Eclipse at the Johnson Shut-Ins

After church on Sunday we packed up and headed down to Debra's parents' place south of Stover (calling it "the Cabin" somewhat undersells its spaciousness and amenities)...got lunch at Sonic on the way down in Sedalia. After visiting with them and watching the NCAA women's basketball championship between Iowa and South Carolina, I told the kids to get ready and we headed out into the woods for a little springtime ramble.

Lots of dogwoods in the woods...previous turkey hunts around this time, I'd go out well before dawn and seeing the white shapes in the distance down the trail made me wonder if my eyes were playing tricks on me...looked like ghosts until I realized they were flowering dogwoods.


We went down to where I hunt and went down the "peninsula" as I call it and worked down and up a ravine. Gretchen excitedly found a deer hide and feces. Not much to forage this time of year (I'll pass on the deer droppings thank you).


I had chained my two bucks from last years hunt to a tree so the beetles would do the hard work for me in cleaning it up for a European style mount. They aren't quite done, still a bit of fur and skin to clean off yet. It's rather a macabre sight so I'll show this flower instead.


Then we had pizza for dinner (with the large amounts of dessert the kids have come to expect when at grandpa and grandma's) and went to bed early.

Next morning, up early for an early departure...I had been battling with a stye (or chalazion, I dunno) on my eyelid which had been heavily inflamed and quite painful. I woke up with it hurting extra, like I had slept on it, and in the mirror I saw it was finally coming to a head. With a little encouragement it burst, which after several days of pressure and mild pain, was "a consummation devoutly to be wished". Because I am not without concern and care for my dear readers, I did not film the sequence to upload here in high definition.

Grandpa made breakfast, pancakes and sausage. I forgot to get coffee, and came to regret that. The others all took Bonine because we knew the roads to the south were going to be hilly and winding, and they got rather loopy on the road. I eventually cried uncle and we stopped at a Kum And Go to get coffee and breakfast pizza (because you have to, Kum and Go breakfast pizza is amazing). Eventually a bit before noon we hit our destination, Johnson Shut-ins State Park, within the path of eclipse totality.


Plenty of parking still, as we were over 2 hours early, but it did fill up. Got a kind of festival atmosphere.


Walking down to the Shut-ins trail, we left Debra with Odin near the park store...dogs not allowed on that trail. I took the kids first to the Shut-ins.


The river, before it gets into the rocks...


I had been to this park on a church camping trip in 7th grade...first time back for me, first time at all for everyone else. It's a great little state park. When I was here as a kid I swam and clambered around the rocks like a crazy / unsafe kid would love to do.


The kids mostly just climbed on the rocks but that was enough. I thought about swimming but I would have to walk probably 20+ minutes to get back to the car and get my trunks and I figured, wading is good enough.


I remember thinking it is like a natural waterslide, the way the water snakes through the rocks.


But yeah, I just found a spot and the kids went to explore.








They had worked their way a good way down there...


I motioned for Pete to tell Gretchen to come on back (we had to go relieve Debra from dogsitting).


Shoes back on and heading back. It was in the upper 70s, quite warm.


I then found a quiet out of way place to hang out with Odin. It's very cute the way little kids (particularly the little girls who adore him) love corgis, and I was leaning a little more towards less social interaction so we hung out away from the crowds while Debra went with the kids back to the Shut-ins.


When they got back, the kids got in line for a $1 snowcone. I went into the park store, which was a little tiny bit weird, but in a fun way.


This line lasted FOREVER. The eclipse started during, it was that long.


But they liked their snow cones, and they were relatively cheap. We headed back towards our car and the rock field to the north.


Cattails in the marshy area, the dog waiting for the rest to catch up.


The dog misunderstood the "Please Donate Here" sign and lifted his leg to make his donation here.


Gretchen, to the left under the tree in the distance, asking about a dog...the thing that will cut through any social anxiety, animals.


We hid under the gate of our car to eat cheese and crackers and cupcakes. You can see the eclipse working its way, and the weird thing was...stepping out from the shadow and realizing, I can't feel the sun burning my skin. So we went to find a rock to park ourselves on...


