The children and I have done many long haul trips together, but primarily by plane. This year we are driving up to the north woods of Minnesota since we are already on this side of the Atlantic Ocean and we have a car. I told the kids that it would be better than flying – that we’d be able to make our own schedule, eat what and when we liked*, and I even borrowed a dual screen portable DVD player for them to simulate that plane experience (which is more than I ever had on our long drives from Louisiana to Minnesota when I was a child we didn’t even have air conditioning or radio for many years!)
I also told them we’d have more space in the car. I may have misled them a bit on that count. A Volkswagon Golf hatchback holds more than you’d think, but not quite as much I’d like. Every square inch of space is taken, including the back dash and the floor space in the backseat. On the up side, no one will be reclining the front seats into their laps, the kids have about twenty new-to-them movies to watch, and all the other stuff I told them is true – we can eat when and what we want, *provided of course I can find anywhere to stop in the rural areas we’ll be passing through.
I expect the drive to take between two and two and a half days. I used to make the 19 hour drive between Kent, Ohio and Baton Rouge, Louisiana in one shot back when I was in grad school by leaving at 3am, but I think if I tried that now, I’d have a mutiny on my hands. Besides, I’m not 22 years old anymore. One benefit to air travel is that someone else is doing the driving so you can nod off if you wish!
Given the limited nature of the internet connection at my father’s house, I may post a bit irregularly in July and August. That’s okay – it’s summer and I’m sure you have better things to do than haunt my blog anyway, right? I’m sure I’ll be around at least a couple times a week though – after three years of blogging, I’m well and truly hooked on it!
There was a very dramatic thunderstorm the night we stayed in the wigwam. One lightening strike was so close I began to wonder about the odds of us experiencing a lightening strike while sleeping in a concrete teepee. Fortunately, we survived the storm but it was still raining when we woke up. There would be no Lost River Cave tour for us this visit.
Instead, once it stopped raining, we decided to visit another nearby attraction: Kentucky Down Under.
Honestly, if someone had given me a stack of brochures and just told me to choose a couple of places, I probably would not have selected this one. An Australian themed petting zoo in Kentucky??? Skipping it would have been making a mistake. We had a wonderful time.
The admission price may seem a little steep: $22 for adults and $13 for children under 14 years, but the price includes everything and is good for two consecutive days. I only wish I had known that on our first day!
Our first stop was the Budgie house. I have never been all that interested in birds – I like to see them in the wild but they don’t do much for me when they are in cages. This was a bit different though: you walked in with a cup of bird seed. I still might not have gone in if the children hadn’t wanted me to go with them.
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This was a prime example of not knowing what you are missing until you try it. The birds knew the drill and swooped down on us the minute that we entered their space. What fun! My children were a little weirded out by having birds all over them, but I went back for seconds on seeds!
Our next stop was the Woolshed where we got to watch a demonstration of a dog herding sheep and then learn a little bit about various aspects of sheep farming in Australia. After the talk, we were invited to pet the sheep. Doesn’t this guy look content?
We had a little time before our cave tour so we visited the exotic bird garden and also the Lorie cage. These birds are a bit larger and the children were not as keen to walk inside the enclosure. Perhaps this sign (outside the parrot and cockatoo cages) put them off!
I finally managed to talk my son into coming in with me and at least taking my picture.
The birds were beautiful and it was amazing to have them land all over me. I am happy to say that the thief on my shoulder was unsuccessful at dislodging my earring!
Kentucky Down Under also has a cave to explore and we were lucky to get there in time because they only do the tour once a day.
It wasn’t the largest cave in the area but it was lovely. I felt a little like a muppet in Fraggle Rock wandering around all these passages and stairs in the rock!
This was a mammoth stalagmite that has already pretty well blocked on side of the stairs (we came down on the right).
From the cave tour we went to the Outback Walkabout to pet kangaroos – why yes, it did seem a bit surreal! Kangaroos are much softer than you would think they’d be. They are so soft, I’m surprised that you don’t find things made from kangaroo fur – or maybe you do when you are in Australia!
