wisdom from an 8 year old

Our oldest grandson, Christopher, celebrated his eighth birthday earlier this month and it was our privilege to help him celebrate in person this year. I absolutely love that childhood birthdays are looked forward to, a time of anticipation and great delight. Somewhere along the road of life, we lose that exuberance for being a bit older, for blowing out one more candle on the cake and proudly telling anyone who asks how old we are. But at age eight, birthdays are FUN!!

Instead of a party with his friends, Christopher wanted to see Smurfs in 3-D with his family.

(With six people in their family, going to a movie theater is a very special treat!)

When I went in Christopher and Ben's room to get them up on the morning of his birthday, I discovered Christopher dressed in a button-down shirt, tie, jeans and wearing his good shoes. Normally I find him in his boxers (what he sleeps in) and have to convince him to get dressed if we're not going somewhere. He told me he got dressed before he went to sleep the night before so he would be dressed up for his WHOLE birthday. Yep... he slept in his clothes... but NOT his shoes, he assured me! When was the last time you wanted to celebrate your WHOLE birthday, to not miss even a minute of it?!?!

He may be a year older but he still likes to make silly faces!

Christopher has lots of friends at school and in their neighborhood.  Some are girls (but he's only had two girlfriends!) and some are boys. He told me the most important thing he's learned about friendship is that "you never cheat on your friends. If you promise you'll give them something, you don't trick them." Wouldn't the world be a much better place if grown-ups understood that concept and lived by it? I wonder if all children know this but somewhere in the journey to adulthood our selfish desires convince us it's a childish notion.

**Notice the "11 ft" marker!**

Christopher (and brothers and sister) took swimming lessons this summer. Some children are risk-takers or dare-devils... Christopher is not one of them. He's naturally cautious and jumping into a pool of water deeper than he is tall was not his idea of fun. In fact, it terrified him. After the first session of lessons, try as he might, he just couldn't jump into the deep end of the pool and his dad had to toss him in. The last day of the second session was right before his birthday and we were there to watch. It took him a few moments to get enough courage to jump, but finally, with a smile on his face he jumped off the diving board into eleven feet of  water... not just once, but several times! He told me afterwards that "the secret is to keep doing what you're afraid of because it gets less scary." Hmmm... more wisdom we "forget" as we "mature?"

Christopher... a young man with BIG dreams!

One of my favorite things to ask kids is what they want to be when they grow up. Christopher told me he wanted to be an artist- a much more realistic goal than his three year-old sister's... to be a kangaroo! His answer was not surprising to me since art is his passion (his mom sometimes takes away his art supplies as punishment!). But when I rephrased my query asking  what he was looking forward to doing when he was a grown up, I realized he had spent some time thinking and dreaming about this; it's not just the "career of the week" answer. He wants to "open a restaurant named 'Christopher's Place' and do all the artwork inside." Will he do this? I don't know. But I certainly think it's within the realm of possibility. LeAnn Rimes decided at age eight, after seeing Reba McEntire's show, that she wanted to be a performer. Herb Alpert, at age eight,  began practicing every day to be a musician and performer. And Academy Award nominee Frank Langella did his first piece of acting at age eight.

What I do know is that children are often wiser than we give them credit for.

gettin' our kicks on route 66

U.S. Route 66... aka the Will Rogers Highway.... aka "Main Street of America"... aka "the Mother Road"... was one of the original U.S. highways and was established in November, 1926. The original route meandered across the country from Chicago down to St. Louis and across to Los Angeles covering a total of 2,448 miles. Towns grew up and prospered along the route. It became the inspiration for songs, stories and a tv show. I remember family road trips as a child driving along Route 66 . We played Auto Bingo (the kind with the red windows you shut when you found an item) looking for a gas pump or a tow truck. We stopped at diners for meals and mom and pop gas stations to "fill 'er up!" and get a soda. A "full day" was traveling 350-400 miles.

And then, in 1985, U.S. Route 66 was removed from the U.S. Highway system when it was deemed "no longer relevant" after being replaced by the Insterstate Highway System. Booming towns became ghost towns almost over night. People were more interested in getting to their destination fast. Then a few baby boomers who remembered the nostalgia of traveling the Mother Road fought to preserve it and portions are now designated a "National Scenic Byway."

