So I was taking a nap today...

And I wake up and Doug is home, at about 4:30, which is pretty early. 

He asks what time we had lunch

I said 1 o'clock. 

He says, well I was thinking about an early dinner in Hoboken. 

Hoboken, why Hoboken? 

So we can go for dessert afterward.

So we drive about 20 minutes to Hoboken and go to Grimaldi's pizza.  I love good pizza, shortly after Adena was born we go pizza at a place called DeLoretto's in Salt Lake city, and I loved it.  There was a pizza place in Florida we loved too, but nothing holds a candle to this pizza.  The crust was thin but doughy, the sauce actually tasted like tomatoes, and the cheese was white and thick.  It was amazing.

We had about a 7 block walk to Carlo's, the bakery on "Cake Boss".  We got there about 6:00 and the line streched down the block and into the next block.  After half an hour later, we were giddy because we got to cross the street!  Another half and hour and we realized that the parking meter was going to run out, so Doug ran back to give it more quarters.  By about 7:15 we were finally allowed into the store and given a number.  The smell of the store was amazing.  Almost as good as our house smells after one of Doug's baking days.  Every once in a while, some other delicious smell would come wafting through.

The cases are filled with cakes, trays and trays of cookies, and a case in the corner holds the custom cakes people have ordered.  Today there was one that was 4 layers with the NYC skyline on it.  It was amazing.

So we don't want to go overboard, so we only bought:

A Chocolate Buttercream cake

3 Cannoli, A red velvet cup cake and 2 dozen cookies.

Here's the cool thing; this guy could charge anything he wanted for this stuff, people are waiting for and hour every day to get into his shop, but for all of that it was less than $50, which I think is pretty reasonable.

So how was it?  The texture was velvety, the frosting was creamy and chocolatey, with lighter and milder chocolate flavor on the outside and a darker chocolate frosting in the middle.  Yeah, it was good.

Just one more note,  the people that worked there had to deal with a crazy busy shop all day long, and they were so friendly patient and helpful, it really made the whole thing so nice.

Thoughts on the Indian Wars

For long trips, we try to locus out stops on a theme.  Not everything is associated with the theme but it is a general guide.  The theme for this trip has been the Indian Wars.  I knew hardly anything about this topic before this trip, and now I feel that everything I have learned has mostly taught me how little I know.

Over the miles of driving we have discussed what the difference between a battle and a massacre was.  Every battle ground we have been the (even Little Bighorn) started with the army surrounding and attacking an Indian village early in the morning. As unethical as a surprise attack in the early morning seems, I not sure that makes what happened afterwards a massacre. 

The incident at Sand Creek in south-eastern Colorado in 1864 (even before the end of the Civil War) was early enough to set the tone for the later indian wars.  I felt that this incident was a massacre because of these factors.
-most of the "soldiers" were untrained volunteers that were rallied for 100 days to avenge the death of a family killed by indians
-the casualties were disproportionate--12 soldiers to at least 160 indians
-women and children seem to have been killed with the same impunity as fighting men
-the bodies of the dead were mutilated

One soldiear wrote:
"I refused to fire and swore taht no one but a coward would, for by this time hundreds of women and cildren were coming towards us and getting on their knees for mercy"
News of the Sand Creek Massacre spread throughout the Indian territories and to the east. Unfortunatley it set the tone for more than a decade.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

Crater of the Diamonds State Park

Murfreessboro, Arkansas

After going there twice, I think we have figured it out enough that we might be able to find one next time.

Antebellum Mansion in Natchez, Mississippi.

Goodbye Florida

Maybe...

I'm finally at a place where I can download some pictures.  It is 5:15 now, and we need to be on the road by 6:30, so if I can shower and get dressed and have everyoned eat breakfast in time, I might be able to post some.  We'll see how it goes.

Guardian angels....

I don't really know how the idea of guardian angels work, but I am grateful that we have been watched over on this trip so far.  Our first Sunday we were driving through the Texas Panhandle and knew that we were driving into some dark clouds, but didn't really have an idea of what the storm was like ahead of us.  We just kept driving until we passed a really strangely shaped vehicle that looked a lot like this: Storm Chaser Vehicle.  It was parked next to a truck by the side of the highway.  We decided to turn on the radio to see what was going on and heard weather warnings involving tennisball sized hail about 5 miles away from where we were.  The storm was definitly one of the worst I have ever seen, and the worst that I have ever driven in.  We only got small hail where we were, but rain was pouring.  We had the terrible decision to make of just to pull over and hope it blows over.  (Park next to the storm chasers perhaps?) Drive through it (um, no).  Go back to the nearest town, or try to find our way around it.  We decided to try to find our way around it, and drove for a terrifying half an hour to get back out of the storm that we had driven into for less than 10 minutes.  We were relieved to get out of the storm, but were in an area that the storm had just passed over and some roads were flooded.  We drove through one that didn't look that bad, but got worse as we went along.  We came to another flooded road, and fortunately there was a highway truck that could guide us through the flooding, and make sure it was shallow enough for us to safely pass.  We were very grateful to get to clear skies and dry roads again.

The other scary highway moment happened today as we were driving in Montana.  We were on a two lane highway following a semi carrying a load of gravel, when it suddenly started to dump its load.  We were totally blinded by the gravel and dust flying at our windshield, but couldn't stop quickly because of course the road was covered in gravel. We were sure that we would need a new windshield and possibly a new front end and radiator, but in the end (so far) the only damage we have found was a dent in the driver's side door. 

I view these incidents as evidence that it isn't our time to die yet, because ya know, if God wanted us to, we could have all been gone right there.