Did you know that kangaroos continue to grow right up until they die? Also, they can jump 9 1/2 feet straight up off the ground. I was glad that they remained calm while we were in their yard walking around with them!
The only two things we did not have time to do were attend a program on Australian Aboriginal customs and traditions including things like boomarangs and didgeridoos and also the presentation on snakes because we had to get on the road to drive back to Ohio. (Sshhh! I might have omitted the snakes on purpose!) We made one last visit to the Budgie house before getting in the car to drive back to Ohio, high on our wonderful day at Kentucky Down Under.
So, having taken the children to see Kung Fu Panda 2 on Friday, exploring caves in Kentucky over the weekend, not to mention the Wigwam Village fun, is it any wonder the children awarded me the Best Mom Ever award on the way home?
There is an area of Kentucky only a few hours away from where I am currently staying that apparently has the world’s longest known cave system, with more than 390 miles explored. I’m always up for seeing something interesting so I packed up the children and set off for some weekend fun.
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Our first stop was Mammoth Cave National Park. They have big caves and several tour options, so it seemed like a natural place to start. TIP: if you should decide to visit the park yourself, book your preferred tour online. We arrived just before noon and most of the best tours were already sold out. Since we were there, we did a self led tour which was just the ticket to whet our appetites for seeing more.
I’ve never had any reason to visit Kentucky and have never given it much thought except as a place I need to pass through to get to some place else. It really is a beautiful area.
Mammoth Cave is so called because it has a really large central chamber – the scale of which is hard to appreciate in this picture. As it turns out, it is only the sixth largest chamber of caves in the area. We didn’t see the others but I was pretty impressed by this one so I can only imagine that the other would be more impressive yet.
Apparently the cave was mined for salt peter during the Revolutionary War to use in the production of gun powder. Interesting!
Seeing the cave at the park only whet our appetite to see more so we headed off next to see Diamond Caverns.
It’s hard to appreciate the beauty of the caves in photographs – things looked so much different with and without a flash.
With a flash…
And without.
Each cave has its own beauty and you can appreciate the depth and scale so much more with your own eyes – and also the cold drips from the ceiling!
The guide called this formation “cave bacon”. It reminded me a little of the alabaster pots I have in Egypt, which glow so prettily when you put a candle inside.
See the stalagmite slab cut off in the bottom left of the photo. Apparently people used to believe you could date a stalagmite as you do a tree, by counting rings. A lot of effort to cut it off to be WRONG!
There were many levels to the caves. I think the deepest under ground we went in this one was about 80ft.
There were clear rules when we entered the caves: No purses or bags, No touching the cave formations. Obviously people were not always so observant of preservation of natural wonders – note the stalagtites which are snapped off flat.
By the end of our tour of Diamond Caverns the children and I were so high on cave exploring we decided to try one more: the Lost River Cave. Long time readers might have noticed by now that I’m a bit of a sucker for adventuring, but especially adventures that involve riding animals or interesting vehicles. The Lost River cave tour is in a boat in an underground river – the only such tour in Kentucky according to their brochure. How cool is that? Unfortunately, the tour was not operating that day due to excess rain fall – the water level in the cave was too high. Disappointing, but now we have something to look forward to next time we are in the area.
There were some kind comments last week referring to what a good mom I am. I appreciate the sentiment but I think you give me too much credit. I am obviously still learning in this motherhood gig.
I did a couple loads of laundry over the weekend, one dark load of clothes followed by a load of sheets and towels. When the dark load was finished I stuck them in the dryer and took the children to a movie (Judy Moody: The Not Bummer Summer – pretty mediocre if you ask me but the kids seemed to like it) When I got home, the dryer was done so I started to unload the clothes when I noticed something – many items had blue splotches on them.
I could not imagine what had happened until I found an empty blue crayon paper. The dryer is stacked on top of the washer so I had to get a chair to investigate further. The inside of the dryer drum was coated in blue wax, particularly near the lint trap where the other half of the crayon had landed and melted on.
