Uncategorized

      

    

I love to eat outside on our wrap around balcony because I can see all the people walking around. Some of them yell and shout and some even sing. Also, the trolley stops right on the corner and I like to watch people get on the trolley. 

For dinner tonight I got to eat some local foods. My favorites were the blackened ahi tuna and the cole slaw. My friend Brent makes blackened fish too.

I also ate some of my butterfly lollipop. Even though I DID eat some bugs today at the Bug Museum, this lollipop is NOT made from butterflies! I learned today that colorful butterflies are actually poisonous. 

   

 

                         

We went to an insect museum today. I got to pet hissing cockroaches and eat mealworms and crickets. This museum didn’t have milk but they had Nesquick, which I had never tried before. 

Guess what?? I got my JoJo to try some bugs too!!! 

We ate pizza on our balcony. I love to watch the people walking around. And the trolly too.  

  

  

Mama just told me a big surprise! My JoJo + Grandpa are going to meet us in New Orleans!

   

 

Longest bridge you can drive across in the USA. It is 24 miles. It was raining when we drove on it today.

      

  

This ship sank a long time ago and people brought it up so we can look at it. It is very old. There were many bugs too.

   

    

 

 

    

We watched a movie about the Civil War. I learned that both the good guys and the bad guys built trenches to hide. 

There was a LOT of cannon balling so the people in the towns made caves to hide in so they wouldn’t get hurt and they slept in those caves.  It was hot.  Daddy explained exactly how the cannonballs work.

 This was a really big fight and the good guys won.

I noticed a lot of people exercising here. It seems like a nice place to run.

                 

  

  

 

   

 

  

We stopped for dinner and when we ordered veggie patty sandwiches the lady said “you must be from Arkansas!”  

Their oven was broken so they couldn’t toast bread and then Daddy helped a worker put the broken oven in someone’s pickup truck. Because Daddy did that, they gave him a cookie!!

  

  

Mama rolled down the window to take this picture. 

  

But when she did that, the smell outside came inside and that smell was POOP.

Lots more music and costumes and records. I took off my boots and danced!

       

  

Daddy and I played guitar together in our hotel room. You can borrow a Gibson guitar in your hotel room here! 

             

   

We learned more about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today. This is where he died.

This was a special place to go. A lot of good musicians played music here a long time ago. 

I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and told Mama that was *not* Elvis singing, that it sounded like Buddy Holly.  She say he does sound kind of the same in that song and she was proud of me for noticing that.

The tour was only for kids who were above the age of 5! 😮 I was very well-behaved though. There were no other kids at Sun Studios.  Just me.

The best part is that I got to hold a microphone that Elvis used!!! Daddy lowered it for me so it was just my height. This microphone was different than the one Daddy has in his office. He lets me use that one too, even though it’s more delicate. This one was made of metal.

 

     

“So Graceland was where there was a man named Memphis [Elvis]. He lived there. They had music there.  And they called him the King of Rock and Roll. I liked riding the MUNI [the shuttle bus from the center to the home]” 

-Boojie Boots on her Graceland mansion tour

   

      

 

 

I ordered a grilled cheese at a restaurant that used to be a pastor’s house. It was very good. The owners were surprised that we drove this far, that we live so far away from here.

  

   

 

  

“So turkey vultures are birds that eat animals that are already dead. Like things that got bumped by cars. I named my turkey vulture Mariposa. I sleep with this Turkey Vulture.”

-Boojie Boots

In downtown Little Rock there is a park  with tunnels and a tall slide and it even  had a spot where you could run through the water. It is hot here today. 

  

Today we went to a museum at a school where students with dark skin were not allowed to go to school with students with light skin. This was when Gigi and Poppa were little. It was a long time ago. 

That was a bad rule and then they didn’t have that rule anymore but it was still really hard for those kids to go to this school because the students with light skin were very mean. 

I learned about some of these old bad rules from my teacher. She taught me about Rosa Parks. 

The school was very pretty and big. It was made of bricks.   

  

The television was on in the breakfast room at our hotel. The lady was talking about all the ways lightening can get you and there were a LOT!  It was a little scary.

I learned that you should go inside or get in your car. Don’t touch metal things. Don’t golf.

   

 

My dinner was cooked in a brick oven with FIRE!! I watched it cook. You need heat to cook food but it doesn’t have to be from fire.

