Twenty Trip--Specimen Ridge

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

 

(Warning: Lots of pictures!)

 

This day was the beginning of the End. We packed our bags, loaded up the car, and left Gardiner for the last time. The town itself didn't seem all that exciting (at least, in comparison with the park), but I was sorry to leave just the same. Leaving meant that the Tetons were next, then... then home!

Sad as it was to abandon Gardiner, the day was actually pretty amazing.

 

On the way down to Specimen Ridge, we passed a pull off full of people and their binoculars. What do you do when you're in Yellowstone and people are stopped beside the road? Why, you get out and join them, of course! Turns out there was a kill of some sort way up on the hillside, and they were watching that. All that was seen were some large birds, though, no wolves, bears, or coyotes.

 

We continued a mile or two down the road, and pulled off to a closed-down trailhead. Once upon a time, there was a road running off into the hills. We walked on what was left of it for a ways, then turned right after the first large boulder.

 

 

After 20 minutes of walking, we were passed by a young couple from Holland on tour of the US. They had been at the kill-site-pull-off, but left about five minutes after us--and nearly hit a wolf as he sauntered across the road, posed for pictures, then continued merrily on his way! Oh, the injustice of it all! ;)

 

Mom made me walk back down the trail for this picture, so she could show how steep it was. Dad and I were thankful for our homemade walking sticks, but Mom had claimed she didn't need one. Her mind changed not even half-way up the trail.

When we reached the trees, I looked around and found a Handy Stick just waiting to be used. (More on the Handy Stick later.)

 

Lookattheview! In the middle you see the construction crew working on a bridge. To the left of it there is a small parking lot with our car in it. The only reason you can see it that well is because the Holland-couple's huge camper is beside it.

 

A wind-scoured tree about 3/4ths the way up.

 

 

Father

 

 

Mother

 

 

The slowpokes!

 

 

On top of the WORLD!

 

 

 

 

 

That day was almost enough to make me into a hiker. Not quite, but it was simply amazing to be outdoors and all alone and just see everything.

 

 

We even found our own 'specimen;' believed to be the jawbone of a pica or some such rodent. It was in our bag as a souvenir, but disappeared between there and home. =(

 

 

Then we found the real specimens. Can you tell what that is?

 

It's the same as this.

A petrified tree.

Which was just so way totally cool! (Pardon the second-millenium colloquialisms)

 

These things were growing at the time of Noah! And most likely petrified during the Flood! And I got to sit on them! And look and touch and take pictures. (I like to touch everything. Museums are not a good place for me.) This really just amazed me. And look at the size of the thing!

I raved about this all day week year long.

 

The trek back down didn't take too long. Dad offered to make it faster--all it would take is a well-placed shove...

 

We decided it was best to leave our Handy Stick behind, so I composed a Winnie-the-Pooh-ish poem on the walk down the hill, and left it attatched to the Stick.

 

This Handy Stick

Will help you climb

From lowlands flat

To heights sublime

 

And when at last

You come back down,

Please leave it here

Where it was found.

 

(I wanted to sign my first name, but Mum wouldn't let me. Someone was paranoid about the paper being found by a ranger, who tracks me down and fines me for 'littering' or some such charge.)

 

Please note, though, that we left the Stick where people would find it, and the paper was firmly affixed to said Stick. You don't have to worry about it cluttering up the Yellowstone landscape.

 

To anyone headed to Yellowstone, or who was there this past September, let me know if you found my Handy Stick! ;)

 

~Kiwi~

a "poem"

ho hum.
this is a poem
without punctuation
rhythm
or rhyme
And probably bad spelling
as well
Since I have nothing
else to do
or better to say
I figured this would do

The church barn dance
is coming up
this
Saturday
and I am
looking forward to it
very much
It is one of the
biggest
biggest
biggest
church events
of
the
year
and I am glad to be going

That is pretty much
all the news for now
please reply
with your
very
very
own
non-punctuated
non-rhythmic
non-rhyming
miss-spelled
poem

I'd like
to read it
very
very
much

=D

I have declared today to be..

