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I am using this right now so people from work can easily see my entires without needing to circumvent the proxy. Please rely on my LiveJournal Site to post comments/replies and the such. Oh yea, Jump to BOTTOM
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I think I got everything I need on my quest. Im bring my gameboy, laptop, Axim (windows CE) and a camera so I should be good on the information uber-byway. I got some nice new kicks, shorts and shirts (about ~$100) and I think I'm good. Right now I'm in the 'I know I forgot something, but what is it' mood. Well, whatever.
I will be missing a few big events, namely Fred's bday and Bmann's "I live in a high-crime locale, however my opposite-gendered partner's crib is in a happy-go-lucky neirborhood so the aformation mixer will be taking place at the latter domicile; the sequel". Oh yea - needa remeber to offer to drop off the fire pit.
Anyhow, I gotta leave at 3:30 AM (tomorrow; but I consider it late-late night tonight) so I'm torn between staying up or trying to sleep for few hours. Ah - we will see.
Well, I may post tomorrow in-route if I feel like it.
TTYL
Oh yea, my pics will be going up on planetbrown.einados.com (don't bother clicking yet - its a placeholder) so, uh, yea. Thanks again Dan.
Bah..
I opted to stay up. Around midnight I started to copy music from my main computer to the laptop only to find it going gosh-darn slowly. At first I didn't mind it (I thought it was the wireless so the next batch will transfer like lightning when I plugged it in directly - which wasn't the case) So anyhow, I only took half the music I require so I'm a little mad
Well, we left at 4, hit no traffic naturally and speed through some boring states, but it was cool. I kinda kept on nodding off in the car do to my exhaustion for the week of little sleep since of the heat. I wasn't driving but I tried to stay up. Some power-naps (1 hr) recharged me for the next 4 hrs untill I needed to recharge again.
Anywho, at 4PM we made it to the motel in Indiana. I went in the pool which was refreshing and then ate some Stake 'n Shake which is daBomb-diggity. Well, I came back, relaxed a bit and started to get ready for bed. Wakeup is at 4 again - lets see if the kids outside who are celebrating a Notra-dame football win will let me get some sleep. ... GRUMBLE
Picked up drivings again at 4 AM again, same story as yesterday. A lot of corn and tractor trailers. 90% the same thing
Some cool things I saw was a private Chevy museum, some nice railyards and grain loaders, and the Mississippi and Missouri River, some house fire in a nearby neirborhood (hope they have a local fire department)
I have no excuses why I'm not uploading pics over this fine, Motel 6 WiFi hotspot except that I'm lazy. - Don't worry, maybe tommorow.
Well, the initial part of the drive looked like the rest, just instead of green, you see a lot of brown (due to the semi-arid environment). Nothing to really note with that
A little problem occurred withing the last hour of the driving. Whenever we drove over 55mph, the car would shutter/vibrate a little like there was a flat. First we thought it was the road, then we looked at the tires and everything seemed okay. Well, we got to the town and saw the tire had a little bulge in it. Well, tomorrow we will probably drop it off at the shop and hopefully rent a truck to go off road with
Well, enough about tomorrow. Today I did the following
Oh yea, and whilst I was typing this, the power went off in the neirborhood. My bright laptop screen to the RESCUE! Well, we can live without power for a bit. I think im gonna just get some sleep. Oh - one last thing, it was about 95 out today (uncharacteristicly warm) but it wasn't that bad since theres no humidity. However, no open hotspots leak over here so it looks like im gonna get my KFLEX on :( ahh- better then nothing
Well, a few days came and went. I was just too busy/tired to post, but anyway, here is the scope
Well, thats it for now. Don't forget to check on the nice pics
I'm getting pretty lost on the day thing, there just flying on by. First, a little 411 on the pre-yella'stone stuffs that I did. The rafting thing was fun. I expected a little more but it was basically the one 'Big Kauna' dip and the rest was pretty much just some little dips that just splashed over the raft. Also, we went to a bunch of other places in Teton National Park. Basically, an old homestead named Bar-B-C ranch which had some great shots of dilapidated 40s era wood cabins. Also, I saw some a bison heard cross the road practical in front of us, w007
Well, now for a short blurb on the Yellowstone visit. We did this in two days, staying overnight on a in-park rented cabin
Well, all the pics are online, so check 'em out
Well, just to let you know its right now 46F out and yesterdays high was 70 and it feels much cooler due to the arid atmosphere. Im just so happy that I'm missing that heat wave at home (well, mostly since I don't have A/C in my truck and only in my bedroom upstairs and thats usually 10degrees hotter then outside).
Well, anyhow, yesterday was the first time I ever rode a horse. It was about an hour and a half walk nose-to-tail and I was on the end with my faithful stead, Hogan. He mostly walked by himself but he kept on annoying the horse in front of him by pushing his nose into that ones tail. I kept on having to pull back a little on the reigns.
After that little trip, we had a BBQ in the woods. I had halopeno cornbread, corn on the cob, buffalo meat BBQ'd, beans, and desert was blueberry pie. I never had buffalo before, but naturally it tasted just like beef. Well, we saw a storm on the horizon so the hosts had us re-saddle and we took the same path back to the corral.
