Fancy Rocks

My family goes on Road Trips.  It's upper case because they are serious, hard core, capitalization-worthy Road Trips.  Usually my dad drives, which means we really don't get many rest stops, firstly because he has a bladder of steel (the rest of us have to ration our water intake), and secondly he is a focused driver.  Getting from A to B is very serious business, requiring the up most concentration.  Only occasionally have we been side tracked into sight seeing on the way.  Personally, I think Mom would make him stop and smell the roses more often, except it's a little more than we bargained for every time we try.

For example, there's that time we went to the biosphere on the way home from summer vacation.  Mom was pregnant with our last Victoria, my sister and I were running around screaming, Dad was flanked by Shauntae, Heather, and Trevor each trying to climb up for a piggyback ride.  Right at that moment, the tour featuring the subject of "over population" entered.

After this experience, neither of my parents were too keen to leave the societal safety of our blue suburban.

Eventually though, dad became afraid that we didn't think he liked having fun, so he planned a super stellar fun trip to see the grave of the biggest grizzly bear who ever lived in North America.  Eleven feet tall, dad told us, with an appetite as big as the mountains he roved.  Who knows how many sheep, cattle, and possibly HUMANS he might have eaten.  

By this point, we were expecting a monument of Bear-zilla complete with gold encrusted life sized statue, preserved DNA samples to replicate in the event of an alien invasion, and maybe ice cream served in cones the size of his actual fangs.

First though, we had to get there.  Dad loaded us up in the famous suburban and we took off up the mountain trail.  The trail head said it would be about 11 miles, but we figured where we were in a car it wouldn't take more that 20 minutes to get there.  Thirty minutes later . . .

Dad: Hey, only 9 miles to go!

Paige: It's been thirty minutes and we've only gone TWO MILES???

Dad: Technically we've gone 2.69.

Mom:  It takes longer to drive on gravel roads.

Dad: I promise it will be worth it!

Sarah:  This had better be THE MOST incredible statue in the world.

Dad:  Statue?

Not a statue.  No.  Old Ephraim's grave was marked by a rock.  An 11 foot rock.  After about and hour and a half, we reached the clearing and saw the glorified marker.

Turns out, this wasn't even his grave.  Old Ephraim's skeleton currently resides in the basement of the Smithsonian.  They stuck the rock here because they thought that he might have been shot near this mountain. Dad took us on a four hour long round trip to see a shiny rock.

And that is why, even if dad wants to, we never take side trips when traveling.