Aaron's bachelor summer

For those 7 of you who have actually followed all my summer posts, you have undoubtedly noticed that most is about the kids and myself.  During the months of June and July our family was together a total of about 23 days.

Aaron was living up the bachelor life this summer!  Spent two weeks in Texas, a week of motorcycling, a week of backpacking, riding during Rally Week... nothing but good times for him!  Here's Aaron's summer recap.

June 20 - July 4
Aaron left his Father's Day celebrations early to fly to the heat and humidity of Texas.  Brooks AFB is a stripped down base without a commissary, BX, swimming pool and the fitness center closes 1 hour before Aaron was done for the day.  He was the second most senior officer in his group and one of two out of 25 who didn't get a rental car in their budget, so he had to bum a ride from all the 2nd Lieutenants

Classes included a  night vision lecture, high altitude physiology,  fighter/bomber/mobility/recon missions, and his favorite history of Air Force ophthalmology.  He also spent some time in the high altitude chamber.

Unfortunately for Aaron, Hurricane Alex was on its way to the area so he was the only one in his program who didn't get to fly in the aircraft pictured below.  He did get to spend an extra two days of extended holiday in Houston until the weather cleared and he could fly home.

 He was able to see his brother Nathan and his wife Leaa and their baby Corinne and finished the first 2 books of the Hunger Games series. He also paid tribute to his fallen brother's-in-arms at the Alamo. All in all not a bad 2 weeks.  He spend 40 hours with his family until we took off for Utah and left him to his next adventure.

July 12-17
After a grueling 4 days back at work Aaron hitched the trailer to the Altima and drove the motorcycle over to Spokane and the start of his Wild Hogs week.  Their planned destination was a trip up through Canada but the day before they left a passport went missing so the route was changed to follow the Cascade Highway along the Washington/Canada border.

Although the boys seemed to be disappointed in the change, Aaron was secretly excited as now they would be traveling through Forks, WA and he would be able to watch for vampires and put his feet in the sand at the La Push Beach.  After visiting his vampire Graceland Aaron is definitely Team Edward!

Other highlights of the trip were the general scenery, hanging out with his brother, dad, and brother-in-law, and eating a container ship.

Halfway through the trip Aaron got the stomach flu. Apparently it's a bit trickier being sick on a motorcycle than on a car trip.

Yes this is Aaron puking over the guardrail.  Thanks for the picture Trent!

Alex has already started getting ready for the time when he will get to pilgrimage to Forks, and become a man.

July 27 - July 31 (but actually 30th)

The male side of the Nelson family went on a backpacking trip.  It originally was going to be 20 miles in 4 days with about 1200 feet gained in elevation, it got changed to 30 miles in 4 days with 5000 ft gained in elevation and ended up being 30 miles in 3 days with the 5000 feet gained in elevation.  The final count was due to the persistent rain in the Rocky Mountain National Forrest.  They had a great time and made it over Flat Top Mountain without be electrocuted or lost in a white-out (you have to have Aaron or someone from the trip tell you about the guy who told them to turn around before making it to the top).  A fun time was had by all.

yes that's Aaron packing heat

a little rain never hurt anyone

August 10

As if there hadn't been enough fun had by Aaron, he went on the tenth annual Dakota Thunder ride sponsored by Ellsworth AFB as part of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  The ride left the flight line, rode down the runway and then headed off base and took a back road to Sturgis.   This sounded like a great father-son opportunity, and it was at first.  After pictures, getting into a B-1, waiting for the ride to start and drinking lots of water to stay hydrated on a hot August day they were on their way.  They rode with the medics near the back of over 500 motorcycles.  It was great until somewhere on the two lane highway to Sturgis, Alex said he had to pee.  Aaron tried to get him to hold it, but after bouncing around on the back seat for 10 minutes they pulled over and Alex was able to relieve himself on the side of the road.  Through a series of unfortunate events they were separated from the rest of the group and missed a key turn to get to Sturgis.  They ended up in Deadwood, SD with Alex falling asleep on the back of Aaron's bike.  Deciding to call it a day they hopped on the freeway and head for home.  They will try to make it all the way to Sturgis next year.