"Write A Random Poem That Doesn't Rhyme, Has No Meter, And Has About As Much Meaning To It As It Does Meter" Day. Please join me as I celebrate this wonderful local (VERY local) holiday. =)

I just noticed
No one's suggested
A good way for a pumpkin
To meet it's demise.

No one, that is
Except Kristen, my friend;
"Make it into
A Pumpcano!"

While a pumpcano,
I admit,
Would be a fine thing,
Could it totally obliterate this small, striped squash?

And also, I don't know
That I'd want to cut open this thing--
I've had it since September,
So it may be a bit ripe.

I'll give y'all another chance
To give me a good idea,
And then head on over to guitargirl's blog
'Cause she's doing a giveaway!

What's your poem today?
~Kiwi~

Spring Fever

It's Spring! It's Spring

The bird is on the wing!

Now isn't that a funny thing?

I thought the wing was on the bird!

(stolen from the back cover of a magazine.)

I have a serious, possibly deadly case of Spring/Cabin Fever. I want to leave this house for a looooong time (like, all day, or something. ;) because I'm sick of it, and I want Spring weather so that I CAN get away from the house. I want to take a bike trip--and entire day; sun-up to sun-down. I want to perfect (or at least improve) my volleyball skills. I want flowers, sunshine, and green maple trees! I want short sleeves and flip flops. 

I know, I know, this is sounding like a selfish rant (I want, I want I WANT!), but it's not. Yes, it's a rant, but I'm wanting Spring for you guys. I want you to have lovely weather, I want you to have the pleasure of playing volleyball with me! 

I was looking at pictures of me from this past Summer and now feel like a ghost. I was so dark compared to now! Not saying that I 'need' to go tan, I'm just surprised at the difference between now and a few months ago.

I'm trying to decide what to look forward to the most this Spring/Summer. Graduating? Volleyball and softball games? Getting my driver's license (finally)? Hmm.....I think it's close to a three-way tie.

What are you looking forward to this spring?

~Kiwi~

What shall I post about???

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

I've been copying out part of Return of the King, and then I also copied that poem. 


At some point in time over the next few days, we're going down to my grandparents' house for a joint celebration of my sister's 20th birthday and my brother's 9th. We may very well get to see some friends while were're down there because my Dad has to pick something up from their house. And, if the girls are there, I'm going too! I haven't seen these friends since July or so.


Oh, guess what else!!! I just realized that I hadn't told all of y'all about this already. We got The Best Christmas Present we could have been given this year! Any guesses as to what it was?


WE SOLD THE HOUSE!!! 


It was the Monday before Christmas, and for the past week or so since these people had made the offer we were always kept guessing as to whether or not it would actually go through. Something would go wrong, then was ironed out, then something else would go wrong....Mom said  that she didn't believe it would really happen until the buyers actually signed the papers. We were all afraid of something else going wrong last-minute.
But nothing did, so, after 2 1/2 years of waiting, we are RID of that house. What a relief!


We're getting ready to go out now, so I'm going to cut this short.


See y'all later!!
~Kiwi~

Recycled Post #1

Here is a post from 'way back in my first few months of blogging. It was originally posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008, and was my third post. Enjoy!

A Eulogy, For Bob and Larry
By Kiwifruit

There's a lonely place in our house,
An empty space in my heart
Left by my dear old friends
Who last night did depart.

Better pals none could wish;
We had times together quite merry
Just the three of us
(Their names were Bob and Larry).

They were not simple folk,
Rather complicated instead
Not always complying to my wishes
When something else was in their head.

Sadly, the end came soon
On the day Larry met his fate
My brother wanted to play with him
And we got there too late.

A new fan was needed,
One we could not procure
We had to let Larry go that day
His death could neither be nobler nor truer.

Three days after Larry,
Bob bit the dust
A broken heart is suspected
I know I heard it bust.