When, oh when, will I learn to check pockets? Previously the pocket litter has been limited to candy wrappers and coins, perhaps the occasional Lego piece or small toy – none of which particularly mattered when I was limited to line drying as I was in Cairo. A melted crayon is messy, messy, messy – and of course a new pink shirt my daughter had just bought herself was in the load.
I promptly got online to seek remedies. Toothpaste, a sponge, and a plastic knife were enough to get the crayon out of the dryer (and also leave it minty fresh). There were several suggestions for the clothes and I decided to try them in ascending order of difficulty.
I started out by dabbing big blue spots with Dawn dish liquid then used a cup of detergent and a cup of Borax and washed in hot water on the heavy duty cycle. Warning: that combination of detergents and booster does create a huge amount of sudsing that not all washers are going to like. Since I was using a front loader, I had to stop the cycle and do a rinse and spin before I could go on. The next cycle I used a cup of detergent and a couple scoops of Oxyclean also washed in hot water. Many of the items seemed to come clean by that point, and frankly I suspect it was the hot water more than anything else.
A few items were reluctant to release the stains so I tried the next suggestion: oil. The internet suggested WD-40 but others said that baby oil would work much the same but with less smell. I would caution anyone not to try the oil unless the clothing item is a lost cause anyway because it is oil afterall. I soaked the spots with the oil, then dabbed them with the Dawn and washed in hot again. Some things worked, some things didn’t – my daughter’s new shirt was among the didn’t works for the blue, a red shirt of mine was among the oil casualties.
By this point, getting the crayon out was more of a personal challenge because I had succeeded with the majority of the load and also clearly spent more than my daughter’s shirt was worth in detergents and hot water. I gave it one more try with hot water and Borax but added a few new items to the wash, just to fill out the load – and ended up turning a couple pairs of socks pink.
I called it a day and bought my daughter a new shirt.
Yesterday the children painted some birdhouses they had made last month. They were wearing giant t-shirts as smocks, but my son managed to get a splotch of blue paint on his shorts – ironically, a pair of shorts that escaped the crayon load unscathed.
I wonder if the baby oil will work to get the paint out?
It seems impossible to think that I left Egypt five months ago. I had no idea of what to expect when we left – of how long we’d be gone or if we’d even be able to go back but what I wasn’t expected was five months of wait-and-see.
Our decision for me to stay in the US with the children wasn’t an easy one, but I’d like to think it was the most sensible thing we could do under the circumstances. I am more willing to take chances with my own safety (which I proved when I had my picture taken with a tank (what was I thinking??)) but we weren’t willing to do the same with our children.
There really are no words to describe how utterly fantastic the children have been through this whole period. They left Egypt with us believing us when we told them it was going to be a short trip, an unscheduled vacation of sorts. We struggled through homeschooling for a month before we came to Ohio to stay with my high school friend, then they had to settle in to a new school here.
Adapt to a new school might be a better description because it was not simply a matter of not knowing their way around the building and having to make new friends. They went to a British curriculum school in Egypt. Here in Ohio they not only had to learn a new American curriculum but a whole new set of teacher expectations.
I wouldn’t say it was an easy process for them to find their way, but they certainly made it look easy. After initially struggling a bit, particularly in math, my daughter brought home an honor roll certificate on her last day of school. I am particularly proud of the “B” she earned in math. It was hard won, and if she’d have had another couple of weeks of school it might have even been the “A” she was striving for.
Both children were teary when I picked them up in the afternoon – simultaneously wishing to return to Egypt to see the friends they left behind and also wishing they could turn back the clock here so they could have a bit more time with their new friends. My own heart ached for them both from a mother’s perspective and from my own – I know all to well that feeling of being torn between places and friends and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
With our summer vacation, life just may begin to feel a bit more normal. We’ll spend the next few months doing our usual Minnesota north-woods summer thing. After that? Things are still a bit up in the air, but if nothing else I am confident that my children will land on their feet.
And I’m not talking about the Rapture, LOL. After today, there are only 7 days of school left, and three of them are half days (why do schools do that, anyway???)
