Grease Burgers from On High

One of the chief problems of the Kansas City area is that there are too many family friendly things to do and places to see and you have to somehow narrow it down. We managed to make a day of it despite this difficulty.



After an easy drive into town, we parked and walked over to the mall where a puppet show was being perpetrated for free and in full view of a hundred or so kids. We watched, we laughed, we enjoyed the serendipity of coming upon this performance by chance. Our goal was lunch at Fritz’s. This is a burger joint in the mall. The food is good in that average, fast food, greasy way. The gimmick for this place is clumsily brilliant. Above the tables near the ceiling runs a track that circles the whole restaurant. On this track travel little trains. Beneath the trains hang trays on which bins containing orders are placed. As the train chugs around the restaurant everyone watches hoping it’s their order. If it is, a little bar whacks the bin off of the train’s tray and onto a metal platform that lowers the bin to your table. No server takes your order either. You have a phone at your booth and you pick it up and place your order — as best you can over the din of the trains and people around you. The place was completely packed.




That’s our food descending from on high.

Once we were stuffed with grease, we walked over to Science City in Union Station. This is a fun children’s museum of sorts with lots to do and explore. We started by watching a cool 3D Imax movie called Wild Ocean about the massive shoals of sardines the move into the coastal waters off of South Africa and provide a bonanza of food for birds, dolphins, seals, sharks, and people.



Somehow the kids still had energy in the afternoon, so Matt, Danine and I took them to the pool while Marina made a great salad and steamed artichokes for dinner. We ate and the kids played more. They are going to bed now, and you would think they’d drop right off, but they’re unstoppable.

We are liking Kansas City and the weather we’ve been having. To be fair, we enjoyed our second day of driving through Kansas. The eastern half of the state was green and rolling with trees lining the creeks and washes. Matt and Marina really like it here and it’s easy to see why.

 

Fishing and Fireworks

Elise and her second cousins Amelia and Will

There’s really no reason for us to move on from Kansas. Matt and Marina are taking good care of us. The trailer fits in the driveway, mostly. We are being well fed. The kids keep pretty busy. Weather’s nice.



It was a particularly nice Fourth of July. We got up and ate Marina’s made-from-scratch pancakes — delicious. Then we geared up and drove about five minutes away to a really cool park. It’s called Deanna Rose and is named for a police officer killed in the line of duty who had a special affection for kids. The park is free to enter, but some activities such as pony rides, schoolhouse crafts, and feeding the animals cost a very little bit. There are numerous animals, including a bald eagle, two bobcats, a red tail hawk, a great horned owl, and all of the barnyard animals you can think of. There is a reconstruction of a one-room schoolhouse, a barn, and Native American lodge. You can feed baby goats a little bottle of milk, but you must be brave and not easily pushed over.


Matt scares the living wits out of Will, Elise, and Amelia


Will discusses the finer points of quantum theory with a skeptical audience.

The girls went for the pony ride, but Matt and Will bought a small bucket of worms and took a bamboo pole over to the pond in the hopes of catching some blue gill. This is nominally called fishing. In actuality, you are feeding the fish. They know this too. As you wrap a worm on your hook the blue gill look up from just beneath the surface. Once you swing your line over the water, they sink out of view, preparing for their next move. You plop the worm in the water. The bob dips. You pull out your line. The worm is gone and you have done your part to feed the fish. Actually the boys caught four: two small and two big. Not bad!




The big one

After a full morning at the park we went home for lunch. Marina made rubens — delicious. We then took the kids to the pool and chatted while they played. When we got home we ate hamburgers for dinner — delicious. Then we sat on the patio and chatted while the kids played. Are you sensing a pattern?

The neighbor a couple doors down had 250 pounds of illegal fireworks, which he lit off in the street and we gladly watched and cheered. It was a pleasant day.


This hot air balloon drifted right over the neighbors’ houses.

 

Have You Seen My Daughter?

We got to Matthew and Marina’s house close to 3:30 this afternoon and I haven’t seen Elise since. It’s 10:00 at night. I think she’s in bed, because I hear girlish shrieks from one of the bedrooms upstairs. Not sure how much sleep she’ll be gettin’ tonight.

Matthew and Marina have two kids — Amelia, age 8 and Will, age 4. The three have been getting along great. Already Bobby and I have taken showers and I am just finishing up my fourth load of laundry. Family is awesome.

