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Aaron and Wolfy from the window of the "cabin"

Well, we’re in Chicagoland now.  But, before we got here, we spent three days in Wisconsin Dells, home to at least 20 waterparks.  We stayed at Great Wolf Lodge, an amazing resort.  Our room had a small kid’s cabin inside with a bunk bed, a separate twin bed, and its own TV.  This is where Andrew and Aaron stayed.  On the other side of the wall from the cabin was the rest of the room, with a couch, bed, table and chairs, fireplace and balcony. 

The star of the show is the waterpark, however.  With over 100,000 square feet dedicated to all things water and fun, the whole family had something to do over the three-day stay.  While Andrew and I spent most of our time on various slides, Aaron liked the children’s play area.  He had an initial scare in a swimming pool in Albuquerque last May, but he quickly warmed to the environment at Great Wolf.  Now he loves the water and swimming.  We ate most meals at the hotel, and the prices were reasonable.  Andrew and I also spent hours at an attached attraction called MagiQuest, where we ran around with interactive magic wands and solved riddles and defeated enemies.  A little pricey, but pretty cool.

Today, we had one of our shorter drives:  165 miles, 2:30.  We did laundry close to the hotel, checked into the hotel around 4:30pm, and then quickly brought up our stuff before heading out to dinner.  Although I’m not supposed to talk about food, the restaurant we ate at deserves some air time.  We ate at Penang, a Malaysian restaurant less than two miles away from the hotel.  We devoured the following:

• Roti Canai
  • Fried, thin flat bread served with a potato and chicken red curry sauce
• Char Kueh Teow
  • Spicy stir-fried noodles with shrimp, squid, chinese sausage, and bean sprouts
• Wonton Mee (dry version)
  • Egg noodles, wontons, barbeque pork, and vegetables
• Halia Ayam
  • Chicken with sauteed ginger and scallions
• Beef Rendang
  • Beef cooked in an onion, chili, coconut and lemongrass sauce
• Ice Kacang
  • Shaved ice served with various jellos, atap seed, red beans, corn, and evaporated milk

As we were leaving, one of the waiters asked Suzanne if we liked the food.  He became particularly concerned when he asked where she was from and she said Singapore.  Granted, Singaporeans have a well-deserved reputation for being food snobs (in a good way).  He seemed relieved when she gave everything a rave review.  In fact, we’re eating there again tomorrow.

Dramatic peaks define Glacier National Park

On August 6, we spent the day at Glacier National Park, situated about 35 miles away from our hotel.  Our first destination was the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 53-mile journey through the heart of the park.  At higher elevations, the road is narrow, winding, and there is a distinct paucity of guardrails.  I later found out guardrails are no longer constructed as they were frequently destroyed during winter, due to avalanches.  There was a 10-minute section where I was completely out of my mind with fear of heights.  This is a new experience for me, as I have never been afraid of driving in this type of environment before.  At one point, it nearly reached the intensity of a panic attack.  Thankfully, it didn’t last long, and I could get back to enjoying the scenery.

At some points during the drive, the road was restricted to one-way, one-lane travel due to repair work.  This made the journey particularly interesting at points.  By around 12:30pm, we had almost made it to the eastern terminus of the road.  We stopped for a quick bite to eat at a lodge restaurant, which had a fairly basic menu, which the exception of the buffalo burger which I ordered.  Yum!  By 1:30pm, we were done eating and ready for our boat tour of St. Mary Lake.

The tour is operated by Glacier Park Boat Company, a family-owned business which runs the national park concession.  For the next 90 minutes, we plied the waters of St. Mary Lake, awestruck by the scenery and peaceful surroundings.  The water is a deep blue, but extremely cold, with summertime temperatures averaging 45°.  About midway through the tour, we docked and hiked a few hundred yards to Baring Falls.  It was on today’s trip that Aaron learned how to say waterfall.  He already knew how to say water, so it was an easy task.  In Aaron-speak, waterfall = BAH KUH FALL.