Now when the office is entered
Two empty spaces meet my eyes
The spaces our computers filled
I hate all these goodbyes.


No new painting news, except that I painted a background for my poem. I mixed up enough grey-green paint to cover the paper (or so I thought). It gave out after I had painted one brush-width stroke across the top and another down the side. So I whipped up another batch of the same color and put a stroke down the other side and bottom, then used what was left to do some wispy cross hatching in the middle where the poem would be written. Once that dried I neatly wrote the poem on it in black ink.
S. and K. are fully recovered now, and the rest of us have avoided getting the bug. I don't want them sick all of the time, but there were some nice things when they were. On the morning of my first post they both slept until nearly 8:00, which is a record for them. Usually they're up and making noise by 6:30.
Did anyone else get some of those big storms on Thursday? They came through our area around 9:45 that night. The tornado sirens went off and the five of us rushed down to the basement and huddled there for a while, then Mom went up to check the TV. When she came back, she said that we could go back to bed, since the sirens were off and the weather maps showed it mostly south of us. About ten minutes later we heard the sirens start up again, so we trooped back down and sat around for a while. It was nearly ten-thirty before we went back up for good. Cedar Rapids got around 6 inches of rain, which is now working its way downstream towards us. That's a Lot of water!
Well, I'm going to go now. We're at my grandparents' house again and a slice of cheesecake is on the table, calling my name. A new computer should be entering our household within the next day or two, so I'll be writing more regularly.
Adios!
~Kiwifruit

HERE's a link to the original post so you can see the comments.
I hope you enjoy recycled posts! Not only do I like saving the web, it's interesting to me to see my old posts.

Adios!
~Kiwi~da~Fruit~

p.s. no song title in here. I'm having a hard time coming up with them. I'll take suggestions, but if I use yours you can't guess. :D Sorry, it'd make it too easy.

Wednesday: Happy Birthday, HMS Avalon!!

Today is, as the title suggests, my dear friend HMS Avalon's birthday. In honor of her, I am doing a special 'happy birthday' post.

First, a speech.

Avalon, I've known you for about 3 years. Or has it been 4? I can't remember. Anywho, I've known you for quite some time.

I remember you and your family were answers to a prayer that had been ours for quite a while: that a Christian family with girls close to our ages would move into town. Lo and behold, one fine Sunday morning at a church potluck, we discovered each other. My family was amazed to find that you and your family (of a total of FOUR girls our age) had moved a mere 2.5 miles out of town!

After that, we quickly became close friends.

We met in town often in 2006....by Summer of '07, we were biking together almost every morning! The LMGC ('Little Town' Girls' Club) was established.

We share a love of horses, cats, the occasional dog, TobyMac, The Newsboys, ITs (you know what I'm talking 'bout! ;-D).....too many to name!

One of the most unique things about you is your sense of style. Clothing combos I would never dream of putting together, much less wearing in public, you wear all the time....and you look good like that!! I don't know how you do it!

You have a grand sense of humor, too. It's so much fun to tease you! (Speaking of which.....how's Shorty? ;-P Sorry, couldn't resist!)

So here's to HMS Avalon and her friendship, her 'teasability', her sense of style, an' everything else we love about her! *raises juice glass*

(That's grape juice, not wine!)

Here is your cake (sorry it's a few candles short):

Some fancy ice cream:

And a Present. A pair of little Kittehs for you!

You likee?
And a LINK to a Kitty-picture website.
And one more LINK to an interesting horse website.
I hope you enjoy your birthday!!

Song of the Day Game: First guitargirl, and then Skittles caught the Song Title! Here're their comments. Guitargirl commented: "The song is either "Real Good Thing" by...by...*sniff* *cry* y'know ;) Or it's "History" by PC." You were right the first time, guitargirl. Skittles said (I like this one!) "Kiwi, i thought this was rather obvious but i might as well just guess that it's Real Good Thing by newsboys...since i'm not gonna get it anyways. =P" Guess what, Skittles...YOU GOT IT RIGHT!! Learn to have some more confidence in yerself....and capitalize your letter 'I's. That really bugs me when people don't do that. Ever seen Adam-from-Stellar-Kart's blog? Painful.

