1-70

Driving to Colorado Springs from Kansas City can be a real drag. The drive is long and straight. It's a challenge to even find somewhere good to eat because the biggest town between Topeka and Colorado Springs is Hays (think small). However, Nate and I have found some spots that are worth sharing.

We were enchanted by these windmills and hay bales. The second picture is really a clash between the old Midwest and the new Midwest.


We stopped in Russell, the home of Bob Dole so that Nate could get another photo with this awesome oil drill. The first picture was taken back in January of 2002 when Nate drove cross-country with his mom from Washington D.C. to Provo. You can see that in 2008 the drill is still going strong.



And let's not forget the lovely city of Colby, the self-proclaimed Oasis of the Plains complete with fiberglass palm trees. How very odd.

Anyone up for a road trip?

Go Green

I bought some reusable bags from our local grocery store, The Price Chopper. (Pretty awesome name for a store, eh?) Anyway, I wanted the bags so that I could be a more environmentally friendly shopper. What I wasn't prepared for is that these little bags have actually greatly increased my shopping satisfaction. And here is why. The bags are bigger and more durable than your standard plastic sack. Thus, more can food can be packed into them, and that means that I have to make less trips carrying bags from my car to my appartment. I know this doesn't sound like much, but seriously, it's made a big difference to me.

Also, the bags are perfect for carrying books to and from the library. I've shown up more than once at the library with an empty bag and loaded it up. As you can see, I have a lot of library books at my house.

I never thought I would see this happen again

I snapped this photo at a gas station near my office on Friday.

All about Taggart

October 18th is my brother's birthday. Nate and I got to celebrate with him this year.

The night before his birthday we went to see Taggart's band, "Tom's Got Shingles," perform. Here's Taggart rocking out on his bass guitar with his fellow band mates.

Check out the lead singer. I told my parent that the lead singer reminded me of Gil, the lead guitarist in Lane Kim's band on Gilmore Girls. Later, I talked to my brother about the lead singer and I was so right. He is just like Gil. He is way older than the rest of the band members; he has at least two kids; he has crazy long hair. He is Gil in real life.

After the set, Nate and I wanted a picture with The Bass Player (T. B. Player). He kindly obliged. Sort of.

The next day we went to have a birthday picnic (complete with present) at this great new open area park in Colorado Springs.


The whole experience reminded me of this time that we went to have a birthday picnic for my dad with my cousins, Aunt Patti, Uncle Todd, and Gramma.

The park where we were eating for Taggart's birthday definitely shared some similarities with the park where we had dad's picnic. But I think the deja-vu actually had just as much to do with the fact that these two occasions are the ONLY times we have had birthday picnics. Anyway, it made me really wish that we had made Taggart a really awesome birthday crown like my aunt did for my dad.

To truly experience the humor of this picture you have to understand that my dad really, Really, REALLY hates birthdays.

After the picnic we went on a 3-mile hike admiring the great red rock formations and the Fall colors.


On the top of one of the rises we had this spectacular view of Garden of the Gods.

Taggart and Nate climbed up these rocks to admire the view. Behind them you can see the results of the quarrying that was done in this area.

Here's my dad getting that perfect shot while the rest of us admire the view.

The View:

Starring our Car

This article: Pickup Driver Damages Cars In OP Parking Lot stars our car as well as five of our neighbors. Above is the picture the article uses with our car front and center. What a drag.

Historic Houses

Nate and I went on another day trip last weekend. First we went to Old Jefferson Town, which is a place near Oskaloosa, Kansas. Old Jefferson Town has a collection of 6 or 7 old buildings which at one point were scattered across Jefferson County, Kansas but have now been gathered together for the sake of preservation and tourism. The big draw for us was a chance to see John Steuart Curry's boyhood home. John Steuart Curry was a big name in the art world in the 1930s. He, along with fellow artists Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, made up the Regionalists (with a capital R). All three of these artists were from the midwest (Benton from Missouri, Wood from Iowa, and Curry from Kansas), and they were known for painting midwestern subjects. Nate and I had already been to see Thomas Hart Benton's Kansas City home so I guess now we just need to go see where Grant Wood once lived.

Below is John Steuart Curry's boyhood home. It's now a museum of sorts displaying some of his prints and sketches.

Old Jefferson Town also has an old jail, bank, church, store and schoolhouse (featured above). Here's the old teller window from the bank.

