Crumpled Home

RJ: Dad! I’ve got a new invention in the play room and I need you to be really careful!

Dad: Careful? Why? What is it?

RJ: I’m inventing a new disease. It’s really dangerous.

Dad: Oooo-kay… What does it do?

RJ: Well, when you catch it, you cough a little bit and then you feel a bit sick and then skin grows across your mouth and you can’t eat or drink anything!

Dad: That sounds awful!

RJ: It gets worse after that. Then you start bleeding, and THEN you die.

Dad: What on earth do you need a something like that for?

RJ: We need to be ready when the bad guys show up. This will be the only way to stop them.

Dad: Okay then. Try not to get it on your clothes.

(RJ runs into the room throwing around a toy plush bacteria)

RJ: Do you like my pet helicobacter? His name is… Germ-any!

Dad: Yeah! Great name!

RJ: (throwing the toy at dad’s head) BLITZKRIEG!

Just days after we arrived, we set off on our Yellowstone expedition. After driving about an hour, we entered the foothills and were treated to stunning mountain views, rock walls and cliff faces — but there was no time to stop! We pressed on and entered the park.

Yellowstone was teeming with bizarre and wonderful wildlife of all sorts. We delighted in spotting something new around each corner: bison/buffalo, elk, pronghorn antelope (SPEEDGOAT!), coyotes, foxes, rabbits, marmots, beavers, eagles, black bears and even one grizzly bear (suspiciously, dad was the only one who saw this). As we travelled, little crowds of photographers by the side of the road gave us plenty of clues as to where to look.

There were lots of tourists around, but we were generally impressed by the state of the park — not pristine, but well taken care of and healthy.

The kids even had a chance to play with some snow! It was pretty grotty, mostly melted and covered in black dirt, but it was magical for them.

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After looking at an underwater video of the disaster going on in the gulf, Mum asked the kids how they would go about stopping the oil gushing from the sea floor.

RJ’s suggestion:

RJ: The oil looks like a black smoker. And you can’t make those stop. They come from under the earth. So you have to make the earth stop pushing out the oil. And I don’t think you can do that. I know… You can go back in time and make the dinosaurs not die!

LR’s suggestion:

LR: You need to find a bacteria that eats oil. And make sure that it will turn into plankton when all the oil is gone so that it doesn’t hurt the ocean.

Good thinking guys!