Typography: Getting attention for a moment

Type is a pet peeve of mine. I love the inherent beauty of good letterforms, and try to use good type, but its so very badly abused these days. Not just Word being used as a page layout program, or the loss of knowledge, or the lack of accurate semantics anymore. No one knows what a font is anymore; it now seems to mean "type," or at best "face." Someday that'll piss me off more, and I'll rant about it with much more specificity.

But someone noticed that Helvetica was designed 50 years ago, and there are a few people talking about it. The best thing seems to be this neat documentary film by Gary Hustwit.

Doesn't seem to be available on DVD yet, so the best way to see this is to visit the infosthetics site and see a few clips from it.


Business week picked up on this, and wrote about it recently from the POV of business, specifically that its a great logo face.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the sleek, streamlined font is used by countless corporations, from 3M and Microsoft to American Airlines and Staples. Its simple lines and proportional letters make it easy to read, whether on a tiny package of Post-it notes or on the side of an airplane. For decades, the typeface has proven an effective element of many a corporate branding and marketing strategy.

Design Responsibility

This article brings up some interesting topics regarding branding, design and usability:

After months of investigation, the state of Connecticut sued Best Buy on May 24 and accused the chain of tricking customers with two identical-looking Web sites in its stores, with the only difference being that one had higher prices... ...Initially, Best Buy said the identical design was used for both sites to save on design and programming costs. On May 24, Best Buy added that it designed to comfort—not confuse—their customers. "We used the same Web site platform for these in-store kiosks as we did for our national Web site to ensure that customers familiar with the national Web site could easily navigate the in-store kiosk," Busch said, in a prepared statement.

I can see how I might have fallen for this also. "Lets just use the existing web eStore. Its all done and it works fine, so we can save time and money." Especially from a branding, approvals, and content maintenance perspective, its something I can really see myself falling into. However, as we see here, its not the same thing at all.

 The various accounting scandals really pushed all big companies to put up lots of posters and send out lots of emails around ethics. Being a lowly UI designer I like to say "unethical behavior is above my pay grade." There's really hardly anything bad I could do if I even tried.

 But now I am thinking maybe I missed an opportunity, or risk, in that thinking. Maybe we have a responsibility of some sort around truth in information. I have always thought of contextual appropriateness in the narrow sense of comprehension, but perhaps understanding is broader.

Hmm... not sure yet how to say it, but its definitely worth thinking about more. Of course, we cannot do it alone, so sales and marketing (and everyone else) has to be on the same page, but maybe simply pointing out court actions can help persuade everyone.

My cynicism and paranoia is well founded

At least about commercialization of the internet. This is fascinatingly scary. Like reading a history of a mass murderer.

...he's also the man behind the domain world's latest scheme: profiting from traffic generated by the millions of people who mistakenly type ".cm" instead of ".com" at the end of a domain name. Try it with almost any name you can think of -- Beer.cm, Newyorktimes.cm, even Anyname.cm -- and you'll land on a page called Agoga.com, a site filled with ads served up by Yahoo. Ham makes money every time someone clicks on an ad -- as does his partner in this venture, the West African country of Cameroon. Why Cameroon? It has the unforeseen good fortune of owning .cm as its country code -- just as Germany runs all names that end with .de...read it all...

Powerpoint

Yeah, everyone likes to rip into powerpoint. Its trendy since Tufte's scathing analysis, and I normally don't rant about it because everyone else has it covered. In fact, this post is entirely to post other people's posts, since I ran across two good ones just today. First up, the generally excellent Presentation Zen blog, that often talks about powerpoint anyway, asks Who says we need our logo on every slide?