   

 

I met someone new at the park, a boy who was 7. I was pretty shy at first.  Mama helped me introduce myself.  We played tag and eventually I got him! This park was really clean and nice.

  

        

It is HOT here but Daddy and I still had two running races when we got out of the car.

  

This show has been on the tv in the breakfast room at our hotel. I love it.

  

I ordered myself a shrimp tempura bento box for dinner and I really liked the edamame and the bean sprouts. I told mama I would like her to put both in my lunch and some marmalade too. I learned about marmalade when I saw the movie about Paddington Bear. I saw that movie two times. Once with my Gigi and once with my JoJo. 

  

   

 

Mama made a joke about me having ants in my pants earlier today and I can laugh about it now.

  

  

This restaurant had zoo animals and a play area inside so we stopped here for yogurt. 

I made a friend, Kylie. She is 2 days younger than me and was at this restaurant with her Great Grandma.  

I ran around and played a lot with her. I told Kylie all about the ants and how they bit me.  She knew about them already though. The same thing happened to her before.

  

I LOVE to look at ants. 

I found a nest of them and I watched them. They are called Fire Ants. 

They crawled in my shirt and in my pants and bit me. They don’t just bite one time like a bee. They bite over and over and over.  I screamed and yelled and Mama had to pinch them off of me. 

   

 

“So the president was in his car and a man shooted a little metal sharp thing and it killed him because he was a bad guy. The one that did it went in jail and then another guy killed that guy who hurted the president and he went in jail too.”

 -Boojie Boots on the assassination of JFK.

   

     

    

I saw a lot of windmills and other things like this.  Whenever we stopped for gas, I washed all the windows.

  

     

I have been singing a song I made up called “Stinky Bells” (to the tune of Jingle Bells) for a very long time so we stopped to look at an old art project made of stamps. 

The best part was running in the empty parking lot. I saw a real rabbit standing in the street.

   

 

At the empty Southern Hills Church of Christ playground.  Happy Easter!

   

   

  

They were very cute, eating nectarines and carrots. I think they were vegetarians. 

I am still tired but I liked looking at these little guys.

  

 I liked the glasses but I was really too tired to go here and so I kept telling Mama and Daddy. I also showed them by lying down whenever they stopped to look at things.

 

I like art projects. I got to try using spray paint all by myself. At home only Mama uses the spray paint.

There were cars sticking up out of the ground and it is ok to paint them!!! My fingers have paint stuck on them and baby wipes won’t take it off. I also got a little spot on my jacket but it’s ok. Sometimes art is messy.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Because we always see yard art like this where we live and we always want to buy some but it costs lots of money.  We were so excited and Daddy turned the car fast! 

This place had a lot of ones we liked but we couldn’t fit the big flamingos in our car. So we got some little metal chicks, a sign, a traffic light bird house, and a bunny. These cost less money than the ones near our house. 

We might stop here on our way back again because we want a big heart with wings. 

You have to be careful here because the art is sharp and rusty.

I watched the welder work. He made sparks!!

  

I love to stay in the hotels that have breakfast. When I wake up, I ask right away if we slept in too much and missed breakfast. One time we did miss it so now I make sure we are all up early enough.

I like to eat a waffle and scrambled eggs. Daddy and I make the waffles together. Mama and I noticed that there usually isn’t any fruit.

All of the other waffles have been a circle but this one is not.

  

We ate dinner at a very big and yellow place tonight. Outside was a big alligator, and a big cow. 

Inside there were a lot of people. We sat at a long table with people we didn’t know. One family prayed a long prayer out loud before they ate. I watched them and listened to all of it. I heard them say in their prayer they were going to drive to Oklahoma.

On the walls I saw animal heads. I know they were dead. I think that this hurt the animals. I asked Daddy about it. He said we could talk more about it after we got in the car.  Every time I tilted my head backwards I could see a big moose head on the wall. It was hard to keep my bottom on my chair when I put my head back. I never saw a moose up close before. 

All by myself I said “May I please have a loaded baked potato with no bacon and a glass of milk?”  A loaded baked potato is a potato that comes with toppings you can sprinkle on all by yourself!!  But they put the cheese shreds in the SAME cup as the bacon bits so it was really hard to take out just the cheese. Mama was a little bit mad that they put them in the same cup. 

