Have to write quickly...

I see a warning (scheduled outage at 12:00 on Monday 6/15). Oh wait, I guess that's PDT. So maybe I have a little bit of time. So anyway.

Guess what we did this weekend? We thought about going to Medora. Isn't that fun? Seriously, on Friday, we packed up our car, we didn't really feel like driving out there, but then thought we should take advantage of the opportunity. So we packed our MANVAN full of camping gear/art supplies/pictures and whatever else! ;) (that was for you, Lori!) And we headed out....yard sale-ing! That's right. We decided we needed to run to town to do a couple things, so we would stop at some yard sales. Now it was too late. We'd just go tomorrow. So off we went to a bunch more yard sales. I got some good deals. Then we stopped for coffee. Now we were feeling so good, maybe, if we rushed, we could make it out to Medora by dark. Ok, let's go. But let's just go to one more rummage sale! In the meantime, Johnny, Sam's brother called to go fishing. So now we were having another dilemma, should we go? (It was more Sam's dilemma, just for the record.) So no, we should probably stay here and go tomorrow. Going, staying, going, staying...staying? We headed home to meet Johnny and decided to call our good friends, the Gerlachs, who we hadn't seen in forever and see if they wanted to come over for some dessert! Ok, so we're staying. But on the interstate home, Sam said, we could speed and still be out there in time! AHHHHH!!!! NO!!!!! We are not GOING, we are STAYING and going tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did stay. Whew.

Johnny came over and we packed a quick picnic dinner and went to river, only for them not to really catch anything, just loose a couple lures. Then the Gerlach's came and met us and we headed home for Rootbeer Freezes and visits and cards! It was a very fun night - so much fun to catch up with them!!!

We got a good night's sleep and got up in the morning - got the whole yard/flowers fertilized, got more done on Tonto's kennel, got the tomatoes in, laundry done and dishes washed! What a productive morning! THEN we headed out to Medora! Dropped off a bunch of pictures and headed into the badlands! Sam headed off on a long walk in search of the perfect picture for his big commission. Meanwhile, I took a much needed nap! Sam and Tonto finally came back a couple hours later, not having found the perfect picture, but worn to the bone! Neither one of them could get enough water! It was getting later in the evening, so we headed into the Park and here began "Our Game." This is where we establish a point system for each animal seen. For example: Wild Horse - 1 pt, Deer - 1 pt, Mule Deer Buck - 2 pt, Buffalo - 3 pt, Elk - probably 5 pt, Herd (3 or more) - 3 pt, depending on what type of herd. Mountain lion, cougar - automatic win the game! Etc. Anyway, Sam ALWAYS wins. I take the back, I won once. And I was feeling it this time - I was going to win! We establish prizes before we even start the game and then we're off. And seriously, I had a good feeling about this one. But by the time the score was 9-22, (Sam's favor) I was trying to give myself points for enthusiasm and anything else I could think of! To no avail.... I gave up keeping score at 10-29 or something insane like that! Besides, the real point of the game is to enjoy the surroundings, see as much wildlife as possible and just enjoy the day, right? Whatever.

But along the way, Sam did find a Rattler (3 pts.) It was a small one - more deadly, so it maybe should have been worth more, especially when he was poking it...with his FINGER! But I figured I could minus those extra points for his stupidity. (He didn't need to extra points anyway, let's get serious!) He was so insistent on bringing it home - in the same car as us?!?!??!! Is he crazy? (Rhetorical question, I can't really handle the truth right now.) Anyway, after insisting that, NO, he could not bring it home to mount it or otherwise, he decided we should probably kill it. But kill it? That's a bit extreme, don't ya think... I know that the snake could actually kill something else and would be extremely harmful to both people and other animals, and it probably would have been the responsible thing to do, but he was just laying there until Sam started poking it and I just couldn't see killing it. So we jumped in the car to head off to our next adventure, wherever that may take us! And about 10 seconds after we pulled away from the snake, a park patrol met us on the road. He must have been some young buck. We were on a turn and maybe a little in the middle of the road just getting our bearings, and so we might have scared him a bit, but we definitely didn't deserve what came next. So we are going along, thinking, that's great that the Ranger is back there, because he'll probably see the snake and so maybe he would stop and kill it. Then we didn't have to worry. Mind you, we have been driving like the oldest Sunday drivers throughout the entire park because of our game and because we didn't have to be anywhere! So all of a sudden, out of no where, this Ranger pulls up behind us and follows us for about a minute and then on go the lights! Goodness gracious - what is this all about? Surely he didn't have time to kill the snake and come back to check to make sure we were ok?! So then he comes up and tells us that we were speeding and we needed to slow down because we nearly ran him off the road! WHAT?! Are you kidding me? How in the world? So Sam said he didn't think he was speeding and the Ranger said, Yes, you were. I had to drive 48 mph to catch up to you. Nevermind that the road wasn't big enough to do a U-turn, so he had to stop and do at least a 3 pt. turn just to get turned around, and I don't know about you, but the MANVAN does not do 60 in 2.5 seconds - it's pretty powerful, but let's get real! (Maybe 60 in about 3.5 minutes!) - anyway, he took Sam's license, registration and all the good stuff and just ended up giving Sam a warning - so moral to this story - Don't mess with the Young Ranger's at the edge of dark!

By the time dark rolled around at 10pm, we decided we could find somewhere to camp and pull out all of our crap, or just stay up another couple of hours and drive home and stay in our own bed - so home won out and we drove home!!! Slept in a little on Sunday and had a nap and went to V-ball. By the way - thanks to all you pray-ers! We won. But it was bittersweet to tell you the honest truth. It determined the the top 8 and lower 8 bracket, so one of us is in the top and the other in the bottom, so that means we won't get to play each other again. All because of the stupid rain last week! It's always so much fun to be able to play against each other! Well, we did have the 7:30 slot - so we got to play till about 10pm just for fun... Then out to McD's for ice cream! Fun night had by all!!!

Monday morning dawns not so bright and no so clear - but I'm ok with a little more rain - you should see our yard. I know that's more my fault than yours that you can't see it, but I promise I will work on getting some photo's up for you in the next couple of weeks!

Well, I know that Erik's time is precious and I don't want him to spend a full 15 minutes of reading, so I'll cut this short even though I'm really just getting started!!! :)

Resting up from a tiring but good weekend in the Tundra!!!
Sarah