A lot of the presentations I attend feature a person from a specialized field giving a talk — usually with the help of PowerPoint — to an audience of business people and creatives, etc. who are not at all specialists in the presenter’s technical field. This is not an uncommon type of situation, of course. For example, an expert in the area of, say, biofuel technology may be invited to give a presentation to a local chamber of commerce about the topic and about what their company does, what the average person can do, etc. Recently I attended such an event, and after the hour talk was over I realized that the presentation was a miracle of sorts: Until that day I didn’t think it was possible to actually listen to someone make a PowerPoint presentation in my native language of English and for me to genuinely not understand a single point that was made. Not one. Nada. I understood the individual words, the pronunciation and diction were perfect, but between ubiquitous acronyms — and the darting laser pointer used to underline those acronyms — bulleted lists, and colourfully decorated charts and diagrams, after it was all said and done, I realized that I hadn’t comprehended a single idea. I wanted my hour back. The wasted hour was not the fault of PowerPoint or even bad slides, however. While I was suffering through this, doing the best that I could to understand, it occurred to me that this presentation would have been greatly improved if the presenter would have kept two good pieces of advice in mind in preparing for the talk. These two bits of advice which I discovered recently have nothing to do with PowerPoint or the art of slide presentations per se, yet they apply well... read the rest of it

And, from the fun but spotty Information Aesthetics an amusing, but all too true, video by comedian Don McMillan on what not to do with Powerpoint.

Home Again

Deserts & Mountains

Slow putting this up as we got in really late, so I slept a lot. The little road to Arches was really, really slow and that put us about half an hour behind schedule. But mostly, the Colorado DOT is filled with horrible people. At least a dozen major projects on I-70 between the park and Denver. Once I was going 5.9 mph for 5 miles. I sorta hate that I have the GPS now as it just taunts me with that sort of information.


Anyway, Arches was really cool. Way worth it.

No Services This Exit

I had missed the Davis to Reno scenery due to darkness last time I was out here, and it was nice to see, but nothing to write home about.



Nevada and Utah (so far at least) express no love for their scenery. Some very nice scenic views driving, with absolutely no place to stop and get a photo. On the other hand, its awful big scale stuff, with the same thing to look at for a long time. The Bonneville Salt Flats (Newfoundland Evaporation Reservoir?), for example, are really cool. For ten minutes. An hour of them gets tiring.


Alison & the Floating Island.


Rush hour seemed like a bay area tradition we could avoid seeing, so Alison and I got on the road before six this morning. This also put us into Salt Lake early enough to have dinner during civilized hours, and we met up with Aaron, his wife and child at... I forgot the name of the place already, but Brazilian barbeque. Interesting, and meaty.


Tomorrow, a relatively short run to Denver (ish) and therefore a stop at Arches on the way. Neither of us have seen it, and I wanted to take the 70 route anyway to get the whole mountain (and driving videogame) experience in the ski resort areas.

4036.2

I am glad I didn't bother to add up the total mileage for the trip before we left. I might have been scared off of it. We're already over four-thousand miles. I swear. Seems impossible, but there it is. No wonder the gas is killing my (wildly estimated) (pseudo) budget for this trip. At least the car, despite being over 113,000 miles (and rapidly counting) still gets like 27 miles on the highway.



Though we've left that portion of the trip behind for a bit, the whole part thru Oregon had lots of encounters with Lewis & Clark, and the Oregon Trail, and all that. Every place we encountered them treated it as a relatively unique experience, worth paying attention to, but I was so used to the same stuff in the KC area, I blew it off for a while. Finally I realized its much like the river following I had previously been ranting about. Its an interesting connection, that people set forth from very near my house, and ended up where we did in the north-west. And we thought it was a long trip by car, on interstate highways.



Anyway, back to the story. We've been in Pacifica for three days, and have done several spates of touristing and shopping in the city as well.




We've done some walking and driving around, but the water is cold so not really any ocean work since the surfing (and I am still sore from that). The hotel pool is closed, and their alternative turned out to be in Half Moon Bay, like half an hour away over what ends up being a dangerously twisty road. Cool and scenic, though, so we stop various places, and come back the next day to hike up the state park we saw the entrance to.



McNee Ranch goes back a few miles, but we stuck to the coast. Good views, as its basically above CA-1 where its dangerous there. The rest of the park is some sort of amazingly unique and unspoiled wilderness, such that efforts to avoid the twisty road have been thwarted since the 60s, and just now they are solving it by tunneling under the park.


