murdo? it's a hour and 1/2 from wall.

Sunset behind us. We left Denver this morning, hauled ass through a part of Wyoming, turned right at South Dakota, and headed STRAIGHT. Seriously. I have never seen a line on a map straighter than this road we're on.

Tonight an honest to goodness real slice of Americana motor hotel. The kind where you park your car outside the door of your room. Before we opened the door, Teen/Child asked, "Is it a suite?" Obviously, he is mother's child.

Tomorrow. Home. Where hopefully the cat hasn't become disturbed again from missing all that man love she's used to.

toilet seats while on travel, or, my adventures in hovering

If you're headed to BLOGHERNOT '08, hitting the highway headed for the Women's Colony, I know you're amped up on Starbucks and dietCoke. Most of BLOGHERNOTS ain't flying the private jet, if ya know what I mean -- bathroom in the back with an attendant to freshen the soap. So, once you round up your local Doogs and fire up the minivan, it's not gonna be too long 'till you're gonna have to pee. Please remember what your mama taught you in the rest stop outside of Des Moines: maintain your standards and keep a safe distance between your lady privates and those nasty public bathrooms you're bound to encounter along the way.

Step One.
Find a place that looks respectable and decent.
But, don't overlook the possibility that a biker bar may be a good place to pee. That joint serving up a good burger might just have that clean potty you're looking for. And, the state sanctioned rest area off the side of the road that looks really busy? Could it be a pit toilet. PIT. Toilet? Ewwwww.

Step Two
Do not mistakenly enter the men's room. OUR room will have one of the following words printed prominently on, next to, or above the door: Women. Girls. Gals. Ladies. Cowgirls. Senoritas. Frauleins. Bitch on the Back. The International Symbol for Female.

If you have found yourself in the men's room, you might see something like this:

Note that the floor at the base of the toilet is being eaten away by all the mistakes those men have been making. You know, the kind of mistake your 4-year old makes because he can't aim his teeny tiny John Thomas? Eh yup. Same problem when you're 25, and you just slugged down your 6th shot of Jagermeister in 30 minutes.

Unlike women, apparently men need primers on how to complete the reason they came in here in the first place. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, if you see something like this when you enter a public facility, you are in the WRONG ROOM. Get out. NOW.

Here's the Cowgirl's room at the biker bar I chose for our illustration. See how clean it is? It is very, very clean. Not decorated in an uber-Kohler decor (let's not get all House Beautiful about where we're gonna pee now, okay?), but it is clean clean clean. And, because it was so clean clean clean, I asked, and this biker bar is owned by a woman, and she keeps it the way the sisterhood wants it. Cuh-leen. Yea women who own biker bars!

Step Three
Upon entering the stall (and, by the way, STALL? Ug. Have you ever happened upon one of those very European not-really-a-stall where the walls go from the floor to the ceiling and have a proper closing door with a deadbolt and not just a piece of Formica hanging from a rickety hinge with just a slide latch keeping your dainties to yourself? Can I hear an AMEN on getting a law passed about this???), take inventory.



Tiny wastebasket? Check. You will need this if you plan to dispose of anything that isn't flushable. You know what I mean, and I'm not talking Big Mac wrappers here ladies. You're not in the Boundary Waters, so you will not want to be packing that out with you when you leave the premises.

Toilet tissue? Check and check again. If there isn't toilet tissue ... do not enter. I repeat, do NOT enter. Some of you sassy gals will travel with a pocket sized tissue holder like this or this, and if you have that in your very well organized and travel ready pocketbook, well then, go right in Miss Anal Retentive Road Warrior. If not and you find yourself alone in the bathroom and not able to ask your neighbor for a little wad to help you out (and your hand under the wall does not indicate your sexual preference, it simply indicates your preference to NOT drip dry), you will be wise to find a stall (there's that word again, Lordy please ... let's lobby for tiny privy rooms) that has an ample supply of toilet tissue.