The other really amazing thing that we saw at Old Jefferson Town was this collection of barbed wire. It had been collected for years by a resident of Jefferson County who carefully labeled all the different types of barbed wire. He did a great service by donating his collection to Old Jefferson Town. They display it in the historic jail.


The docent at Old Jefferson Town was a little overenthusiastic so we were really ready to leave and continue on our journey to Atchison, Kansas. Atchison is a beautiful, little town on the banks of the Missouri River about an hour and a half northwest of Kansas City. Atchison was founded in 1854, played a role in the Civil War, and became a really important railway depot in 1859. I was particularly excited about going to Atchison because of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. I took a class at BYU in graduate school where we talked a lot about tourism in Santa Fe and all the artists who visited New Mexico. Almost all the big names in American art from the turn-of-the century through the 1930s went to New Mexico at least once (and it's still a thriving artist community). I haven't quite made it to New Mexico, but I did make it to the first leg of the journey.


Atchison was also the birthplace of Amelia Earhart. Here is her home. And below is the view from her front yard -- the Missouri River and the Amelia Earhart bridge.

Atchison is also known as the most haunted town in Kansas. Every year the folks of Atchison put on a Haunted Atchison trolley ride where you can see all the haunted houses (and great Victorian architecture) and hear about the mysteries happenings inside those homes. In the McInteer Mansion below lights are said to turn on and off in the tower which does not have electricity.


The Waggoneer (or Gargoyle) House has a strange architectural addition -- the two gargoyles perched on the ridge of the roof. They are said to protect the house, but they also protect themselves. Supposedly one owner, who was trying to remove the gargoyles, fell down the stairs to his death. Other tales of Haunted Atchison can be found here.



I can't say for certain that Nate and I met any ghosts, but I did mysteriously lose my hat on this trip...

Greater Kansas City Temple

I know that most of the excitement regarding President Monson's announcement of temples centered around the one to be built in Rome, but for those of us living in Kansas all we heard was that a temple would, at long last, be built in the greater Kansas City area. We were so elated at the news that we had to rewind the broadcast to hear the announcement about Rome. Our city has 10+ stakes in the area, yet is still 3+ hours from the nearest temple. I have no idea where the temple will be built, but with the unique description that it would be in the greater Kansas City area, I'm hoping that it will be built on our side of the state line.

Visiting Family

My sister now has three kids, which is three more than either of her older brothers. But I'm glad that Lila was born in at the end of summer, because it gave my whole family the perfect excuse to rendezvous in Dallas. This was our family's second trip to Dallas, and my fifth, but we found plenty of things to do. Here were some highlights:

• We saw a very interesting ballgame in which the Angels beat the Rangers.
  
• We ate like kings.
  
• We blessed my new niece, Lila.
  
• We visited the Dallas Museum of Art and saw a very cool Mondrian tree and some fantastic furniture (which was a nice surprise).
  
• And we made another trip to the fantastic Dallas World Aquarium.
  

The baseball game the first night was really fun (except my niece got sick). But hey, I won two free tacos to Taco Bueno. Sorry there are no pictures of us this time, only the kids.

Fort Scott

For Labor Day, JoLee and I traveled an hour south along the Kansas border to a small town called Fort Scott. The town was named after the original fort established there in 1842 back before Kansas was a state and this was the wild west. The military used the fort during the Mexican-American War, the Bleeding Kansas years, and the Civil War.

One of the great things about Fort Scott is that they let you roam and visit the buildings without distraction.

This is the hospital that also doubled as the visitors center.

Here JoLee is making bread in the enormous oven.



I don't know if this hole was an original part of the closet door, but JoLee wouldn't have allowed herself to be locked in if hadn't been there.

After visiting the fort we went to a civil war battle field along Mine Creek a few minutes away. The battle lasted one hour during which 600 soldiers were killed or wounded. The Union forces, while grossly outnumbered, soundly defeated the Confederates.



JoLee and I went on a little stroll through the battlefield which is now covered in tall grass. After walking for a few minutes, I stood up on a sign to see where the heck we were headed. That's when JoLee snapped this photo.

The sunflowers haven't been as plentiful during this summer as in years past, but we found plenty around Fort Scott.



Fort Scott also houses a national cemetery, which I thought looked very similar to Arlington in Virginia.

On our way out of town we had to stop and take a picture of this house that wants to be a 50's diner. The owners even put up a few palm trees to make it look like it belongs in California. What you don't see here are the victorian style homes next door.