That evening we went to the Cliff House for dinner. Good food, but we were suprised to find its an NPS concession, and indeed there's a series of good looking parks on this side of the headlands. So, Monday we took the same route up the coast, bopped around the edge of Lincoln Park, then drove over random city streets (stopping along the way for some Turkish) to Fisherman's Wharf. Not too impressed with most of the touristy stuff, but the NPS had a nice little museum (sadly, still under construction) and a lot of old, restored boats. Mostly big ships, but I liked the junk, the working schooner and the other small boats.



They even had a functioning boat building shop. Apparently, aside from their work on restoration, they offer classes.

After this, more wandering thru the city, with stops at EQ3 and Room & Board for shopping. Also some wandering along the waterfront areas near the stadium and the Academy of Art. We ran across a nice little gallery that had half its first floor dedicated to an artsy, but still production-level, letterpress shop. They do wine labels and other such high-end, low-volume stuff. Talked to them a bit (due to my print history and mostly-latent sadness at not pursuing it anymore) and it was cool to see.

Surfing!

Actually, when we got up, it was more like "what, surfing? Today? Are you sure?" Long, sad story, but I didn't "know" it was today. So, they called and woke us up, and we eventually go, yeah, we'll drive real fast. Luckily, the hotel is like 1 mile away. So, no big deal. I had some serious tiredness issues. Late getting in, no breakfast, and with my blood sugar my popping up didn't really pop. Short break, some M&Ms and I tried agin. If I had any discernable sense of balance, or could bend my knees on command, it would be easier. It can however, be said that I surfed, but like... once. Alison, on the other hand, is reconsidering how much she likes oceans.

More Oregon Touristing

Originally we were gonna go straight from Portland to Pacifica. But a number of people insisted we see the sights in Oregon. One route, after being narrowed a lot, was 15 hours of driving. We have reservations and stuff in the bay area, so cannot just skip back a day, so instead we had spent the night in Salem. That morning, we headed out east on 22 and kept on going till we get to Bend, where we follow the road back south-west (well, down US-97 and a series of state highways) to Medford. After that, its I-5 all the way.

This whole drive was about opportunistic sightseeing. If we see something good, in time to stop and turn without rolling the car, and feel like it, we stop. As it is, we spent way too much time, so I don't want to hear any griping about stuff we missed. One of the first stops was, oddly because we saw lots of burned trees.



There was an "interpretive center" (and radio station!) for the B&B Complex Fire off the side of the road. We like nerdy, outdoorsy learning, but this was much more interesting and informative than we expected. We both knew vaguely that fire suppression had caused the forests to be more prone to major fires, and were generally bad, but this explained why.


Newberry National Volcanic Monument - Lava Butte - Deschutes National Forest... It was really interesting, and impressively visual to be there, but none of the photos really do it justice (I probably just need to get a wider lens). So, instead, here's a chipmunk.



This is on the top of the Lava Butte, so its not totally irrelevant. Alison insists I tell everyone that he is eating a nut I gave him. So, there, I admit that the shot is a setup.

We got to see the Three Sisters from up top also. Not that close, but I had never seen them before, so that was nice also.


One of the places most everyone suggested we go to was Crater Lake, and this was gonna be a snap, as the looping route inland took us right by the entrance gate. Which is as far as we got.



If the NPS is too cheap to plow the road and even basically open the park in May, could they at least put up a gate that a Guatemalan pygmy goat farmer wouldn't be embarrassed to have?


We then stopped at the (or possibly a) Rogue Gorge. This was cool as hell, way more impressive than you'd think for such a small feature,





This was also nice as once again we followed the Rogue River down till we got to I-5. Seeing it go from a tiny, but violent, stream to a broad river supporting a lot of name-brand nichhe agriculture was nice.

We passed a lot of places, but stopped at the Eden Valley Orchard for a bit of wine tasting (well, Alison did the tasting) and some other minor touristing.



Alison got a bottle of... something. I don't follow wines well. The place is headquartered out of a really nice, old house, with the original 19th century. Alison now wants a monkey puzzle tree...