Step Four
If you've completed your inventory, please proceed into the stall and close the door. Lock the door. If it has a lock. This can be an issue in public facilities. If there's no lock you may find yourself trying to take care of what you need to do while at the same time using one hand or God FORBID your foot to leverage the door against the unexpected entrance of someone who hasn't done the requisite "shoe check."

Step Five
If you happen upon a powder room that has perhaps NOT seen the scouring side of a toilet brush and heavy duty cleanser for a good long time, you're gonna want to follow along with the following pointers.

The following reenactment used a properly sanctioned and clean bathroom. No women were harmed in the making of this lesson.


Your mother taught you to never, ever, EVER Lord God in Heaven, sit down. No matter what studies show about the link between disease and toilet seats, your mother knew best and you'd be a ninny to start ignoring her mythic and legendary wisdom now, right? Did you clean that seat with your own Scrubbing Bubbles? No? Well, then. That thing is just plain nas-tay. Your delicate bottom needs protection, missy pants, and you do NOT know who has been here before you. Got it?

You have a choice here, though, because this IS America for goodness sake.

Your choice? Hover or Cover.

Hovering is an art. It is oft' learned while camping or on the roadside because you just can't hold it any longer and Mom is yelling at Dad that she's not cleaning up the seat so just stop the car already. Hovering requires that you are able to edge your tush over the open area of the seat, get your private business completed, and not get anything messy on yourself, your clothes or the floor. You may perhaps rest your elbows on your knees, sticking your butt WAAAAAAY back. Note of woman power: Hovering requires a higher degree of aim than our friends with their pesky y-chromosome, because, like the old joke about Ginger Rogers dancing in her high heels, we're aiming backwards.

Option two means you're going Cover. In other words, sit down. Put a paper bag over your mouth and stop hyperventilating, Martha. I said COVER. You'll be using one or another form of toilet seat condom to protect you. First of all, you can use toilet paper, pulled off in long strips and placed over any exposed plastic. But, hey, slow down. If that seat is wet? DO NOT SIT DOWN EVER EVER EVER. The toilet condom trick only works if that seat is dry as the Gobi Desert.

Now, if'n ya'll find yourself lucky enough to have one of these snazzy thangs in your own private personal STALL, forget the toilet paper. This is a toilet seat cover dispenser and it is your FRIEND.

Pull out one of the paper covers and place it on the seat. Isn't it the perfect shape and size? How nice.



Very carefully tear off the center bit so that it falls toward the water. If you do not do this -- and ladies my wisdom comes from personal experience -- you will pee on your legs. That paper is like Waxtex, and it'll carry your stream a mighty distance down the back of your shin.



Sit down and complete the reason you came all this way. Don't forget to flush. You're not a 13-year old boy, for mercy's sake.

By the miracle of modern physics, your paper toilet seat condom will be whisked away like so much cottonwood seed on a windy day. Bye bye! Now, if you've used the strips of toilet paper, you'll just have to toss them in the bowl and flush.



Any questions? Powerpoint print outs will be available on the table at the back in case you missed anything.

Finally, I'd like to thank Mommy Pie for the opportunity to present this seminar on being a safe and savvy traveller. We're on this road together, aren't we? Isn't that was the sisterhood is all about? Sharing our wisdom, helping each other out? I'm just really, really proud that I could contribute my little portion to help keep you safe along the way. Golly. I'm feeling just a teeny bit, sniff, teary at the tenderness we've shared. Do any of you have one of those tissue thingies?

For sure, it's a long ride to get there, but at BLOGHERNOT '08, the Woman's Colony bathrooms will be pristine so you won't have to worry about where you put your tushie. As Mrs. G. says herself,

"In the Women's Colony, bathrooms would be sanctuaries of solace and joy. No bathtub or toilet scrubbing or dealing with hairs whose origins are too disturbing to contemplate."

Amen, sister friends. Now climb in the minivan, and get on the road. BLOGHERNOT is waiting.

I'll save you a seat at the bar. No cover required.

mountain magesty and a big assed cookie

Welcome to our mountain. Our house in Minnesota? Phhh, it's on Cra*gsList. We're never leaving.


Today was all about the BIG view ...




And the small wonders ...