This restaurant had a fudge bakery with lots of different colors and flavors of fudge. I got to taste one type. I picked cookies n’ cream.  I didn’t know what fudge was before I tried it tonight. It was very sweet!

We sat in a big rocking chair and listened to a man play a whole bunch of instruments just by himself. His hands and his feet were moving. It was kind of stinky there because people were blowing cigarettes in this part.

We left that area and I got to try shooting targets after paying a dollar. I hadn’t ever tried this before either and I really, really liked it. 

We are in Texas.

   

         

I picked this out while we were in line for the bathroom at a gas station/church. 

I picked this one out because I like camping and I liked this woman’s face.  

The postcard was 32 cents. I gave the worker a dollar and and I am going to send it to my Grandma.  

There were three dinosaur statues here but since two were behind little fences this was the only one I could get on. It was too tall so Mama placed me on top. 

Daddy climbed up too. He had to take off his shoes to do it. It was really hard for him because his jeans got washed and dried on hot at our last hotel.   

  

A quick pit stop so I could wash the bugs off of our car.  I am eating prunes, figs, hummus, carrots, pretzels, and oranges. We saw this pink school across the street.

   

 

  

We are driving in a place where these animals might run across the road.  

We’ve seen a lot of these signs. I think this means snakes, sheep, baby lambs, and deer.

 

  

Today is a long driving day. Very long. It’s been SO cold every time we get out of our car.  We stopped here to play.

  

 At the Gator Farm + Rescue.

           

It is still windy here but the pool here is inside too!

  

This is Maxarosa, my kangaroo rat. 

She doesn’t drink water, her water comes from food. She eats mostly seeds. She pees crystals. 

Lots of animals try and eat her. Her protections are that she can jump high, taller than Daddy, she can move fast, and her hearing is very good. She can even hear an owl getting close to her.

I met a Ranger today who told me about a Kangaroo Rat he saw in his backyard.

We did NOT see any Kangaroo Rats at the sand dunes today.

  

We tried to sled in the Great Sand Dunes National Park but the wind made the sand blow so hard it felt like needles on my skin. I do NOT want to move here. 

   

Colorado is very windy!!! 

 

We drove through a sand storm. Lots of tumbleweed blew across the road. 

We couldn’t see very far in front of our car at all. 

There were so many pieces of tumbleweed going across the road so quickly that they looked like animals running! 

   

 

  

Our ears were popping and crackling. I was talking in a really loud voice because my ears got plugged.

It is pretty cold outside and we saw snowy mountains and snow on the side of the road but the pool is INSIDE at our hotel.

  

 

Daddy got a new tattoo back when we were in Reno. 

It’s me!!  

      

    

We looked at this town that doesn’t have anybody in it and that’s why it’s a called ghost town.  The big picture is of the post office.  It is closed. My post office is small but this one was very little.

A long time ago a man and his wife used dynamite to blow out holes in a big rock. They turned it into their house. It was all inside a big rock so it was just like a cave. No one lives in it now but you can take a tour in it like we did.

They also have a little zoo with pigs, sheep, goats, zebra, bison, Watusi, camels, turkeys, emu, ostrich, and RACOONS! The RACOONS were sleeping.

Some animals ate from my hand. Other ones pushed their heads into the feed bucket!! The ostrich did that really fast!  Some animals you have to put carrots into a pipe and it goes to their bowl. My favorite animal was the Bison. 

I also got to ride a camel. 

ALL BY MYSELF!  

(I accidentally got on backwards. Twice.)

   

       

It’s usually worth at least a peek.

   

 

We went out to dinner tonight and I ordered ‘fish n’ chips’ and a side of carrots.  I have been ordering for myself in restaurants for two years. 

When we go to restaurants I usually pack my chicken purse full of notebooks, pens and crayons so if there’s a long wait I can color or talk. 

 

      

Daddy just explained (patiently + in detail) why he can’t drive our car to outer space.   

 

I went to Sand Dune Arch and played in a GIANT natural sandbox. 

I found some rocks and built a house with a staircase. I played house with my Daddy. We used sticks for the people. That was my idea.  

The sand was so soft and cool. At the beach the sand can be wet but here it was dry. 