Matthew and Marina are wonderful hosts. We were treated to made-in-front-of-our-eyes fresh salsa when we arrived and dinner was one of our favorite meals, grilled chicken and vegetables — tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant and peppers. We’re never leaving.

The biggest bonus of all is that we have been given a beautiful guest room in which to sleep. That works out really well, too, since I washed our sheets tonight but haven’t put them back on the beds in the trailer!

We’re here through the weekend. I promise to post some pictures tomorrow so that you can actually see what Kansas looks like.

 

Descending

Where not in Kansas anymore. Metaphorically speaking. We are in Kansas literally. Although when we say literally we really mean actually, which is funny since literally actually means having to do with letters or words. English is a nutty language.

Almost as soon as we turned East from Denver the landscape flattened and stretched and turned brown. There’s a lot of Colorado that’s flat — the whole Eastern third of the state. When we entered Kansas on I-70, we passed just north of the highest point in Kansas. Mount Sunflower sits on the border with Colorado at a lofty 4,039 feet.

We also passed the very creatively named town of Kanorado. Can you guess the two states it is named for? Now I’m ready to look for similar border towns all over the country. Where’s New Mexizona or Alassippi or New Jerk? How ’bout Massenecticut or Connectichusetts?

 

Coyotes

Perhaps because I’m an unemployed freeloader, I find that I like the less appreciated, more aggravating and entertaining animals. As I’ve said before, I really enjoy crows, ravens, blue jays, Stellar’s jays, grey jays, and, now, magpies and Clark’s nutcrackers. In addition to this selection of birds, and bolstered by the ranger talk we heard on Monday night, I also like coyotes.

Coyotes are ordinary. Their latin name, canis latrans, means barking dog. They aren’t as big or as handsome and intimidating as wolves. They often look bedraggled. They eat anything.

The coyote is one of the most universal images in Native American iconography and folklore. Even before European settlers came to North America coyotes were considered tricksters, fools, thieves, and undying. Why undying? I’ll get to that.

Coyotes shared the continent with wolves who are three to four times larger. Wolves hate coyotes and will kill them just to kill them. Wolves are specialist hunters and, being bigger and meaner, got first pick of what to eat. They chose deer, elk, bison, moose — the big game. Coyotes are generalists, which is a fancy way to say they’ll eat whatever comes along. Although they mostly prefer rabbits and mice.

When settlers arrived and began pushing West, hunting and farming, they killed all of the wolves and coyotes they could. They also killed the big game for themselves. The wolf was doubly decimated. He was being killed and his food supply was being taken from him. He was also a more prominent target. Meanwhile the coyotes scraped together their regular meals and tried to stay out of trouble.

Wolves never bounced back and are only now increasing their numbers with a lot of human intervention. Coyotes are thriving in 49 states and if they learn to purchase airline tickets, or take up distance swimming, they’ll be in all 50. Why? They eat anything. They don’t waste energy. They’re really smart.

Coyotes will take turns chasing the same deer, tag-team style, to tire it out. They actually have some weird alliance with badgers. They’ll show a badger to the front of the den of some hapless burrowing animal like the prairie dog. The badger, smelling a meal, will dig dig dig! The coyote will go around to the back door and wait for the poor critters to head his way. Easy pickin’s. Coyotes can dig into a bank up to twenty feet (!), but getting the badger to do it saves energy. It’s not clear what the badger gets out of this deal.

Are you a sheep or goat farmer? Get a good dog who sticks with the flock and keeps an eye out for coyotes. You best get a female. Apparently, there are accounts of coyote pairs who will work together to grab a sheep or two. The female is able to send all the right messages to the male dog guarding the flock, causing him to ignore the flock and follow her. She leads him far away and her other half gets dinner.

Now for the coyote secret weapon. When a pack is stressed, because they are being hunted aggressively or losing members for some other reason, the females will often have much larger litters — instead of 5-7 pups, maybe even twice that. Females may even go into estrus one or two extra times in a year. This means you can’t get rid of coyotes. You can only encourage a whole lot more!

So, they are excellent survivors and that’s impressive. Plus they are at worst a nuisance for farmers of livestock and people with ultra-lightweight, hand-portable dogs. Mostly they’re just trying to get by.

Unfortunately, they do eat magpies.