I realized, yeah, the glasses work, but the phone doesn't really work. And that's fine.


It was really weird...shadows were still very vivid and defined, it still looks bright, but things start to get desaturated. It reminded me of the weirdness in some of the old movies where they filmed outside to be at night, but with filters to make it look like night. Just not...normal.


A plane trying to add redundancy to the eclipse, I guess. Bet there were a decent amount of people in that plane who booked it just to see the eclipse.


I mostly took video though, and mashed them all together into this. It was a lot of fun!


Once the eclipse was over, we didn't stick around to watch the remainder of the "uneclipse"...the way I see it is like the 10 days preceding Christmas with building anticipation/excitement, vs the 10 days after Christmas...not as exciting. So we headed out because we had, well, many hours to get back to Kansas City. Debra started out driving with me taking up my childhood naval ambition of navigator role...no internet meant there was no mapping the most efficient route so I had to just estimate and make a guess. But I at least have GPS...which is a bit far removed from "give me a stopwatch and a map and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows".


Kids were conked out. A long day, but a lot of fun. We got back a bit after 7pm. Worth it, and we'll make a point to come back to this place.

Spring Break in Sioux City and Omaha

So Debra and the kids had a week off for spring break, and we resisted the urge to wedge a longer trip into it this year, given all of our other trips. So we took a quick overnight trip north...first to the excellent Omaha Zoo.


Was still a bit cold so we were keen to get into the Desert Dome. First animal noted was a fox.


Klipspringer and some kind of mouse, which I don't think was a planned inclusion on this exhibit.


The klipspringer walks around on stilt-like hooves.


Rock hyraxes looking down on us like Statler and Waldorf.


Lots of reptiles on exhibit inside...much to Gretchen's liking. A black mamba.


I ended up looking for this character in the main exhibit area for a minute, until finally shocking myself to see him close to us wedged into the corner against the glass.


This owl looking rough.


Peccaries...an ocelot was pacing in a separate overhead exhibit.


Owl peeking out...


More owls...


Of course Gretchen would remember what lizard this is, but she's not writing the blog, I am.


Not the best picture, but overall, the new Pixel phone camera is doing much, much better than my old phone in low light.


Somewhere between a rabbit and a kangaroo, I dunno!


Something with the camera...probably taking multiple pictures and averaging them to remove defects, but none of the pictures I took showed the bats in flight, but they sure were.


Fruit bat doing curl-ups.


Alligators, and not pictured was another leucistic alligator that Gretchen was very keen on.


Artificial beaver dam...


Then back outside we started walking over to the one open indoor restaurant for lunch...stopping to see the elephants in their inside habitat.


Several babies...the one on the left was maybe a month old.


The food was...zoo food, nothing to write much about, but the room is pretty neat.


On the way back the elephants had moved outside.


Then to the giraffe indoor habitat.


This oddball giraffe kept licking the metal pole. We were pretty sure from its relative size/shape that it was pregnant (but know that it is a faux pas to ask a female if they are pregnant).


Then into the (rather warm) butterfly experience. I kept suggesting that they should have the Midwest Mosquito Experience as a walkthrough.


Hummingbirds competing for nectar.




Looks like the sort of bird that would love to get into the main area and start eating these slow flying insects.


Puffins in the aquarium.


I would say the KC Zoo has a slightly better penguin exhibit.


A handsome fellow.


One of the better spots, the tunnel under the open water exhibit. I thought some of these fish were tuna, but apparently were crevalle jack.


Variety of smaller sharks here too.


I guess I found Nemo.


A spotted eel (maybe moray?) and Pete is pointing at an almost invisibly small starfish on the glass.


A very active octopus...


This poor fish is on long term disability after a back injury at work.


Filipino "bleeding-heart" dove, looking like somebody just shot them.


Inside the jungle exhibit, some small Asian otters making a loud "feed me" call I assume. (Not sure the video will work due to codec issues but we'll see.)


Common basilisk in repose.


