move us to tears or bring a warmth to our heart and smile to our face. I am constantly in awe of how songwriters never seem to run out of new songs to write. How can that be? How can anyone even write a song in the first place?  The idea of actually creating a song out of nothing is as inconceivable to me as is the idea of deriving the quadratic equation to some of my math students! (OK, to ALL of my math students.) 

Having said all of that, I was blessed with absolutely no musical ability whatsoever. None. Zilch.  My parents had me take guitar lessons as a child for several years, and it was a total waste of their money. I am as tone deaf as Helen Keller.  In my several years of guitar lessons, I was never actually able to tune my own guitar. That task was always left to my instructor.  I simply don't have the musical-ability gene anywhere in my body.

I think that's why drums have always seemed so appealing to me. No tone, no pitch. Just rhythm. I was pretty confident I could handle that.  So, early in my "40 new adventures year", I began taking drum lessons from a very patient, generous co-worker, Ben.  For the first few weeks I was pretty optimistic. Ben taught me a simple pattern, and I found myself playing "air drum" at every stoplight as I drove my daily mom's taxi routine. My goal was simple: I wanted to get good enough at drums to play a single song during the worship portion of our weekly chapel services at school. Ben agreed that it seemed doable. I was even optimistic enough that I purchased a set of drums off Craigslist, as "air drums" just didn't cut it for practice.  That's pretty much when my bubble burst.

Ben said, "Great, I'll come by your house and tune them for you."  WHAT?!?!  Tune my drums?!?!? Are you serious?!?! I wanted to cry. Yep, drums must be tuned. Who knew? Of course, that blow was quickly accompanied by ever-increasingly complex patterns that involved hand-foot coordination of which I simply seemed incapable.  The nail in the coffin came when Ben and I agreed to take June off from lessons, due to some mutual schedule conflicts. He told me to practice and get back in touch with him in July.  Well, those drums simply didn't call out to me AT ALL during summer break.  I truly believe that if someone has a passion for something, you simply can't keep that person away from that passion.  I obviously didn't have a passion for drums. The drum set served two purposes this summer: 1. collect dust, and 2. entertain the 2 year old foster boy who lived with us (who, by the way, had far more natural talent on the drums than I did).  So, when the school year resumed, I confessed to Ben that I was throwing in the towel on the idea of playing a song with the worship band. I told him I was grateful for the lessons and new experience, but that drum-playing simply didn't seem to be my calling. He was quite understanding.

Failure? Maybe. But, at least I DO now know what a hi hat, a crash symbol, and floor tom are. And I have seen what drum music looks like. So, this was not a true failure. I did have a new experience, and I enjoyed it for the most part.  It reaffirmed that music is not an area in which I'm gifted, and that's OK.  By the way, if anyone is in the market for a decent (and recently tuned) set of drums, I know where you can get a good deal on one (seriously)!

#30 - Bass Pro Shop

You are probably saying to yourself, "Really? A trip to a store counts as a new adventure??"  Well, there's some history behind this adventure -- and if you haven't ever been to a Bass Pro Shop, it really IS an adventure. 

The history goes back maybe 5-7 years ago.  My friend who lives in Orlando, extertainment capitol of the USA, bought a timeshare near Branson, MO.  My parents, when they were newly empty-nesters, traveled to Branson several times. They loved the shows and musicians.  It seemed to me the Branson crowd was largely 50+ in years, and I couldn't see what about that would attract my 30-something friend to want to vacation there every year.  When she said one of the reasons they chose Branson was because it was near a Bass Pro Shop and that her husband, an avid fisherman, loved those stores, I thought  "Hmmm, a store that could actually influence the decision to purchase a timeshare?!?!? This must be some store!" I decided right then that sometime I would have to check out one of these stores.

Since then I have driven by many Bass Pro shops as we have criss-crossed the country on various road trips. During our massive "Great American Cox Family Minus One Road Trip" of 2008, when Craig was deployed, our travels took me and the kids past numerous Bass Pro Shops. Each time I would say,  "We should stop and check it out, but we don't really have the time."  In hindsight I'm not sure if we really were that pressed for time, or if I simply wanted to get where we were going.  When you're several hours into a long drive, the idea of delaying the arrival time just isn't appealing.

