A FEW GEMS

Okay, so maybe I've got more than a few to share. To qualify this, when traveling we usually go to the same states/cities, so my recommendations may be limited in scope, but not in quality.

Punch Pizza Punch has multiple locations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota and is our favorite pizza hands down. They belong to some organization that is for the preservation of true Neapolitan style pizza and Meryl Streep once declared Punch was "the best pizza I ever ate". They have a wonderful light and chewy crust topped with crushed tomatoes, olive oil, fresh mozzarella, and what ever else you like, all at a surprisingly affordable price. I've tried other Neapolitan pizzas including the one made famous by Oprah, Bianca Pizza in Phoenix, but Punch really is the best. Be warned, however, after eating enough Punch our five year old twin girls turn their noses at pizza like Domino's and Pizza Hut.

The Pizza Place A close second for pizza in my book is in Lusk, Wyoming. The Pizza Place is owned by a fellow off road enthusiast and we make it a point to hit this place any time we are somewhere remotely near. The pizza is really amazing, my only complaint is that they do not offer artichoke hearts as a topping. They have a great crust that gets perfectly crispy and is a little thin with a nice chewy edge, and their sauce, sausage (house made), and other toppings are really well done. But don't go here just for pizza. The great thing about The Pizza Place is that their menu could stand alone without the pizza, the stromboli sandwich, for example, is to die for. They even brew their own sun tea in more than one variety for those of you who drink iced tea while dining out.

Dakota Soda Company No food service patties or fries here, Dakota Soda Company makes their own burgers and fries from scratch. Much like In and Out Burger, walk in and you'll see the whole potatoes sitting there waiting to be cut, and you can watch the soda jerks form the burger patties themselves. We ordered the sweet potato fries and expected the food service ones that are available at just about every restaurant now (not that this a bad thing), but what we got were hand cut fresh sweet potatoes fried up and served in such a huge pile that it only fit in a paper to-go bag. When you're done with your most excellent burger and fries, really delicious, made on-site, frozen custard is up next. Much like Culver's, DSC offers special flavors daily, but you can't go wrong with one of their orange sodas any day of the week. Wednesdays are open mic night, and just outside is a small open square with interactive fountains that on hot days you'll see children playing in.

The Shops at Main Street Square I would never have thought I'd be writing about an entire block, but once you're into it for Dakota Soda Company, you have to check out all of it. Without even having to go outside, after your burger and fries you can enjoy a fabulous bookstore, a wicked cool toy store, and a top notch travel store. Who's Toy House is one of those hard to find toy shops that doesn't carry all those cheap plastic licensed throw-away toys. Who's carries toys that you will want your children to hand down to their children. If you are traveling with youngsters and feel they might be getting a little restless, a new toy or activity book could be just thing to make the remainder of your driving a little easier. Also, if traveling or camping and you forgot something, then Roam'n Around is a must. It is a great outdoorsy travel store that has everything from DeLorme Gazatteer map books to Jetoils, apparel to rock climbing gear, and everything in between. For those of you who read, then Mitzi's Books is another must. They have a wonderful and inviting children's section with excellent titles, and their selection of adult fiction is fabulous. We were able to find the next Janet Evanovich book I needed to keep form going through withdrawal, and my husband found the next Craig Johnson book he was looking for as well as some Randy Wayne White and Lee Childs, all titles that Books A Million did not have in stock. There are more shops than just these three at Main Street Square, and I am sure given the caliber of these three the remaining shops I did not mention are just as excellent for their genre. It simply boils down to The Shops at Main Street Square being a genuine destination.

Mason's High Country BBQ is located in Fairplay, CO and is owned by a fellow off road enthusiast. Their home made sausage is absolutely amazing, and who knew I'd like eating cooked greens, but holy cow it was yummy. Their ribs were delicious and their sides (such as slaw, corn, potato salad, and baked beans) were also excellent. Beware, their brisket and pulled pork are so good they often sell out early. If you love BBQ and are in the area, Mason's is a real oasis.

Check back form time to time for more listings of great places to go while out and about.

My experience with chronic dry eye

In fall of 1998 I was at a conference and my right eye kept watering. I called my family physician to make an appointment fearing conjunctivitis. My doctor felt certain it was pink eye and so prescribed sodium sulfacet. This seemed to do the trick. Over the next ten years I had sporadic similar episodes and used left over eye drops and it seemed to go away every time.

By 2008 my right eye would water for days at a time and then be fine for weeks. That spring I was seeing a retinal specialist and was diagnosed with Basal Laminar Drusen (which was quite worse in my right eye). I asked if my eye could be watering as a response to the drusen. The doctor said no and explained to me that it was most likely chronic dry eye. He said that it may seem counterintuitive, but when the eye does not generate enough of any of the three substances that usually keep the eye moist, the tear ducts will go into over-drive to try to fill the void. He gave me a referral to a tear specialist that I never followed up on.

By January of 2010 I felt I was really suffering and I was about to travel to Arizona for a fifteen day convention. I panicked and called an eye doctor and made an appointment. She diagnosed me as having chronic dry eye and prescribed Restasis warning me that it takes a minimum of six weeks to see results and that not everyone sees results. She also recommended I start taking fish oil. She said it was unusual to have it more in one eye, and also informed me that the dryness of winter often made dry eye worse. I started my drops, went on my trip, waited the six weeks, and no relief. I gave up on the Restasis. By the time April rolled around my eye was back to being tolerable, most likely because of the increase in humidity due to the change in seasons. My husband started taking fish oil after his annual physical so I started taking it with him in hopes it would improve my dry eye. I saw no improvement.