So anyways. Happy Birthday, Avalon! Once you get your permit, you need to drop whatever you're doing and drive up and see us!

So long, all.
~Kiwi da Fruit~

Oh, I almost forgot! A POEM for you, mah friend!

HMS Avalon:

Humor. You have a good sense of it.
My friend.
Stylish...it's unique and cool!

An interesting addidion to my circle o' friends!
Vivacious.
Artsy.
Loving.
Oh snap! at least used to be your favorite phrase...
Nutty...in a good sort of way!

And, you share a birthday with Lawrence Welk, Ezra Jack Keats, Jesse Jackson Jr. (ugh), and Christopher Rice...NOT the Chris Rice we like, though!!
I was looking this stuff up yesterday, and saw Carrie Underwood, Chuck Norris, Emily Osment, and Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, I was accidentally checking under March 10th instead of the 11th. Rats.
Oh well! Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, guitargirl!!

My friend, guitargirl, is having her birthday today! She's 18 now.
First for the cake. Do you want white cake....




or chocolate with Reeses Pieces on it....
or a chocolate cake with mandarin oranges on it (what's with the oranges??)?

Your choice, guitargirl!


Now for the present!!
I know you like Charles Dickens, so...... Here is a Link for you!! Over 600 Dickens quotes at your disposal.


Thoughtful note from Rapunzel on being 'grown-up':
You have two more years to be a teenager, so make the most of 'em. Partly because if you have to start acting grown up, there's no hope for me (being a year older than you)! 18 is an interesting year, a lot of new stuff, but it's pretty good. Have fun!


GUITARGIRL:
Great blogger,
Umm,
oI boyz lover,
Talented (with the guitar),
Article-one-moose giver,
Rabbit named raisin,
Guitar player, hence the name,
Interesting posts,
R...(what begins with 'r'? I can't think of any 'r'! Sorreh.),
Lovely house.
Here ends my lame little poem.

Happy Boithday :D
~Kiwi da Fruit~

New Poem and Who-rah!!!

Here is a new poem. I wrote it two nights ago, when I was supposed to be asleep in bed. :D Needless to say, I was not asleep. (duh)

Are you unhappy,

And feeling glum?

Are you tired of sitting around,

Being a lazy bum?

Is your life bland,

Like a whole meal of rice?

Then listen to me

And heed my advice.

Just go to a clam

(And do this right quick),

Being near his happiness

Should do the trick!

For a clam, who

(Of course) is elated

Will return the joy

That is so underrated!

(Tired of hearing about clams?

Then tell me another way

To brighten your spirits

Every single day!)

So, there y'are, folks! That makes a total of seven (7) fairly good poems written by me. I've written numerous other ones, but they're all boring and slightly dumb. Or, not exactly dumb, just not the kind I like. I have posted five of my seven good poems here. Do you want me to put up the last two, or are they just rather...dull? Vote!

Guess what!!!! *does a little 'cabbage-patch' and happy dance* We finally *squeals with delight* got the tickets *does a little jig* for the *dramatic pause, broken with happy, excited squeaks* DOWNHERE CONCERT today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *puts down about fifty-kajillion exclamation points, then takes out most of 'em in consideration for her readers* *grins ear to ear* *can't contain her joy inside anymore, so goes and screams into her pillow* *comes back to type more*


*wonders whether or not to bug Soul Skittles about getting to (possibly) meet Downhere, then decides that she'll save that for later* But I won't forget all the bugging about Glenn Lavender's comment on your blog! Hmph.

Anywho (does it bother anyone that I keep saying that? 'Cause I know a few people who hate it, and I can stop if anyone really wants me to), I'm sooooo excited 'bout it! Owan is going with us, and her sister, and another friend of ours.