I decided that one day we would simply have to make the time during a road trip, because we didn't have any Bass Pro Shops anywhere near us in Colorado. Then, almost two years ago, when Josh and I were hanging out in one of his favorite locations - the local emergency room - we somehow got on the topic of Bass Pro Shops.  One of the people stitching Josh up informed me that we had one just up the road in Denver!  Boy, did I feel stupid!  It was just enough off our normal beaten path in the Denver area that I did not know about its existence.  Still, since that epiphany nearly two years ago, I have never taken the time to go check it out.

So, when a completely different new adventure got postponed due to schedule conflicts a couple days ago, I decided that the day wouldn't be a waste, and I would finally go check out this mystical Bass Pro Shop.  The kids and I piled in the van on a beautiful fall day and made the short 1 hour drive to Denver.

Did you check out the picture at the top of this post?  HUGE doesn't do this store justice.  Upon arriving I could only imagine what was inside.  Then we entered. This was not a store. It was a Disney attraction - a small scale theme park - an outdoor adventure under a roof!  Wow!  I don't know where to begin. The sheer size was mind-boggling. It is over 4 acres large!  But more than that, the abundance of more things than you possibly take in was overwhelming.   There were more animals (albeit dead and stuffed) in this store than in all of Pike National Forest.  Trees towered over us.  Mannequin rock climbers scaled the walls around us, There was a huge fish tank sporting all kids of big fish that I'm sure fisherman would love to catch, but whose names I have no idea about because I'm not a fisherman!  There was a shooting range which captured the boys' attention for quite some time (and the pictures of which were lost when my cell phone died).  There was a classroom for various trainings they hold. There were departments ranging from food to housewares to clothing to camping supplies to boats to guns to ice fishing huts to just about anything possibly related to the great outdoors.  There was a sit-down restaurant and a Starbucks. For the season there was a Santa's wonderland. There was simply so much under one roof that the capital required to open one of these stores absolutely blows my mind.  It makes WalMart look like a hole-in-the-wall variety store.

While I'm not one at all to rush the Christmas season, I'm willing to give Bass Pro shops a little slack. It probably takes them a full month to complete their decorations, and they are well underway already. Santa's Wonderland was still in process, but much of the rest of the store was already decorated for Christmas. And, they won bigtime bonus points from me because during our hour spent in the store, they played BOTH Bing Crosby and Burl Ives!  To me it simply isn't Christmas without those two, and my family has learned that they WILL be subjected to hours of Bing and Burl each Christmas, so they barely even put up a protest anymore; they just roll their eyes.

It was a really fun new adventure. The kids, especially the boys, agreed they were glad they decided to come with me.  They're already saying we need to make another trip up there shortly to show dad.  If you are ever driving cross country and see a Bass Pro Shop, make the time to go check it out. Stretch your legs for a half hour or so, and you will definitely be wowed!

#29 - Habitat for Humanity

Working on a Habitat for Humanity house is another "always wanted to do that" activity that I immmediately knew had to make my 40 New Adventures list.  I love the whole idea of Habitat - the "hand up" instead of just a "hand out."  It's a great example of people helping people who are willing to help themselves. Besides, I've become pretty handy as a result of all the home improvements we've tackled over the years!

Due to several different schedule conflicts I experienced this year, I began to doubt that I would be able to a Habitat project one of my 40 new adventures. I had decided that it would probably have to slip into my 41st year, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn recently that our church group had a work day scheduled for October 30. Hurray!!

The absolute minimum age for working Habitat projects is 16, so Victoria was the only child who was old enough to join me, and she decided she would like to participate.  One unforeseen advantage of this whole "40 new things" undertaking has definitely been the opportunity to spend time with my kids doing neat activities.  I'm not the only one in the family who has been exposed to new things; the kids have also expanded their horizons, and we've had the opportunity to make some cool memories in the process.