Aaron has now resumed being a father to our children and states that the bachelor life is too exhausting.  We'll see what happens next summer!

Summer Vacation: Spokane, WA - 773.25 miles (from Utah then 922.09 miles home )

The kids and I left Utah with my mom for driving company.  It was a pretty uneventful drive except that I did get hit on at the McDonald's in Idaho Falls by a guy who apparently has a pregnancy belly fetish.  No mister psycho, I don't feel as though I've never looked better and yes you are staring.  Creepy!

Spokane was just a relaxing week of visiting with family.  We visited parks, did some shopping, and picked raspberries.  Of course no trip to Spokane would be complete without a trip to Subway.  We ate fresh about 4 times the 5 days we were there.  Aaron came home on the Friday before we left and we enjoyed a boating afternoon with Aunt Brooke, Uncle Cody, cousins and grandparents. 

Camryn and Sydney helping papa Nelson in the garden

Riverfront Park in Spokane

sisters - Cami, Carolyn and Andrea

Long Lake - Sydney, Aunt Brooke, cousin Jaycee

Summer Vacation: Utah - 683.35 miles

So Aaron finally gets home the afternoon of July 4th and the kids and I take off again the morning of July 6th.  My mom's extended family was having a reunion.

We stopped my Martin's Cove on our way down.  This is another Mormon Church Historical site where the handcart companies were basically stuck as an early winter came through the area on their way to SLC.  I once again explain that we are only at the beginning of our trip and once again I am sitting listening to a very sweet old lady peat her "schpiel" while trying to get the DVD player to work and then REPEAT it once the DVD gets going.  We sat long enough for Camryn to need 2 bathroom breaks.

1 hour later we are done and I say:  Alright, which way to the Cove?
                                        old lady:  It's a mile and a half that way.
                                               me:   A driving mile and a half?
                                       old lady:  No, it's a walking trail.
                                               me:  Kids! back in the van.  Time to go!

Martin's Cove is a little more involved than I thought so we'll have to hit it for real another time.  but we did get a picture at the entrance.

Going to Utah is always great because we get to see so many people while we are there.  There are former roommates:

I'm the big one

Friends from Ohio who are either living there now or are in the area for the 4th:

I still can't believe we got that many families together

And then of course there is all the family we get to see:

Sydney and Uncle Ethan - Sturgis look out!

The Kidd cousins also visiting from Colorado

My sister Christine, my mom, and I in front of the Mt Timpanogos Temple

While visiting my grandpa's grave Alex stumbled upon Magnum PI's grave.  Alex was sad for him that he was buried without his Detroit Tigers hat.

Rest in Peace Magnum!

Summer Vacation: Badlands and Wall Drug

So the kids and I got home from Kansas late night June 30.  Our friends the Rasmussen were coming up from Fort Collins for the 4th on the night of July 2nd, Aaron was flying in late night July 2nd.  Unfortunately thanks to Hurricane Alex Aaron was stuck in Houston until the afternoon of the 4th.

We headed off to the Badlands, so named as they are "bad lands" to try and farm (catchy right? nothing gets past the Dakotans), where we hiked, picnicked and suffered a little bit of heat exhaustion due to hot weather and only 3 water bottles between the two families.

View of the Badlands

Kids and I at the top of one particular hike.

On our way home we stopped at Wall Drug.  Anyone (all 5) who have been through South Dakota knows about Wall Drug because there is a billboard for it every 3 miles across the entire state (not joking).  Here is mile 131 - 110 on I-90:

wait for it...

wait for it...

wait for it...

almost there...

NOW!! exit now!

