Camp Nina

This is Nina's 4th year at Tallchief and the first year that we've seen photos of her posted online during her stay. I think that Wacky Wizard is holding a wand.

Benton Boys at Large in OKC

Mari had an all-day teaching conference to attend in Oklahoma City today, so we got up at 6, left the house at 6:15, and dropped her off at 8. With Nina at Camp and Mari's conference ending at 4:30, the boys and I had a day to fill.

It wasn't hot yet, so we started the morning at J.R.'s mini-golf, where we were the only putters on the course. Instead of competing against each other, we took turns putting for three mythical golfers: Albert Einstein, Han Solo, and Skanda Gupta.

The course had seen better days, but our mythical golfers brought their "A" game.

Han Solo was one stroke out of first through nine holes, but he had an 11-stroke meltdown on the 10th hole that he couldn't claw his way back from (although he was only 5 strokes back after hole #14).

Einstein had a three-stroke lead over Skandagupta after hole #15, but Gupta was never ever to make get any closer, and Einstein climbed back into his time-travel vehicle with the victory.

After golf, the boys ate free breakfast bananas at the supermarket at the invitation of the Walton family, and we picked up tiny carrots that we smuggled in to the 10:25 a.m. screening of "Ocean's Eight" at the Warren. It was still relatively cool when we got out of the movie, so we went on a 1.5 mile walk around Earlywine Park before we headed to the bowling alley at Heyday Entertainment in Norman, where I was surprised to run into an ECU Honors student who is working there over the summer.

Next, we drove to OKC's Paseo district. After we parked, I ran into the director of Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park--who remembered me because I bring Honors students to see their shows every fall. I asked her for a pizza recommendation, and she gave me the Picasso Cafe, where the boys ordered a margarita pizza and I had a tasty, chicken-fried portabella mushroom with vegan gravy.

We finished our meal just in time to pick up Mari from a successful day of professional development.

Tuesday = success.

It's "I Miss Nina" Week

She and her Girl Scout pals have signed up for Wacky Wizard session at Camp Tallchief this week.

Day Last: From Las Vegas, New Mexico to Home

The last day of our trip was the hardest ride. The only diversion we allowed ourselves along the way a Dairy Queen pit stop and a lunch at Kabuki Romanza, a Japanaese teppanyaki-style grill in Amarillo, where a talented chef cooks your food in front of you and other dinner guests on a hot iron grill that everyone sits around (I noted the irony of eating here a day after we'd visited the Manhattan Project Museum in Los Alamos.)

We had learned about Kabuki Romanza from our Amarillo friends and had eaten her before. The kids remembered it fondly. They had fried rice and edamame.


After traveling more than 3700 miles, visiting three national parks, three museums, and Disneyland, spending one night in a tent and another in a tipi, enjoying the water in five hotel pools and one Pacific Ocean, reconnecting with lifetime friends, adding four new states to the kids' visit lists (which now stands at 20), eating Middle Eastern, Chinese, Italian, Cajun and Japanese dishes, bonfire 'smores and veggie hot dogs, home-made ice cream and Dairy Queen blizzards, lots of picnics and lots of big breakfasts, listening to a hundreds of years of world history in audiobook form, a compilation of classical music and the Hamilton soundtrack (repeatedly), and hiking through canyons and caverns, we got home before dark to find that our house was still standing.

And I went to the grocery store.