Our MR KLUD group decided to make a short Route 66 road trip after Mike read about three eating establishments on Route 66 in Phoenix Magazine (we did #4). We met in Flagstaff on a Friday night so we could be ready to start our road trip early Saturday morning.

Richard, Doug & Mike

Our first stop was breakfast in Flagstaff at the Galaxy Diner, a 50's-style diner with walls covered with pictures of old movie stars. They also have a great assortment of historic Route 66 memorabilia that was fun to look at. For just $6.49 I got a galaxy-sized breakfast of two giant flapjacks, two scrambled eggs and bacon- more than I could finish.

Our next stop, for lunch, was about 40 minutes away in Williams, Arizona and we were stuffed from breakfast. We stopped at Bearizona, a drive-through wildlife park along with a more traditional zoo and petting zoo, to see the wildlife and walk off our breakfast.

Seeing such huge bears up in the trees made us wonder how many times we have walked past bears up in trees as we hiked in the forest! Although they all look like cuddly teddy bears, they are wild and dangerous!

We saw a variety of wildlife but my favorites, besides the bears, were the lynx and raccoons because they look so friendly (they aren't!) and the white bison because they are so big and unusual looking. 

There were LOTS of wildflowers blooming all around the high country- beautiful!

The bird show, featuring several raptors, was impressive. They flew just above the crowd making more than one person duck!

MR KLUD with our new friend

Traveling on highways like Route 66, with its slower pace, allows you to really see the country-side as you drive through small towns or follow the railroads. While at first it seemed like we were crawling along, I soon began to appreciate the ride and not zipping by the scenery at 80+ mph with everything within a half mile of the road a blur. We spied small ponds, cattle, lots of flowers, farms with colorful barns and "interesting" roadside decor along the way. 

We passed dozens of colorful double-decker trains. I tried to count the cars- a favorite game from my childhood- but always lost count. I guess some things don't change!

Our lunch stop was Twisters Soda Fountain where the chili dogs and fried zucchini sticks are must eats! I thought their color scheme of "Barbie pink" and bright red was a bit different, but the food was good and it was a fun place to walk around. 

After lunch, we continued our trek along Route 66 headed to Kingman. One of the great things about the Mother Road is all the interesting and odd things you can see along the way. Our next stop was Grand Canyon Caverns...

... where a very, very cheesy dinosaur greets you!

The natural limestone caverns are 200-300 feet below the the surface and were discovered in 1927 when Walter Peck stumbled into them. Thinking he had found a gold mine, he purchased all the land around the caverns but when that didn't "pan" out, he began selling tours. The rest, as they say, is history.

The caverns are a geological treasure and quite beautiful. The tour begins with an elevator ride down about 20 stories where the walking portion of the tour begins. Parts have a steep incline and there are a few stairs. The best part? The COOL temperature!

Besides being a natural wonder and pretty to look at, the caverns also doubled as a bomb shelter in the 1960's when President Kennedy ordered enough food, water and medical supplies to last two weeks for 2000 people loaded into the bottom. I bet those 50-year-old crackers and drums of water taste great now!

And, for the super adventurous, there is a hotel suite (minus the walls) inside the caverns that accommodates up to six people. Water is hand carried down (up to 100 gallons) and an attendant is stationed at the top of the elevator should you need assistance. For just $700 (double occupancy- $100 each additional person up to six) per night, some consider it a bargain for a night in the oldest, quietest, deepest, darkest motel room on the planet. We, however, decided to pass! And headed on to Kingman for dinner.

Laurie, Kristin and Ursi

Mr. D'z Route 66 Diner was the dinner destination for delectable root beer floats (made with homemade root beer!) and cheeseburgers. Once again, while the color scheme was a little different, the restaurant was clean and the food was good and at a good price. In fact, while none of the diners served "out of this world" food, it was all good and I would definitely go back.

It had rained on and off all day. As we were leaving Kingman heading back to the Valley, we were treated to a glorious rainbow touching the ground at both ends and going through the dark rain clouds in the middle. It was one of the most vibrant rainbows I've ever seen; we enjoyed its beauty for about 45 minutes.

At one point we could see both the rain coming down in the distance and the rainbow! It was actually a DOUBLE rainbow- look closely! What a treat!!