All this took longer than I expected, and California seemed very annoying todrive thru. We didn't get into the room till well after midnight. Regardless, while it was light, I-5 was prettier than an interstate would be expected to be, so it wasn't a total waste. We got a good view of Mt. Shasta, for example, as we circled it for what seemed to be hours.

Its late, so brief on typing today

Eagle River was worth it. We only made it up to the Punchbowls, so will have to go back sometime.








We then drove into town, bought Alison some Gore-Tex Desert Acadias from the Danner store, and visited the Japanese Gardens. Also very nice. Now Alison wants even more moss, among other things.



A few hours at Powell's, spending less than I would have thought, then dinner with Chet at Jakes. Then, we left town and have a room in Salem tonight. I think tomorrow we'll try to tour a bit inland, so we'll see how that works out.

Snake to Columbia

Inadvertently continuing yesterday's sort of up-the-river theme, we followed rivers downstream all day today. Leaving Jackson we disregarded all the mapped directions and the screeching of the GPS and took state highways thru the mountains. Worth it. Yet more amazing scenery.



We almost immediately picked up the Snake coming off Jackson Lake, and followed it, more or less, till it veered off north, picking up the resulting Columbia somewhat later.



Quite a change over the course of a single day's driving, with the Snake starting at nearly culvert width, and the Columbia here being well-marked for navigation.


Incidentally, I've been in the desert southwest a bit also, and seen some big-ass dams, but these things are amazing. They have locks. Who tries to pass commercial shipping thru dams this large?


After a night, breakfast and that much more driving, we still love Wyoming. Back when I used to go there every year or so I decided I'd retire there, and Alison agrees. We think probably around Jackson, as by then we'll be old and need good medical facilities. And the tourists even have their upside, as it'll give me something to be officially crabby about for part of the year.


To be fair, for all those who keep telling us to see things in Idaho and Oregon, we didn't totally give them a chance. But we has 12 hours of driving to get done, and stuck to main roads mostly, so gimme a break. Maybe they are prettier off in the hinterlands, as I am assured they are. We'll have to come back, with a more complete plan and either more time, or fewer states to cover.


We stopped short of Portland in Cascade Locks so we can hike the Eagle Falls portion of the PCT. Its purportedly the most amazing and beautiful trail Allan's been on, but most of all, if we don't he will keep our cat.

Wyoming

I'd forgotten how much I like Wyoming. I came here several times when I was younger to backpack thru the mountains, and we saw plenty of the state while driving thru it, and touristing a bit in and outbound. Hard to say what I like about the towns and people (a certain genuineness I suspect, but its hard to put my finger on) but the landscape is cool because its amazingy varied. One place we were today went from desert southwest looking with red buttes and rolling desert, to sharp gray snow-capped mountains, all within like 2 miles.


The Wind River range was always where I went years ago, and the detour of late exposed us to more of that range. We'd always previously driven up the west side, but this time we actually followed the Wind River itself. That was neat as well, as we watched it go from river to a stream you can cross on foot.



Anyway, we woke up this morning in Thermopolis, and went to the hot springs itself. This was pretty neat. The hotel was built in 1918 -- but has been recently renovated very nicely and is right on the grounds of the park. The park itself is very nicely done, and there is a beautiful state-run bath house thing. We used these facilities, but there are a few private concessions and yipes, do they crap up the place.



Alison tried to break into William Krueger's hotel room. Yes, the mystery writer. Okay, we'd never heard of him either, but he mentioned it because he was thinking horrible, improbable things when someone tried to break into his room. Nice guy, apparently, as I barely saw him. If a fan, ask Alison. Oh, and his next book is based in Thunder Bay, and I presume will be called the same thing, if you look at his other titles.


The drive itself was nothing much of note. Not as dramatic as yesterday, but plenty of scenery. As I mentioned above, the variability is amazing. We're in a narrow canyon of dense, dark rock, running thru tunnels is so steep and dense and... its done. 10 miles of that and it instantly becomes gentler red rocks. Such a weird place, I gather from the relative youth of the geology.


