she threw her shoe at him

Steriods are WORKING!

It's finally going down.

He told the doc this morning that he forgives her for having to touch the bump.

(grin)

What a character!

Whew! Glad it's over (just about)!

Thank you for your offer to help me TS! My dad is an RN, too...he got a little righteous on our behalf.

Helps to have "connections".

Sunday, July 8, 2001, in the afternoon, our trip begins. Sunday, July 8, 2001, in the afternoon, our trip ends.

Monday, July 9, 2001, in the afternoon, our trip begins again. Our picnic at the Woodland rest area the day before was nice, but a little overdone. You would have thought we weren't coming back for weeks with all the stuff we had along.

The second go-round, we made it all the way to Emigrant Gap without stopping. After fueling, Grandpa got ice cream for everyone and then we continued.

Famous Quotes #1
Mr. C: In heaven, [my cousin's] scrotum will be little. Like mine. (Note: said cousin had been undergoing treatment for a hydrocele, having had lots of excess fluid accumulate around his hapless testes.)

Our luck did not hold. The Princess kept having to stop, and on the third try, she even peed. There was no formal supper stop because Neaksis passed up the only Taco Bell for miles. The Princess took it in stride. "Dood-bye, Tato Bell, dood-bye, MatDonoed's." So we passed around snacks. 700 miles from ground zero (which had a different slant 2 months and 2 days prior to 9/11) we crashed in Twin Falls, ID.

Mr. C was the first troll to wake up the other trolls abominably early. He must have been too excited about finally getting to stay in an 8 Motel to actually sleep there.

Right now we're driving along the west edge of Yellowstone. Earlier, at American Falls, we had to stop a while so I could receive and send a fax. That meant a lovely picnic in the park, and all the kids playing on the playground.

And at last we hit rain, just past Ashton. It was a massive, solid curtain, but didn't last long. The heavy art scoured our cars and windshields clean, then it drizzled long enough to get everything all muddy.

Supper was Taco Bell. Ah, cuisine! Boy did we make a run for the border. A good burrito or gordita was had by all.

Around and around, from freeway to freeway we circled, until finally landing at the superate in Billings, MT. It wasn't as far as we hoped, but everyone was so tired. (Except for Mr. C and the Little Man.) ((What we often called the Dervish before he became a Dervish.))

A bit before 5:30, my brain began trying to wake me with the news that the baby was crying. I wiggled my fountains into position, and drifted off. This happened a couple times, but until Scary Tina crawled out of her resurrection pod, I didn' realize that my brain had not been saying just "baby"; it was trying to say "baby kitty". After Its Royal Evilness had been fed and soothed, peace and quiet reigned until 0700. Mr. C was first up, natch.

The breakfast toaster was neat. The toast moved on a conveyor belt through the oven compartment and spit out the other side. (singing) Everything Feels Different on the Other Side...

Pompey's Pillar was neat. I had always envisioned a rock, maybe 6 or 8 feet high, with Kilroy Was Here on it. Instead, it was a huge mountain of rock with Kilroy Was Here on it. In the visitor's center, it said that Wm Clark's carving was the only remaining physical evidence of Lewis' and Clark's expedition in 1806.

Then there were the outhouses. What happened was my fault; I freely admit it. I asked Grandma to supervise J & Mr. C in the men's outhouse while I took [my youngest nephew] to get his hands washed (don't ask why). She must have thought they were in the women's like usual, so she went in next. Just as she completed the Great Unveiling, in walked...a man! It would be hard to say who was more surprised.

Next stop: the side of the road. The Princess wath doing to pee in her panth. Then it took almost 5 minutes squatting in the heat, holding her just off the ground, before she could unclench her sphincter.

The kids of all ages thought the dino museum in Dicinson, ND was neat. [In retrospect, I am noticing a certain amount of repetition to the adjectives.] My favorite things were the obsidian carvings, where the natural colors of the stone were shaped into butterflies and flowers, and also the real triceratops skull found north of Baker, MT. It was cimply huge! I have seen T-rex skulls LOTS of times (hem hem), but that is the first trike. It revived all my juvenile fantasies of being a paleontologist and digging up cool stuff. Maybe finding a Giganticas Neakias...

We dragged ourselves to Fargo for our motel, and I disgraced myself yet again. At least I didn't set off the alarm in the middle of the night like at the first motel. All I did is show Mom and Neaksis how loud the 2-way radio could echo in the hallway in the middle of the night. It took Mom a while to get settled, but at last everyone went to sleep.