Bats in the open exhibit there.


Swimming tapir.


"Through their vigorous tail wagging while defecating"...same, pygmy hippos, same.


Last time I took a picture of Peter here he was MUCH tinier.


Poison frogs relaxing between toad-licking events for zoo patron members.


Look, it's a lizard, and that's as good as I can do. Try to have Debra or Gretchen do the pics from the air museum see how good they will do!!


Another tapir, this time terrestrial. In light of recent news about communist China wanting to repossess their panda bears I propose we send them packing, and adopt tapirs as our Sam's Club Great Value brand "panda bears". Close enough if you squint and a BARGAIN in comparison.


Strangler fig...


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We splurged on our kids as usual (Debra invoking Kitty Sanchez with a cry of "spring break!" if I ever try to push for thrift) with a leucistic alligator and a polar bear. Or it could be a leucistic black bear and a polar alligator, who knows.


Runzas, a thing you kind of have to do in Nebraska. My favorite bit on this is a runza chain with an Italian cartoon chef mascot "When-a you-a come to Giuseppe's, YOU GETTA DA RUNZAS!" Only old people here, including the workers. Definitely a bland older person food for sure.


Debra allowing them to buy their own cookies to just get them a little more used to normal real-world interaction.


Then onto the road and up to Sioux City, Iowa. The hotel was Stoney Creek, a small regional chain that was fairly nice. I think I got a decent deal on the room, which was large.


Then down to the pool (me and Pete only takers for swimming).


The pool had an indoor section that you could swim from to get to a small outdoor section. The air temperature was 39 degrees so it was a nice contrast.


Then we went across the street to a hot dog place for more old-timey midwestern food, but due to my bad planning, we realized they closed 20 minutes prior (at 6pm, kind of an odd closing time, but like I said...maybe catering more to older folks). The family laughed at my planning failure, which I deserved.


My stupid tax was paying for overpriced appetizers in the hotel bar, fries, chicken strips, and mozzarella sticks.


Main hotel lobby.


Now to the real reason we kept going all the way up to Sioux City...


I should point out, it was just Debra and myself...the kids were happily relaxing in the room at the hotel down the street. We found our nosebleed ticket section and sat down...


I mean, I guess there are worse seats, ours were pretty good.


I have a lot of feelings about this musical. I'm a big fan of most things Trey Parker and Matt Stone do, but I understand they are a very acquired taste and I would never make a blanket recommendation of this musical...even though it is possibly the best live musical I'll ever see in my life, alas. On the pro side, the music is incredible, it is unrelentingly funny. On the con side...who wouldn't like this and why? Well, it is very, very profane...if you are a person with a strong moral foundation of sanctity/degradation (to borrow from Jonathan Haidt) this will surely prove too offensive. LDS folks also would be forgiven for taking offense as well because as the name implies, it is hours worth of skewering of their religion, culture, and beliefs...but not without a certain sense of love for them, too. Similar to South Park's previous treatment of Mormons as being incredibly nice people with typically happy, fulfilling lives (who happen to believe some fairly wild things). My point being, if you are Mormon and you can laugh this off and enjoy it, then my hat is off to you, you've got a great sense of humor, and if you're not Mormon, well, there's still PLENTY that might offend you.


But oh man is it ever funny.


This one is from "Turn It Off" which will most likely sound familiar to regular Christian fundamentalists as well as Mormons. No idea how they managed to get those vests on within like a 2 second lights-out on stage, but they did.


At intermission I realized that my 10 years of playing for my church orchestra (with music that is honestly so close to some of this stuff) had prepared me for this role...I was going to get the sheet music and learn how to play the entire score on bass.


Lookout Isaac I'm gunning for your job!


Back to the show, a brief dream of Orlando quickly turns into....


SPOOKY MORMON HELL DREAM


At one point starbucks cups are dancing around him, and they force feed him coffee shouting "CHUG CHUG CHUG", and then Lucifer takes a guitar solo.


