St. Louis 1994

The Yoder's lived in Saint Louis when we were at Grissom. I'm pretty sure Richard was stationed at Scott AFB at the time. When we moved from Grissom to Germany summer of 1994, we went to stay with the Yoder's for a few weeks first. Mom and the younger kids stayed down there while Allen, Court, and I went to EFY at Western Illinois University. I don't remember much of St. Louis, but I remember playing a really cool fantasy themed platform type game on their Sega Genesis. I wanted one.

Chicago 1993

That summer, Dad took Allen, David, and me to Chicago for a few days. It was a sort of extended guy's night out. We got to a great start by stopping at the store for chocolate milke and donuts. Whenever dad was in charge of food, you knew it would involve chocolate milke and donuts. :o)

While we were there, we went to a White Sox game. They played (I think) the Rangers, and it must have been one of Nolan Ryan's last games because there was a huge to-do between two of the innings about him and his career and such. I liked the hotdogs, but I thought the game was pretty boring. I've never been much of a baseball fan.

As a side note, after that whenever I played RBI baseball I'd always try to play with Nolan Ryan on my team.

Other memories from Chicago include:

• A nifty 3-D video game thing that involved putting a helmet on and seeing a world made up of polygons. There were three of four people connected into the same system, and we had to try to shoot each other. My glasses got all fogged up, so I couldn't see anything and got killed pretty quick.
• Going to the top of Sears tower. I was disapointed that there was a plastic shield up that kept me from spitting or dropping a penny over the side. What a bummer.
• There were big posters of those trick 3-D images at a mall we went to. The kind where you kind of have to let your eyes unfocus in order to see the image. I never could get those to work.
  

Indianapolis 1991-1994

We went to Indianapolis several times as a family when we lived at Grissom AFB. The primary attraction was the Children's Musem. There was a massive water clock in the lobby; it must've been at least 40 feet tall. There were several floors, and each one had a different theme. I was in heaven. So much cool stuff to learn, so little time to learn it all.

Paris 1997

In the Fall of 1996, my Junior year in High School, a bunch of kids from the drama program at a French High School in Paris came on an exchange trip to visit us at Ramstein. They were there for a week. We were all paired up with a French student. My guy was Thomas. Really nice guy - very friendly and polite. I remember taking him to the rec center on base and playing pool with Joey, Dimitri, Chris, and everyone else. They also all attended the homecoming football game, which they seemed to enjoy quite a bit. I don't remember if they were there for the homecoming dance though.

Anyway, towards the end of the school year - sometime in March or April, I can't remember exactly when - we visited them in Paris. It was about a four hour train ride from Ramstein to Paris. The central train station in Paris was huge - the first big train station that I remember. (I'm sure I was in pretty big train stations in Japan too - I can't remember.)

I stayed with Thomas, which was nice. I remember one of our guys - Paul Thomas, had to stay with a girl. I can't remember why, but the guy who had stayed with Paul wasn't available. It turned out that Paul had to sleep on a couch in the girls bedroom. It was pretty awkward for him.

We spent the bulk of our time during the day going to Paris' touristy places - the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysee, Montmarte, Notre Damme, stuff like that. After about 10:00 or so in the evening, our teachers, Mrs. Fong and Mr. Nukula, would go back home with the French teacher, and we would all go out to experience the nightlife with our hosts. A lot of crazy memories from that - a guy hitting on me in a bar (first time that'd happend to me), crazy dance parties, a rave, a bunch of other stuff. I pretty much felt uncomfortable and out of place the entire time. Fortunately, there was another LDS kid there, a good friend of mine named Nick Reed. He and I spent a lot of time wandering around since we were tired of watching everyone else get drunk.

One of my favorite things to do in Paris was to go to the top of the Arc d'Triomphe and watch the traffic going through the circle at the base of the monument. There was literally no rhyme or reason to the traffic patterns that I could distinguish. Every car seemed to simply go where it wanted to. Considering that there was room for about 6 lanes or so of cars, it created quite the chaotic driving scene. But, miracle of miracles, I didn't see any accidents. This was my introduction to crazy driving.

A funny story about Nick at the Arc. The Arc is in the middle of a massive traffic circle. Underneath the Arc is a metro line. When you walk around the Arc, there are massive grates covering holes that go the 50 or 60 feet to the metro line. Nick is terrified of heights. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that these grates were there until he was stuck in the middle of one of them. Poor guy was petrified. It seemed to take him forever to be able to move to get off the grate.

Niagra Falls

The summer of 1994 my family took a road trip from Grissom AFB India to upstate New York. Most of our time was spent visiting church history sites, but we took a day to visit Niagra Falls. I dont' have many memories of the falls themselves. What I remember most was Drina Yoder's oldest son was with us. When we were on the Canadian side of the border, he ran into someone who spoke Spanish. He had served a Spanish speaking mission, and had a quick conversation with the other guy. I think this was the first time that I observed someone I knew speaking in a foreign language. It was pretty cool.