I woke up this morning very thankful for the unusually beautiful late October weather. Victoria and I headed out to the work site, having absolutely no idea what type of labor we would be performing.  The housing development containing the work site is a brand new development in the northeast part of the city. The houses are not all Habitat houses, but a good number of the houses are being built by either Habitat or other similar service organizations. There were 4 different work groups today, and I'd estimate over 40 -50 workers.  We were assigned to different houses all in different stages of construction.

The thing you need to remember about service projects is that ALL the work you do, whether is it administrative, building, cooking, cleaning, whatever IS service. It is all necessary. So, when 4 of us were selected to clean out a huge storage container (think cargo container) and condense its contents into the neighboring container, I reminded myself to not be disappointed. True, it wasn't actual construction, but it was a very necessary task. So, for two hours we cleaned, sorted, reorganized and moved every conceivable tool, building supply and odds and ends.  When I first looked at the contents in both containers--in quite a state of disarray,---I thought, "He's crazy if he thinks this will all fit in one unit."  But, we worked hard and got the job accomplished and, I must admit, it felt pretty good to know we accomplished something so substantial. Here we are hard at work:

With that task behind us, we were able to move on to some actual construction. We were tasked with cutting and installing siding for the trim on a porch.  It was a slow process because there was a fair amount of notching that had to be cut out of each piece in order to fit corners and trim.  Then the installing was actually the old-fashioned kind of nailing, no nail guns involved!  I'm pretty good at nailing, but this project involved some bodily contortion as well as nailing.  We were working on ladders on a small porch and trying to nail above our heads.  It was a challenge, but I felt pretty good knowing I was doing a decent job. Before we knew it, our morning shift was over, and it was time to head out. 

 I really enjoyed my time working today. It felt good knowing I was contributing to someone's dream of owning a home.  I think I will definitely work future Habitat projects, and I could see this being an organization with which I could become quite involved in retirement.   Victoria, on the other hand, discovered today that she  "better marry a guy who's a handyman" (her words, not mine!). 

Here's a picture of the house we worked on.  It is scheduled to be dedicated on Dec. 19. It is quite small, but for someone who has never been able to own their own home before, it is a great place to start.

#28 - Wine Making

When I first sent out the email announcing my intentions to have 40 new adventures and soliciting help from my friends, the first person to respond with an idea was my former co-worker Dave. He offered to include me in his family's annual wine making. Dave is Italian through and through and every year he makes hundreds of bottles of homemade wine.  Being part Italian myself, and having relatives who not only made wine during prohibition, but also sold it to Al Capone and his entourage (they actually get a mention in the book Capone's Cornfields, available through Amazon), I felt like this adventure was a no-brainer.  Let me remind you, however, that I'm a wine idiot (see Adventure #2 for details), so I was a little intimidated by the whole process.

Dave gets his grapes from California via a garden shop in Monument, Colorado. The delivery dates vary from year to year depending on the weather. The sugar content is the biggest factor to consider, and different breeds of grapes mature at different times. I was able to observe and participate some of the latter season grapes, those used for merlot and san grigio (pinot grigio is the same thing--or really close--wine idiot, remember?).  Obviously, wine making is not a single day event.  I was able to participate in two consecutive weekends, the crushing and then the pressing.

Crushing is pretty much just that: crushing the grapes.  While Dave does own his own crusher, for this batch  he used the crusher/destemmer at the garden shop.  This particular weekend Dave received roughly 600 lbs. of grapes.  Here are some of the grapes. They are much smaller than the grapes we are all accustomed to eating.

The crusher/destemmer is a simple but intriguing machine. You simply dump the grapes in the top, the bulk of the stems are removed and dumped out the side, and the grapes are crushed and dumped out the bottom. The :magic" occurs inside the closed box portion of the machine, so I couldn't actually see how this was accomplished. I was told it was a combination of corkscrew and a "shaking" screen type device. The crushed grapes are then poured into containers in which they will stay and ferment for about a week (in this case those containers were actually plastic garbage cans). That's all there is to week one of wine making.  I did find it appropriate that the crusher/destemmer sported a tag reading, "Made in Italy."  Right on!