I might be even more ready for the children to be done with school than they are themselves. I am tired of getting up with an alarm, tired of fumbling through fifth grade fractions, tired of homework in general, and very very very tired of all the candy.
When I enrolled the children in school, they gave me the supply list which included things that you would expect like pencils and notebooks and folders, but it also things you might not expect like two bags of candy per child. I was a little surprised but I assumed that it was for holiday parties (though if every child in a class brought two bags, that would still be an awful lot!). The administrators told me not to worry about the candy since the kids were starting so late in the year. (Just between us, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it anyway!)
The candy is not however limited to holidays. The school offers candy as incentives to do well in a task, but also as a reward for either having achieved a goal or even merely cooperating with basic school rules. Every time I turn around it seems like the kids have a cheek full of candy.
I might be able to live with that – a little candy never hurt anyone in moderation and I don’t keep it around the house as a rule – but it doesn’t stop there. There has been a candy sale fundraiser every day this week which is is on top of the usual handouts which is all on top of ice cream sales plus “Fizzy Friday” where the children are allowed to bring soft drinks to school.
The friend with whom I am staying is as astonished by this nonstop sugar orgy as I am – so are her teenage children who say they never got so many candy handouts in their elementary schools. It makes me wonder what is in the principal’s mind? Was she deprived as a child? Did she not get the memo regarding soaring childhood obesity rates? Whatever happened to giving out rewards like stickers or pencils?
As many sugary treats as are being offered, I wish they would offer a dental plan as well.
I am sure the children have reached their candy quota for the year. Following the freaky episode with the ice cream man, I think it’s going to be strictly apples and carrots and floss all summer!
The children’s school held a carnival at a local, family-owned, old fashioned amusement park called Stricker’s Grove this past Friday. Generally speaking, I am not a huge fan of amusement park rides (or crowds or lines) so I haven’t gone out of my way to take the children to amusement parks. After I looked at this one on the website, I decided to make an exception: the ticket prices were very reasonable and included food and unlimited rides. Also, the park itself was small scale. The children only *think* they like amusement park rides – I figured this would let them try them out in a fairly controlled way.
(Note: there are amusement parks in Cairo but I have avoided them for a number of reasons, one of which is my lack of faith in the maintenance of the rides!)
I admit that there was an element of nostalgia involved in my decision to buy the tickets as well. I can remember my own elementary school having carnival nights at a small amusement park called Pontchartrain Beach in New Orleans and how much I always enjoyed them. I was pleased that my own children could have such an experience as well.
The park was as cute as I imagined it would be with only one main walkway off of which all the rides were located. I remember Pontchartrain Beach as being bigger, but then again I was much smaller myself! The children did not notice or complain about the size of the park at all – they were completely focused on the rides!
The first ride we all went on was the Ferris wheel. The operator did not make a great first impression. First he forgot to clamp the bar down on the first riders, and then when we yelled to alert him, he nearly ripped off his own arm when he threw the wheel in reverse suddenly while simultaneously reaching toward the car. Yikes! Some people actually got out of line when he did that. Not us though- we are thrill seekers I tell you!
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The ride went smoothly after the rocky start – everyone exited with all their limbs and I never heard any blood curdling screams from there that evening so I assume the operator got his act together!
There was a nice assortment of rides as well – something for all ages and tolerance levels. My children, of course, were most interested in the fastest, highest, and most thrilling rides of course. There were two wooden roller coasters. We started with the smaller one first, named the Teddy Bear.
The Teddy Bear was a beginner roller coaster, but it was more than enough for me. It did one trip around its track – no loops at all – and it was done. So was I. What can I say – I am a total wimp.
This sort of thing is much more my speed:
My son was not content to restrict himself to the Teddy Bear however, he wanted to go on the Tornado. I was there with my friend and her two teenagers so I could have just skipped the Tornado myself, but n-o-o-o-o-o. My son started trash talking about how his mommy was scared of the roller coaster and I could not let that pass. I also told myself that it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that was crucial for me to experience so I could use it sometime in my writing.