Really good show. Both happy and sad that we didn't take the kids, as it was really really good...but also, just incredibly inappropriate. At one point where the tribespeople are dramatizing the life of Joseph Smith to the visiting Mormon leaders (Joseph Smith American Moses) the poor usher on our aisle, shocked by the dance they were having Jesus do celebrating fertility in the new promised land of Salt Lake City, just stood there agape with her hand over her mouth. These poor volunteers and season ticket holders who may have had no idea what this show was!


Walking back to the hotel...the tour truck was sitting there idling both before and after the show (guess if they need a really quick getaway?).


Back to the hotel, ate some overpriced popcorn and went to bed.

Next morning, the much appreciated hotel breakfast!


I thought this inscription was less than helpful. I would have understood poop but this is the men's restroom, toilet paper is not for Pee.


Iowa setting records for the blandest whitest food imaginable, these potatoes with a minimum of browning and absolutely no danger of seasoning.


Quick stop at the sadly-soon-to-be-renamed Kum and Go to fill up before heading south again.


But not before I force everyone out of the car at the Sergeant Floyd monument!


Everyone complained about the cold but the kids were good sports at least (and Debra at least briefly got out of the car).


View of the river and interstate. It's kind of a necessary stop any time we go that way just out of tradition.


Then south past Omaha to the Strategic Air Command Museum. The B-1B "Bone" outside.


Atlas ICBM and other missiles...sadly we saw these busses just pull up. Gosh darn it. Teenagers.


SR-71 being the centerpiece of the lobby, of course.


The slower predecessor of the Blackbird, the U-2 hanging up above. Down below was a B-17 Flying Fortress, sure to be extra popular given the recent Masters of the Air, with a 52 behind it and the giant B-36 occupying most of the back half of the hangar.


The B-17 was a later model with a chin turret.


Waist gunner positions, such as my grandpa operated over Europe.


Aforementioned B-36, simply a massive plane with 6 rear facing piston engines and 4 turbojets near the wing ends.


A Martin B-57 Canberra, smaller medium 1st gen jet bomber.


The inside of the business end of an ICBM.


A training panel/desk for the Minuteman missile...which we had seen the real versions of in South Dakota and Wyoming while touring the decommissioned missile sites there.


A diorama of exactly what we had toured last summer!


More ballistic missile warheads.


Inside the B-36.


The versatile medium bomber B-25 Mitchell.


XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter. Not a very successful experiment but interesting enough.


A-26 Invader attack aircraft, lots of guns for strafing runs.


Next up, we beat the line of teenagers to get in at the flight simulator. Like last time I took the flight controls and Peter took weapons. We didn't shoot anything down, but we got some rounds onto targets, and didn't crash or get shot down ourselves.


Reconnaissance aircraft on this side of the hangar. This is a Spark-Vark, the EF-111 designed for electronic countermeasures.


An East German MiG-23. Some stenciled writing on the aircraft was in Cyrillic, some in German.


B-58 Hustler. A fast mover for sure.


The American flag wasn't quite right before so me and Pete fixed it. On to the second hangar!


MiG-21 interceptor.


C-47 in D-Day livery.


The bomber that ended WWII (well, not this one anyway...we saw the specific one that delivered to Nagasaki in Ohio). B-29 Superfortress.


The restoration hangar...not directly accessible but we can look.


In the back was the Avro Vulcan. Years back we drove up for a special event here and got to go up into the cockpit of the Vulcan for a bit. The UK's strategic nuke bomber until they moved to just SLBM deterrence.


The museum's new exhibit, the F-117 Nighthawk! The first stealth fighter (more of an attack aircraft really). I imagine eventually it will get a black paint job (albeit with much cheaper non-stealthy black paint).


An exhibit of what homes looked like in the 60s. I'm like...that looks like our house now! We have that same wall panelling! Which I LOVE


Lunch in the cafe. I got a bowl of chili and an order of fries for only $4 because I know how to pick the loss leaders.


Kinda regret not getting the plush SR-71 Blackbird, now.


Anyway, a fun trip that only took up a couple days of our spring break. Gretchen really wants to go back to the zoo again so we'll likely be back again soon!