o0

The title of this post if very cryptic.

It comes from a riddle I found as a kid.

So far, I'm the only person in this world who has found it clever enough to enjoy.

... other than the person who wrote the riddle I suppose.

 

So here we go again.

This is what the car looks like when we start a trip.

By the time we get there Mitchell has applied war paint,

and Parker can't find his pants...

(high five if you know this movie reference)

 

The first leg of our trip brought us to the High Trestle Trail and Bridge...

You never know what you're gunna to see in these here parts...

A jolly good constitutional.

This was our attempt to do a timed photo... 

I guess we'll just stick to selfies from now on.

The highlight of the hike/trail is definitely the High Trestle Bridge!

Funny story:

At home we have Bing Desktop.

The wallpaper of our desktop changes everyday,

and about 5 days before our trip

the wallpaper was this exact picture.

Well, more like this...

 

But, we said, "That's cool."

and when we looked up where it was

we were like, 

"Des Moines!"

"We are passing right through there!"

Being out on the bridge was so rewarding,

because a cool breeze came right off the Des Moines river.

And, it was kind of a hot muggy day.

Cora liked the whole hike,

BEING CARRIED!! =)

It wouldn't be a Richard Blogpost without a few panoramas.

Hopefully, you can click on them and enjoy:

What! TWO PARKERS!!?

When we got to Ohio

-- hint back to the title of this blog post --

we were able to enjoy a 

Dave and Busters.

They also had this huge mall

with outdoor giant games to play.

We meet up with my co-worker Ashley

who was on the same trip as me,

who was coincidetally named after the same Ashley

as my Ashley,

who was on some soap opera back in the early 80's.

This is kind of what Columbus looked like.

Very quaint, but full of college students that totally disregard personal hygiene.

Here is the headquarters of my employer,

Battelle.

I was in Ohio for what I'm calling,

"church for work."

The training was supposed to help you talk nicely to others,

 and treat others with respect.

Hmmm, if only people would go to church

maybe they wouldn't have to invent new ways to teach people how to...

talk nicely to each other,

and treat others with respect.

I was thrown into weird situations that you will see at work,

and people would observe how you reacted.

Speaking of being in weird situations...
That is a giant lego Giraffe.

After Ohio,

we went to see Ashley's brother, Nick.

They live in Detroit.

"Hey guys I'm trying to take a picture!"

That's better.

We went to the Lego playland.

We also went to Greenfield Village...

but we forgot our phones so no pictures!

Imagine a small quaint village of old time-y houses.

Henry Ford was so rich he would say to his workers,

"You know what I want?

I want the home that the Wright brothers were born in"

So his workers would go to Dayton, Ohio

and pick up the home the Wright brothers were born in

and bring it to Detroit.

He did this with several other houses.

To the point it became a little village.

I see what you did there Mr. Millionaire.

I guess we got that Henry Ford bug in us,

because on the way home we collected a few houses of our own...

Can you guess what house this is!?

Yep, the silver tun'a!

"We know that you're in there,

and that you're aaallll alone." 

We also stopped at the house my dad grew up in.

In Houston, Minnesota.

He was orphaned at 14,

and lived all by himself in this house

for about 5 years.

This lady was walking by,

and I said, "Excuse me, do you happen to know any Skiftons?"

she replied, "oh yes everyone one in this town knows that name."

We talked for about 15 minutes about all the Skiftons she knew.

We also Ebenezer Scrooged it and went to see my gravestone.

Ok, it's not actually my gravestone,

but I was named after this guy.

It is my dad's brother.

He only lived for a few hours before he unfortunately passed away.

It wasn't until 13 years later!! that my dad was born in 1947.

Rumor has it my grandma fell down a flight of stairs,

and got pregnant shortly after.

Well... that's not what got her pregnant,

but apparently it jogged her plumbing so she could.

This was the Skifton store that was ran by my Grandpa Lloyd.

It was like an army surplus store.

Now it's an owl something...

Recognize anyone?

From left to right:

Mitchell Washington,

Parker Jackson,

Britta Roosevelt,

and Colette Lincoln.

The best part of Mt. Rushmore was the people reverencing it.

You had all walks of life standing and staring.

or not!

The last major stop of the trip was Jewel Cave.

The 3rd largest cave in the known world.

This was the entrance after you descended for 30 seconds on an elevator.

This is apparently what Mitchell saw

when descending the flight of stairs into the cave,

because he would hold on to either me or the handrails for dear life.

This is called 'cave bacon'

...rightly so.

Despite this picture,

Britta really is having a great time.

Here are two pictures that sum up how our trip went:

Cora on vacation!

Cora not on vacation!

You do the math.

Answer key: in case you didn't get the riddle at the title of this post the answer is Ohio, or o0.

TTFN.