For clarification, the grapes and juice are going into the white bucket above, the stems into the blue one.

 This past weekend I went to Dave's house for the pressing. It was so cool!  The engineer in me was impressed with the simple yet oh-so-efffective technology involved.  I had actually been thinking about this since the crushing.  It couldn't be too high-tech of a process, since people have been making wine for thousands of years.  Sure enough, the overall process is quite simple.  The below picture shows a wine press (and the garbage can behind it contains crushed grapes). 

Basically you scoop/ pour the crushed grapes in the top, place two semi-circular discs on top of the grapes, stack wooden blocks on top until the level reaches a corkscrew mechanism which is cranked to press the wood down on the grapes, pressing all the juice out through an opening in the bottom of the press (OK, I acknowledge that's a run-on sentence).  But, here's the really cool part. When you're done pressing, you remove the wood, unlatch the two tall semi-circular pieces that constitute the body of the press, and you essentially have a "cake" of compressed grape leftovers, much like a giant wheel of purple cheese!

About half of the grape "residue' was recycled for a second run, and the other half was tossed. Because the pressed grapes are so dry, for the second run Dave adds water and sugar to the grapes. They will ferment for another couple weeks.  I asked Dave for some ballpark averages on how many grapes it takes to produce a bottle of wine. He said it varies by grape type, but for the merlot we pressed, it would take approximately 80 lbs. of grapes to produce a 5-gallon bottle of wine.

Back to the process.  The juice was transferred again to the plastic garbage cans. It will continue to ferment for another couple weeks. Then Dave will transfer it to class containers. You have to understand something about Dave's house.  He designed and built it himself, and to call it a custom house is an understatement.  When he designed the house, he did so with his wine-making very much in mind.  The custom storage units in the garage which house all his wine making equipment is just the start. The basement is the real crown jewel of this home's Italian heritage.  The basement houses a wine cellar that is a model of efficiency. There is a hole in the kitchen floor which is the opening to a tube that drains down into the far end of the ceiling of the wine cellar. Dave can attach tubing from this hole to the mouths of huge glass jugs.  This process greatly simplifies the process of getting hundreds of pounds of juice into the wine cellar.  Because these huge jugs sit on very high shelves, a simple gravity-assisted siphon system of tubing is then used to fill smaller bottles from the huge bottles once the huge bottles have fermented for a couple of months.   These small bottles are then corked and placed in the massive wine rack in the same room.  The wine bottles in the rack below are last year's batch.   Be sure to look for hole in the ceiling above the large jugs.

The final picture I leave you with captured an amusing, albeit unexpected aspect of wine making.  All of our grape "residue" was all dumped into a wheelbarrow.  Dave's dog, Pepper, loves grape residue.  He viewed the wheelbarrow as an all-you-can-eat buffet.  With all the health benefits of grape seeds and grape skins, I figure Pepper is bound to live a mighty long live!  Here's Pepper in action.

I hope I get the chance next year to sample the fruits (haha, pun intended) of our labor. Thanks, Dave, for a grape new experience (haha, intended again!).

#27 - College Visit Road Trip - Baylor University

I can't believe that I'm already at this stage in life, but I just returned from taking my daughter, Victoria, to a college visit.  One could argue that since I went on college visits when I was in high school that this doesn't count as a new experience, but I say it qualifies for a couple reasons: I have never been on a college visit as a parent, and I have never been to Baylor University (nor have I been to Waco, Texas).  Baylor is a mere 880 or so miles from Colorado, so we did what our family does so well: road trip!