(BTW, Owan, I got asked if I was part of your family yesterday. I was talking with Bethany and Emily, and then a friend of theirs was talking with Bethany. When they finished {it was rather entertaining: they started 'arguing', him 'ignoring' Bethany, and she wagging her finger in his face, and then afterwards, neither could remember what they were 'arguing' about}, he asked me "are you one of the [Owan's family's last name]s?" Emily and Bethany, before I could even shake my head, answered for me with, "No, she's a [My last name], spelled the same as ours, but with an extra 's' on the end." Which he thought was very interesting. He said I looked like the rest of your family. So, if you want another sister, adopt me and nobody'll know! =^D)

Anywho (I said it again), I can't wait to go.

I have time to type about one more subject before I get kicked off, so I'd better make it good. Hmmm........

TOTALLY RANDOM FACT OF THE DAY #1:
Did you know........ that according to some scientific research, when asked the best place to meet men, 13% of women say "the post office"? Well, now you know!
I find that odd. The post office? The only males I've ever met there are either thirty plus years older than me or ten years younger. I'd say that if you want to meet a random young man between tenth grade and college age, just go to my Culvers. We were there during lunch hour today, and it was crawling with 'em. Not that I'd do it myself, or even recommend doing that. Huh. Thus ends the Totally Random Fact of the Day.

Now I really need to get off. :(
Reminds me of a song:
You cannot fight the inevitable
It's gonna come,
I fought the la,
And the la won!

See ya!
~Kiwifruit

Hello, my friends!/Cancellation of Comment Blitz

Sadly, I must cancel the Comment Blitz. Well, actually I guess it's a good thing, as Avalon has finally posted again. But I was looking forward to blitzing her again! ;-D (I wish I could put little emoticons on here. Their faces are so much more expressive.) Thank you, Avalon, for posting again!!

Ho hum bug.

Sorry, I'm just a little bored. I had a great idea of what I wanted to say today, but it just up and left.
I'm bummed. Downhere, Jason Gray, Daniel Kirkley, Jaime Jamgochian, and Lanae Hale are coming near My-ville on a Bethlehem Skyline Tour. Tickets are only $20, for five artists plus dinner, but I don't got twenty extra bucks! So donations are accepted, the larger the better.... Just kidding. But I'm trying to buy Christmas presents now so that if I can get my sticky fingers on $20 I can spend it on a ticket instead of presents. So I need to finish buying things, and make twenty bucks, but then I need to actually find where I can get tickets, 'cause I've been searching the Internet for 'em. But THEY'RE NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!!!! ANYWHERE! I searched Downhere's website, Jason Gray's, the Bethlehem Skyline Tour site, and HMPH.
WAIT A SECOND!!!!! I FOUND 'EM, THE TRICKY LITTLE BUGGERS! Hahaha! The Kiwifruit triumphs yet again! I found them on the website of the church that the concert's gonna be at. But that's odd. This website says tickets are $12, whereas I was informed they were $20. I'll have to research that, but this'll make it easier to get to go!!! Happy Day!

I'm going to publish this now, to appease the public (namely Judi, whom I think is just itching to bug me into posting :-), but I've got a poem to put up later, so keep checking back.
TaTa For Now!!
~Kiwifruit the Konqueror

Stupid Election!! (:^P) *Raspberry to Obama*

Guess who won. >:-(
Hmph. I'm disappointed. And I'm not going to go into an excessive rant yet (I'll save that for election day), but I will say this. I don't want all his Change. Pulling out the troops sooner? Making it easier to kill babies? And if we aren't careful, it's going to get harder and harder to homeschool.
Ugh. This'll be a long four years. Let's just hope people will have learned their lessons by the time 2012 rolls around and they vote for some real Change.