 It's a giant drugstore complex with shops, cafes, wild west trinkets:

it says "Homeland Security, Fighting Terrorism since 1492"

 And DELUXE accommodations

You can even ride the Jackalope.

 Let me tell you...South Dakota does NOT disappoint!

Summer Vacation: Coming home from Kansas - 693.39 miles

So Aaron was still in Texas when we finished our Kansas vacation so I decided to see some of the sights on our way home.  Two places I particularly wanted to go were to Winter Quarters in Nebraska and The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.

I've noticed that sometimes when you go to a Visitor's Center the people there have their "schpiel"  that they usually say.  I've also noticed that no matter how often you tell them you don't have a ton of time and still have about 8 hours left in your drive, you are going to get the entire "schpiel".  Thus our visit to Winter Quarters went from a quick 30 minutes to 2 hours.  The kids only complained as I went through the cemetery but did stand long enough for a picture or two.

By the way, for those of you who don't know Winter Quarters is the place where the pioneers stayed over the winter in really terrible conditions before their trek west to Salt Lake City.  Most there had been forced out of their homes previously so food and supplies were scarce and there was a lot of sickness so many, especially kids, died there.

Kids pulling a handcart.  Alex mentioned that this was so easy that pulling it to Utah would've been no problem.

Kids loading their wagons.

Memorial to children who died at Winter Quarters.  You can almost feel the enthusiasm.

Although long, it was a great experience and the kids actually learned something so we have that going for us...which is nice.

So back in the car and 5 hours later we pull up to The World's ONLY Corn Palace.  That's right, there's only one and lucky us it's in South Dakota.

Since none of you know, The Corn Palace was built to advertise that corn grows in South Dakota and to entice farmers to either move here or stay here instead of relocating to Iowa or Nebraska because hey...we have so much corn we're building palaces out of the stuff.

Apparently it didn't take because to this day South Dakota still does not have 1 million people in her borders.

They start decorating for the next year in July so it's not as corny as it could be.

World's Only...too bad I didn't get in there myself.

Rushmore made of corn.

Summer Vacation: Kansas Style - 693.39 miles

So our summer vacation is only half over and already the kids and I have traveled 3830 miles (by van).   Since we have been all over doing and seeing different sights, I am attempting to do separate blog posts for each "vacation".

Aaron recently started the Flight Medicine training and was sent to Texas for his first two weeks of class.  Since I was on my own I decided that now was as good a time as any to go visit my brother Scott and his family in Topeka, Kansas.

There are a few things to know about Kansas before you go to visit:

             

1.  Kansas has humidity and if you are pregnant and haven't been in humidity in about 4 years (since Ohio) you are going to sweat... A LOT!  Your kids will also complain that they are"hotter and hotter and hotter than ever!"
            

2.  Kansas has no regulations concerning the 4th of July.  Anything and everything is legal right there outside your front door so long as you are exploding your fireworks during the approved days (this year June 27 - July 5)
           

  3.  Kansas gets a bad rap about being boring  BUT there was a ton to do and it was gorgeous!  We were there a week and literally ran out of time before we got to everything

Here's a peek at what Kansas had to offer the Petersen Family:

Sydney playing with the puppies at the libraries bookmobile

Camryn at Shawnee Lake park

Sydney at the Topeka Zoo - she almost got bit on this one

Camryn and cousin Skyler fighting over the Bear Chair.  Gotta love 2 1/2  - 3 year olds!  I mostly picked this picture so you can see how hot Cammer was! 

Sitting in "school" at the Deanna Rose Farmstead in KC, KS.  Although we did end up in KC, MO by accident on the way home.

Alex riding the tractor track at Deanna Rose Farmstead in KC

This is the other side of Shawnee Lake.  They've built a beach with water slides, sprinklers, and basketball hoops.  

Alex, Sydney and Cam with cousins Skyler and Carson.

A place to lay your head

Ever been so tired that you can't go another step?  Apparently Camryn has had that kind of a day.