And, the just darned cool. July. Snow? Who knew? Certainly not this little midwest plains gal. Snow has uber staying power around here. This pile, found at Copper Mountain, was just off the ski lift we rode to the top for a view from just a LITTLE HIGHER than we already were.




Speaking of small wonders, here we see the Teen/Child walking. Yes, we took a 1/2 mile hike up on the mountain, possibly the easiest hike with the most gorgeous forest and mountain scenery I have ever done. And, one-half-mile. Not a marathon. Though from all the kvetching and whining and moaning and claims that his oxygen level was dropping and my GOD this is such torture you people should be arrested for child abuse, you would think that we were making him swim the English Channel.



What with all that EXERCISE someone needed a major dessert group after dinner. We rode our bikes to Mary's Mountain Cookies because I heard they had these:

Two peanut butter cookies with a hearty serving of peanut butter frosting in the middle. Larger than a 13-year old's fist.



MechanicalMan nor I partook in this exercise. We sucked it up and gave the Teen/Child the glory of consuming every one of the 1,873 calories. I might add, he did this feat of physical endurance with nary a whimper about his oxygen level and how much we were torturing him.

Hard work. Very hard work.

life = naps, food

Let me get one thing straight before I go on about this whole Colorado vacation thing: I am not a Patagonia REI kayaking mountain bike carabiner harness Camelback hydration pack kinda woman. I am also not a $400 a night lodge where the hotstone massage therapist comes to your room and brings the table while the manicurist does my nails and I take calls from very important people on my bluetooth kinda woman. I'm a little bit in the middle. Give me a stack of books, a breeze blowing through the window into a well decorated therefore visually organized condo with running water and access to my electric toothbrush and a coffee maker, and I'm good. Perhaps we'll call me medium maintenance.

I got my medium maintenance fix today in just the right order. There was my leisurely awakening during which I finished up a the Hostess Ho Ho of literature, a cowboy romance. After breakfast, we all headed out for a short walk. "Walk" might overstate what we did, because it was mostly resting breaks for the Teen/Child interspersed with periods where our feet moved 27 feet. He claimed to be suffering from not getting enough air, but since we brought him home from the hospital as a preemie on oxygen and learned quickly how to ascertain his oxygen saturation by checking lip and fingernail color, I assure you, he was giving us a load of bull-shit. Teenage let me suffer for our vacation bullshit. This is what it looked like:



After lunch and a quick shopping outing where we learned again that outlet malls are just another name for curiously overpriced merchandise from top designers located in one convenient location, we headed back to the condo. I crawled into bed with another book to read before embracing my inner nap.

Dinner was the highlight of our day. I found a spot on line which seemed to appeal to everything I love: tongue firmly ensconced in cheek, seriously down to earth, not presumptuous and local local local. The Motherloaded Tavern, on Main Street in the heart of Breckenridge lived up to everything I imagined from reading the reviews on Trip Advisor.

Our host greeted us with a skateboard under his arm and led us through not one but two bars (one of them has apparently been in Breckenridge for 25 years, and the owners of the Motherloaded saw fit to keep it that way) to the back where we had a table on the "theme patio". This summer's theme? Trailer. Everything you think of when you think trailer trash? Yea, pretty well covered. Including the trailer.

Yup, the owners with an abundance of creativity took a sawzall and cut the side off a trailer and put it on the patio. There was a little area for sitting around in lawn chairs while drinking a cold PBR



and perhaps the tackiest garden gnome ever made ...



Derick, our congenial server, brought water to the table in an recycled Bacardi bottle. MechanicalMan poured and Teen/Child worried in a little bit of his Asperger's literal way that we were serving him alcohol. We told him to drink it, and he finally got the joke.



The Motherloaded Tavern prides itself on the best and worst of Americana, a nod and a salute to the mom and grandmoms who have fed us over the years. In that spirit, our drink order fulfilled the mission: milk, iced tea with lemon, and an icy cold Coors (to be imbibed in the shadow of the very Rocky Mountains depicted on the label).

Yes, that is a toilet there on the left. For cigarette butts. And, uh huh, a washer and dryer. Um, trailer trash people ... tho' the washer is planted with purple petunias.

