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I-am-bacckkkk!
Miss meh?
....
Not even know I was gone?
Well doom on you.



It good to be back though.
*sighhhhh*
Life's good in a air conditioned house,
With a clean bathroom,
Comfy bed,
And NO bugs.
.....
If you haven't figured it out yet I went camping.


Yes.
The great out doors.
I did none of that sissy stuff where you camp in an RV.
(like <i>some</i> people I know)
I camped in a tent with my father for a whole week.


We started in Medora (MT) a very touristy town with many many hills.
Badlands.
Which is just like in the old western movies....minus cacti (ya know cactus)
You have all the damn hills, rocks/boulders, deserty animimals (even coyotes) and the fricken heat.
Now, if you know me at all. You should know the little fact about me and the ol' sun.
I-hate-the-heat in a nut shell.

So, of course when Dad suggests to mountain bike for "a little bit" I'm skeptical.
But being the annoying father he is, I go.
The <u>shortest</u> trail was called the Maah Daah Hey.

The Maah Daah Hey is a 96 mile trail.
But we were suppose to take a turn at a fork about 4 miles out and go on another trail called the Buffalo Gap.

If you haven't guessed already....we missed the fork.
Eleven fricken miles we went in 102 degree weather.
Needless to say when we got back (we turned around eventually)
I wanted to kill the bike rental lady.

She had said the trail was clearly marked....she didn't say with what.
We ended up following a damn wooden post with a turtle carved into it.
Naturally we kept looking for the fork and the sign with a buffalo.
But no.
There was another post 50 ft off our trail with a SKULL on it.
Now, tell me.

Doesn't a skull sign send a bad vibe to you?
Apparently these trail people didn't think so.
Because that post was infact the sign to get onto buffalo gap trail which looped us back to civilization.

When we returned to town, we set up camp in our spacious blue tent at the camp grounds and went to the Medora musical which was very sappy...
But yet strangely entertaining....

I think I was hypnotized
I got to see a really hot, buff yodeler dude.
He yodeled while doing handstand push-ups.

...he could also play the keyboard


The next morning we packed up at around 6am
And drove to Wolfpoint (MT) to pick up a gma.
Wolfpoint is my hometown.
<i>Very</i> small and peaceful.
After picking up the proper gma with no interest in camping with us we ventured to Craig, MT (just outside of the big town Helena) to see some relatives.
To my suprise we set up tent at my gma's sisters lake house.


Within minutes a state trooper pulled in.
Dad- "Can I help you?"
Trooper- "Yea, I came to drink beer with you."

Dad and I were baffled.
Turns out he was my (second?) cousin's fiancee.
Dad and I laughed at him,
(behind his back of course)
because he looked just like the guy 'Rabbit' off of Super Troopers.

After a long and wary mini family reunion, where everyone knew my name and I had no clue who they were, we floated Stickney Creek.
There had to be at least 25 of us.

And I really got sunburnt (first time in aloooong while).
Damn coppertone and their 30 spf that was supposily waterproof.
But I had fun.


Man.
At that lake house there were billions upon millions of catus flies.
Small little bugs that don't bite...
Only annoyed the hell out of you from about 10am-7pm
They only have a 24 hour life span and are very stupid.
I switched my dew countless times because one...or five fell in.

There were so many I was afraid if I yawned I'd inhale one.
But I suppose they could relieve stress...

You can swing at em all you want and they still come back for more.
(Bug spray doesn't faze em either)
Believe me.


I watched fireworks in a small little town in Cascade MT near Craig.
They had the most amazing show I've seen.
It was funny how a little ho-hum town went out for its fellow townies
...and me & Dad who snuck in.

I named four fireworks that nite.
The bugs,
Parazzi,
(Dad's favorite, he loved waiting for a big one to explode and say "Holy, JLo must've walked by." wink
Willow (my fav)
and the arrows
(Which Dad tried to call the magic wands, I overruled that)
We noticed that the firework colors were repetitive.
Pink, green, white and gold are the most used.
I felt bad for teh blue.

It was neglected.


Oh.
We also cheated and went to a movie in Helena.
The only late night movie left was Transformers.

I want one.
It was a suprisingly good movie.
We both thought it would suck.



After saying buh-bye to all the...*ahem* family, we packed up again.
We traveled all the way to good ol' Yellowstone national park.
Geez that place was pretty.

The mountains, the trees and all those animals.
I got to see buffalo, elk, deer, and bear.
I never got to see the wolves though.
I really had my heart set on seeing a timber wolf....or any kind really.
*sigh*


Anyways, the main reason we went there was white water rafting in the yellowstone river.
That was really fun.
A word of warning:
Don't try to take deep breaths or yawn in the special life vests.

I swear I felt like Elizabeth Swan with the corset.
Also when you're in the front of the raft,
(we had 10 people om with us)
Be ready to get water up your nose...and I recommend sun glasses to use as goggles.
The rafting company took pictures for us secretly along the shore line.
I got a totally of one picture with me in it.

The brillant people were only snapping shots of the right side because that was the side of the shore they were on.
You see my beautiful pony tail alot though.
The waters were catigory 2 & 3 because of the hot weather (dried up the river)...
Until, it was Dad & I's turn to paddle the front.
We went through Yankee Jim Canyon.
Level 4 baby.
I inhaled mucho water then.
But it was cool.
Kind of scary at the time but cool.
We went from 9 am to 3 pm for 18 miles.

The place was called the Flying Pig.
We had the most experienced raft guide named Ann.
She knew all the tricks and best waters.

Oh yeah...
We went to Old Faithful too.
That was disappointing.
It didn't go near as high as I thought it would...
And just as it erupted, the battery on the camera died.
Typical.
Did you know it erupts every hour?
(give or take afew minutes)
From now on I'm gonna be thinking every once in awhile at the top of the hour...

Oh, Ol' Faith just erupted....hundereds of people were disappointed.
Lol.


Getting up in Yellowstone sucked.
It was 103 degrees in the daytime
But at night (and the morning) in was brr fricken errr!

I froze putting up the tent.
I stole Dad's sweats and let him freeze in shorts.
He said I was a weirdo for not having sweats...eh.

We ended our trip with a long drive back.
We stopped in some town I don't remember...*shrug*
All the motels were full.

All except a charming little dump called the Red River Inn.
The Super 8 lady told Dad that two weddings were in town and that was why everyone was unusually full.
Typical.
I almost felt bad for bestowing my bad luck on Dad too....almost


I had to be snuck in our room because a crazy old man would only let Dad have one person in our room.
It was weird because it had two beds....
Our room reminded me of that movie Vacancy where the couple gets trapped in their death chamber of a motel room and are getting filmed.
I was just waiting to find a hidden camera.

But I slept in the bed, which felt heavenly considering it had been a week since I had seen one.

And now here I am.
Arriving back on lucky 7-7-7
I am very exhausted but I figured I'd type this before I do a mind wipe and forget all the specifics.
Now if you excuse me...
I'm off to a well deserved sleep in my own cushy clean bed.


...oh.
And kudos to you if you read all this.
I understand it was alot.
*pats you on the back*
Good job.
Here is a virtual gift containing virtual bytes of my thanks.