During the narrative of the boat tour, we learned there are roughly 25 glaciers in the park.  By 2020, scientists expect there to be no remaining glaciers.  In true sibling rivalry fashion, Andrew is happy he’ll remember his trip to the park while glaciers were still present, while Aaron will not remember.  Go figure.  After the boat tour, we stopped by a gift shop (shot glass time!), at which point it had started to rain.  Rather than backtrack on our previous path, we decided to take a slightly longer route around the outside of the park.  It turned out to be a good decision, as the floodgates opened up less than 15 minutes into our drive back to the hotel.

For dinner, we went to a chain restaurant we had never heard of before, but which was a fun experience:  HuHot.  It is a Mongolian grill buffet, where you select your noodles, meat, vegetables, and sauce and take your food to this large circular grill in the middle where the food is cooked in two minutes while you wait.  I’m not going to provide too many details, since Suzanne says I talk about food too much.  What I found interesting was the meat selection.  In addition to basics like beef, chicken, and pork, there were options like sausage, imitation crab, catfish, tilapia, and buffalo.  The sauces were great, too.

Architecturally-appropriate Holiday Inn Express in Kalispell, MT

We left Seattle at 9:15am and headed east.  Soon after passing through the Cascades, the landscape changed dramatically.  Tree-filled mountains gave ways to rolling hills and agricultural valleys.  The scenery did not change in any significant way until we reached Spokane, nearly 300 miles into the trip.  The Idaho panhandle and northwestern Montana defy description.  In a nutshell, the area was riddled with pristine lakes nestled in valleys flanked by pine-filled peaks.  In Montana, back roads, all of which had a 70mph speed limit, showcased the rugged beauty of Big Sky Country.  In one section, we drove for miles around Flathead Lake, passing by villages and towns with lakeside houses and piers.  By the time we reached Kalispell, I was completely enchanted with Montana and could imagine retiring here.  Suzanne thinks it gets too cold in winter. 

We’re staying in another Holiday Inn Express, one which I found for 5,000 Priority Club points per night.  However, this is no ordinary property.  It has distinctive Montana touches which makes it the best I’ve ever seen so far.  Tomorrow, we head for Glacier National Park.  We’re going to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road and take a boat tour of St. Mary Lake.  Not sure if we’ll have time to do more, but I hope so.  The pictures of Iceberg Lake look awesome.  Yet, I can’t imagine we have time for a 4.5 mile hike.  Oh yeah, we also have a 2-year old.

Dignitaries deplane from Air Force One

Seattle, home of Boeing, has an awesome flight museum.  To be fair, it is significantly smaller than the National Air and Space Museum, especially when you consider the latter has a primary facility in DC and an ancillary location near Dulles.  Nevertheless, there are elements of The Museum of Flight which are unique.  First, it is home to the first jet which held the name Air Force One, designated by its tail code SAM 970.  I’ve seen a documentary about the current Air Force One and by comparison, the version at the museum is much more spartan.  At any rate, it was quite the experience to walk on board and see a part of American history.  That is what home leave is all about.  We also walked through a British Airways Concorde, the other special treat the museum offered.  I had heard from a friend how small the craft is inside, but seeing is believing.  The aircraft has a 2-2 seating configuration with seats barely larger than coach class equivalents.  I guess flying the Concorde was more about convenience and cachet than comfort.  The kids also enjoyed the mock control tower, where you could see the flight paths of commercial aircraft in the Sea-Tac area and across the country.  It was fun to hover over the various icons and see where planes were headed.

After the museum, we went to Chinatown for dim sum.  We planned on going to Jade Garden, where we had eaten on a previous trip to Seattle, but ended up at Harbor City Restaurant.  It was delicious.  We had a brief scare when Andrew spilled hot tea on himself, but he was thankfully fine.  No burns of any kind, even though the tea got on his hand, arm, and stomach.  We ate dumplings, noodles, spring rolls, and vegetables.  Yum!  After lunch, we walked around and bought some items from a couple of bakeries.  We walked around and window-shopped in the area before returning to the car.