Given the goofy atmosphere, you'd think that the food might suffer from a "we're funny and we don't know how to cook" problem. Boys and girls, lemme assure you that the food is nothing to laugh at here at the Motherloaded. The menu is plenty interesting, but they take the preparation of each and every item seriously. Soup of the day? Home made tomato. Sauces and dressings? All home made with a note on the menu that they're trying to help cut down on our consumption of high fructose corn syrup. What did I order? I went for a simple American traditional grilled PB & J on crunchy wheat bread served with home made potato chips and bonus with purchase side of skin on reds mashed potatoes with peppery brown gravy. Mother of Baby Jesus, will you look at that gooey peanut butter?

As Minnesotans, we were proud to see our state's favorite son, SPAM, on the menu. MechanicalMan changed up his usual restaurant order of a Caesar salad with grilled chicken for a Caesar salad with a side of fried salty delicious canned pork meat product. Good to the last bite.

There's not much that can top off this kind of meal. Wait. Yes there is: a deep fried Twinkie.

Child ordered an enormous warm brownie with ice cream and chocolate sauce, announcing that it was "absolutely delicious" just before he ate the whole thing. Big surprise.

In case you come with a thirst for something different, be assured that the Motherloaded has just about everything you might remember from the good old days.


Too bad I don't live here, 'cause I'd be a serious regular. Thanks to Leslie, the owner, for a wonderful meal and a fun evening. If you get to Breckenridge you MUST visit this fab place. You won't be disappointed.

the road continues for the warriors

It's amazing that this lead up to the Rocky Mountains is SO flat that you can see miles ahead into the distance. You'd think that the prehistoric geological engineers would have made it a little more spectacular... like as soon as you cross over the border into Colorado your eyes would gaze skyward as you climbed the first stretch of mountain. Rather, it's flat, arid and the definition of "as far as the eye can see." What do you see? Scrub brush in shades of silvery green and industrial farming. Cattle ranches and corn irrigated by great huge water sprinklers that move in a circular pattern creating a polka dot pattern when you look at the landscape in Google maps.



We arrived in Denver in the early afternoon and took a "road less travelled" instead of I-70 for a portion of the route west so that we could see the mountains jutting up 2 feet outside the car windows. We also saw motorcycles, lots and lots of beautiful motorcycles. Sometimes dozens at a time. MechanicalMan said what I was thinking, "I'd love to ride this road."

The condo I found is luxurious, mainly because it's not decorated in the typical Colorado snowshoes on the wall as art dead deer head over the mantle style of interior design. This week is an example of how you CAN find anything on the internet, including a 2 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath condo in the mountains with a flat screen t.v., wireless internet access, steam shower, and granite counter tops. Photos to come when I tidy up the mess we've made in the past 20 hours have a little time.

Even though I grew up next door in Kansas and loads of my school friends vacationed in Vail and Copper and A Basin, we were poor not a skiing family. MechanicalMan, raised farther away in Minnesota, spent seven consecutive late winter vacations with his family in Steamboat. They were not poor skiers and two of his three siblings even spent time as ski bums instructors.

So, the mountains and I are getting to know each other. Case in point: adjusting to the high altitude. Breckenridge has a base elevation of 9,600 feet. I did my research and discovered that altitude sickness is caused mainly from dehydration. It was recommended that travellers drink alot of water in the days before arrival. So, I did just that as I am a rule follower and the promise of feeling like crap in a place as beautiful as this was enough to make me drink just about anything. Because I am also a kind wife and mother, I badgered MechanicalMan and Teen/Child to "drink more water"also. One guess to choose who got the high altitude headache that woke her up in the night and made her crawl to the kitchen for an ice bag? Ready? Go.

Today we walked into the village and there was a teen with us who I deny raising who whined incessantly "where are we going to eat?" and "how long are we going to do this?" I considered pushing him into the creek that winds through town, but decided that there were too many witnesses and I couldn't see spending the rest of my vacation in the hoosegow.

