- Snow Valley USA Basketball School - My son, Cole, two of his friends, and I traveled to Waverly, Iowa. Up by 6:15 a.m. and bed no earlier than 11:00 p.m. meant jam-packed days of basketball - exhausting but fun for us basketball gym rats. Of course I was one of the camp coaches, and the boys were players and we left with many ideas for skill development. The camp featured coaches from all over the U.S. and several international coaches as well. The dorms were functional and the food was great, but all of us were very tired and ready to return home by the end of the camp. Cole and Dalton both received awards, which was nice. The team that I coached during the week in the fresh/soph division went 4-1 and were fun to coach.
- Las Vegas - Amber and I traveled with my basketball officiating buddies, Jason (and Laura) and Tad (and Lynn) to the one and only "Sin City". We flew out of Cedar Rapids, and I hadn't flown since my days in college. Our trip featured a couple of Vegas shows, an evening on Fremont Street, and lots of walking and touring of The Strip. We stayed at Bally's and enjoyed the pool and the casino. Highlight's included seeing Jeff Dunham live with all his crazy characters, riding The High Roller at The Link, and having lunch at Guy Fieri's restaurant. As the saying goes, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" - really, though, our trip was tame. Each night we were in bed by 10 p.m. because we had been walking and touring so much each day.
- Pawhuska, Oklahoma - Amber, Karrigan and I went for a "road trip". The goal destination was to visit The Mercantile in Pawhuska, a place near and dear to Amber's heart. She is a huge fan of Ree Drummond's show on the Food Network - The Pioneer Woman. The show is a cooking show, but Ree also includes a lot of coverage of her family life on their cattle ranch near Pawhuska as well as their restoration of a downtown building that now includes a restaurant, bakery, and gift shop. On the way out we had lunch at Zombie Burger in downtown DesMoines and stayed our first night in Kansas City. For supper that night we drove to the Arts District downtown at ate at Grinders - a restaurant featured on Guy Fieri's Food Network Show - Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The next day we visited Worlds of Fun amusement park and spent a few hours riding their coasters - Karrigan and I were fans of The Mamba, which had a thrilling drop. We then traveled to Wellington, Kansas and spent two nights at a KOA - Karrigan's first experience with cabin life - my preferred road trip accommodations. On day one of Kansas stay, we headed further southwest and visited the Great Salt Plains National Refuge near Cherokee, OK - we didn't find an selenite crystals, but it was fun digging for them in the salt flat. We then visited Wakita, OK to visit the museum of the film "Twister". This was my one main blunder - the museum was closed on Mondays --- oops. We did peek in the window and looked around. On Kansas day 2 we packed up and left our KOA and ventured southeast to the land of the Pioneer Woman. We drove past the Drummond ranch on Highway 60 and visited The Mercantile in Pawhuska. We weren't able to take the tour to the ranch lodge were the cooking show is taped because episodes were being filmed, but it was still fun to see the area and The Mercantile that we see so often on the show. Then we drove straight through home (nine hours in the Equinox) and arrived home yesterday evening.
So July (and one day of August) was full of fun, and today it's time to shape up the yard and start thinking about the upcoming school year. Actually on the Vegas flight and the drive west, I did catch up on my podcasts (The Google Tribe, 10-Minute Teacher, and Pure Sweat), so I suppose I have been doing a little thinking about school even before August.
The summer is definitely not over, though. I still have some projects around the house and some anticipated relaxing pool time to enjoy while I'm also contemplating the 17-18 school year.
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