Stopped for lunch in Dubois. Nice working town, that has managed (on purpose) to keep its original feel. There's an old downtown strip that could be out of the 40s, if it wasn't for the newer cars. Not to mention the food; I cannot suggest the Cowboy Cafe enough.

I really missed the backpacking now that I am here, and think the wife is only getting so much exposure to the mountains with driving thru them, so I picked a random Forest Service road, and tried to get up in the hills a little so we could hike at least out of sight of the road. That didn't work, and we got about 200 yards before the road went to hell. Its very snowy still up here. Regardless, we hiked about a mile up, and got some nice scenics, saw a bird or two.


That wasn't as exciting as I wanted it to be, basically because we couldn't take the car back far enough. Shoshone, at least on the side we were on, seems to all be about grazing concessions. But when we entered Bridger, there seemed to be be actual recreational activities. So, we took one of those down a couple miles before... it also petered out in impassable snow and mud. Fair bit of reverse driving, then come back out. And we both see

Now, I've been right next to a less than happy moose before, and even at this range I am amazed how huge these are. Shy, also. We're like 70 yds away with difficult to impassable terrain in between and they got up and left. Sorry, mooses (meese?).


Another random photo to show off the scenery. This is the Teton range, facing west from around Moran Jct. Grand Teton is 20° off the frame to the right.


Tonight we are in Jackson, left of that last photo about 15-20 miles. Despite expected wonderful scenery across Idaho and Oregon (which I have never seen), we have to move to make 10+ hours of driving, so probably no adventures and little sightseeing tomorrow, sadly.

Oh, one more note. Its Jackon, WY. Not "Jackson Hole." That's the name of the valley in which, among other things, the town is located. Alison was wondering why I kept saying it like that, so asked some townies, and that's right.

Changed our minds again

First off, despite the promises...

...no internet access yesterday. And my warranty replacement aircard will not work either. Jackson has no native Sprint service, so I cannot call and debug, so... grrr. So, now I post yesterday's info, and in a few hours I'll tell you about today.

Anyway, we touristed a little in Rapid City, bought a few things, walked down their "art alley" and saw the nicest, cleanest, best-stocked gun store I have ever seen.



Ellsworth Air Force Base is about 5 miles from Rapid City, and has a free air museum, so right before leaving town, we went there. Turns out it was some security status thing, so there was a huge line to get in. For everyone, not just the museum. We lucked out, and the gas station let us park and walk, and the AF Security guys were mostly very nice and didn't mind at all as we walked thru their security cordons (they were doing the car searches in the museum parking lot). Interesting assortment of gear; from LC-2 and helmets worn to the kevlar, to aftermarket armor carrier vests. The best dressed was the dog handler, and Alison actually asked if we could take a photo (she liked the dog). To my total lack of suprise, he said 'no.'


Alison saw the phrase "hot springs" on the highway map and it turns out she has always had a secret dream to visit one, so we suddenly reconfigured our trip on the fly, and went to Thermopolis instead. This worked out, and we'll tell about it in the next post.

We also stopped in Deadwood for a sort of lunch/dinner. Cool that its right in a tiny mountain valley, but that's it. Everything is ruined by the faux-history, and way-too-new buildings to take advantage of the tourists, and apparently the lax gaming laws in SD.


Because of the two-lane US routes, Alison wanted to drive. Because its fun, and reminds her of home. Really dramatic scenery, and I took far too many photos to share now.



We also saw some wildlife. While still on the plains, there was a herd of antelope. We got a video of them milling, then running away. Its cool, but I am not gonna bother uploading it from the road so you'll just have to take my word for it.



A reasonably lovely, casual vacation travel day, rounded off nicely with a speeding ticket for Alison...

...and a late dinner at a nice, local hamburger and ice cream stand in Thermopolis.

Rushmore

Reasonably straight up touristing day. We saw Mt. Rushmore (damned cool actually), Alison bought a new hat, and went to the Crazy Horse monument (not as cool, and too self-important).


There was also plenty of generally good landscape. We've decided we're indeed coming back to this part of the country to check it all out in more detail (So Ed, you were right). We only saw the Badlands -- for instance -- from a distance, at speed, and want to see more.