As we approached the car, I could see a ticket had been placed on the windshield.  At first, I thought maybe I had parked in a restricted area, and was resigned to paying for my innocent error.  However, upon opening the envelope, I saw I had been charged for two infractions:  expired registration tags and expired inspection sticker.  Most states issue registration tags, which normally are applied to the rear license plate, to allow law enforcement to verify if vehicle registration is current.  New Jersey, on the other hand, stopped issuing these tags in 2004.  Additionally, the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission sent out notice to motor vehicle and law enforcement agencies across the country that the use of these decals had been discontinued.  Unfortunately, the officer who cited my vehicle must not have been aware of this particular detail.  As for the inspection sticker, it is indeed expired.  I guess it’s the price we have to pay for living in Mexico for the past two years, during which time it would have been extremely impractical to drive the car nearly 4,000 miles roundtrip from Mexico to New Jersey just for inspection purposes.  As it turns out, we have always planned to update the inspection during home leave and we’ll make it back to New Jersey and take care of the overdue emissions testing later this month. 

The ticket carries a relatively inexpensive price tag:  $38.  Yet, for principle’s sake, I now have to spend time contesting the citation.  Because I am a visitor and I’m leaving on Wednesday, I must do so by mail.  By so doing, I will be unable to appeal a judge’s ruling if it is not in my favor.  In the end, I may or may not have to pay $38.  Either way, unfortunately, I will expend time and effort explaining how Seattle code differs from New Jersey law, and reinforcing the fact that registration stickers are a thing of the past in the Garden State.  Additionally, there is a significant difference in civil codes regarding inspections.  Based on the Seattle Municipal Code, a vehicle’s registration cannot be issued or renewed without proof of a current inspection.  In New Jersey, however, the vehicle registration process is separate and distinct from inspections.  In summary, vehicle registration in New Jersey can be renewed indefinitely irrespective of inspections status.   Regardless of the outcome, I get to carry this particular Seattle memory with me for several more weeks of home leave as I work through the administrative details.

The cruise ship which bummed out Suzanne and Andrew

Yesterday, Andrew and I checked out Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour.  Suzanne and I did this tour many years ago, before Andrew was born, and I thought it would be nice to share the experience with Andrew.  Since the website says kids under six may find the tour challenging, Aaron and Suzanne decided to go to Westlake Center to do some window shopping.  Before we even made it to the mall, we passed by the Norwegian Pearl, docked in the Port of Seattle, where passengers were embarking for a cruise to Alaska.  Suzanne and Andrew immediately became sad, as they both really enjoy cruises and had wanted to take an Alaska cruise as part of home leave.  That didn’t work out, but I reminded them we’re having our own kind of fun and asked them not to have long faces.  After about 15 minutes, things returned to normal.

After dropping off half of the family at the mall, Andrew and I hoofed it to the tour location to reach the site by 1:45pm, which we did, only to find we still had to wait in line although we had purchased tickets in advance.  The tour started at 2pm with a historical overview of Seattle.  Lots of interesting tidbits, including: 

• For its first two years, the original name of Seattle was Duwamps
• Three main people are credited with its founding and later growth:  Arthur Denny, Doc Maynard, and Henry Yesler
• The Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889 destroyed much of the core business area

It was that fire which resulted in the existence of a Seattle underground, as people saw the fire as an opportunity to build the city higher and out of brick, to avoid flooding and future infernos.  Interestingly, there was a period of time where the city was built up, but the old sidewalks remained.  Ladders of anywhere from 12 to 35 feet in length were required to cross the street.  Eventually, a tax on prostitution enabled the city to build new sidewalks, effectively sealing the underground from the residents above.  All in all, even though I had done the tour before, I had forgotten the history and it was a fun refresher. 

After the underground, Andrew and I took the bus back to Westlake where we had dinner in the food court.  As far as food courts go, this one was fairly upscale.  Andrew had pizza and breadsticks from Sbarro, Suzanne had wonton noodle soup, and I had a Thai peanut chicken crepe.  The highlight was Bobachine.  Earlier in the day, before the tour, we purchased two drinks from here:  a traditional milk tea with black tapioca pearls (the bubbles in bubble tea), while I had a strawberry banana smoothie.  During and after dinner, I had a Thai tea bobachine (which is a smoothie with ice, milk and flavor), then a traditional milk tea bobachine for the walk back to the hotel, while Andrew had a traditional milk tea without the bubbles.  Suzanne thought it was weird we had purchased five drinks from the same store all in one day.

We got back to the hotel and after walking all day, our legs were tired.  Aaron went right to sleep after a quick bath, and Andrew and I went to bed around 11pm.  Suzanne read for a bit and went to sleep at 1am.