Fall set in and my eye started to get worse as the air started to dry out. At my physical I asked my family doctor about it and she said try taking more fish oil and give it at least two weeks to see if the increase in fish oil helped. We had been taking a fish oil that had 600 mg of omegas, so I started taking two putting me at 1200 mg. I waited the two weeks and saw no improvement so went back to just one gel cap. Winter set in and my eye got worse and worse, watering all the time with no break. The corner of my eye was red and raw and hurting from dabbing away tears. I even was having trouble driving, my eye would be blurry with tears and I would constantly have my hand in front my face dabbing at the tears. I could feel my eye lids stuck to my eye balls at night, and in the mornings I would wake with mucous sealing my eyes shut.

By January I was getting desperate and suffering every minute of every day and worried about my annual upcoming trade show in Arizona. I was about ready to call the tear specialist when the lady who manages the natural foods department at my local Cashwise grocery store told me that for omegas to have an anti-inflamitory effect one had to take a minimum of 1200 mg but most likely more than that. I also had a friend going through chemotherapy who had her blood tested for deficiencies and she was told by her doctor that she needed to be taking 1800 mg of omegas. So, I decided to try a higher fish oil dose again, only this time I went to three gel caps a day for a total of 1800 mg of omegas.

Within a mere four days my dry eye symptoms were completely gone. I was amazed and so thankful. To this day I still take 1800 mgs of omegas and am still free from dry eye symptoms. I am not saying that this will work for everyone, but it worked for me. I wanted to share my story in hopes that it might help even just one more dry eye sufferer as it is an easy and inexpensive remedy to try. Best of luck!

On Curses, and the Electrical Conductivity of Bentonite

I am not a person of faith, nor am I a person of superstition. That being said, an hour before leaving for a 10 day vehicle dependent expedition I found this antique gate hinge pin embedded in the tread of my mud terrains. I offhandedly commented to a friend that it was a "bad omen".

Taking the wheel off and dragging it into Walmart for repair cost us two hours that evening, but the trip seemed to have gotten off to a fine start none the less. Unfortunately it was all down hill from there, and I did start feeling like the trip was cursed, like my "bad omen" comment was a self fulfilling prophecy.

Once in the Badlands of South Dakota we decided to take a road we had been down many times before. This road has several small creek crossings and takes you through some badlands terrain up close. The scenery is outstanding and at one spot along the road the butterfly and dragonfly watching is amazing. We came to the last creek crossing and, unlike every other time before, we didn't make it.

We tried all sorts of maneuverings as well winching to fence posts till the winch died. After two hours of struggling and starting to think it was finally time to really begin worrying, we were most embarrassingly though gratefully pulled out by a Ford F150 that happened upon us on his way to shooting prairie dogs. Once out I managed to stall the truck thus discovering the hard way that the starter was no longer working. So, the F150 pull started us (one added benefit to having a manual transmission). We thought all would be well again once things dried out. This was not be the case.

We hit the interstate and made it a total of 18 miles before the truck died. We watched in horror as systems started to fail, one by one starting with the air conditioning, as the battery lost its charge. The alternator was gone. We got a tow into Rapid City, dropped the truck off at the dealer, and got an air conditioned hotel room on a 108 degree night. It took two days for the dealer to find and install a replacement starter and we ended up sourcing the alternator ourselves to speed up the effort. When we finally got our truck back and drove into town to find a car wash more systems began to show their disdain for having been submerged in water and bentonite. The airbag light was on, the recirc for the air turned on and off on its own, the truck would sputter every once in a while and seemed to be lacking acceleration, and the speedometer needle was bouncing around a lot meaning that the cruise control was also not functioning.

We limped our way to our final destination in Colorado. Here, in the comfort of the Arlberg Club in Winter Park, my brother, an electrician, educated me on the finer points of bentonite and how the electrical conductivity of the minerals in bentonite would cause short circuits even when dry. Great. And to think I thought bentonite was only good for clearing out your pores. By the time we left Colorado we had lost the speedometer all together though the recirc problem disappeared as did the sputtering. And maybe we just got used to it or maybe it improved, but the acceleration was no longer an issue.

We get through most of Wyoming and decide we will not make Devil's Tower in time to camp so we find a nice piece of BLM land along the Belle Fourche and head for it. A matter of just a few hundred yards away from where we were going to camp, BOOM. Smoke/steam rose from under the hood and the speed at which my husband cut the ignition was nothing short of heroic. At first fearing the worst (blown engine), then thinking radiator, then thinking power steering, we see that it is none of the above, it is the high pressure hose for the air unit. Completely unrelated to our little episode in the creek, a battery acid leak had slowly eaten away at the hose till it blew. Truth be told, we knew about this leak a long time ago and had simply not gotten around to replacing the battery. The next morning we called the dealer in Rapid again and ordered the hose which would be in the next day. We bummed around Devil's Tower, then headed to the Hills enjoying Slate Creek until the part was in the next morning. My husband installed it in a Walmart parking lot and recharged it with the kit Walmart sells for $29.99, all in less than an hour. We made it home with no further incidents other than my husband losing his sense of adventure.

This trip was most definitely the worst either of us has ever had in more than 20 years of overlanding in terms of mechanical failure, on a scale grand enough that it's easy to see why people believe in curses, jinxes, bad omens, bad karma, or plain old bad luck. But in the end, everything except the hinge pin was a result of our own actions. Today, as I write this, the electrical shop in town is working on our winch, and my husband is tearing into the truck and one by one taking apart all previously submerged electrical connections, cleaning them, and coating them with dialectric grease in hopes of finding the one that has been shorting out the speedometer. Despite all this, my daughters and I leave on yet another adventure to, yep, you guessed it, the Badlands, Black Hills, and Devil's Tower in less than four weeks. Glutton for punishment? Maybe. Maybe we just don't believe in curses.