My son and my friend’s son got in the very first car. My friend and her daughter got in a car behind them. All the other seats filled up quickly so I ended up sitting with a little boy in the last car. I told the boy and his two friends ahead of me not to be alarmed if I screamed. They told me it was okay – girls do that sometimes! They then gave me details on what to expect and also admitted they might scream too. Chatting with them was the best part of the ride!
Did I mention I wasn’t a roller coaster person? I regretted getting on the ride almost as soon as we started out. We had seat belts and safety bars and I still came several inches up off the seat when we rushed over the highest curve. I did not get a thrill out of the ride – I was petrified! I am not sure why exactly it bothered me so much. It doesn’t bother me at all to go down a mountain luge track on a plastic sled at high speeds but I hated the roller coaster. If I am going to be going so fast, I guess I want to have more control over the vehicle I’m in!
After the roller coaster, my son ran off with my daughter and her friend and I stuck to more sedate rides for a while, like the swings and the carousel.
Is this not the most tormented looking horse you have ever seen?
After the riding the roller coaster, this is pretty much what I saw of my children for the rest of the night:
My friend and I were remembering carnivals from our youths and the rides we used to like. It was nostalgia that deluded us into thinking that we would enjoy a spin on the Electric Rainbow ourselves.
I think if it had stayed at this angle we would have been fine. However, this is just the beginning.
I took the above picture from the swings and I watched it tilt nearly perpendicular to the ground while we were waiting in line so I really ought to have known better. I am truly surprised that it wasn’t covered in vomit. (There were, however, splats all over the sidewalk outside of the ride). My friend and I got on the ride and my children scampered on right after us. They were thrilled to see us on the ride that they had been enjoying so much all evening.
I had a fond memory of this ride and should have left it at that. I did not hate the ride this time, I endured it. I survived it. I celebrated when it stopped. While my children ran shrieking with joy off to the next ride, my friend and I found a nearby bench and tried to shake off the spins. She never did recover – she ended up being sick and leaving early. It’s hell getting old.
There was less than an hour left to the carnival when my friend departed so I decided to just let the children continue riding while I strolled and took pictures. Then the children found me and tried to get me to ride the big roller coaster with them again. I was *almost* foolish enough to go along with them but then I thought about it: if I didn’t like the roller coaster in broad daylight, I knew I would truly hate it in the dark. I suggested that we try the Tilt-a-Whirl instead.
The children agreed, though they did say they thought it was a boring ride because their car didn’t spin much the one time they had tried it. It certainly spins a lot with Mom in the car. It was kind of fun at first – at least until it wasn’t. I should have known it wasn’t a good idea when a child stopped outside the fence for the ride and vomited just after he’d exited. We spun and we spun and we spun some more. By the time we finally stopped, I was more than ready to get off. My son exited in a hurry as well – and ran straight for the bathroom.
He was never actually sick (probably because he had been too busy with the rides to eat anything) but that was the end of the fun for him. And of course suddenly it was all my fault that he’d been riding the big, fast rides all night. He’d wanted to go on the carousel and the train but he couldn’t find me anywhere. I’m guessing that the lesson he should have taken from this – stop while you are ahead – will be entirely missed.
Both children have already asked to go to King’s Island. They might end up going sometime but it won’t be with me!
I’ve been doing my best to settle in to my temporary home in Ohio and I think I’ve been doing okay lately in terms of not flipping out (too much) about what comes next. Distracting myself with the treasures to be found in the many thrift stores in the area helps (though I am glad my friend has a big house because I might need to store some things with her for a while!)
Considering what they went through with the upheaval and stress of the evacuation and then having a month gap before starting a new school in a new state with a new and unfamiliar curriculum, the children have been doing amazingly well. I couldn’t be prouder of how they have have settled in and how well they have adapted. My daughter wants to have straight As on her last report card of the year and I think she might just pull it off.
Overall, I have been feeling pretty good about how things have been going and about what might come next. It’s been a challenging year so far! Then I started to read back over my status updates on Facebook for the past year – of all the little day to day things that I was doing in Cairo and the friends that I saw and interacted with – and I started to feel a little homesick.