We found this little burger place called Empire Burger where MechanicalMan and I split a blue cheese burger. Ummmmm. Beef and blue cheese.
The view out the window wasn't all bad, either.

The men quickly became bored with the shops that I insisted we look at, so they headed back up the hill to our condo. I wandered and lusted after the motorcycles cruising down Main Street heading for other parts of the mountain countryside and the twisty turning roads with sights far more picturesque than rural Minnesota. MechanicalMan reminded me that if we lived here with our motorcycles, we'd probably have even LESS time to ride roads, no matter how beautiful. Perhaps that is why they all seem to be out right now.

Tomorrow we will probably rent mountain bikes and discover just how out of shape the broken leg has made all of us.

day one of for the road warriors

We are ready. Have Caribou and Atlas. GPS and about 27 books. Three i-pods, three cell phones, two computers, one PSP. This is a long way from the covered wagon, Ma Ingalls.

Today, we skip the interstate in favor of US highways that cross southern Minnesota. MechanicalMan announces frequently, "It sure is windy out here."

Because we're on the road less travelled, there is a dirt road leading up to one of those ginormous wind turbines. I say, "I wonder what they sound like?" MechanicalMan takes a left and we park underneath. They don't make any noise, really, and there's no smokestack or putrid odor. What part of this does George Bush not understand?

As navigator, I get to choose the route. Seeing this town on the map, it seemed the perfect locale for dinner.



The day ended on I-80, driving west with one of the most beautiful sights you can see in the nations midsection: Sunset on the right with a black brewing thunderstorm on the left.



Tomorrow: our road warriors deal with the thinner air and some very, very big rocks.

what part of shut the fu*k up do you not get?

Dear mammogram technician,

First of all, I understand that your job is a handful (no pun intended). You see all manner of bare breasted women each day who think you've been put on this earth to squeeze them into a device just this side of a medieval rack. You have to talk them down off the ceiling when they've never had the procedure before and bear the horrified "Of course I did! Do you think I'm from France?" stares when you double check to see if they've worn deodorant or anti-perspirant today. You re shoot when they breathe or move or giggle just a little bit nervously. I'm sure it's a difficult way to spend the day.

But, please. Sympathize with me. I've had an anxiety problem my whole life. I went through a good year when Child was a toddler when I believed that I had one or another life threatening illness and that I was one shaky footstep away from keeling over into an-altogether-too-early-to-leave-this-child-without-his-mother grave. When Diana died in that car wreck in Paris, it put me so far over the edge that I screamed to be in an institution. It was about that time a kind friend helped the family find Shrynq for me. What I'm trying to say is that I can be a tad bit edgy.

Knowing that back story, perhaps you can understand that when you were trying to lighten the mood and made those off hand comments last week when I came in for my yearly, routine mammogram, the result was that they put me just the teeniest bit into an orbit of squirreliness. When you say to a woman like me, "Boy, did you know that you have really dense breast tissue?" (yes, thanks, I do) it's a cathedral bell in the tower and my head is right next to it. Hello! Awake in there anxiety cells? Time to come out and play!

And, to top it off, when you come back in the room after checking my films and need one more shot because there was a little fold in one of the views, but you laugh and say, "You've got what we call snowballs" and then you giggle just a bit, you will see in my eyes the precise look of a deer on Highway O in central Wisconsin at dusk looking down the grill of a Dodge Ram pick-up being driven by Bobby-Joe and he's had one too many Leinenkugels at the Beef and Booze. Cannot. Process. More. Information. I have started to plan my memorial service.

No, it doesn't matter when you reassure me that if they cannot see what they need to see I will have more images done at the BIG center down town. No, it will not calm me down when you say, "Oh, my breasts are just like that and I've had all kinds of biopsies and stuff."

None of that will help. I will leave the office, take a lorazapam, and begin to wait for the mail. Or the call. Whichever comes first.

Today I got the postcard that everything is fine and dandy, and apparently Dr. Beverly was able to adjust the digital images of my "snowballs" and see what she needed to see.

So, next year? Just give me the squish and wish me a nice day. It'll make the week go by just a little easier.