 

Rocky Mountain Meadows

Today’s hike was our favorite and longest so far, 6.2 miles. We decided to stay an extra day, so this hike was unexpected and had we not stayed we’d never have gone.



The first part was the hardest and even then, it wasn’t that bad. No switchbacks like Walter’s Wiggles in Zion or the Lost Mine Trail in Big Bend. We gradually ascended 540 feet over two and a half miles to get to Cub Lake.


Cub Lake. The brown/red trees you see on the hills are pines killed by a bark beetle infestation.

From Cub Lake we descended 295 vertical feet over a mile to The Pool and then the remaining 245 feet we descended over 1.7 miles. It’s probably the flattest hike we’ve taken this year and one of the most enjoyable.


Marmot Rock. Do you see all three?

I won’t try and describe the hike. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.


Working on the Junior Ranger packet next to Big Thompson River.




A Colorado Blue Columbine, Colorado’s state flower, and a Paintbrush of some kind, perhaps a Giant Red or Wyoming.


A hard-working flower and some coating on the maple leaves we can’t figure out.




Two Field Crescents (maybe, hard to tell) and a Two-Tailed Swallowtail who wouldn’t stop long enough for me to get a clear picture of him!

We are heading into Kansas today. We leave a state with 54 mountains over 14,000 feet tall to a state whose highest point is 4,039 feet. Once we get down the mountain from Estes Park, it’s gonna be flat, flat, flat. We are spending Fourth of July weekend with Bobby’s cousin Matthew and his family. We will take advantage of their kindness, courtesy park in front of their house and use their laundry and showers with impunity (insert evil laugh here!).


Quaking aspen.

I sent an email out today to all who expressed an interest in joining us in Shenandoah on July 27. If you want to come and did not get the email, leave a comment on the blog or email us so I can send you the information.

 

The Mountain Lake You Always Wanted

At Mills Lake.

I learned a lot about elk from Ms. Information yesterday. Thought I’d share some of it with you, whether you’re elk lovers or not. I’ll start off with a really impressive statistic:

Elk antlers grow half an inch to an inch a day! Remember the bull elk in the picture from yesterday? His antlers have been growing since the end of March and already they are huge! They will continue to grow for another month or so, when the blood flow to the antlers stops. Once this happens, the velvet covering will start to fall off. He will rub his antlers against nearby trees to assist the de-velveting. Now he is ready for rutting season.



During rutting season, the bull elk collects his harem. He usually gathers 20 or so cows, but the ranger I talked to yesterday said she has seen a bull with 60 cows! During the rut, the bull has to constantly “look his best” and impress the girls. When it comes down to it, though, it is the cow who chooses the bull, so he can work to impress as much as he wants, but she still may not choose to mate with him. But the trickiest part of mating season is that the cow only goes into estrus once every twenty-one days and only for 12 to 15 hours! This is a lot for the bull to keep track of and it is no surprise that he can lose up to 25% of his body weight during the rutting season. This becomes a problem if winter comes early because he doesn’t get the chance to get the weight back on.

Yesterday we explored the alpine tundra area of the park and we were all amazed at the diversity of plant life. The growing season up there is just about 40 days. That’s how many days are frost-free, on average. The trees are horizontal, not vertical. They grow very close to the ground and never produce cones. That would use up too much of their energy. They just put their new sprouts into the ground and grow sideways.



The flowers on the tundra are incredibly delicate and beautiful. The wind speeds can reach well over 100 miles per hour so the flowers grow very low to the ground. The stems are sometimes so short that the flowers sit on the leaf mat. The root systems of these plants can reach six feet, though, to ensure they get adequate moisture. The roots also anchor them against the wind.

The other incredibly cool fact we learned (and even you, dear reader, will have to agree with me on this) is how to tell the difference between a pine tree and a fir or spruce tree. It’s all in the needles. The needles in a fir or spruce tree grow individually from the branch. The needles in a pine tree, however, are bunched. They meet at the base of the needles in a cluster, or bundle which is attached to the branch.

OK — on to today.

The day started slowly with a few phone calls and emails. We only had one planned hike, so we rolled out of the trailer close to 11:30. Rocky Mountain has a shuttle service, like other popular national parks, so we drove to the park and ride area and got out of the truck ready to board the bus. This is when we realized that I had left Elise’s sneakers back at the trailer. She had asked me to pick them up since her hands were full. I forgot. Back to Shackleton we went. A half an hour later we were back at the park and ride area and finally boarded the bus.


