jennifer lynn kuhlmann merck

Final Day. Headed home. Overnight at the Hampton Inn in La Vista, Nebraska (just outside Omaha). We love Hamptons. This was the largest we’ve been at, almost a small apartment.

In case anyone is interested, I thought you might want to know a little bit about how I handled the blogging and trip management as we went. If you’re not interested, no worries.

I took a lot of pictures on this trip. Only a few of them appeared on the blog. I used my Canon PowerShot S3IS for all the pictures. It captures 6.0 mega-pixels of data and has a 12x optical zoom. I only needed to change batteries one time on the trip, though I came prepared with three sets of batteries for quick changes. My nature photography on this trip has made me interested in learning more about working with the manual functions on my camera, but ‘most every photo I took was on the “auto” setting.

I brought along our MacBook Pro and used the following applications as we went: Safari, Quicken Essentials, iPhoto, Snapfish, WordPress (in Safari & iPhone app), and Open Office.

Every night of the trip that I was able to, I performed several tasks:

• entered credit card receipts into Quicken, so as to avoid having a huge stack to enter when we got home;
• placed the credit card receipts together, in chronological order, in a business-size envelope I brought for that purpose;
• downloaded all photos from the day from the Canon’s SD card (using my trusty hot pink card reader) to iPhoto, creating an “event” for the day;
• uploaded this “event” to Snapfish;
• placed an order in the Snapfish Shopping Cart for prints of that day’s photos;
• started a blog post in Open Office about that day’s events;
• identified those photos from the day that I would likely use for that day’s blog post, and uploaded them from iPhoto to my WordPress account; and
• edited previous day’s posts, copying and scheduling them in WordPress for one per day when completed.

When we didn’t have internet access or good reception, completing a blog post might take a few days. By drafting in Open Office, however, I could work off-line in the car while Hal drove (thank you, Hal), as well as have a copy for myself off-line, in case anything went wrong with the WordPress post. One interesting experience I noted is that I needed at least a night, if not a day or two, to reflect upon that day’s experiences and figure out what I wanted to say about it. If I let it go for more than a day or two, though, I began to lose track of the salient points.

I’ve enjoyed blogging the trip. I hope you have enjoyed it as well. I don’t plan to blog our East Coast trip because it’s mostly to visit family, friends, and Harry Potter in Orlando. Our experiences and stories might find their way into blog posts, but they don’t need to be blogged as play-by-plays. Thanks for journeying with us on our adventure. If you’d like to see more of the photos, let me know; I’d love to show them to you. And if you’d like to hear more details about our trip, we’d love to tell you more.

As we head from Denver to Omaha, Nebraska for the night, I am reflecting on our trip. Here’s our “Best of” the Merck Western Adventure:

Best Quotes:

• Aidan, in our kitchen prior to departure, “Let’s get going. We’re burnin’ daylight here, people.”
• Aidan (emphatically), in the midst of a tough hike in the Badlands, “This hike is stenuous!”
• Aidan (very seriously), reaching for a Junior Ranger Badge that Austin was holding, “Put that down, Austin. You are not a Junior Ranger. You are not allowed to wear that.”
• Aidan, in the middle of a hike, “I did not sign up for this.”
• Haley (walking through downtown Denver), “Why are we going on this walk?” Hal (sarcastically), “To torture you.” Haley (seriously and emphatically), “I knew it!”
• Hal (directing toward scenic views), “Pretty on your left. Pretty on your left.”

