Hi all! We've had a busy and exciting weekend in Chicagoland area. Friday, we arrived in lovely Elk Grove Village, Illinois, to visit my Aunt Caryl and Uncle Paul. Their good friend Marilyn was kind enough to let us park the beast in her driveway (thanks, Marilyn!), so we actually got to sleep in a stationary bed and take a shower that didn't smell like hose water. What a treat!

Even better though was the mega-whirlwind tour of Chicago we had -- I'm telling you, if you need to see Chicago in 8 hours or less, call my Aunt Caryl and Uncle Paul (see picture below, if you need to find them in a crowd.) They work cheap. ;)

I kid you not, over the course of the day we:

1. Saw Harpo Studios where they film the Oprah and her many derivatives

2. Ate breakfast at a trendy cafe

3. Took a boat tour of the city

4. Walked down Navy Pier

5. Saw Wrigley Field

6. Drove through Northwestern University

7. Saw a real live herd of elk (no, I'm not kidding)

... and that was literally before dinner. Man, we rocked the tourist scene.

Did I also mention we got to play with a giant bubble maker ...

... and, ironically, in keeping with the theme of oversized fiberglass tourist objects, we just happened to eat dinner at a place that had this hilarious giant barbeque grill outside. If there had been a giant T.Rex with a chef's hat next to it, we may have had to stop the trip right there and come home. There would be no reason to keep driving.

Tonight, we are in Twin Lakes, WI, visting my Aunt Shirley and Uncle Dennis. They actually allowed us to bring down their property values exponentially by letting us park the RV in thier yard, and, in exchange, we have agreed to eat all thier food and maybe use their washing machine. My cousin Dennis is the one with all the boy twins (2 sets, ages 3 and 9) that you see in the pic below. I decided that it's just pure dumb coincidence that my Aunt Shirley and I are short, brown-haired, and brown-eyed, because clearly the rest of my family members are giant Scandinavians.

More to come as we hit the road to Niagara Falls on Tuesday!

More from Dinosaur World

Hi guys --

Here are a few more pics from Dinosaur world for you -- along with one of Roxie meeting her very first horsey at the RV park we stayed at outside Indianapolis.

Travellers on I-65 got to enjoy both the dinosaur and my flabby-post baby belly bulge.

RUN for your LIVES! We will be trampled by these extremely life-like mammoths!!

Rixie cavorts with the stegasauruses

"You said these things are herbivores, right? I dunno. Seems like a lotta teeth."

Dinosaur World

So no driving trip is ever complete without an impulse stop at a tacky tourist attraction, and what should the RV gods drop into our lap today, but a 30-foot high fiberglass Tyrannosaurus Rex perched by a billboard on the side of the highway guiding our way to Dinosaur World.

I feel confident telling you that Dinosaur World delivered on all fronts in the tacky tourist attraction category: it consisted of a gift shop and “over 100, life-sized” fiberglass dinosaurs that some dude made in his barn and placed strategically in the Kentucky woods. Some perched next to pine trees; some dangled from steel cords that the proprietors made no attempts to hide; some were so “lifelike” that the “prehistoric nature” they were immersed in included spider webs and bird poop. But no matter, for $13.50 each, we enjoyed being transported back in time and had to catch our breaths when the dynamic finale to our prehistoric experience turned out to be – wait for it -- a path that took you to the actual dinosaur and billboard that you could see from the side of the road. It was absolutely everything I hoped it would be, and we had a blast.


SPOILER ALERT: For those planning a vacation to Dinosaur World in the near future, please do not read on.



Due to the large crowds, parking was a concern at Dinosaur World.





Remember, kids: smoking is dangerous. Please stub out your cigarettes directly into the gaping mouths of our young.

Love, the dinosaurs.

A typical entry into the Dinosaur World menagerie

DJ tames a wild one

Tomorrow we will be invading my Aunt Caryl and Uncle Paul in Chicago, so I'll be sure to send pictures of Roxanne eating her very first Italian Beef sandwich. Yum!

Bowling Green/ Be Sure You Know How to Use Your “Comode”

Successful Acquisition:
So on Monday, we showed up at our local RV rental joint promptly at 1:00 p.m. to acquire the beast. We weren’t sure what to expect as far as RV training goes, but surprisingly enough you need little to no training nor a special driver’s license to drive an RV – a fact that makes me more frightened than ever to ride next to them on major highways. Before we could get the keys, we learned the ropes of the electrical, sewer, and water systems by watching a low-budget video hosted by a dude that talked like Johnny Cash (“You see, this here’s the e-lectric system – and if you get yourself an a-dapter kit, you can …”). After learning that grey water means sink water and black water is what comes out of the “comode” (spelled as such throughout the video), we hopped in the 33 foot Mirada with our names on it and were on our merry way.

Our plan WAS to leave Tuesday morning -- however, due to the crazy day we had and the sedative effect of the training video, we decided that was not really going to happen, so we opted to call Tuesday a packing day and sleep in our own bed one more night. We crammed our crap in over the course of the day Tuesday, and bright and early this morning, we saddled up for the first ride. (note the look of concern on Roxie's face as she gazes at the 18 wheelers

flying by just to our right)

The good news is, we successfully navigated all the way to Bowling Green, KY, safely out of the way of the gas supply shortage, and set up the beast in a lovely KOA campground just off the highway. Johnny’s little RV video turned out to be surprisingly helpful, and after about 20 minutes of fumbling and a little black water leakage as DJ fought with the sewage hose, we had power, water, and a functional toilet. After another 20 minutes of fumbling, DJ successfully hooked up the television, and we are now able to enjoy all 23 channels of basic cable, including two channels of CMT.

In fact, we were feeling so confident in our Rving abilities, that after taking in the sights at the RV park -- which included the mini-golf course, a dog run, and an inexplicable fenced off area that was decorated to look like a tiny farm, complete with ceramic pigs and roosters -- I made sloppy joes for dinner. This required lighting the stove, a live flame that’s fed from a tank filled with several gallons of highly flammable compressed propane (LP, in Rving terms), so I am very proud that we lived to tell the tale. Anyhow, so far, so good, as they say, and DJ and I are looking forward to drifting off the hum of the cars off the highway and prepping for day 2. Indianapolis, here we come!

Twas the night before pick up ...

"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money."
~Susan Heller

As many of you know, dear friends and family, the Dobbses are about to embark on a little adventure. We have rented --for one FULL MONTH -- a 33-foot, class A recreational vehicle and are preparing as we speak to load up many of our worldly possessions, as well as our 10-month-old daughter Roxanne, and drive this vehicle through the vast wilderness we call America. Intended ports of call include Chicago; Twin Lakes, Wisconsin; Niagara Falls; Boston; Maine; New Jersey; Virginia Beach, and various other stops on a round trip from Atlanta; however, stop number one on the tour occurs tomorrow, when we pick up the beast and attempt to guide it safely to our driveway to load it full of crap.


To give you a small idea of just how much crap we will be taking, I'd like to call your attention to this photograph.
This is a glimpse of our dining room table, which holds ONLY the stuff we will be taking for Roxanne. Given that Roxanne's clothing is sized for someone 24 inches tall, you can extrapolate the sheer volume that this represents. I am not sure we will have room for much else, except for the burlap sacks marked with dollar signs that we've prepared to hand over at each gas station.


But, we are starting to get excited, and we all have our fingers crossed that DJ's impeccable driving skills and my quick skim of the multiple-page direction manual will soon have us on our way to steering 25,000 pounds of steel, glass, and canned goods in the direction of some old-fashioned fun.

Tomorrow, we ride!