From Waterfalls to Anthills

My goodness, I don't even know where to start! Not much time this morning, so I'll outline the basics:

After a brilliant time with Grandma Bowman, we hit the road to Ohio on Tuesday. Jared, in his infinite passenger seat boredom, has decided to count two things across the country: Honda Elements and herons.

Not sure which flying birds are herons and which are cranes, so they're both going into the count. All I know is when I'm sitting jump, with a dog scrambling around in my lap, frantically flipping through an atlas while the navigator is announcing turns that we don't really want to take on a 2 second rotation ("Tuhn leyft, then take the motahwehy," "En two-huhndreyd yahds, tuhn leyft." - the British accent of our TomTom does sometimes take the edge off), Jared inevitably spots an Element or heron, and I have to drop everything and find a pen to mark it or he'll get bouncy and start alternating announcements with the TomTom. "ELEMENT! Just saw an Element! Are you going to mark it? Quick before you forget! [Points animatedly to the notebook paper taped to the dashboard] Don't forget to mark it! [Forgets to tuhn leyft at intersection] Mark the Element! Quick! [Walkie talkie beeps as Matt and Christie wonder if we should have tuhned leyft back there]. ANOTHER ELEMENT! Mark it!"

It's gonna be a fun one.

Our short jaunt to Niagra was wonderful (despite my too-obvious disgust with being corralled into a $10 parking space and then routed through a gift shop and information center before being able to see the darn cliff - sorry compadres, I really did enjoy myself).

As a small example of why I was a little testy, here is some of the nonsense we were virtually required to encounter before seeing the natural wonder:

And then Christie found an industrial fan. These souvenir shops are not bashful about their lack of air conditioning.

And then, as though the above shots are not frightening enough, there was a building that people entered as they were, and exited having been turned blue.

The harrowing journey through blatant commercial scamming was worth it, despite my skepticism. Niagra is stunning. And we collected some great shots for posterity.

Puppies were not allowed at the lookout point, so we had to take turns with the pups to keep them out of trouble (and the ticket lady felt so bad that she let the whole gang cycle through the lookout for $2 instead of $4. No laughing at our $2 savings - Aunt Kim would be proud). Sophie had fun waiting.

As we headed further West, we East-coasters were fairly amazed by the way the land just sunk into miles-wide plains. By the time we hit Garrettsville for a fantastically relaxing and jovial stay with the Sheehans, we were in a foreign flat-land.

But MAN! Was the food and drink AMAZING! (Jared's pouring the genius, famous homemade Amber Wheat, and Cindy's cutting the fabulous homemade Apple Pie in the photos below).

And yes, I broke my toe, like an idiot, when I sprinted to stop Charley's barking (which, as I've learned, is mostly a lost cause even when you don't break your toe on the way to stop him.) But it's feeling better three days out, and turning some fun colors as the bruise heals (positive thinking, okay?). More later on our fantastic stay with Aunt Kim in Illinois!