The Games We Play

Careening down the road in our tour bus for an indeterminate amount of hours is a dangerous game.  We experience extreme highs and lows and our sanity levels fluctuate to disjointed extremes.  One of the first things you have to learn traveling is how to survive.  There are several ways to effectively stave off impending doom, which we have become quite adept at over the years.  One of these is Schoolwork, but even the draw to attain a greater understanding of the world around us gets old eventually and then...there are games.

   We've picked up hundreds of games from around the world, some more complex than others but we'd like to share a few of our favorites with you.  Most of these games require no more than a deck of cards and a small square of space.  These could save your life on your next road trip.
   In the great time-honored tradition of melodrama we will do a top 10 count down.  (For people who don't watch much TV this is quite a leap!)

In 10th place is Canasta!  Taught to us by our friend Carmen from Spain and then re-taught by our cousins in Nebraska, Canasta is a fun and highly complicated game.  Best played after a cup of coffee.

9th is Cribbage!  Although it requires a board it is a great game for the road because most of the cards stay in your hand and the board won't lose it's pieces.  Taught to us by our good friend Shawn in Indiana.

8th is Rummy 500.  We played this game almost every day on the Euro rail during our tour of Europe.  Best if you have a table :)

7th is, aptly, 7-up!  This is one of Dad's favorite games because of its simplicity and easy teardown-ability.  It's a great game to play at a restaurant when you're waiting for your food.  It is easiest to play on a stationary surface.

6th is Euchre.  A Michigan favorite it could easily be qualified as the 'state game'.  We grew up playing this game because my dad is from Michigan!

5th is Norwegian.  This game was taught to us by our Norwegian relatives, they called it American because the point of the game is to take all the points for yourself, but they were so good at it that we changed the name in their honor :)

4th is Dummy Rummy!  We learned to play this game recently from our new friends/adopted family Gilles and Annette in Canada.  It's a great game and easy to play on the road.

3rd is President.  Known by more unsavory names this game is a blast and best played with no mercy.  Taught to us by a waitress in Canada, it requires you to change seats every round in order of winner to loser and is sure to confuse your wait staff.

In 2nd place is Hand and Foot!  Taught to us in Nebraska by a Chemistry teacher from Florida, it requires 4 decks of cards and a lot of space.  It is a blast to play and was a close contestant for first in our countdown.

And finally, the game that has won our hearts and taken up all of our free time, taught to us in Wyoming by our good friend/family Carole.  THE top game is...

Banana-grams!

Similiar to scrabble this game comes in a cute 'banana peel' case and is as addictive as it is vocabulary building.
(All of these games and their orders were decided by loud popular vote.)

If you have any questions about any of the games we've mentioned or other creative ways to survive a long trip, drop us a comment!

Juneau; The Capital of Alaska

There are very few ways to get to Juneau.  The high mointains flanking the city make it impossible to drive in from the outside.  That leaves only three options.

1.  Hike thourgh the wilderness and hope the bears don't mind.

2.  Leave all or most of your belongings behind and fly in.  Or
3.  Pull your large green tour bus and everything you own onto a ferry and float it down to Juneau from a highway-connected port.
(This is not a multiple-choice question.)So on a rainy day we did just that.
(If you haven't figured out which one we used yet please read through the options and consult your physician.)


    It is a strange sensation, floating your house down river.  Technically, we were living in Alaska, right next to the whales.  

It's been an amazing journey.  When we pulled into Juneau it was raining, not a rare occurrence in a city that gets rain 260 days of the year!  It has to be the greenest place we've ever visited.  The trees are massive and ancient, towering over the roads and the rivers are so full of salmon that there's hardly any room for water.    In our infinite wisdom we decided to take a leisurely bike ride into town from the port.  Secure in our muscle-inity we road up and down the steep hills bravely.  3 hours later, we were still riding, sill not in Juneau, and exhausted.    For those of you who have never been to Juneau, the distance from the bay to the city is 27 miles...27 miles!  Our whole  'save the planet', 'save gas', 'we can handle it' plan crumbled to dust at our feet (actually, in our thighs).    We stumbled into Juneau trying to keep our eyes open long enough to take in all the beauty.  It is an amazing city, where the huge cruise ships can pull right up to the sidwalks.  We had some authentic Alaskan Halibut and enjoyed some brief sunshine.  
    Now we were faced with a very real dilemma.  We had 6 bikes and 27 miles between us and out Tour Bus.  That, and it started to rain...again.
    We found 2 buses that were willing to take two bikes each and Dad and Christian headed out through the freezing rain on the last two bikes.    All in all quite an adventure in the elusive capital of Alaska.  We all have to agree that, despite the rain, Juneau is one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.  Surrounded by a beautiful fjord and towering mountains, bursting with wildlife and tucked into a valley, Juneau was definitely worth the ride, even in the rain.

On the Road

Just outside of Scobey, Montana...

An hour outside of Scobey, Montana...

2 hours outside of Scobey, Montana...

Scobey: A small town with a big heart

Scobey is a small town, no doubt about it.  The local fair parade had to go up and down Main Street for length.  We were invited to join in the parade as well so we hung our signs on the bus and waved like crazy out the windows.          Scobey, Montana boasts a population of 1,082 and thousands of acres of farm land.  It hovers just 16 miles from the Canadian border.  The town of Scobey is like one big family and after they welcomed us into it, we felt right at home.  The local swim team was on the float in front of us.  They were well-armed with water guns and large buckets of water.  Our RV has never been so clean.  The swimteam used their new-found powers well and jumped off their float to soak the police officers as well.      