Only Victoria and I made the trek.  Craig played Mr. Mom back at home. He goes on next month's college visit to George Fox University in Oregon (no, they're not driving).  I was thrilled that Victoria was able to help with the driving duties.  We stocked up on our staple driving foods: Pringles and Twizzlers, and we headed out early Sunday morning.  We have longtime family friends who live in Plano, so we planned on making that our first stop and then heading down to Waco early Monday morning for the official Sic 'Em Visit Day. It was a 12 hour drive to Plano, and we really had a good time.  Victoria is great company, and Texas is immeasurably more pleasant and scenic to drive across than Kansas! We arrived in time to have a short visit with our friends, turn in for the night and head out early Monday morning---just in time for horrible thunderstorms to worsen an already horrific morning rush hour in Dallas.  I managed to survive rush hour, and we made it about two hours.

The Baylor campus is beautiful and impressive.  That's more than can be said for most of Waco!  The school had an well-organized visit day planned. Several hundred people were in attendance. After opening remarks we broke up into tours groups for a lengthy walking tour of the campus.  We had lunch in one of the dining halls, visited the bookstore and then attended a "sample" academic lecture.  We gathered again for closing remarks and the day wrapped up around 3:00.  Victoria and I then drove over to check out the football stadium, the track and field facilty and an off-campus snow cone shop that we were told we "have to go to" by a friend of Victoria's whose sister is an alum.

Overall I was fairly impressed by Baylor. My impressions were that Baylor strives very hard to create a sense of community among their students, they surround the students with a strong support system to help them succeed, and they recognize the importance of having fun while still challenging and stretching students.  Ultimately, however, what matters is what Victoria thought of the school.  She's the one who has to decide if it is the right fit for her.  She liked it, but she's also still at the "overwhelmed by it all" stage of selecting a college.   So, who knows if Baylor is in her future, but we sure enjoyed our visit.  Here's a little bit of Baylor trivia for you to enjoy:

• Baylor hosts the largest intramural dodgeball tournament in the country.
• Baylor recently received its largest single gift donation ever: $200,000,000. It will be used to build a cancer research facility.
• Baylor houses two live bears (their mascots) on the campus, Joy and Lady. They didn't do anything other than sleep while we were there.
• Baylor is the longest continually operating university in Texas.
• Baylor is a "flyer-free" campus. Groups do not post flyers for their events. Instead, they write the pertinent information in chalk all around the walkways on campus. The rain eventually washes it off, so no mess is left. Look closely on the below picture for the chalk announcment.

After a two hour trip back up to Plano, we spent another evening enjoying a visit with our friends, and then early this morning we headed back to Colorado.  Our trip totals clocked in at 1769 miles, 29.5 hours total driving time, no speeding tickets (hurray!),  and too many skunk encounters to count.  It was an insane amount of driving for three days, but it was a great overall experience.  I won't have too many more road trips with Victoria before she leaves the nest.  The fact that she takes the PSAT tomorrow makes the reality of if all that much more obvious. I rarely get much one-on-one time with any of my kids, so this was actually a treat.

# 26 - Working Concessions at USAFA

This past weekend was the Air Forces vs. Navy game, and I got to be at the game---sort of.  (BTW, let's just ignore that pesky little detail that Navy lost. I think it was just pur, kind-hearted charity of the part of Navy. They figured after trouncing AF for 7 years, it was time to throw them a bone.).  So, why was I there?  I was there to earn money for a mission trip to Haiti next year.  (Insert commercial: Craig and I, and hopefully, Aubrey are all going to Haiti next year on mission trips with our church. The fund raising has begun. If you would like to contribute to our trips, we'd appreciate the support. You can mail checks to Sunrise United Methodist Church, 2655 Briargate Blvd. Colo Spgs, 80920)

Our church has a contract to run one of the concession stands at Falcon Stadium.  I remember my mom working concessions at our high school football games to earn money for my sister's marching band.  We had a large high school (roughly 500 students per graduating class,) and she often commented about how busy it was working concessions.  Now, upsize that to a sold out crowd of over 45,000, and you really do have busy!  I was told my all of the concession stand veterans that I was in for an adventure, and they were right.