The only thing that didn't go as planned was Rapid City's amazing adherence to everything being closed on Sunday. I didn't even see a gas station open. There are some nice shops, and combined with our tiredness early in the trip means we're gonna blow off the whole day in Jackson, and do... something else. I'll be updating the map in the itinerary post below with these details in a bit.

Why Won't Anyone Please Think of the Children?

No, seriously. What the hell is wrong with child welfare these days? I'll tell you one thing, even people who have been working on taking in foster children for a year, cannot do it. The rules are insanely over the top restrictive, so when we get back we'll be talking to our case worker and formally giving up on that. What do we mean? lets give some examples of things we did or did not meet from the recent KDHE inspection:

• All knives have to be locked up, or six feet off the ground -- Despite alison being too short to reach them, we did this. No problem. The guy also suggested tossing them all in a rubbermaid container and putting them on top of the fridge. Yes, just banging around, being dull. That's not us, at all.
• All chemicals, drugs, etc. have to be locked, or six feet off the ground -- By all, we mean toothpaste and deodorant, not just bleach. Everything. Well, Alison redid the house, and everything that could apply is high up in a closet or the medicine cabinet. Good job!
• Cover outlets, etc -- Yeah, yeah. A snap.
• Post emergency numbers by each phone -- Kind of stupid, especially since it has to be done, and that includes stuff like the child's doctor and social worker, but we have no child yet, so they are blank. Purely a formality.
• Post an emergency evacuation plan -- Anywhere. No reason for it, as it was fine that we posted it on the back side of a door that's locked so children cannot get thru it. But its posted. Have you figured out yet this is letter of the law and nothing else?
• Have a first aid kit in every car -- Lots of rules like that, but this is fun, because it lists the items to go in it. And its just not that good a FAK at that point. But, we did it. Thanks Allan for all the free stuff for the kit.
• Lock up other dangerous stuff -- We have a basement full of car stuff, fuel for garden tools, sharp garden tools and chemicals, a shop full of big woodworking machines, etc. And, a pile of guns. No problem. We put them all in the basement, lock the basement door (its got a deadbolt) and there's now a gunsafe. Easy. Well, remember this for later.
• All common areas must be child safe - Meaning the above rules about chemicals and knives. Sure? No, as it turns out. The basement provides access to the car, so its a "common area." And it has to be a tornado shelter. So, we are repeatedly asked if we can just put all that stuff six feet up. Or, just, I guess, stop all our hobbies and sell everything to make the house sterile. Its not clear how we could comply with this. Nothing the inspector or our case worker has offered is viable in any way.
• Every staircase has to have full railings, top to bottom, and a gate at each end -- Yes, a child gate, top and bottom. It seemed like we had done this just fine, but no, the railing doesn't go all the way down on our interior stairs. If you want to argue its indeed unsafe, then two problems: 1)Its not. This meets strict building codes as it is, and no one has been able to quote me any written rule other than "its scary," and 2)This house, in this configuration, was previously certified for foster care! So, the rules get stricter all the time or ... are totally arbitrary. Don't get me started on the back deck staircase. Its off the charts unfixable to them. I'd have to rip up the deck and start over.
• Railings have to have gaps no larger than 3" across -- Three inches. Really. So, take the lattice work railings I just spent two years installing on the deck and I guess replace them. Or cover with chicken wire. Or something. Again, not even clear how I would comply with this rule.

That's enough. There are dozens of other rules, but its getting boring talking about them. The part that really galls me is that they just now did the inspection. We've been doing classes and getting (painful) TB skin tests and filling out forms, and getting a background check by the KBI, and having our friends have to talk to the case workers and so on for a year now. Some of this, several times, as they frequently loose the paperwork. Even if I was going to do all they wanted, there is construction required; couldn't they have arranged it up front so I could get a head start on that? The whole process is like this. So jargon-laden, and full of internal process its almost unbelievable. Not until I was done with the ten-week (!) class did I /begin/ to understand the process and our place in it. No wonder half the class drops every time! So, we're done with that, but still looking at adoption. If state adoption doesn't work out within, say, a year, we'll be saving up for private (probably overseas) adoption instead. Stay tuned.