One of the trail signs along the way.

Our trail was from the Glacier Gorge trailhead to Mills Lake. We were not the only ones with this idea. I’m sure that the trail was busier yesterday since it was Sunday, but I can’t believe by much. I noticed an automatic counter on the trail and when we started, the number read 6441. When we got back, the number was 7356.



The trail takes you through the montane ecosystem — pine forests and mountain meadows. There was a slight breeze and I was delighted to watch the quaking aspen trees dance. Eight tenths of a mile into the hike, we arrived at Alberta Falls, full of snowmelt and hurrying down the gorge. We stopped here to eat our lunch since we had gotten such a late start to our day.



Appetites sated with cream cheese bagels, trail cookies, wasabi peas, and a cherry Jolly Rancher for Elise, we rolled on. It was here that we lost 90% of the crowd. Perfect.


The view from Alberta Falls.

Remember that Elise likes to talk and hear stories while she is hiking? Well I was the target today. “Mommy, tell me a story about when you worked at the hotel.” Right away, 85% of the stories that popped into my head were dismissed as inappropriate for young ears. The one I could tell her, though, was the one about The Thief. Quick synopsis: I had a woman try and check into the hotel with a stolen credit card and I had to stall her until the police arrived and then I was subpoenaed to testify at her trial. Elise loved it. Later in the day she wanted me to tell her again. Nothing like a little intrigue and a not-very-smart thief to make the time pass.



Mills Lake is everything you would want a mountain lake to be. Waterfalls tumbling into it, clear water and mountains rising up on all sides. We said hello to a few fly fisherman who were there and then found a few great rocks on the shore on which to sit and enjoy the view. Unfortunately, the mosquitos also really liked these rocks, too (or at least, us on the rocks!), and it was just beginning to rain. We stuck it out for a good ten minutes or so, but then it was time to move on.


Bobby enjoys his Cheez-Its by the lake.


Elise has a hairnet over her baseball cap. She got it at the Celestial Seasoning tour and it came in handy today. She put it over her face to keep the mosquitos out.

Our hike back to the trailhead was helped along by a progressive story. Elise started it, Bobby took care of the middle and I brought it to a close. Another quick synopsis: Clarisse loses her Barbie house and all its furniture, male Barbie doll and her wallet with $9.64 in it. She suspects her best friend’s sister, Sally, of taking it all. Turns out it wasn’t Sally, but Ron, the best friend’s cousin, who just wanted to play with it because he thought it was cool.


The rain’s a-comin’!

About five minutes from the trailhead we started to hear some really significant thunder. The storm never reached us but we were glad to get back on the bus, nevertheless.




Today’s wildflowers.

 

The Top of the World

We spent Sunday in the park with about two million of the three million people who visit Rocky Mountain National Park each year. The roads were busy. Some folks were rude. Some ignored the multitude of signs and ranger admonitions not to walk on slow growing tundra or feed the wildlife. It didn’t matter and couldn’t take away from this place. All those superlatives I’ve used for other parks, and all of the times I’ve told you people to go here or there, they all apply to Rocky Mountain. Danine and I loved it (Elise was tolerant).

The Trail Ridge Road is the highest through road in the nation. After winding up amidst montane forests and subalpine forests, we found ourselves above the tree line and on top of the world. Up above 11,000 feet the terrain is similar to that found at the Arctic Circle. We drove in the midst of tundra and rock, with the occasional slow-melting drift of snow. Tundra is not merely stubbly grass. Walk a trail and you can see the numerous grasses, mosses, lichen, wildflowers, and other plants that make up this complex and painfully slow growing (hundreds of years to recover from damage) ecosystem.





Danine was photographing a small group of female elk trotting along when we came around a bend and saw the whole herd. It mosied and then ran across the road and down the broad meadow toward the treeline. It was breathtaking. The elk, moving as one, were far more elegant and noble than the other large mammal species gawking nearby.



We drove across the Continental Divide to a picnic spot near Lake Irene. The Clarks Nutcrackers swooped and eyed us as we ate, hoping for a dropped Triscuit or two. We watched a ground squirrel run under our feet and settle for a black banana peel (not ours), which he nibbled for awhile. Then we continued a little farther to an overlook called Farview. The view looks south down the Kawuneeche Valley. Far below us a small, snaking Colorado River can be seen beginning its long journey to faucets in southern California. There we stood and chatted with a ranger about moose, bark beetle infestation, birds, and other things. Elise dubbed this ranger Ms. Information.