I even started to second guess everything I’ve done since February.
I still believe that we made the only decision that we could have made at the time by leaving Egypt when we did. The situation was simply too uncertain to risk staying to see how things played out, especially with the children to think of. In hindsight however, I kind of wish the children and I had gone back when my husband did at the end of February. It would make things so much less complicated in so many ways.
One of the biggest complications is that the children’s school in Cairo is pushing us to commit to whether we will be back in the fall term. I know that they need to plan for class sizes and staff, but how am I supposed to know what will happen in three months? It isn’t as if all the news from Egypt these days is good. And it is more than just saying “yes” or “no” – if we say “yes” we have to pay a hefty deposit per child to secure their places. The fee is an every year thing, but the difference this year is that my husband is looking for a job in the US. If we are lucky he’ll find something before next fall – which would be great only we’d lose the deposit with the school (which is more than I paid for my car – ouch!). If we say “no” and just take our chances, there is a possibility that he wouldn’t get a job and we would also lose their places at the school.
If I stay in the US, our family remains in limbo. If I go back to Egypt, we have to hope things remain safe enough until we can make a permanent move elsewhere. There are many other minor complications like what to do with my car – if I go back to Cairo in September, I’ll have to sell it. I feel lucky to have found it so I’d rather keep it. What can you do?
I never expected or planned to make my life in Egypt for the long term so in many ways I am ready to move on, however I don’t think I’m quite done with the place yet either. I never got to say goodbye after all.
It’s been another run-around-town morning. I dropped the kids at school, went for another appointment with the dermatologist (this time she cut a suspicious mole off my leg), and then to drop off the donations for the tornado victims. Now I have to tend to my son’s new pet.
The children have been asking for a pet for a long time and I have been resisting. I had two cats before I had children and I loved them dearly. The problem was that the cats did not love the children. By the time we were preparing to move to Egypt the situation had gotten so bad that I had to keep one of cats secluded in my bedroom and run a happy-cat phermone plug-in just to keep her from marking all of my things (guess who she blamed for bringing the children into the house??) I was at my wits end with what to do with the cats. They were clearly not happy with us and they were aging to boot – and Egypt does not have very good veterinary care for house pets. I was extremely lucky that at just about the same time a friend from North Carolina wrote me an email and told me her cats had just died and she wanted to adopt two older cats. Is that good timing or what? We went back and forth a few more times to iron out details and then I shipped her two aging cats. It was harder than I would have thought to let them go, but it was for the best. That was nearly six years ago and the cats have been restored to their former spoiled status and are living out their golden years in style. I still get status reports from time to time.
So no more cats. I’ve also vetoed dogs. Not only don’t I want to be stuck with the responsibility of walking a dog several times a day while the children are in school, but can you imagine having a dog with what has been my lifestyle for the last decade? How could I leave a dog for nearly two months every summer? I would go broke with kennel fees and the dog would go nuts. I have friends who bring their dogs with them when they travel but I have enough to keep track of with two children and six suitcases thank-you-very-much.
I have also nixed birds, rodents, and fish. I don’t think that birds belong in cages and there is the same problem with the vacation schedule. Also, who do you think would ultimately be stuck cleaning out the cage / tank? No thanks. I have many better things to do with my time!
Last weekend, my son found a pet that I could find no immediate objection to: a Venus Flytrap. It’s inexpensive, quiet, does not require walking, and eats bugs. What’s not to like? We’ll see how it goes. If there is one pitfall it is the frequency with which my son wants to feed it. If Venus Flytraps can become obese, ours will. It’s a good thing the new pot I found for it it is roomy…
I write books for fun so why is it so hard to write my own bio? I am an American currently living in Cairo, Egypt. Aside from writing, I'm a married mom of two under ten, a decent (if reluctant) cook, an encyclopedia of random scientific / medical facts, a wine lover (but not a snob!), and a Capricorn. I love to travel, spend time with good friends, and laugh at life's surprises. View of life - definitely half full.
