The Final Straw - The End of Youth

“LOL”

“Hey, not to ignore dayhiker and his minivan sorrow... but moving on ...lol... welcome Joel137. Where in South Dakota? I'm looking at one or two trips there this summer, possibly the French Creek Natural Area at Custer St. Park for an overnight or two....

there's a guy on here from Sioux Falls but, hell, that's almost MN, which is where I'm at... but far far faaaaaaaaar SE MN.

Welcome!

OK, now dayhiker... I've got some good cheese to go with the w(H)ine..... :-)”

“You think you're old... I went to campus today. First I went to get my student ID and the kid asked twice, "student id?" YES, if I was faculty, I'd have asked for faculty id. When I went to get a commuter parking sticker, the kid was asking me WHICH parking lot I wanted a sticker for. In hind site, I should have let him think me a graduate student and picked where I wanted to park. grrrr... cutting of my long, curly hair and letting the gray grow out isn't helping.
:o)”

“Hi Lisz,

I'm from Brookings, so that is almost Minnesotan. However, I grew-up in Georgia (a bit of a culture difference there).

I've hiked in the French Creek area about 17 years ago. Its quite pretty, permits required as I recall. Most of my hiking is on the AT, the French Creek area terrain is quite modest by those standards. Watch out for poison oak; I got quite the case on my feet from barefooting in the camp-site.

Is this the first trip to the Black Hills?”

“I just turned 40 a few weeks ago. Got a wife and two kids and no mini van. I refuse to grow up I guess.

This isn't the family car, but we still load up the family in the hot rod...
”

“Currahee - yes lots of making up. We're going to Jamaica for a belated 10th anniv.”

“Ha!!! Still getting carded and I'm 38! :-)

Age is an issue of mind over matter-- if you don't mind, it doesn't matter... :-)

My friend laughed at Thinkbubelz & me buying a minivan... we don't have any kids (yet). I bought it to haul my artwork and our camping gear.

We camped in it 2 weeks after we got it! :-)”

“Congrats. I've got a friend who's from Jamaica. If you want some insider tips let me know what your after & Myles can put you on it.”

“A friend of mine laughed his butt off when we bought our minivan (we just had our first kid) and swore he would never get one. I didn't see much of him for a few years (unrelated falling out). Then I saw him and his wife at a wedding for a mutual friend. His wife was a realtor at the time so had a large magnet on the side of their vehicle, advertising her name and number.

We left the wedding to go home and walked by this new minivan in the parking lot. With a magnet on the driver's door with his wife's name and number on it. I laughed for a long time after that.
last edited: 4/13/05 3:02:02 PM”

“Thanks.

We're hoping to go to Grand Lido Braco. She wanted to go to Hedo, but... JUST KIDDING.

See if he has any GLB comments. Air fare is a b!tch right now.”

“My boss/partner is in DC this week. We talked on Nextel some this morning and he really got a laugh out of the mini-van.”

“Dang kids!”

“One downer about the minivan...

Gas mileage sucks over our old Mazda 626... :-(”

“Yeah, we'll take a dip from the Accord.”

“He's from Kingston but I'll ask. When are y'all going?”

“You need to look at it as a gas savings because the Van will allow you to do in one trip what you would have to do in two with the Accord or Mazda.”

“Very true hyway. You can't load up at Costco if you are driving an Accord.”

“We're hoping to go June 9-13. We were ready to make reservations a couple of weeks ago and then sat on it for just a bit.”

“Well, I thought this thread wouldn't apply to me (I'm 56), but then I had a thought.

Something like youth comes back when you finally reach the stage when just about everything is paid off and the kids are out on their own WHILE you still have the health to take advantage of this time.

In the mountains I see young people (20's) and people of my age - not a lot in between.

I'm having a ball, by the way.”

“Yah, you'll never get a 55gal drum of peanut butter in the back of an Accord.”

“You can't stay young forever,
but you can stay immature for ever :-)”

“Decided against Couples then, dayhiker?”

“Yeah, we thought we'd spend a bit more. Now I get to watch the mail at the office like a hawk hoping my receivables get up.”

“Couples was just okay...nothing spectacular. You're not missing anything.”

“We decided to try and blow it out on this trip as much as possible. Baby #3 is probably not too far in the future so who knows when we'd get to go again.”

“baby #3 will probably come 9 months after jamaica”

“I asked that and she said she wanted to wait another year. That gives me to wait another year to talk her into staying with 2. She does keep the offer out there that if I'm so dead set on 2, then take my butt down to UAB and get snipped.”

“If my wife and I had gotten an earlier start, we probably would have had three. Well, and if my son hadn't been so active. He wore my wife out. We seriously considered it, and decided against the third. Just one of those things.”

“Joel137, yeah, been out to S.D. before. I'm looking at the Forest Service's Passport In Time program to do some searching for previously unrecorded rock art in the extreme SW Hills. I like that area, around Hot Springs, but this is more toward Edgemont.

I like Wind Cave N'tl park and have done an overnight there. Have hiked up Harney. Love Sage Creek campground int he Badlands and wandering around there. Did an overnighter in Soldier Creek Wilderness near Fort Robinson in NW Nebraksa. Would love to get a guide and find some unexplored land on Pine Ridge, but..... the area always seems pretty volital (sp?? )”

“I go back and forth on 2 versus 3. Things are so hectic now and will get more hectic as my boss completely retires. When he's gone on vacation for 3 months it'll really show how it'll be in the future. Throwing another kid in there will be stressfull. It'll also be great, I realize that, but still. I also have this fairly irrational fear of something happening to my wife during childbirth”

“Not too irrational, dayhiker. I had the same worries. Yes, there are fewer bad outcomes because of modern medicine, but still...

If it hadn't been for modern medicine that would have been the outcome during the birth of our first child. Thank God for C-sections!”

“When our first was born that country song, "Don't Take The Girl" was popular. I had this mental image that something would go wrong and I'd have to make some sort of choice, only there wouldn't be a choice because it was a Catholic hospital.


Glad your situation came out ok, tech.”

“Me, too!”

“I don't see it as irrational either. It's a healthy concern for Mrs Dayhiker. Good for her having a concerned husband.”

“I think I deserve a camping trip with the family to offset my oldness with a van.

This weekend I'm taking my son to a motorcycle race. That should do the trick too.”

“I'm taking the little hoodlums to an airshow. agh agh agh agh”

“Air shows are cool. I want to take mine to see the Blue Angels in Pensacola for either their July or Nov show.”

“this one will have the blue angels, an a-10 warthog, some bi-planes playing wargames, a triple engine jet truck, I think the canadian snow birds, and a bunch of other cool stuff..

Herman's Hermits will be playing at teh Air Show Friday Night. I thought those dudes were dead LOL
last edited: 4/14/05 7:15:10 AM”

“I went to a show with an a10. It showed off it's figure 8 tank attack routine. That thing has an amazing turn radius. Very cool.

Have you ever been to a Blue Angels show? Watch out when they get your attention at one end of the runway. One has broken away without being obvious and will fly over the crowd in a mock bomb attack. That guy must go right under Mach because you don't hear him until he's on top of you. I knew it was coming. My wife didn't. Boy did she jump.”

“I live close to the airport so they pretty much fly right over my house, close enough to hit them with a rock, but I haven't seem one from within the airshow grounds in a long time.”

“I have family in Pensacola. When we'd visit while growing up we could see them practicing in the distance from the front yard. P'cola is their home base.”

“I talked to my buddy. He's gonna get back to me with some 411 for you. Stay tuned.”

“Thanks.”