The Kawuneeche Valley

Danine and I would love to come back here and backpack. The park almost begs you to do this in summer. Everywhere you look, you see a place it would be lovely to walk to. Like most parks, if you walk less than a half mile from the road 90% of the people disappear. Tomorrow we are going to take a hike to a waterfall and a mountain lake. I can’t wait.

 

Our Lady of the (Insert Your Location Here)

Kid, candy store

Estes Park is a beach town. No, I haven’t lost all sense of geography. It just has the same kind of feel. It has the many crafty stores, and, most importantly, the t-shirt shops. It’s a touristy town, but also a really fun place to walk around. It has a mini river walk which parallels the main drag (Elkhorn Avenue). Many shops and restaurants open on both the street and the walk by the river.



Our campground is a half mile from Rocky Mountain National Park and a little less than a mile from town. We took a quick trip to the Beaver Meadows visitor center in order to figure out what to do for the next two days. It won’t be complicated: look around; enjoy beauty.

We drove into town, parked, and raced over to the Scandanavian festival. We watched some folk dancing and heard folk tunes played on an accordian. (One of the greatest instruments ever, right Emma?) The arts and crafts booths were filled with jewelry, wooden statuettes, walking sticks, dolls, and gnomes. Gnomes are to Scandanavia what kokopelli is to the Southwest: ubiquitous. They are the go-to cultural emblems for gifts and souvenirs.



I prefer edible souvenirs. The food booth was out of sauerkraut, but I still got a Swedish sausage on a bun. It was great — Danine liked it to. According to the food booth guy, the meat is ground with potato, making a sweet and mild sausage with a distinctive flavor. It is possible that it contains gnomes, but I could not confirm this.


River walk

We walked from shop to shop. Danine bought a lovely dress. Elise bought a bag of candy. I almost bought a hat, but didn’t. Then we walked a mile to church. Last week we went to Our Lady of the Woods. This week it was Our Lady of the Mountains. I can only assume next week will be Our Lady of the Plains. After Mass we strolled along the river walk and found ourselves at Poppy’s where we consumed vast amounts of good food. Poppy’s has a really long and elaborate beer list. This is good, but can be a bit of a stumbling block unless you’re decisive. We did pretty well. Danine had a stout and I had an English style bitter.

A little more walking helped our digestion after dinner and then we went home. The best part of our campground is also the best part of Estes Park: from most places you can see snowy mountains rising up before you. Boy, I wish they’d put a few of those just west of Washington, DC — or maybe on top of Washington, DC.

 

Mt. Evans

Today’s goal was to drive to the top of Mt. Evans on the highest paved road in the United States. These are the kinds of superlatives we are collecting as we travel.




Today’s wildflowers

You have to really want to get to Mt. Evans. From I-70 you drive 14 miles to the entrance station and then once you pay your $10 (free for us because of our National Parks Pass — yeah!) it’s another 14 miles to the end of the road. The roads are all very steep and windy, so it takes you a while. Luckily for us, we had Book the Tenth from A Series of Unfortunate Events to listen to and that passed the time for us. The dastardly doings of Count Olaf and his troupe keeps you on alert.



The scenery held our interest pretty well, too. Mt. Evans is one of Colorado’s 54 fourteeners (mountains over 14,000 feet), and once you get above the tree line the views are limited only by the haze. We added two previously unseen mammals to our list, too, both seen on the side of the road and then later, on a path we were walking.


Both male and female goats have horns. Female’s are smaller. I think this is a girl.

The first was a herd of mountain goats. Bold as brass on the side of the road. We paused to take a picture of one and as we moved on she started to follow us. She lost interest soon enough, but it was kind of fun to think we’d be bringing home a new pet! I was surprised by their size. Their hindquarters and shoulders are thick with muscle but their torso is thinner than I expected it to be. They have a ridge of hair on their shoulder (in the same place the mane of a horse would be) that acts as a windbreak of sorts to help retain their body heat.