    At the fair we saw our first Wild Horse race and learned more about Rodeo traditions.  Everyone was patient enough to anwser our uneducated farming questions (What is the difference between straw and hay?  What exactly does 'combining' entail?  And what do cows eat?)    The rodeo arena was packed for the show.  We pulled our tour bus right up back stage and gave a couple of tours :)      After the show we got a chance to meet a lot of great people and we even stuck around for the 4-H dance.  There we learned how to line dance, and a twelve-year-old named Jacob taught me how to slow dance.  
    We played basketball with Debra and Mike and some other kids from Scobey while Mom and Dad chatted with Phyllis and her husband, the local judge.  It was a lot of fun and we were sad to leave but the road was calling us onward.  Alaska was in our sights now and we had thousands of miles (and even more kilometers) to go before we could sleep. 

Caught without a bookstore (Written on the day of the disaster, posted when internet became available)

    I had to ask the question one more time.  "You're telling me that there are no bookstores, in a 200 mile radius of Glendive, Montana?"  The grocery clerk frowned.  "No...I mean yes."  Her frown deepened.  She had obviously never thought of this as a problem before.  "I think there was a bookstore in Sydney at one point, but it's long gone now.  Where are you heading?"  
    I flinched, knowing immediately what her reaction would be when I told her the anwser.  It would be the same reaction that everyone gave when they heard about our destination.  But I had to tell her.  How else would I find a bookstore?  "Umm...Scobey?"  
    Even though I knew it was coming, her laughter grated uncomfortably against my ear drums.  "Scobey?"  She balked, shaking her head.  "Honey, there isn't nothing in Scobey."  

                                           My fate had been sealed.

Normally being caught without a bookstore was not a life or death expereience.  Normally I could go for days, weeks, without needing a bookstore.  But today was different, incomprehensibly, irrevocably different.  Today was the day that Stephanie Meyer's new book Breaking Dawn came out.

I know what you're thinking.  Big deal.  It's just a vampire book.  But for me it's always been different.  I was captivated the moment I started reading Twilight and I have been addicted ever since.  I locked myself away for days when I received the first book for my birthday.  I cried like a baby through most of the second book and anytime anyone mentioned it for a week afterward I would start crying all over again.  I even composed a song about it (the lullaby that the vampire Edward wrote for Bella).  

And so now, I find myself at my wit's end and without a bookstore.  "In 5 days we'll be in Great Falls, MT."  Dad assured me.  "You can wait for 5 days."  

Honestly, I have my doubts.

Query Letter Madness

Over the past few days I have managed to drive my entire family crazy.  The reason?  Query letters.  In order to get a novel published on an outrageous, or even rather mediocre scale, you need to find an agent who is willing to relentlessly push you and your book upon every unsuspecting Publisher who moves within grabbing range.
To catch said agent, you must in turn, relentlessly push yourself and your book on any unsuspecting agent who moves within grabbing range.  This process creates a vicious, wordy cycle that can potentially alter your sanity levels and rocket your book to unprecedented heights or sink it to the bottom of the sea.  (Hopefully the former.)  This means that my entire family has to soothe/cajole/coax me into a mental state that resembles sanity, and hold my hand every time I attempt to push the SEND button on another letter.  It was, amazingly, a relief to receive my first rejection.  I jumped around our house (RV if you want to be picky,) giving everyone high fives with a rather idiotic grin on my face.
(Picture omitted to protect the mentally impared.)
On the plus side, after only a week I have also received a request for the first five pages of my book.  (Another few days of madness ensuing.)  It has been a Jessi-imposed emotional rollercoaster for the entire family.  Just wait until someone asks for the entire manuscript...

Jackson, Wyoming

Jackson is just as beautiful as everyone says.  The fair is situated just outside of downtown surrounded by the beautiful Teton mountains.  Our RV is nestled in among the horses who seem to be in an endless state of motion as they prepare for competitions and showings.  Surprisingly though, they are the quietest of all the livestock on the grounds.  A single disembodied moo holds the title for loudest farm animal.  We have yet to find the cow attached to it.  Jackson boasts of several key tourist spots besides its annual fair and inbetween shows we sneak out of our green room (aka Our Bus) and explore the city on bike-back.  The giant arch of elk horns is a must see...This strange and highly hazardous piece of wood sculpture is perfect for picture posing...The big challenge came in the form of "The Alpine slide."  Rivaling the death-defying and winding turns of the slide down from the Great Wall in China:This slide has left its mark on the Jackson population.  Literally.  Everywhere you go you can see the burn marks of overly ambitious slide riders who have taken a tumble during flight.  My dad was one of these victums.  Apparently trying to operate a camera while riding down a slide on a tiny plastic sled with a limited ability to stop is a bad idea.  He lost a couple of IQ points on this one.  Luckily a little video survived of Andy's descent down the dangerous drop of doom. (These alliterations are thanks to an unhealthy dose of ancient british literature.)  On the musical side of things it was absolutely amazing to have both our choreographer and our producer with us for our shows.  Besides the fact that we would mess up anytime we thought they might be analyzing our choreography or musical execution (aka every second of every song), I think over all, our show benefitted.  We had the chance to meet some amazing people:  Jim our soundman who crawled under our stage to fix the speakers :) Marcus the funny man who does tricks (his full title).  He gave us some great tips for contact juggling!  Yonder Mountain String Band's sound techs - quick-change teardown masters.  The Sticky Fingers stand owners - the best lemonade ever! And some wonderful fair board members.  We also got to hook up with some old friends.  Liberty, Vic, and Joan Wagner, who took us in, fed us, gave us access to their amazing library, and introduced us to some wonderful music at the Bar J.  It's definitely a must-see!  We saw our first demolition derby as well.  Andy and Christian thought it was the coolest thing since the toaster, and mom was so worried about everyone involved that she couldn't watch.  She is convinced that their mothers must be worried sick!