This was my Grandpa M. in 1980-something. Grandpa was born on April 5th, 1923 in the middle of a freak blizzard in Northern Illinois. He passed away on November 2nd, 2008. He was 85 years old. My Grandpa grew up on a farm, then started one of his own when he and Grandma married. He raised milk cows and Chester White hogs, then started on Cheviot sheep when my uncle wanted some for 4-H.
Grandpa had a massive stroke two and a half weeks ago. Then, almost exactly two weeks after that, he died. The visitation was Tuesday, the funeral yesterday.
We're betting he's sitting up in Heaven with my Great Grandma on my Mom's side, who left in January, picking on and teasing each other! She came up to visit us years ago, and we went to Grandpa's farm, and she was so tickled to be able to hear sheep because her family had sheep when she was little. And also, the Cubbies are probably winning up there! :-D
Most of my cousins came to the visitation and funeral (sorry you couldn't be there, Pooky's Girl.), along with some friends of ours (hey Miranda and Rachel! Thank you for coming.). It's sad that we get to see so many people we haven't seen in years because of this. Our land-lords from six years ago saw the announcement in the paper and came!
So, yeah. That's what's happening. I'm really going to miss him. And his poems! He was quite the poet, don'tchaknow. I'll try to post some of his poems on here, once I can find them. There's one about Grandma, starting from the day they met, and continuing on through the Window Mishap. But that's "a whole 'nuther" story and the poem explains all of it.
We all heard stories that some people, even Dad, had never heard before, like how when he was a teenager, Grandpa and some of his friends traveled around the county singing and playing guitar. We never knew he played guitar! But I'm sort of glad that he didn't see the result of the election. He would not be happy about it.

And that's all I have to say now, except that I'm glad that my life will be returning to some-what normalcy again. I'll even be (rather) happy to start school again! We've had almost three weeks off, and need to start it again!!

~Kiwifruit

P.S. Be prepared to repeat Evil Scheme Number 355,653,548 for HMS Avalon, who has not posted in three weeks!!

For Bob and Larry

A Eulogy, For Bob and Larry
By Kiwifruit

There's a lonely place in our house,
An empty space in my heart
Left by my dear old friends
Who last night did depart.

Better pals none could wish;
We had times together quite merry
Just the three of us
(Their names were Bob and Larry).

They were not simple folk,
Rather complicated instead
Not always complying to my wishes
When something else was in their head.

Sadly, the end came soon
On the day Larry met his fate
My brother wanted to play with him
And we got there too late.

A new fan was needed,
One we could not procure
We had to let Larry go that day
His death could neither be nobler nor truer.

Three days after Larry,
Bob bit the dust
A broken heart is suspected
I know I heard it bust.

Now when the office is entered
Two empty spaces meet my eyes
The spaces our computers filled
I hate all these goodbyes.

No new painting news, except that I painted a background for my poem. I mixed up enough grey-green paint to cover the paper (or so I thought). It gave out after I had painted one brush-width stroke across the top and another down the side. So I whipped up another batch of the same color and put a stroke down the other side and bottom, then used what was left to do some whispy cross hatching in the middle where the poem would be written. Once that dried I neatly wrote the poem on it in black ink.
S. and K. are fully recovered now, and the rest of us have avoided getting the bug. I don't want them sick all of the time, but there were some nice things when they were. On the morning of my first post they both slept until nearly 8:00, which is a record for them. Usually they're up and making noise by 6:30.
Did anyone else get some of those big storms on Thursday? They came through our area around 9:45 that night. The tornado sirens went off and the five of us rushed down to the basement and huddled there for a while, then Mom went up to check the TV. When she came back, she said that we could go back to bed, since the sirens were off and the weather maps showed it mostly south of us. About ten minutes later we heard the sirens start up again, so we trooped back down and sat around for a while. It was nearly ten-thirty before we went back up for good. Cedar Rapids got around 6 inches of rain, which is now working its way downstream towards us. That's a Lot of water!
Well, I'm going to go now. We're at my grandparents' house again and a slice of cheesecake is on the table, calling my name. A new computer should be entering our household within the next day or two, so I'll be writing more regularly.
Adios!
~Kiwifruit