We had the windows open as we drove higher and I could already feel the effects of the thinner air. This is the highest in altitude that we have been but I was surprised how quickly I felt a little woozy. At the top of the road there is a small parking lot with a few buildings and an observatory. The observatory didn’t seem to be open and I wonder who uses it. There is an odd shaped building up there, once the highest building in the world. It was built between 1939 and 1941 and was, apparently, a restaurant. In 1979 there was a propane explosion (oops) and what we see now is all that is left of the building. We wandered around it for a minute or two before taking to the summit trail.


Before and after.

Elise already had a headache and Bobby and I felt kind of lightheaded so we took it easy going up. Elise and Bobby paused (for Elise’s sake) about halfway up and I continued on, giddy with oxygen deprivation. The view from the top was pretty amazing. My favorite view was of Summit Lake, over a thousand feet below us. We had passed it on the way up, but because of the way the road curved around it, we missed seeing over half of the lake. On my way down, I met Bobby and Elise slowly heading up. Elise and I headed down and Bobby took the camera to the top for pictures.


On top of Mt. Evans . . .


The view from the top.


Summit Lake, still slightly frozen.

We stopped at Summit Lake on our way down. Elise still wasn’t feeling very well, so I headed down to the shore on my own. This lake reminded me very much of the lake I soloed by on my Outward Bound trip in 1993. I loved being by the alpine lake with the mountain rising up steeply from its shore, then and now. I saw another path leading around the lake on the other side, and Bobby and I convinced (coerced) Elise to come along. Ask Elise, we’re “forcers”.




The ice is still melting on Summit Lake.

This was the best part of the day. The path winds around the back part of the lake to a hidden valley that was stunning. Bobby and I have already decided where in the valley we want to build our house. We just have to check with the national forest people first.



It was here that we saw our other mammal, a yellow-bellied marmot and a member of the squirrel family. A cute little fellow, he was sunning himself on the rocks.


He’s in the middle of the picture, toward the right side.

I continued on the path a few hundred yards and sat down to enjoy the view. Below me, I saw another mountain goat so I called out to Bobby and Elise to come join me. I made the mistake of telling them in a loud voice that I had seen this mountain goat which prompted the couple that was also in the area to embark on a ridiculous escapade which left all three of us shaking our heads at people’s sheer stupidity. Apparently the couple couldn’t see the goat from where they were standing so instead of staying on the path and coming to where we were to see it (which was up on a ledge), they decided to leave the trail (a huge no-no on national park or forest land) to try and get as close to it as possible for a picture. Keep in mind that they are both wearing flip-flops. They decided that the best way to get to the poor, unsuspecting goat was to walk down an area that the forest service had shored up in terraces because the area was eroding too quickly. Probably from people like them walking around — OFF THE PATH! They never got too close to the goat, but not for lack of trying on their part. He would move every now and then, just to keep them guessing. At one point, the wind blew the baseball cap off the guy’s head but he let it go so he could get the picture he just had to have.


The goat is down the hill, kind of a white blob on the rock. She is above him to the left. You can see the reinforced terracing in the foreground.

After about 10 minutes of this, we hear another goat bleating from somewhere nearby. The goat we had in our sight answered and we soon saw Goat #2 arrive on the scene. Goat #2 was looking to get to Goat #1 but Clueless Couple stood directly in the way. He was at the top of the slope, Goat #1 was at the bottom and Clueless Couple was in between the two. Instead of staying still and letting Goat #2 pass (there was enough room had they stayed still), the couple started toward Goat #2 to get his picture. Goat #2 panics slightly and now has no choice but to walk in the opposite direction to try and get away from the couple. This takes him farther away from Goat #1. The couple ends up walking behind him all the way to the parking lot! Granted the goat could have left the path at any time and gone up onto the rocks and circled around, but he didn’t. We saw the threesome in the parking lot a short while later, the goat eating something, the girl still taking pictures, and the guy pointing out the goat to everyone. They had seen us in the valley and made some comment about how Goat #2 had “cornered them” (like that’s possible). I told them that I had seen it from the path. Bobby made a comment about how the second goat was trying to get to the first but it somehow got detoured. We hinted, but I don’t think they got it. Poor goat.

Our drive home was a little trafficky, but uneventful. Count Olaf continued to be cruel and foul-smelling, as all good villains are. Once home we invited our neighbors, David and Nora over for a S’more-fest after dinner. They came over with their golden retriever, Darby, and we passed a very pleasant evening chatting and wiping melted chocolate from our hands and legs. Actually, I think I’m the only one who dripped chocolate everywhere. Everyone else was a much neater eater.