While kick-off wasn't until 12:30, we arrived at the stadium at about 8:30 a.m. The crew not only sells the concessions, but prepares everything. "Preparing" includes counting every imaginable item for inventory: cups, hot dog buns, nacho boats, bags of peanuts, bags of M&Ms...you get the picture.  We prepare the hot dogs, nacho cheese, popcorn, etc. We had a working crew of 15, and only two of us were newbies.  Everything ran like a well-oiled machine, and we had all of our prep down about a half hour before the doors of the stadium opened. That gave most of us the chance to sit and take a break for a few minutes while we watched the parachutists and band practice on the field.  That was truly the last pause we would take during the game.   

Once the doors opened, a few customers started trickling in. It was nice to ease into the process. I was mainly a soda-filler, but everyone does whatever is necessary to keep things moving well. I was also frequently a runner for more hotdogs or nachos or whatever else needed to be done.  Before I realized it, there was a steady stream of people, and then shortly we were in the middle of a full-fledged rush on the concessions stand---which just continued for hours. Oh my goodness -  I don't even know how to convey how busy we were!  I almost felt anti-social at times because I was so busy filling cups with ice and soda that I sometimes didn't ever look at the customer.  It was just ice, soda, lid, ice, soda, lid, ice, soda, lid.  And let me tell you, I even filled two cups at a time!! I was a model of efficiency!  I think the best way to explain the crazy pace is to say that I honestly didn't even have time to look at my watch. I wondered now and then what time it was, but you can't turn your wrist to look at your watch at the same time you are filling up soda! When the crowds started to dwindle and somone finally announced the time, it as already 3:30p.m! To give you a little idea of the volume of sales we did, we started out the day with 864 hot dog buns in our inventory.  A couple hours into the game, the academy representative had to bring us additional buns! That's a lot of hot dogs!

Here's a picture we were able to snap before the rush began (notice that I'm all decked out in Navy attire, including Bill the Goat tattoos on my cheeks):

Despire the business (or is it busyness?), it was a really fun day.  I was able to get to know some people from church that I didn't previously know, and they were all wonderfully dedicated workers.  It was also a little bit of a trip down memory lane, since I worked in a snack bar in high school.  It had been quite a few years since I dipped a ladle into a big pot of nacho cheese and served up a really unhealthy boat of nachos. 

After the stand closed, we had a good hour of clean up to perform.  EVERYTHING must be cleaned and inventoried once again.  As with setup,  the seasoned veterans did a wonderful job in directing the newbies, and if I had this cleaning crew come work in my house, our house would sparkle in about a half hour. We left the stand at 4:30 p.m, a full 8 hours after we arrived.

So, the net result of all my hard labor?  Well, I have yet to find out the exact total of sales. We make 15% of all the sales, and then we split it among the team members.  Based on past games, team members usually earn just over $100 each.  While I'm happy to have had the experience and to get my missio fund-raising off the ground, that was no doubt the hardest I've ever worked for $100!

#25 - Bob Ross Painting Class

This new adventure went on my list my 40th year "to do" list as soon as I decided to do my 40 new adventures. I have  so been looking forward to it, and it didn't disappoint.

Who hasn't been captivated by Bob Ross? As I was searching the web for his image, I found the following description of a person's first exposure to a Bob Ross video. I think it sums up what just about everyone experiences when they first stumble upon a Bob Ross episode on TV, as I did about 15 years ago. From http://www.silviahartmann.com/:   At first, I had to laugh - at the way he looked, at the way he spoke. But within seconds, I was mesmerised (and being a hypnosis trainer, I don't use that term lightly, believe you me!). I was absolutely fascinated by what he was doing, how he was doing it, and what he was all about there - call it Bob Ross's energy, if you will. It is true to say that I had nothing short of an epiphany as I watched Bob Ross create fabulous "little trees" and "happy little bushes" out of nowhere, in seconds; three strokes of the fan brush make a waterfall; a small brush loaded with different paint colours on either side creating instant highlights; and as to the palette knife making a mountain ...