   

   

I have been watching ants at different spots today. The ants here are bigger than the ones at home. I could see some of them carrying food to their ant mounds.  

The nice thing about these ants is that if I leaned down and my hair touched the ground, the ants would climb up my hair!!

Mama let me do this for a while but then eventually she said, “Please stop.”

 

  

I borrowed a Junior Ranger pack for exploring the National Park. I used a hand lens, binocular, and a high desert field guide.  The field guide is another word for a book. And the book showed me that there are owls that burrow under the ground! And tarantulas that also build a burrow too. And kangaroo rats don’t drink water because they get their water from their food and they don’t pee liquid, they pee crystals!!!! I thought this was very different!!!  I learned all of that new today.  

I saw lizards and bugs that were camouflaged- the same color as the rocks and dirt. 

We hiked in the desert. It’s called the high desert and it is hot! I wore sunscreen and a hat. We were very high up. 

         

Another thing I saw today were a bunch of cows running across the road together. Also our car ran over some tumbleweed.

    

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

   

      

  

 

 

A beautiful mosaic of a train. The artist used glass stones, mirrors, tiles, and imagination. Some of the pieces were sharp! 

 

We saw this from the road and Daddy said “Let’s do this!” And he turned around and we climbed and climbed and climbed up very high and then raaaaaaaaaan down so fast!

I tried making a red sand angel, rolling down the hill, and also running with my family.

I packed up some red sand to bring back to my class for Nature Sharing day.

 

“My favorite part was going in the tipi, how you could go inside and also seeing the dire wolf” -Boojie Boots

 

Scene: Largely abandoned & dusty downtown of Helper, Utah. 

Boojie Boots:  “I’ve always wanted one of these…” 

 Mama: “A cash register from the early 1900s?”

 Boojie Boots: “Yes…”

Lehi Roller Mills is the location of Kevin Bacon’s infamous warehouse dance We watched a video of the dance and then checked it out for ourselves.

Appear to be very well organized and be excellent landscapers!

Mama: Do you want me to clean your boots or leave them so people can see where you’ve been?

Boojie Boots: Leave ’em dirty. People can see where I went.

It is dark outside now. We just left the Bonneville Salt Flats. We ran and  skipped and yelled!  It was fun. We got there at sunset and the sky was pink. We were the only people there.  I am bringing back a piece of the salt to show my class on nature day. This was so fun that I want to have my birthday party there.

 

We saw a lot of jails today and I was worried that I might have to go to jail but mama and daddy and I talked about why people go to jail.

I played hopscotch with a rock on gas storage tank lids at a truck stop/casino/bar/post office/gas station. A tortilla can be a snack or a mask or a cast for your arm. I used to be able to put both of my feet behind my head when I was little and I’m still pretty close.

 

In the Nevada Desert, are hot. 

 Too hot.

“My favorite part was seeing the statues having a cookout with a tent. People took a covered wagon. Some people looked for gold.” -Boojie Boots

We stopped in Lovers Lock Plaza in Lovelock, Nevada to lock our family love and throw away the key.

 

We stopped in Fernley, Nevada to see the 70 ton tortoise. I cried a little because there were signs that said ‘no climbing’ but you CAN climb the Bottle Cap Gazebo. We climbed to the top and that was a little scary because the ladder was tall and the steps were far apart.

“It was SO beautiful!” -Boojie Boots

Today I went to Language school and told everyone I was going on a very long vacation, maybe a hundred days and that I was going to stay in a hotel in a very far away place. Maybe someplace far… like Seattle?!?

I read and looked out the window and saw interesting things. Mama and Daddy and I talked about trains, snow, droughts, farms, tractors, goats, spiders, and Indiana Jones. I’ve never seen the movie (too scary!) but I like the music and I like to imagine what is happening during the songs.

We stopped to visit some good friends. I felt a little shy when I first got there but I ran around with their dog and made fresh juice!

The best thing I saw today out the window was a big creature full of air and dancing. It was so funny!

I Skyped with both sets of grandparents and my dogs once we settled in for the night.  Even though we can’t see it, we can hear a big (German Shepherd?) barking in the room right next door to us!

Goodnight to all doggies, near and far!

I will soon be heading out on the open road for a 5,000 mile road trip.

Stay tuned to hear about my adventures.