A greedy SOB of a game!

I read in a small article lately, that the New XBOX 360 is a power hungry machine! Apparently the guys at DXgaming.com ran tests on several different gaming consoles to guage energy usage and consumption, and fund that the behemoth of gaming consoles, the XBOX 360 is the biggest eater of energy. (Al Gore, look out!) Not only does it eat energy, but it will eat money too! IF you play the 360 for at least two hours a day, it will cost you about $19.88 per year extra on your power bill to feed it! Compared to a PS2 at $5.69 a year, that seems pretty heavy duty, but in my humble gaming opinion, it would be worth the extra cash. Because XBOX rocks over other game consoles. I do not have a 360 yet, (note, I said yet) but as soon as HALO 3 comes out, you can bet there will be a power hungry monster attached to my TV. I guess I better start saving for that higher power bill now!

Game on!

Family Vacations... part 2

Okay, now the photos are all screwed up so follow along with me. starting with the one at the lower left... The Badlands. One of the coolest places to see in America. It is so total alien for someone from the cornfields of Illinois. Beautiful in a very stark way. And hot! Wow, was it hot! But it was a dry heat, and it was the first time I had ever experienced a dry heat. I now understand when someone talks about the heat in the southwest and they say, "It's a dry heat." But even more so, it was only that much more proof that God is an artist of the highest magnitude. I would have loved to have done more hiking there, but time was short and I was not prepared for that type of hiking at the time.

The next one up was the view from the top of Harney's Peak near Hill City, S. Dakota. It was a hike of over 8 mikes and took about 5.5 hours to do. The wholel family, including our dog Gunnar did the hike. It was tough for my wife, who has a problem knee, but she did it anyway. And my 8 year old daughter did the whole hike on her own except for a about a 1.4 mile where I had to carry her on my back...going up hill and over rocks and stones about the size of a 50 gallon drum. It was marvelous. And it was the highest point east of the Rockies and west of the Pyrennes, which are in Spain! Quite a rush!

The one above the view of the Black Hills is my son doing some panning for gold, which he did find about seven flakes. It would take much more to make a real small nugget, but he will never forget the experience. My Daughter did the same thing. It was a nice way to end the vacation as we did it on the way back home.

The next one up was my wife and I going down the waterslide nea Rapid City. A real mom and pop outfit. Nice sized (meaning not too big and not overly crowded) and very reasonable. We had a blast. We went there with the cool family we met from Manitoba Canada. While there , we managed to kill the battery in the car where Gunnar was held to try and keep him cool. However, when the battery dies and the keys are in the ignition, and you only have the remote unlock button, nothing unlocks!!! Gunnar was stuck in there for almost an hour before we had someone from AAA come and unlock him. He was hot, but fine. We then had him spend the rest of the time with us, outside the waterpark. We took turns hanging out with him. As you can tell, the photo of us was before we knew our dog was in danger! I was very worried so all I wanted to do afterwards was get him to air-conditioning. All turned out well.

The last one (the top most one)was taken somewhere around Souix Falls, shortly after yelling at the bored, restless kids for the 16th time to be quiet, stop fighting, share the game boy, and just behave. I can't blame them. After so much fun, it was hard to get back on the road home.

I highly recommend the Black Hills of South Dakota as a family vacation spot. It truly was one of the best vacations we have ever had. I hope to go again!

Anyway, enough of the vacation slide show.... I have bored you enough.

Later!

Family Vacations...

We recently got back from our family vacation! We went to South Dakota and had a great time. It has to be one of the best times we have ever had on vacation! It reminded me alot of the vacations I had as a kid and travelling with my parents. It had all the same elements in it. The long drive, the fighting kids, meals at rest areas, and new and exciting places and people to meet. The drive was very nice because the landscape of South Dakota seems to change without warning from cornfields to rolling hill, and from barren desert areas to lush mountain forestland. It was also fun meeting various people from around the country, but maybe more so, trying to find those travelers from Illinois who just might know where you live. We did meet one such family from Illinois. They seemed to be taking the same route we did and we kept meeting them in all the spots we stopped. (We hit alot of the road-side tourist attractions instead of passing them by this time) It was almost like we were stalking them. One of the best things about this vacation was the lack of hurried activity or the need to get somewhere at a certain time. The places to visit, while filled with people, were nothing like the mind numbing crowds you find at Disney World or places like that. There wre no huge lines to wait in, and no overly priced fees for things like food or items. We had almost a full week in one area of South Dakota, near Mt. Rushmore and we still did not have time to do everything!

On to the pictures above. I picked just a few to share. Working from the top down, is a photo of the pop-up trailer that we used. This used to be my parents trailer but I bought it from them recently. It was one that I camped in as a younger person with my parents so it was like a coming home sort of feeling to be using it again for my own vacation. The site is the one we had at the Mt. Rushmore KOA Kampground. Say what you will about KOA Kampgrounds, but you always know what to expect at a KOA. It was alway full of huge motor homes and RV's, enough so, that I felt a bit inferior with my little pop-up, but it was a nice place. We got a great place that actually made you feel like you were really camping... as long as you did not look west out of the camper windows.. We met some really great people from Winnipeg, Manitoba right next to us and got to know them quite well. We even did a few outings with them. They had kids the same age as ours so that made the stay even better! The next one is of the kids on their trail ride horses. A good 1.5 hour ride in the mountains. Up and down alot of rough terrain! We all had a blast doing this. The third one is of Julian, Gunnar and I when we were doing some rock climbing. We found a little crawl through area and had fun taking the photo. The rocks there were really fun to climb around on. The next one was a family photo at the Falls of Souix Falls, S.D. You could climb all over them and even mess around in the water, but some spots were too dangerous to get in and play. It was really a nice place to visit. It was also where we went to the movie theater to see the latest Pirates of the Carribbean movie. And finally, the last photo is of our campsite near Souix Falls at the Red Barn RV park. It had to be the cleanest, nicest, and quietest campground I have ever been to! And all for $22 a night! Populated mainly with people over the age of 55 and RV's no smaller than 20 feet, we had a very relaxing time there for the first part of our journey. (as you might suspect, the photos are out of order) Anyway, I have more photos in the part II of my vacation message.

later!