"So pee now because once we're on the road, we ain't stopping." - Hank, King of the Hill

We finally stopped at a tourist-rest stop about twenty miles short of my goal. The Boy has several attributes which make him a bit different than the rest of humanity. The first is that, as far as I know, he has never been tired. Some children go willingly to bed. The Boy, I can honestly report, has never gone willingly to bed. Each and every night it's an emotional battle that we, being much larger and knowing ways to deliver physical pain that leave nary a mark, always win. But the battle continues. One night I let him stay up as "long as he wanted," in the mistaken thought that whatever cascade of chemicals that work in normal humans would permeate his brain and make him desire to go to bed, or at least fall asleep on the couch.

No.

He stayed up until my patience frayed due to chemicals cascaded through my brain putting me in a drowsy state. I ordered him to bed. Again.

The other physiological function that he denies the existance of is the need to go to the bathroom. He denies the need until it becomes the most urgent thing in the universe. I'm thinking that these are both related, and that he thinks he's some sort of human-god hybrid (on his mother's side, no doubt) and need not consider that he has a physical body.

Back to our trip . . . . We got to the rest stop, and while I didn't think he'd go to sleep, well, he did (after a brief discussion that only included a few threats from me to pull his nose-hairs out with tweezers) finally went to use the bathroom before it became an urgent need.

We began to drive back up the road. Since I was prepared for the precipitious slope that I'd see, that helped. What I wasn't prepared for was that on the way back, rather than driving on the safer slope-side, now I was driving on the "screaming until the body of the Wildermobile crumbles under the inexorable pull of the Earth's gravity well" side.

This was worse than the trip in.

You can look out and see a panoramic vista that stretches over a wide, wonderous valley. The large reason for that vista is that there is nothing between you and the rest of the valley. The valley 1000' below. Not even a guardrail.

There's an observation spot or two to stop at, so The Boy and I did so. We went on a short hike to see, well, tundra. There were signs everywhere telling us not to walk on the real tundra, because it seems that walking on tundra-plants makes them die, and it takes about sixty million years for them to grow back if you even look at them.

I feel about tundra plants the way I feel about endangered species. If they're that weak, well, do we really want to burden the future with caring for them? Knowing that these are Federal plants, well, we could spend billions of dollars on them just to keep them alive. Let them die in peace. Better yet, let me trample them.

The rest of the way back was relatively uneventful. We hit up the staff at the local tourist trap as they prepared to offload inventory so that they could make their way back to Arizona, or Michigan, or wherever that they live when they're not schilling stuff to tourists. We bought some nice Alaska-themed merchandise for half the original price.

The Mrs. was happy to see us when we pulled in the driveway. The Boy . . . not tired.

Never is.

Countdown-two weeks or so to pretty pictures.