Best Lodging:

Zion Mountain Ranch (Orderville, UT: Zion National Park) hands down for cabins with exactly what we needed & for extra-fun amenities such as buffalo, horses, and a dog for fetching

Rio Grande Southern Hotel (Dolores, CO: Mesa Verde National Park) for comfortable, private rooms, a great price, a wonderful breakfast, and an adorable puppy

Roosevelt Inn & Suites (Keystone, SD: Mount Rushmore & Custer State Park) for a loft for the kids, meaning a bit of space to spread out

1225 Pennsylania (Denver, CO: David’s house) for historic significance, brotherly hospitality and thoughtful and historically authentic construction

Mather Campground (Grand Canyon National Park) for best (first?) camping experience, and for the company of family

Best Eating:

The Lodge at Bryce Canyon (Utah), with Tim from Washington State, for excellent sustainable food, attentive service, entertainment and stories by Tim

The State Game Lodge at Custer State Park (South Dakota) for amazing food and perfectly attentive service, as well as a lovely place for dinner as a family in a historically significant setting

The Buffalo Grill at Zion Mountain Ranch (Utah) for breakfast, for delicious food, attentive waitresses, a thoughtful chef, a gorgeous view, and Dakota (the Chocolate Lab)

Cafe Soleil (Springdale, Utah) near Zion National Park for lunch, for Mountain Huckleberry Soda (heaven in a bottle), delicious wraps & sandwiches and ice cream bars

Best Medical Care (ok, only medical care):

Zion Medical Clinic (Springdale, Utah) for thoughtful, prompt medical care with a smile, several good jokes, and excellent communication

Best National Park Experiences:

The Badlands, for its “stenuous hike”

Custer State Park (had to include this, though its a State Park), for the Wildlife Loop Road . . . amazing

Yellowstone, because you just don’t find geysers and hot springs like that anywhere

Grand Teton, for the most impressive view, the Jenny Lake Boat ride, and for mountain swimming at String Lake

Zion, for its shuttle bus, gorgeous canyon views, waterfalls, rattlesnakes, and columbine

Mesa Verde, for the Social Studies lessons turned on their head, most adventurous tour, best activities specifically designed for kids, and the best Park Ranger, Ali

Thoughts:

As I reflect upon this adventure we’ve been on for the past three weeks, I am struck by something we probably didn’t need to leave home to find out. At each of his children’s weddings, my Uncle Ted has mentioned a value that is near and dear to him, “The best things in life aren’t things.” As we’ve traveled all these miles together, it seems that the most memorable moments are the ones impacted by thoughtful planning (ours or someone else’s), personal connection and/or a generous Creator.

The views have been amazing. We will not forget them for many years. I have often wondered at the variety of these breathtaking sights. Why would God make red rock walls and grand snow-topped mountains and deep pink canyons and green-topped mesas and bubbling mud and bursting geysers? I understand some of the science behind it all, but why? Why the variety? Why the colors? This may be simple, but it seems that He must have made all of these because it brings Him pleasure and He knew it would bring us pleasure as well. The world did not need to be a beautiful place for it to function. But with God planning it, I think it must be inherently beautiful. We have certainly enjoyed it on this adventure.

Thoughtful planning has been evident in so many circumstances on this trip. From the touches of home that show up in certain hotels to the organization of lines and shuttle bus schedules to the information presented in the summer newspapers to the excellent maps to the trails to the suggestions we have found for doing National Parks with kids. Without the thoughtful planning of our family, the National Park Service, and many others who have visited before us, we would not have had the trip we did. Thank you to each one who contributed to how smoothly things went for us.

At meals, at hotels, and at the Parks, it has been clear that personal connection is what gives life its flavor. Beyond our own family (the Mercks, as well as Dave, Rebecca, Gray, David, Brian and Amy, all of whom we enjoyed), some of our favorite people, who made our adventure memorable:

• the desk clerk at Old Faithful Lodge who told us about swimming in the hot springs and the weather they’d been having lately;
• Ryan and the Castagno boys, on the Grand Teton Covered Wagon Cookout;
• Don & Shirley, our hosts for the Cookout;
• Tim from Washington State, our waiter at the Lodge at Bryce Canyon;
• Michael McMahan, the Physician’s Assistant at Zion Medical Clinic;
• Ranger Ali at the Morefield Ranger Station at Mesa Verde National Park;
• Kylie, our waitress at J. Fargo’s Microbrewery in Cortez, Colorado; and
• Sheila & Don (and Winnie) at the Rio Grande Southern Hotel in Dolores, Colorado.