Right now, there is only today left of my time out here in Jackson Hole. The next three days will be driving and then most-probably a long day of work. Well, here's what I gotsta say about the stuff you missed
The whole gang of us took a few little hikes which was very fun. We also went up in a cable-car to the top of a Rendezvous Mountain - it's a shame that there gonna decommission the tram at the end of the year. Well anyway, that's about it for the two days with the gal and the kid
Since Val and Meg left, we can do more of the manly stuff, but for the most part it was visiting Flo's neighbor and friends out here. Anyhow, one of the newly met friend-of-a-friend invited us out to this land that's for sale (19 Million) that he can use since I guess he knows the owner of the property. Heinz (he's Austrian BTW) picks us up and drivers us to the property. It was a very weird place. The last owner somehow ran into financial problems developing it and bailed out, leaving the property half-developed and then falling into disrepair. Its weird seeing a few open foundations, a half-built log house, collapsed decking, and various construction materials (namely the linkin-logs and pillars of concrete that formed from the leaking bags stacked on a pallet). Anyway, he took us out ski-shooting and fly fishing. Well, I don't really like fishing and the few minutes I gave it whirl didn't produce anything. I tried shooting, missed the first and nailed the second. I decided to quite while I was ahead. It was a 12 gauge over-under shotgun filled with birdshot if you need to know. The best part of that day was when Heinz tried to call someone over OnStar and couldn't get the numbers right with his accent. LOL
The next day was the big hike to Death Canyon and we had our sights on Static Peak. Well, Nick and I went up 98% of it but had to turn back due to time restraints. It would have been about two hours to scramble up the rocks to get to the peak and back, so we settled for the Divide at 10,790 (the ground level was around 7,000) which was 7.7 miles in (round trip plus walking to the car is about 17 miles) and mostly switchbacks (paths that zip-zag up instead of going straight up - like Lombard St. in San Francisco). THAT trip tired me out and my left knee hurt from all the impact). The next day (thatis, yesterday) was a simple trip - nothing to report
Today was another big trip. We went up again to these lakes at the top of the mountain. The path was about 3 miles but we got a little sidetracked and did about 7 miles, round trip. The one catch was it was straight up; talking about double the grade of the last big trip with no switchbacks and a good amount of rock scrambling (esp. in the 'hard' route we took). Well, on top there was two lakes with a bunch of boulders in between, and surrounded by mountains. The water was clear and since it's not connected to any water bodies, it had no fish in it. Beautiful. The trip back was killer on my knees, but I'm so happy that I saw such a sight.
Tomorrow we are gonna winterize the house and leave. I really love this place and I will miss it.
I'm slow on upload pics so please have some patients. I will really whip them out when I hit the hotel with broadband
Flo has a little booklet that their guest are supposed to sign prior to them leaving. I signed the book with the following text.
First off, thank you for inviting me to your far away abode and allowing me to hitch a ride here. I never went past Pennsylvania and was excited about the opportunity of seeing the grasslands of rural US. Well, the three day drive in was a little boring with all the fields of corn and sitting still in a seat for the better part of the drive but you, Flo, made it very educational.
After we arrived, wow. The house is amazing with a warm, western motif. It is located right in the middle of both the beautiful landscaping and convenient attractions (namely, the town and the park). All of you treated me wonderfully, and shown me the local sights even though you did it time and time again. I greatly appreciate that.
Now about my vacation. I can fill up this book going into detail on all the things I did, but I don't really want to rant on and on. So here is a quick run-down of what I did.
The first day was fun. Biked around and saw an eagle, some marmots, and deer. When I got back, the power went out on the block. That was kinda a funny start to the real vacation. Anyway, the next day I biked to the warm spring. I had some navigational issues of sorts and wound up going in a camping park and all the way down to a dead end. I totaled around 35 miles and well, was very exhausted and sunburnt. Then came Kayaking which was a first for me. I think I caught on like a pro. Later, white water rafting with Nick which was pretty fun with the 'Big Kauna' and stuff. I saw a little bit of the rodeo - the junior cow competition. We should have entered Gander, he woulduv won - Hehe.
The Yellowstone visit was awesome. The geysers and fumaroles were quite impressive with all the different configurations and colors. The Petrified tree was interesting. Their Grand Canyon was just awesome. And, I saw elk and bison the closest during the trip in the 'stone.
The later part of the trip involved a horse ride and dinner, which again was a first for me. My horse, Hogan, was gentle but after the 30 minutes, felt like I was riding a bike with a square tire. Then the next major event was my two hikes with Nick. Well, the Static Divide trip was really taxing. It was somewhat steep with switchbacks but the killer is that on the way back, there are a few switchbacks that you have to go up before you're done with the trip. Man, my knees were killing me. Anyhow, the next trip was to the two lakes on the top of the mountains. It was only two miles but the path was straight up. Near the top was a little dangerous with scrambling across loose rocks but seeing the lakes made it well worth it.
Well, now my trip is coming to the conclusion so let me thank you again for having me on this amazing vacation. I enjoyed ever bit of it even though we still never saw a bear. At least that leaves something for next time :-)
After the entry I sketched an elk. It looked okayish but will never win an award. Oh yea, about the new World Trade Center movie - it's too soon. And I forgot to say that the V.P. lives in the Jackson Hole and he came about 4 days ago and all the secret service people seemed to be scartered evcerywhere. Oh well - and all the pics should be up.