After seeing Bob Ross whip out masterpieces in less than a half hour, I have always wanted to give it a try myself.  He just makes it look SOOOO easy.  So, I decided my 40th year would be the perfect time to see if I am a starving artist at heart.   As if it were meant to be, this summer while at the framing shop on Peterson AFB, I saw an advertisement for a local woman who teaches Bob Ross painting classes.  Hurray! 

I called to inquire about the classes. At first I was disappointed to learn the we wouldn't be completing our paintings in only 30 minutes, but Lori, the teacher, assurred me that it would be disaster if we tried to complete our masterpieces as quickly as Bob. She said that Bob always told people, "It takes 30 years and 30 minutes to complete a painting,"  and she said to expect to spend at least 4 hours creating our first landscape.  So, disappointment aside, today Aubrey, Hunter and I headed to Lori's house for our lesson.

Lori is a wonderfully friendly woman. She grew up watching Bob Ross videos on TV and loved them. She didn't pursue this interest until, as an adult, a small inheritence from her parents provided her the financial means to  Bob Ross Instructor Certification school.  She is very talented and clearly loves what she is doing.

We set up in Lori's kitchen and got to work. We watched a Bob Ross episode of  "Mountain Reflection," and then we got started.  Well, 30 minutes came and went, and we barely had paint on our canvas.  Lori was definitely right: attempting to complete a painting in a half hour would have been a fiasco.  Just learning to mix colors was a challenge.  However, we were making definite progress, and we were having a great time.

Lori encouraged us to personalize our paintings, so each of ours had its own flavor.  Lori painted along with us, showing us each step.  Amazingly, our paintings began to come to life, and soon we had "happy trees" and "happy bushes" dotting our landscapes.  Lori stepped in to help whenever we had a crisis.  We learned that you can remove mistakes and just paint over that area again. Thank goodness for that! Total painting time: over 4 hours, prep time: over an hour, clean up time: about an hour. Our painting experience took the better part of a day, but the end results were awesome!  We couldn't believe we had created these!  Take a look at our results.

WE DID IT!! We are Bob Ross proteges!!!  Maybe in 30 more years we will be able to knock them out in 30 minutes, but for now we'll be content with our snail's pace masterpieces.  This new experience was AWESOME!   I encourge everyone to release their inner artist!

#24 - Castlewood Canyon State Park

This weekend Craig and I celebrated 18 years of marriage!  Now that the kids are older, we can sneak away for short getaways without having to worry about who will look after the kids.  Yesterday we treated ourselves to one such getaway.

We discovered Castlewood Canyon last May as we took an alternate route to Denver to avoid some backups on I-25.  We were rather embarassed to discover a state park so close to our home that we had never known existed. 

Castlewood Canyon is just south of Castle Rock, CO.  The canyon contains remnants of a dam which was built in 1890 and proceeded to burst in 1933, killing two people and numerous livestock in the process.  Apparently the structural integrity of the dam had been questioned several times throughout its history, but citizens were repeatedly assured that the damn was completely safe.  Guess politicians haven't changed much in the last hundred years! Here's a picture of the dam site.

In the 90 degree heat we headed out on a trail that would take us by the dam remnants. Guess you could say we hiked the dam trail at the dam park. (Yes, you should be thinking of Chevy Chase right now.)  The ranger assured us that it was approximately 3 miles round trip to the dam and some nearby waterfalls. It was a great hike, and we had no kids asking "How much longer are we going to be out here?".  However, the ranger was grossly off in his estimate. 3.5 hours later as we were wrapping up our round trip, we found a trail guide which gave trail lengths. Our "3 mile" round trip was actually about 7-8 miles roundtrip!  However, we had a great time hiking through both the rugged, rocky terrain and the marshy plains near the creek. 