This adventure has been brought to us courtesy of Hal Burns Merck and the good people at McDonald’s.

My brother, David, lives in a turn-of-the-century house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver. The house was built in 1906, and became a historical landmark in 1991 based upon several factors:

• The house’s architects, Marean & Norton, are some of Denver’s most reknowned architectural firms. Albert Julius “Steady” Norton and Willis Adams Marean designed some of the great landmarks in Denver during the first several decades of the 20^th century. Their most well-known structures include the Colorado Governor’s Mansion, the YMCA at Lincoln & East 16^th, the Shirley Savoy Hotel, and the Neoclassical Greek Theatre in the Civic Center, along with a number of residences in Denver.

• The original owners of the home were William F. Robinson and Mary Byers Robinson. Mary was the daughter of William N. Byers, founder of the Rocky Mountain News. The Rocky Mountain News published its first issue in 1859 and its last in 2009, one of the dailies to close its doors in the past few years. Business Insider called 2009 “The Year the Newspaper Died.” In the 19^th and most of the 20^th century, though, the news business was big business. The founder’s daughter married a man she met at the paper, W.F. Robinson, and they eventually built a house on Pennsylvania Street in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

• The house has beautiful, historic features that the current owner is in the midst of restoring.

When the current owner, Paul Sjoberg, bought the house in the 1980s, it had been sub-divided into 7 apartments. Paul is in the midst of restoring the house, beginning with re-joining some of the spaces. The house now holds two apartments and the rest of the house. David rents a basement room from Paul, who happened to be in Europe when we were coming through town. We want to give a big thank you to Paul for the privilege of staying in this beautiful, historic house. We hope to meet you some day, and thoroughly enjoyed your home.

We walked to Panera for breakfast and took a quick walking tour of downtown Denver: the Civic Center, the Capitol Building, the first Quizno’s in the nation . . . the important stuff. David lives in a beautiful neighborhood and Denver is a beautiful city: large enough to be convenient and definitely a big city, but small enough to be clean and to have historical residences close to downtown. Look at these fun bikes that you can rent on-the-spot at several locations in the neighborhood. It may also be interesting to note that the Molly Brown House, the home of the “Unsinkable Molly Brown,” is just a block up the street from David’s house.

Here’s a fun thing I found. It’s a Walking Tour Map for the neighborhood surrounding the Molly Brown House. It includes several important sites in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that are worth stopping by. #6, the Robinson House, is my brother’s house. Amusing!

After our walking tour, we got in the car to drive down to Colorado Springs. We did a quick drive-through at Glen Eyrie, the headquarters of the Navigators. My Uncle Rob & Aunt Connie and Uncle John Ed & Aunt Nancy have been on staff with the Navigators for many years, and we have supported Nav staff over the years, so it was fun to see these beautiful headquarters. The capstone is the Castle, built by William Jackson Palmer in the late 1800s.

We headed to Old Colorado City, the historic district, for lunch, and enjoyed a bit of French cuisine at La Baguette. Old Colorado City has lots of little shops and lunch spots. Stop by. It’s fun. We had ice cream after lunch at the Colorado City Creamery, a must-do if you’re in town.

After lunch, we headed to the Garden of the Gods, red rock formations in a park setting. We had fun walking around, though we may be “park-ed out.” It’s likely a good thing that we’re headed home soon. After a walk through the Garden, we headed back to Denver to have a barbecue at David’s with my cousin Brian and his wife, Amy, who also live in Denver. We had a wonderful evening reconnecting with them, hearing about Brian’s work for Vail Resorts, Amy’s work for the Denver Green School (really cool), and Amy’s upcoming spring-distance triathlon.

David, thank you again for a wonderful stay at your house. It was a great way to close out this adventure. And thank you to Brian and Amy for making time to get together with us. We miss you in the Chicago area, but totally get why you stay out here!