Surviving a Drive Across South Dakota

Trickier than you'd think, as it turns out. But, as a bonus, I've introduced Alison to another bit of being a midwestern resident, tornadoes coming to kill you.

We didn't watch the forecast at all, but as it turns out, all of South Dakota is mired in a deadly, deadly storm system. In fact they still are. We start calling to ask what the deal is when I notice the straight line winds are knocking over road signs in front of us. Cow ponds are whipping up waves 2 ft tall. Its as windy as I've ever seen it.

So, we arrive at Mitchell around 5, eat, and go over to the Corn Palace, cause why not. Oops, closes at 5. As I finish getting some photos of the outside (posted later). It starts storming again. We coordinate with a storm chaser guy we know, and decide that its moving south to north, so we can avoid it if we really get moving straight west, as we wish to anyway.

Almost immediately, its as rainy as I have ever seen it. Car cannot exceed 60 due to water on the road. The traction control just gives up and we hydroplane. Many people have stopped. But, we are dumb, and keep it up. Bouts of rain, wind, etc. The clouds look bad, and the radio starts talking about tornados.

Sure, it was a watch before, but there's always a tornado watch. There have been three lately at home. Not worth worrying about. Now, they are saying, on the ground, and looking at the GPS, they are like 5 miles away.

A word about seeking shelter. Central South Dakota is dead flat. Nothing there. We went 30+ minutes without even seeing an underpass. The radio is giving the usual advice, and we listen:

1. Seek shelter in a basement, cellar or storm shelter. Its not like there are no convenient buildings, we saw no farmhouses you could get to within the hour from the highway. No structures, at all.


2. If that is not available, go inside any building, and stay away from large open areas and windows. Again, no buildings at all, thanks.


3. If you are travelling, and cannot get to shelter in time exit your vehicle and take shelter in a ditch. Which all are filled with water!

In fact, under what conditions does a tornado come out of a thunderstorm when drainages are not filled with water? I want a better backup plan.

So, we drive. We are not trying to outrun the storms, remember. We're perpendicular to the track. And, apparently, we didn't get the worst of it. There's a hail band we missed entirely. Anyway, we see things like this:

Several of them. This one is about 10 miles west of Mitchell (as I recall) and seems to be the one that crossed I-90 at that point. The photo is over our shoulder, so its behind us.

This goes on, but we survive, and after a while, this sort of weather looks pretty good.


Eventually we passed two more cloud fronts, and got a beautiful day, for two hours. Stopped and took a photo or two. It was getting Late, so we didn't try to tour the cool gorge in the background here, or anything else, but we might get back that way tomorrow.



If we die:
Anyway, Alison wanted everyone to know what to do if we do indeed die during the trip. Clearly, insurance and boring stuff like that goes to the secondary benificiary. Proceeds from a sale of the house... presumably go to probate, so I guess I should make up a will, but, the important stuff:

• Atka should go live with Paige and Sarah.


• Nancy should be offered to my Mom. But, if she doesn't want a cat, Allan gets to keep her.


• Windy gets all the gardening stuff and plants not in the ground she wants (plants in the ground are probably part of the house, so lawyers might get mad about them getting removed).


• Allan can have all my airsoft stuff.


• Kerry can have all my guns, as allan only likes to shoot at people. He can also have my strobes and all other illumination.


• The two of them have to have a fight, with nerf bats, over who gets all my nylon gear and the fabric.

Vacation Infographic

Edit: This is being updated every day or two in order to show where we currently are, and what changes to the route or stops we're making.

I swear I didn't make this to show off. I am just so graphical I was having trouble making my trip plan entirely in words, or chart format. So, a chart-map:


Yeah, its small. See a version large enough to read the words or get the PDF version of the whole thing (original route only), with way too much info on my optimistic drive times and stuff [that means it not updated unlike the jpegs above].

The other reason its not to show off is no one cares what I do. This blog is read by what, zero people? Web 2.0 is all just an exercise in introspective self-satisfaction anyway.