When we were about a half mile from completing our hike, we encountered our biggest excitement of the day.  It could certainly count as another new adventure for me!  A woman hiking the opposite direction told us that she had just passed some signs warning that a rattlesnake had been spotted in the area. We appreciated the warning and continued on our way. A bit down the trail we spotted an orange cone with the rattlesnake warning sign taped to it.  Just beyond that were a couple hikers who said, "We found the rattlesnake that was in the vicinity. It is right there on the trail."  We looked about 15 feet up the trail, and there it was - quite alert, I might add. We pondered whether or not there was any way to walk a safe distance around the snake. At this point on the trail we were heading up and out of the canyon. We were on a set of stairs which were making a rather sharp turn to the left. Directly on the left side of the trail was a "wall "of rock; to our right was a steep down-sloping embankment.  Craig took one step towards the snake, and the snake gave a definite warning rattle.  Nope, we were not going to try to get around this fella. We all decided the only option was to scale the rocks to our left.  It was not a huge wall, so we were all able to get up and over the edge with just a bit of knee-scraping on my part.  This was as close to an active rattler as I ever hope to get. Once while hiking near Pueblo we saw a rattler who was curled up under a rock and minding his own business. I was OK with that.   Yesterday's fella, however, was just a bit too aware of us humans.  Of course, as we were scaling the rock and crossing the patch of land to rejoin the trail, I found myself thinking, "OK, we know there are ratllers here, how much harder are they to see in the grass?"  Freaky feeling.  Here is the cranky serpent.

Rattle snakes aside, I would definitely recommend Castlewood Canyon to any local folks.  It is a short drive from the Springs and offers a full day's worth of trails.  There is a northern section of the park which we didn't even visit.  Just be sure to wear high boots, keep your eyes on the trail and keep your ears open for that distinct "stay away from me" rattle!

#23 - Kit Carson Carousel

This is another "always wanted to " adventure.  Well, I guess I haven't "always" wanted to do it, but I have wanted to do it for at least 10 years since I've been driving I-70 back and forth between Colorado and Ohio/Pennsylvania. 

On the very eastern plains of Colorado sits a town named Burlington. This part of Colorado really should be annexed by Kansas, because it is just flat plains as far as the eye can see---a whole lot of nothing.  Yet, in the midst of this nothingness along I-70 there is a sign advertising the Kit Carson Carousel.  How intriguing, a carousel out in the middle of nowhere.  I've always loved carousel horses. I even had a decorative one in the house for over 15 years. So, every time I saw the sign for the carousel I really wanted to go check it out. However, when you are in the process of a 1,200 mile drive (either barely into it heading east or almost finally done with it heading west), it seems pointless to waste time taking a ride on a merry-go-round.  So, when I first compiled a list of possibilities for my 40 adventures, I was quick to include the Kit Carson carousel. Since we wre in western Nebraska for the lake camping trip, we were able to swing south and hit Burlington on our way home. 

For those of you who have never heard of Kit Carson, he was a frontiersman/explorer guide/Indian "agent".  Burlington resides in Kit Carson County, hence the name of the carousel.

The carousel has an interesting history. For those of you who would like to read a bit about it, I recommend this website. http://kitcarsoncountycarousel.com/about.html  Here are some quick facts:

• It was built in 1905 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (yep, toboggan company) for Elitch Gardens amusement park in Denver.
• It is a menagerie carousel, meaning it doesn't have just horses but a vareity of animals. It is the only surviving menagerie carousel made by the PTC.
• It was purchased for $1,200 in 1928 from Elitch Gardens. The townspeople were so outraged at the \"extravagent" purchase that the political careers of the country commisioners who approved the purchase were ruined.
• The carousel is self-contained in a 12-sided building.
• After being used for a number of years at county fairs, the carousel building (with the carousel still inside) was used for grain storage. Loose grain was housed in it as if it were a silo.
• Restoration efforts began in 1979 when the carousel was declared a Historic Landmark.
• Rides cost $.25!, what a bargain!
• It is a stationary carousel, meaning the animals don't go up and down. To compensate for this lack of motion, the PTC built it to be one of the fastest carousels, topping out at a whopping 12 mph!

While I'm sure I was far more excited than the other family members, I think we all enjoyed ourselves. After all, I had never ridden on a giraffe before!