20 Tag

20 years ago: It was 1988, and I was starting 4th grade.


Some memories from 4th grade:
My teacher’s name was Mr. Hardesty, and he did live up to his name. He was a tough but good teacher.

I remember that we did this project where we mapped out an imaginary trip across the United States and we did mini-reports on the different places that we “stopped.” I did a report on Zion’s National Park and Dodge City.

Every year in elementary school we all participated in the Young Author’s Event. This was one of my favorite things about elementary school. Every year all the kids would write a story and then we’d have a big night when our parents could come and read our stories and then we could go to other classrooms and read our friends’ and siblings’ stories too. In 4th grade we co-authored books, and I was paired with a kid named P.J.. P.J. and I actually got along really well even though he was the typical unfocused 4th grade boy, and I was a nerdy overachiever. We wrote a mystery where a pair of twins, brother and sister, had to find their missing teacher. I also wrote a book of really silly, extremely rhyme-y poetry.

In 4th grade my best friends were Suhani and Nirali they were twins from India who lived in my neighborhood.


And when I was in 4th grade I won the mile on field day.


10 years ago: It was 1998, and I was starting my sophomore year of college at BYU. Some memories from sophomore year: I was living in Victoria Place with Jamie, Becca, and Alyssa. Becca and I liked to go rollerblading. I think I wiped out on this particular trip.

During my sophomore year the Broncos won the Superbowl, and Jamie and I threw a Superbowl party. Below Jamie and I share some cake at the ward luau.

My sophomore year at BYU I decided that I was going to major in Humanities, and I started talking the core classes for my major.

I also started going running at 6:15 am on Tuesday and Thursday mornings with Nicole and Sarah. That same year was definitely my best track season. I finished second in the mile at Indoor WAC and qualified for Indoor Nationals in Indianapolis. My mom, Sue, and Robyn came to watch me run there. I also ran really well at Texas Relays and Stanford in outdoor track and qualified for Nationals in Boise. My mom and dad came to see me run there.


My good friend Jill also ran really well sophomore year so we got to travel together all the time.



5 years ago: It was 2003, and I was starting my last year of graduate school at BYU.

Right before the Fall Semester began I drove cross-country with Nicole so that she could start her internship in Boston.


I was living in a little basement apartment in Historic Provo with my buddy Jill who was starting law school. Her little sister Jamie lived upstairs for one semester.


During my last year of graduate school at BYU, I hung out a lot at this table on the 5th floor of the library with Erin (pictured below) and Spencer. Our other grad. school friends, Natalie, Rex, and Cristy, also dropped up regularly. I pretty much wrote my whole Master's Thesis at that table.


Spencer (pictured below), Katy, and I TAed for Dr. Green (his last semester before retirement). During that year my friend Cristy (pictured below) and I got in my car in Provo on a Friday morning and drove to the Simon and Garfunkel concert in Denver. 100% worth it.


Also, during my last year at BYU, I was the vice-president of the Graduate Student Association (BYUSA for grad. students), which was lucky because that is where I caught the eye of the representative from the Statistic’s department.


3 years ago: It was 2005. 2005 was a big year.

Nate moved to Kansas in January to start his job at Hallmark. (I had been here since August.)

And we got married in February.

We also started this blog in 2005.

1 year ago: It was 2007.

I was teaching Intro. to Humanities at Johnson County Community College and Intro. to Modern Art at KU. I no longer teach at KU, but I do miss teaching Intro. to Modern Art; it’s a really fun class. At this time last year I had just finished taking my Comprehensive Exams after a heinous summer of studying all day everyday for them. Nate was really, really good to me all summer and pretty much did all the cleaning, cooking, and shopping so that I could study like a maniac. I got to pay him back a little when he had sinuous surgery and had to sit in our chair in the living room for days on end. We are both grateful that the exams and the surgery are in the past.

1 month ago: It was July 2008.

I was working frantically to finish a draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. I was teaching a Summer Term course at JCCC. And Nate and I went to visit his uncle, aunt and cousins in Minneapolis for the 4th of July.

1 week ago: Fall Semester began.

I am teaching two Humanities classes at JCCC this semester. Last week we had a rousing discussion about Stephenie Meyer at Book Club. And Nate and I got new cell phones.

1 day ago: 30 August 2008.

Nate and I ran errands. Nate worked on my bike, and we had Indian food for dinner.